Good things do Happen!!

For pictures from Paragliding and Mendoza, click here. G´day once again from the road. My last post before Buenos Aires will be about the incredible experience I had this morning. After yesterday´s bus trip, on the way back, we had to think about what we´d like to do today. Jody wasn´t up for returning to the same area again. However, I was very keen on getting to the top of a mountain. I don´t get those chances too often. I was pretty much desperate to find a trekking group. Last night, I wandered the streets asking various tour companies about options. Sadly, there were really no intense hikes to find to my liking. It seemed my best option would be a 2 hour trek to a mountain top, followed by a series of rappels back down, followed by lunch and a couple hours soaking in hot springs. Sounded right to me, and wasnt too costly. HOwever, not knowing our bus plans, I couldn´t commit on the spot. The trip was due back in town between 6 and 8pm, but I didn´t know when we´d leave. Read on.

As I alluded to in a previous post, Jody and I ran into a few snags on our way home from Cuba over the Christmas Holidays. Namely, we got stuck in Cuba an extra day due to mechanical problems with our Zoom Airlines plane. The picture you see here is at around midnight, when we were told to go back down through customs. Why is everyone standing there you ask? Well, the authorities had no idea why we were sent there, and we all had to go back up to where I was and around the airport another way to get to the baggage. Just one of the ‘little’ snags in this dismal experience. In any case, we’ve sort of waited for almost a month, hoping to receive some sort of explanation or apology for all the problems. However, there was no word from either Zoom or Go Travel Direct. As a result, we ended up writing a strongly worded letter outlining all the shortcomings, and sent it in to their customer relations departments. Now we just need to wait and see what they have to say. We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, read on to see the full text of the letter we sent.

Click here for photos from this day. End of first long day in Argentina. It’s been an interesting one, culminating in me sitting in a bean-bag chair working on my 3.40 peso beer – A delicious 1 liter bottle Quilmes Cristal. That works out to about $1.25 CDN. That’s more like it! In the room, a german, couple Scots, and a Dutch guy, all enjoying a couple bottles of red wine. Flashback to arrival in BsAs. No problem getting through customs. Off to baggage claim. World’s slowest conveyor belt. Time passes. I finally get my backpack. Wait another eternity, no 2nd backpack! Oh shit. Yup, somehow, Jody’s bag never made it. Bad news. Sadly, not a hell of a lot we can do. Report is filed, but I’m not holding my breath.