Buenos Aires

29 Aug No roosters or barking dogs to awaken us this morning, and we still woke up before 6. Spent the morning looking for hotels for the rest of the trip. It was odd having to look for hotels, since we have gotten so use to traveling with our own bed. We walked to the airport and dropped off our suitcases. Then we moseyed on to a quiet area, where we just surfed and read. Eventually nature called and I discovered that in the Santiago airport women must have square rear ends, because the toilets are square, not oval or round. I peeked in another stall on my way out just to confirm that my toilet wasn't unique. Just something to ponder as you continue to read. Eventually it was time for our flight and there was a repetitive message that was asking for passengers from Australia, Canada, and North America to see the gate agent. The first couple of times the statement didn't make sense to me, because isn't Canada part of North America? And wouldn't the announcement say United States, if they wanted to talk with US passengers, after all they were saying Canada and Australia? Anyway we were told that we had to pay a entry tax for Argentina. This was confusing to us, because how did we get a ticket if the tax wasn't collected. The gate guy treated us like simpletons and told us to go to the LAN Connexcion desk to across from Gate 17A to pay the tax. We went there and didn't find the LAN Connexcion desk, so we went back to our gate (23A) and asked again. The guy told us to use the levetor to go to the desk. We did not understand levetor, and after he repeated it about 6 times, somebody said elevator. So we went back to 17A to find the elevator, which took us down to the VIP salons and not the LAN Connexcion desk. We took the stairs back up to level 3 and looked around for another elevator and found one, but it was out of order. (Can you hear Murphy laughing at us?) We then went around the corner to find an escalator that wasn't working, but enabled us to go down to level 2. We had to leave the security area to go around the corner to get to the LAN desk. We paid the $320 reciprocity tax for both of us and hurried back to the gate. The gate guy wrote our names down and we were able to board the plane. (At this point we thought we would have provided Murphy enough humor for the day.) Well, Murphy wasn't finished with us. Our flight to Mendoza was late in arriving and Eeyore was concerned that we wouldn't make our connection, especially since we had to go through Immigration and Customs. Fortunately we were seated in the front of the plane so we got to Immigration quickly and got through that with no interest at all in our individual $160 reciprocity tax papers. Since Mendoza is an international airport, we also had to pick up our luggage and go through Customs. This wouldn't have been a problem, except that the flight was late and the luggage conveyor belt was broken. After standing around waiting for 45 minutes, I left Roger to get our big bags and took our backpacks through Customs, because I had to go to the bathroom. (Mostly I wanted to see if they have square toilets in Mendoza.) After I finished in the restroom, I went to stand in line at the LAN counter. I did this because we were told we would have to turn our luggage in there after clearing Customs. Roger eventually came with our bags, after apparently a free for all occurred when the baggage handlers just started chucking bags through the little conveyor doors and people started scrambling for their bags. It was a good thing I was already in line, because the line just got longer behind me and I hadn't moved at all while waiting for Roger. Also it's a good thing Roger is tall, because he was able to see over people to find me in line at the LAN counter. Once our luggage was rechecked we got in another line to clear security again and board our flight. This line didn't move for about an hour, despite numerous announcements that our flight was boarding through gate 2. We eventually got on our flight an hour late, and headed to Buenos Aires. Murphy continued to have with us, as far as our getting off the plane. The flight crew would not open the doors until the passenger buses had arrived. This took about half an hour. We went down old fashioned metal stairs about 50 feet to a bus on the left only to be driven about 100 yards to the right. We had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Our hotel room is nice enough for the price in downtown Buenos Aires. However the pillows on our bed resembled youth pillows and I had to ask for two more, which they promptly delivered. I now know having our own pillows in the RV was a definite luxury. Now that you've read all this, I know you are curious to know if the toilet was square or oval. Well the hotel's toilet also matched the Mendoza airport's toilet in shape. Roger said that the toilet merits a picture, as he's baffled by their square design. He even admits not having much of a rear left, a square toilet seems odd.