The Argentine Adventure Begins: first stop Correo Argentino!
For three years, I've been planning a ski trip to Argentina and each summer, for one reason or another, the trip had been cancelled. Finally, I landed in Buenos Aires yesterday. Packing for my month long travels between summer and winter destinations, with ski gear and riding gear, casual wear and formal wear (2nd to last stop is a wedding in Monte Carlo), had been a bit of a production. I finally settled on shipping ahead my luggage for the Argentina trip, which consisted of winter wear, ski and riding gear, to Legado Mitico, my first hotel in Buenos Aires. I had shipped my bags via Speedpost on 11 August and they had arrived Argentina 3 days later and the last time I checked the tracking system, they were pending customs inspection, so I didn't think anything of it.
Imagine my panic when I checked into the hotel to find my luggage was nowhere to be found! All I had in tow were my laptop, gadgets, samples of Little Cream Book, reading material, toiletries and the clothes I was wearing. And of course, my American Express card ;-). After the hotel made a phone call to Correo Argentino, they found out that my luggage was sitting in the main receiving center for international packages downtown (fortunately, it was not at the airport!). After a quick bite at Bartok Bar (I went in because I saw they served Segafredo coffee, but even better was the free wifi) on Costa Rica, I headed to Correo Argentino.
I arrived in the reception area to find it a bit of a zoo. All the seats were taken and there were many more people standing around, waiting. It took me a few minutes to work out the "system". First, take a number, like when you're at the butcher shop. Then, you wait for your number to be called. Fortunately, with years spent growing up in Arizona, I at least knew my numbers in Spanish. When I arrived, they were on 20-something. I had pulled a 61. An hour later, I walked up to the counter and handed them my tracking number. They wrote down my passport details and told me to wait again while they located my packages. After another half an hour, they called my name and handed me a slip for one bag with another number. But then I showed them that I had two tracking numbers for two bags. And so I had to wait again, for another half an hour while they located the second bag and handed me a second slip with another number.
I gathered that I would have to move into the larger waiting room. It's funny, I saw the sign for the waiting room: Esperar. And I found it ironic that it made me think of "hope", because in French, the conjugation for hope (espoir) in the formal you form is espérez, which sounds a bit like esperar. Later, I found out that the Spanish word for hope is esperanza. Thinking about it, the linguistic linkage makes sense, without hope, one would not wait for anything. And there I was, waiting and hoping for them to call my numbers, hoping for my luggage to be in good shape, hoping they wouldn't charge me some exhorbitent duty on a bunch of old clothes.
The post office closes at 6pm. I was in the final group, all the remaining people who had not yet been called. I had two bags packed inside two, 20kg boxes. There was no way I'd be able to walk out of the post office with two gigantic boxes, so after a lot of gesturing, I grabbed one of the retractable blades off a counter to puzzled looks. They finally understood that I wanted to open my boxes and a kindly, white-haired gentlemen sliced through the boxes in seconds. With much relief and glee, I grabbed my bags and headed back to the hotel.
So now I feel right at home in Buenos Aires. I've been to a post office, a farmacia and know to look for "Banelco" signs (Banelco is the name for the Argentinian ATM network like PLUS or Cirrus) when in need of an ATM (although it took stops at three banks before I found one that worked. To my delight, the first bank I spotted was an HSBC, but then imagine my disappointment when I found the ATMs under maintenance). I'm writing this over a breakfast of dulce de leche liberally slathered on a slice of wholewheat toast, enjoying the sunshine. So far, it's been a great start to my Argentine adventure!
Imagine my panic when I checked into the hotel to find my luggage was nowhere to be found! All I had in tow were my laptop, gadgets, samples of Little Cream Book, reading material, toiletries and the clothes I was wearing. And of course, my American Express card ;-). After the hotel made a phone call to Correo Argentino, they found out that my luggage was sitting in the main receiving center for international packages downtown (fortunately, it was not at the airport!). After a quick bite at Bartok Bar (I went in because I saw they served Segafredo coffee, but even better was the free wifi) on Costa Rica, I headed to Correo Argentino.
I arrived in the reception area to find it a bit of a zoo. All the seats were taken and there were many more people standing around, waiting. It took me a few minutes to work out the "system". First, take a number, like when you're at the butcher shop. Then, you wait for your number to be called. Fortunately, with years spent growing up in Arizona, I at least knew my numbers in Spanish. When I arrived, they were on 20-something. I had pulled a 61. An hour later, I walked up to the counter and handed them my tracking number. They wrote down my passport details and told me to wait again while they located my packages. After another half an hour, they called my name and handed me a slip for one bag with another number. But then I showed them that I had two tracking numbers for two bags. And so I had to wait again, for another half an hour while they located the second bag and handed me a second slip with another number.
I gathered that I would have to move into the larger waiting room. It's funny, I saw the sign for the waiting room: Esperar. And I found it ironic that it made me think of "hope", because in French, the conjugation for hope (espoir) in the formal you form is espérez, which sounds a bit like esperar. Later, I found out that the Spanish word for hope is esperanza. Thinking about it, the linguistic linkage makes sense, without hope, one would not wait for anything. And there I was, waiting and hoping for them to call my numbers, hoping for my luggage to be in good shape, hoping they wouldn't charge me some exhorbitent duty on a bunch of old clothes.
The post office closes at 6pm. I was in the final group, all the remaining people who had not yet been called. I had two bags packed inside two, 20kg boxes. There was no way I'd be able to walk out of the post office with two gigantic boxes, so after a lot of gesturing, I grabbed one of the retractable blades off a counter to puzzled looks. They finally understood that I wanted to open my boxes and a kindly, white-haired gentlemen sliced through the boxes in seconds. With much relief and glee, I grabbed my bags and headed back to the hotel.
So now I feel right at home in Buenos Aires. I've been to a post office, a farmacia and know to look for "Banelco" signs (Banelco is the name for the Argentinian ATM network like PLUS or Cirrus) when in need of an ATM (although it took stops at three banks before I found one that worked. To my delight, the first bank I spotted was an HSBC, but then imagine my disappointment when I found the ATMs under maintenance). I'm writing this over a breakfast of dulce de leche liberally slathered on a slice of wholewheat toast, enjoying the sunshine. So far, it's been a great start to my Argentine adventure!
Labels: Argentina, Buenos Aires
posted by 10000miles at 20:31
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