Colonia del Sacramento and the way home

As I wrote in the previous post the plane from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires was delayed by about 5 hours, for me this didn't mean much more than less sleep thankfully. I got to my hotel about midnight, booked the taxi to the airport for last night and got to sleep as soon as I could - after connecting everything I needed to charge during the night. Got up the next morning at 6:15, packed, checked out and headed for the port where the boat to Uruguay was docked.

Short queue and no real problems, quite amazing how much you are able to do and get through without really knowing the language. I do know the important words like "frog" and "goat" in spanish, but none of these had been very usefully so far. The boat wasn't very impressive, it was more or less like a large buss on water, but as it would only take an hour I didn't need anything else than a seat. Colonia del Sacramento was one of these cozy and lazy, small cities by the sea where life runs slowly and nothing is really important. I was probably still a bit off after the impression overload from Antarctica and some days of travel without much sleep. I booked a ticket on a hop on/off buss so i would be able to get to all the places that might hold something interesting and was shipped to the centre of the city. As it was sunday and the breakfast at the hotel hadn't opened when i left, breakfast was a priority. The meny was in spanish, everyone spoke spanish, and as i didn't want to eat either frog or goat i just picked something that have the word "huevos" (egg) in it, and what i got was ok. A small walk around the bricklaid streets in the centre led me to some souvenirshops, a church, a small fortress and some local fishers as well as a yatchclub. I later took the bus to the bull-fighting arena which was abandoned a long time ago, but could still be seen from the outside as well as a nice walk around in the neighbourhood area where I actually saw lot of dead frogs on the ground. A bit strange, and haven't figured out why there were so many yet.

At the pier to get back home I got in touch with an english traveller who was also unsure if we were at the right place as everyone else had a different ticket than us. Back in Buenos Aires we arrived a few minutes later than scheduled, thankfully I'd taken a seat in the boat so I was first one off, and thus first in the taxi-queue. Back at the hotel at 20mins prior to pick-up, my ride to the airport came in the doors at the same time as I did, so instead of reading some news/mails I just changed quickly and went with him. Having arrived late last night, I'd not been able to check in on my plane, and thus not being informed that the terminal was A and not C, so I asked to be dropped off at C where KLM has their flights, but soon found out that I had to change terminals.

Back on the ship from Antarctica, we left early in the morning and of course there were some I'd not been able to say goodbye to. One in particular, but here's where fate gave me a nice surprise. At the exact same time as I passed by terminal B on my way to terminal A. A place I really shouldn't have needed to be at all, she came out three steps in front of me, on her way to Terminal A to look for a charging-station for her cellphone. After checking in my luggage we sat down for some time and I got the goodbye I wanted.

WHen I left, I had 1hour 40mins to get through security, which I though was more than enough time - I was wrong.

About 20-25mins to get through security and then well over an hour for passport control. At the time I was through the screens were already screaming "last call" for me, of course the gate was at the farthest end of the terminal, but as I ran past some others with KLM-stickers on their carry-ons I felt quite sure I would get there in time, and I did. The plane was thankfully just about 20mins delayed, but this meant that my plane for Oslo had already started boarding before I was off the first plane in Amsterdam. A LOT more efficient airport and passport control made it fully doable eventhough I ran most of the way here as well. Touching down at Gardermoen just about 15 hours after I left Buenos Aires is however quite remarkable, although a bit too close for comfort espessially in BA.