Argentina #2

We're in BA one more night, and get on the cruise ship tomorrow. In about half an hour we are getting picked up to go to a dinner tango show. We went to one 2 years ago, and it was a lot of fun, beautiful dancing, and decent food.

It's hot here, probably mid 80s. The day today reminded me of summer on the East Coast. The sky is grey, wind blowing, air muggy, and you know it is going to rain soon - most probably tonight. They predict all day tomorrow. I'll welcome it.

We slept late today, because we didn't get in till after 1. We had dinner with my 2 second cousins and their spouses and mother. It was a nice evening of lively chatter. 3 of the 5 relatives speak English, which helped!

I have to talk about what happened at the airport when we arrived though. Our ride, so carefully arranged, was not there. Our flight was early actually, so we waited at baggage claim till the time our flight was supposed to arrive, about half an hour. Then tried to use a pay phone to call the hotel, but it wouldn't recognize my credit card as payment. Hard to know exactly what the phone wanted, since everything was in Spanish, but I am guessing it wanted a phone card. A woman at the information booth was kind and called the hotel for us, and we were told to stay put, someone would come get us.

The man who showed up took one look at my chair and said NO and then a bunch of stuff we couldn't understand. He couldn't take my chair. It wasn't the arrangement we set up at all. To make a long story short. We were at the airport 1 1/2 hours, ended up taking 2 cars, when we really could have fit in one, and we were both really frustrated and annoyed. We got here ok, but should have followed our instincts and tried a Radio Cab, supposedly a risk here to take taxis. Mostly a risk you'll get ripped off, not hurt. Something broke down in the communication between hotel concierge - car service company - drivers and I have no idea where the fault lies. It might have been something like the driver who was assigned to come got a better offer. I suspect though that we were just totally forgotten, so when we called they sent whoever was closest without regard to the chair. The driver seemed surprised. But the most annoying part was that in the end we could have been in one car. I sat up front. Suitcases in the trunk. The first driver wanted Jim to go in back, and then the other car would have only my wheelchair. But there's no way I'd go that way! I'm not leaving my chair behind, and worry I'd never see it again! I barely trusted that these were really the drivers sent for us after all - they were like unmarked radio cabs, not the usual limo like drivers dressed in suits. My wheelchair ended up in the backseat of the other car, with Jim sitting next to it, and the backseat of my car was totally empty. In the end Jim's conclusion was that the one driver who was not allowing us to try out our own solution in my car and insisting he take the chair, was simply not willing to let anyone sit up front since he had a lot of junk - and since he was the first one at the airport - my conclusion is that he didn't want to give his fare up to the other driver - and was expecting they would both get paid.

I probably haven't said this very clearly, which I'm not going to fret about. The situation was even more confusing than I'm saying - for as I said it took well over an hour to resolve, with multiple translations going on. I felt bad for the information lady who was caught in the middle.

Overall no harm done. And today - I double checked with the concierge about both the time and type of car for our last arranged trip tomorrow to the cruise ship. Looks good.

Maybe sometime I'll write more about how other people often seem to know what is better for me, and assume I'm an idiot. They often will insist on helping, when actually what they do causes more problems. But not today, time to tango.