Fear and Loathing in Buenos Aires Airport

I'd like to share with you my journal entry from the BA airport at 4am today...

My airport experience has been interesting. I left the hostel at yesterday 12 and caught the 12:30 bus to the Bariloche airport. Arrive at 1:15, flight delayed until 4:40. NBD. Get a coffee, enjoy some Bariloche chocolates and before I knew it it's time to board. Security - keep shoes, jacket and scarf on. Put my bags on the smallest X-ray conveyor belt ever. Seems their security worries are much less here than in the US. Flight - easy. 1.5 hours with the best snack pack ever.

BA airport. Five minutes after we land the entire cabin bursts into a delayed round of applause. It was as if they missed the actual landing and only got the cue applause sign and the audio wasn't synched up. They load us off the plane into a bus which drops us into a tiny baggage claim area with no bathroom facilities. People are so excited to get their luggage they crowd closer than necessary to the belt. (I am reminded of a video I once saw of people jamming into a subway car at rush hour in Japan). They are packed so tightly no one can even see let alone get to their bags. Bag claim shifts to a flight from Mendoza. Bariloche flight disappears off the board. Whole crowd shifts across the room, confused and befuddled, to the other bag claim area then back as they realize bags from both flights are still coming. Now double the people are crowded around. I stand back, laugh, and take a picture of it. I know I have hours to wait for my flight, and am in no hurry.

In my saintly patience I sneak out into the main terminal to use the bathroom. I just can't understand why they wouldn't have bathroom facilities in the bag claim. As I walk back to baggage claim a guard stops me and tells me I can't go in there. I stammer something about how I have to get my bags. He asks why I couldn't just be patient. If only he knew I was the patient one. I tell him I had to use the bathroom. Now he looks at me suspiciously and points to the tiny bathroom sign across the room. "Why didn't you use that one?" I show him my boarding pass and bag claim tag and tell him they should really make that bathroom sign bigger. I pick up my bag and head to the LAN desk to see if I can check in early for my next flight. They tell me no. I can't check it until 3am. It's 8:15. I don't think about asking for luggage storage service at this point.

I decide to buy an internet card to see if I can catch Tanya or Nelle online to meet up for a drink. I proceed to the office upstairs where I am told dismissively that yes, I can buy a card, but at the office downstairs. I find my way there, lugging my ever heavier backpack. $20 pesos. But she can't accept my 100-peso bill. It's all I have. Bank - please stop giving me 100s, EVERYone can't make change. She tells me I can pay in dollars. Cool. I don't have dollars. I am frustrated. I have $19 pesos, but when I need a 1-peso coin to make it 20 there is never loose change in my wallet or the bottom of my purse. There is ALWAYS loose change at the bottom of my purse. So it goes. I have $3US. I start tearing apart my luggage and eventually come up with $2US in quarters. I triumphantly hand it to the lady and she tells me she can't accept change. Really? So I trudge back upstairs to buy something to break the 100. Each time I try to pay it's like I'm asking each worker to give me their eyeballs or something. I finally buy a pack of smokes because at this point I also need a cigarette. Though it pains him, the man gives me change, and I finally get a card.

I send an email then treat myself to "gourmet" airport pizza, thankful I have change to pay with so the waitress doesn't murder me with her eyes. I talk to Tanya. She tells me to put my bag in airport storage and go to Palermo. I'm too close to the city not to go. I tell her she's right, shut down my computer, and seek out luggage storage. Guess what? They won't take a hundred. And I spent all my change on dinner.  The thought of dragging my luggage to the city is not an option so I resign myself to an all-nighter at the airport.

Even though I feel like a little kid who can't do anything right and keeps getting reprimanded, I am cool, calm, and relaxed. I pass the time reading and catching up on my journal. I am tired, but not overly.

At 3am I check in to my flight. The woman sees my US passport and automatically switches from Spanish to English. I am exhausted, and now annoyed because my Spanish isn't that bad. I tell her I don't speak English. She sees right through me, and thoroughly unamused, continues in English. I sit down at a table to finish my journal entry, as I've been sitting on the floor for the last 7 hours. The waitress asks what I want. I say nothing thinking I've already spent enough money in this airport plus I know you're going to stab me with your pen when I try to hand you a 100, but I don't say it. If I don't order anything I can't sit there. I get irrationally angry and start to see my lack of sleep taking hold. I passive aggressively huff away and climb the closed escalator back upstairs. Nobody puts Baby in the corner. I order a coffee at the other cafe because I'm rebellious. I'm tired and tired of people telling me no. Showed that waitress, didn't I?

I cross to the opposite side of the terminal, as I was directed to do, in English, when I checked in, to go through security. When I get there the guard tells me I can't enter that way and must walk back to the other side. Sigh. I finally get through security and my tired eyes are illuminated by the bright flourescent white lights. I think I am entering the twilight zone. It's the Duty Free Shop. I think again about Burberry perfume, like I do in every Duty Free. Maybe I will buy it to make myself feel better. Sensibility kicks in and I know that will not make me feel less tired. Plus, it actually costs more in duty free than at home. I peruse the lip gloss as I'm due for a new one. I am gently inspecting the boxes, opening them to peer at the colors when a security guard is at my side gruffly telling me I can't try them on. No fucking shit Sherlock. He calls over an overbearing overpolite saleswoman to "help" me. She is looking at me like I'm Winona Rider about to shove the merchandise in my purse. I think right then and there about losing it on both of them in a major way. Think "Meet the Fockers" Bombababomb style. But the last-remaining sane part of me thinks how Juliana will be waiting for me at the Sao Paulo airport in 5 hours. How will it look when I don't show up because I'm detained in Argentina? Not how I want to do BA. Calmly, I "thanks but no thanks" the sales lady, and head to the gate.

Watch out flight crew.