Buenos Aires

Hello,

So here I am in warm and sunny Buenos Aires.

After an emotional goodbye to my parents, a taxi mini-van drove me to the Quebec City airport (I had to take a taxi van since my parents´ car trunk is too small to accomodate my bicycle and trailer boxes and luggage). Once at the airport, I was a bit nervous to check-in my luggage since as per Air Canada I was supposed to be charged $250.00 for the bicycle since I had 2 other pieces of luggage. I chatted a bit the staff and somehow was charged only $50.00. Yes! A good start.

Once seated on the plane, my seat neighbor, Micheline, a wonderful and adventurous retired teacher, started to chat with me. As a coincidence, she was also heading for Buenos Aires, to spend a 3 weeks vacation with her friend. After we exchanged about our travel plans, she told me her nephew has biked with his girlfriend from Peru to Ushuaia a few years back. Really cool! Micheline has an amazing travel resume with a backpack world tour in 1986 and several other breaktaking adventures worldwide since then. During the beverage service, the flight attendant, Marie-Claude, got chatty with us. As the discussion revolved around my trip, a gentleman seated in front of me turned around and informed me that one of his work partners, Damien Lopez, was currently biking from Alaska to Ushuaia. I checked his website and he is currently in Argentina so I might bump into him very soon. Later on in the evening, as I was waiting for the BA flight, Pablo, a Ubisoft software engineer from Baricloche, Argentina living in Quebec City, approached me. He was so nice and friendly and he gave me tons of information about the lake district and Baricloche. His family own a lodge in the mountains so he invited me to stay at their place once I reach the destination. I am telling you the trip starts in a very good way.

The flight from Toronto to Buenos Aires was eventless and I was able to sleep 7 hours straight in my cramped  economy window seat. Once we landed, I was a bit nervous in regards to know if all my bags had made it in one piece. To my relief, they all showed up in good shape on the conveyor belt. After clearing Customs, Gisselle and her boyfriend, were waiting for me. Gisselle is the sister of Mirna, the Hotel Accountant on the Symphony. After a bit of moving around, we managed to fit my large bicycle box, my trailer box and my bag in a compact hatchback 4 door Peugeot (like a Honda Civic). I still don´t know how we did it but it fitted. The poor Gisselle was squeezed on her back seat, the boyfriend was almost sideways on his driver seat and I was seating in the passenger seat a very awkward bent front seat position. But it is all good and it was fun. We had a good laugh and we arrived at the appartment in no time. After they settled me in, they left and I decided to take a nap to wake up this morning, 14 hours later. I am now fully rested and already walking around BA.

Tomorrow, I am flying for Ushuaia.

Cheers