The Boat Goes Without Us

"Well that's the end of my job", I proudly announced as I handed out the final tickets to the group gathered together in the foyer of the Hotel Italiano in Colonia. I must admit that, after worrying about all the complicated arrangements for the past month, it was something of a relief to know that everything had actually gone according to the plan.

Apart from the early mixup with the name of the hotel in Cusco, everything else had actually gone almost too well. The hotel bookings were always correct, the transports were always where they were meant to be, the guides all knew what they had to do. Now our adventure was rapidly approaching its conclusion. Within a couple of hours our group would begin to disperse and start the long journey back to Australia.

With our boat tickets and passports in hand we climbed on the bus for the (very) short ride to the Buquebus terminal. Actually it was only a few hundred metres, but the organisers had provided a large bus and guide for this final leg. What could possibly go wrong at this late stage ?

We bade farewell to our guide and thanked him for the world's shortest bus trip. The terminal was deserted. "Looks like we missed the rush", I jokingly announced. It turned out to be truer than I anticipated.

With our tickets in hand we proceeded to the Buquebus (ferry) terminal. I allowed some of the others to go before me. Before long I noticed that there seemed to be some consternation at the desk. I then saw David, with his face a lovely shade of ashen, run headlong away from the desk. "Where are you going ?" I yelled. "The boat's gone already", he gasped, "I'm running to buy another ticket somewhere else". I had previously noticed that David does not cope well under stress, and he certainly seemed stressed. I had to investigate further. Meanwhile David continued to huff and puff and run around in ever diminishing circles. I think at times like this, he really needs Carol.

It turned out that the boat that we had tickets for had indeed departed over an hour earlier than scheduled. While this might seem strange for most countries, it is apparently quite normal for South America. The problem was that nobody had been notified of this random change of plans.

Of course our problem was that the Rio de la Plata is over 50 km across. The major part of our luggage was still in storage at our previous hotel and most of our group were rushing to get to the airport to catch their flights back to Australia. The presented something of a challenge. I have learnt from many previous "emergencies" that seldom is anything as bad as it first appears. If you remain calm, there is almost certainly a "Plan B" that is available. All you have to do is look hard for it.

I went to the counter and explained to the staff that we had official tickets from their company that stated that the ferry was due to leave at 10.15 am. As far as we were concerned , the company had a responsibility to get us to Buenos Aires at their expense. They accepted this fact and, within about 45 minutes, we were issued with tickets for a ferry owned by one of their competitors. It was an interesting change of plans.

With our fresh tickets in hand, we eventually boarded a much smaller, but still perfectly comfortable ferry and were soon on our way again. As it turned out the different ferry had a completely different terminal in the city and the entry to Buenos Aires gave us a new vantage point that we had not seen before.

We arrived at the terminal to see the familiar face of our guide Sandra, waiting for us. She explained that this happens all the time as apparently the Uruguayans have a very cavalier and somewhat random approach to time zones and are prone to changing without reason or warning. Now that we were all safely back in Argentina, we could afford to laugh it off as just another exciting part of our trip.

We returned to the Cyan America Towers Hotel to collect our luggage and bid farewell to our fellow travellers. After much hugs and kisses, it was time for the group to finally split. We had shared so many laughs and wonderful times together that it felt a bit like a family breakup. It really was sad to see them go.

For Paul and I, the adventure will continue for some more time yet. We caught a taxi to our next hotel, right next to the Jorge Newberry Domestic Airport. We will be rising at 1 am tomorrow to catch a very early flight to Salta, in the far north of Argentina. It is actually quite close to Peru and Bolivia and our trip will take us back into the land of the Incas that we had been travelling for the first three weeks of our trip.

We both need a very early night.......Read more