20221216 Friday, December 16, 2022- Buenos Aires and Hope for Christmas Miracles

 20221216 Friday, December 16, 2022- Buenos Aires

This was Janet and Ben’s first international first class flight in a cabin with fully reclining seats.  Each passenger has a pod that is cleverly designed so that when the seats are fully reclined flat, passengers lie diagonally with their legs in tunnels that become the desk top area adjacent to their seats.  For sleeping, this is certainly more comfortable, particularly for the neck, than standard seating.  But it was a bit hot and stuffy, as well as noisy.  They did provide B&O noise reducing headphones which helped with the noise, so long as you could sleep flat on your back.  We might have ended up well rested, except that we were still so upset with Ciara and Tom’s getting stranded in DFW and not being able to make the cruise that we hardly slept at all.  

It was interesting monitoring our flight path on the nice flat screen entertainment screen which had software that provided synthetic animated views out the pilot windows, as well as over ground plotting.  I was surprised that our flight path took us out over the Gulf of Mexico, but instead of heading down the east coast of South America, we traveled across the Panama Isthmus and then down the west coast of South America, passing over the Galápagos Islands and then down the west coast over landmarks familiar to us from our prior South American circumnavigation cruise on the Island Princess.  These included Lima, Coquimbo and Santiago before turning eastward towards Buenos Aires.

As we descended into Buenos Aires, we were informed that the airport was down to a single runway operation, so we ended up flying in circles for more than a half hour waiting in line for the opportunity to land on the runway.  That was twisting the knife because it emphasized we could have easily delayed our departure from DFW for 30 minutes with zero impact on our arrival time in Buenos Aires.  We may never forgive Viking Air and American Airlines for stranding Ciara and Tom and cutting them off from our Antarctica cruise.

After landing in Buenos Aires, we were able to connect to the internet again.  AT&T has free international roaming in Latin America for unlimited data plans like ours.  Ironic that we can surf the net and make calls for free in Argentina, but we end up getting roaming charges from Canada whenever we get too close to the border unless we turn data roaming off.  

We got a flood of text messages and emails from the kids.  John did not make his connection, but managed to get rebooked onto a 9AM flight out of Miami on Argentina Airlines that will get him into EZE at 8PM tonight- early enough to make the charter flight to Ushuaia tomorrow.  

Even better news was that Ciara and Tom managed to work out a scheme with Viking Air to fly into Lima Peru, and then onto EZE, which will put them on the ground at 6:05AM.  They still wouldn’t make the originally scheduled 7:20AM charter flight from AEP to Ushuaia, but there is a later charter flight at 8:20AM that the could make, if there are no delays in customs and traffic is light. Viking should arrange the transfer from EZE airport to AEP airport.  If that works out, it will be a Christmas Miracle.  We will only know if it will work for sure when we see Ciara and Tom boarding the ship tomorrow in Ushuaia.  

We had no trouble clearing customs, but it was interesting that they took a photo and also a right thumb finger print in addition to scanning our passports.  They also wanted to know the address at which we would be staying.  It took a few beats before we could dig up the paperwork showing Viking was putting us up in the Buenos Aires Hilton, downtown.  It didn’t take long to spot all the grey haired Viking passengers by the bright red Viking luggage tags in the lines at customs and at baggage claims.  

It is always comforting to see the agents holding up the Viking Cruises signs in the baggage area to know our transfers will be seamless.  It took almost an hour through terrible city traffic to get from the EZE airport to the Hilton downtown.

The hotel is situated on the old historic harbor, which is crossed by a number of draw bridges including a cantilevered spar cable-stayed swing bridge for pedestrians called Puente De La Mujer, translated as the Bridge of the Women.  This is named so because many of the streets in the area have women’s names, and it’s design represented a couple dancing the tango.

We had dinner at a nice pizza and burger place on the harbor front called Italica, just a couple pleasant minute walk from the Hilton.  The temperature in Buenos Aires was a perfect 67˚F with a mild breeze.  

At 8PM we got a text from Ciara that she and Tom had landed in Lima.  Then we got a text from John at 8:15 saying he was now in Buenos Aires and working his way through customs.  Due to distances and time, the Viking transfers staff at the Hilton had John take a taxi to the Hilton and save the receipt for reimbursement on the ship.  But at 9:55PM we gave John big hugs on the curb in front of the Hilton as he stepped out of the cab.  

But there’s still more to that story because American Airlines had lost his luggage, along with at least 11 other Viking passengers who transited via MIA.  All he had was his backpack.  He will have to do emergency clothing and gear shopping in Ushuaia before the ship departs.  It’s a good thing we had purchased and brought his cold weather base layers in our suitcases.

Meanwhile, Ciara and Tom found a Aerolinas Argentina flight that could theoretically get them from Lima to AEP at 5:10am but were having trouble getting tickets booked.  Just to be safe, they rebooked their AEP to Ushuaia flight to the last one of the day (8:20AM), but if they still end up flying into EZE and have to transfer to AEP, they could still miss the plane and cruise.  So as we go to bed tonight, we still don’t know if Ciara and Tom will make the cruise.  We’re hoping for a true Christmas miracle.  We will have to be up for breakfast at 4am and transfer from the Hilton to AEP at 5am.