Travelling in places you don’t know well always means that things can go wrong - and quite a few things did go wrong for us during our first few days. Luckily, all turned out fine in the end. I would like to share a selection of the worst things that happened to us in the following section to warn you all that traveling is pure evil and you’d better not try this at home.
- On the very first day, as Judith and I were cheerfully strolling along the avenidas of Buenos Aires, we decided to stop to get some cash. Unfortunately, while the ATM did provide us the money we had requested, it decided to keep Judith’s credit card in return. Of course, it was a Saturday and the bank branch was closed. This gave us the pleasure of spending most of Saturday afternoon spelling Judith’s card details to an (admittedly very nice) Visa call center employee called Al probably located somewhere on the Philippines.
- What I didn’t mention about the superclásico match yet is that the rain was really, really strong and the pitch was in a miserable state with puddles all over the place. As a result, the referee decided to suspend the match 8 minutes into the first half (aaaaaaarrrrrghhh)! It had been very difficult for Esteban to get ahold of a ticket for the die-hard supporters section of the stadium for me in the first place - and I had spent a small fortune on it. Of course, the match was to be repeated on a day when I would already be in Patagonia.
- I don’t know what it is but insects love me. Usually, this results in small and itchy bite marks on my skin, which I have gotten used to over the years. This time, I believe I fell victim to a what I now deem the ‘inverted insect’. The bite marks I got were not itchy at all, but they turned out to be the biggest bite marks I had ever seen. It felt like my lower left arm and my right elbow had increased by roughly 50% in size, really. Brushing my teeth felt like having small weights attached to my arms. Anyway, after some medical treatment the swelling reduced significantly - phew!
- My poor mother got a painful virus infection since her immune system had been weakened by a yellow fever vaccination the week before. On top of that, she managed to get attacked by a baby Guanaco (a small Lama), after the milk bottle she fed it had depleted. Fortunately, baby Guanacos are not particularly dangerous predators, so my mother wasn’t hurt. The picture below shows Judith feeding the very same aggressive beast in an act of insanity.
- Finally, Judith's sister Lene had originally planned to fly in from Panama to join us on our trip to Patagonia. When checking in in Panama, the guy at the counter told her "sorry lady, your ticket has not yet been paid for". When Lene insisted that she had in fact paid already, the guy slowly went to check whether this was true. After 25 minutes, he concluded that she actually had been right all the way. Too bad that in the meantime boarding had closed and Lene missed her flight. What an %&/Ä+*!!!
That said, all things turned out fine in the end. My mother is recovering well, Judith got a spare Visa card, my insect bites are gone, Lene managed to take the plane the following day, and I will never forget the great atmosphere of the Superclásico.
The next post will be uploaded soon, this time with a lot less useless text (apologies for today), but with many great, thrilling, two-thumbs-up pictures from the Southern end of South America.
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