Adventures to the airport
July 31, 2005 – Sun
I woke up at 6am to get on my way to pick up Sean from the airport. I decided to take the 86 bus for economical reasons.
I walked from the hostel to Avenida de Mayo, not knowing exactly where to take the bus. After scouring every corner, I finally asked a news stand vendor who pointed me in the right direction.
I looked for a bus that had Ezeiza at the top of it and hopped on. Being that it was 6am and people party till 7am or so, I was the only sober person on the bus. Next to me was a girl, food on her face, drunk, and slurring her speech really badly. The food on her face was disgusting. It looked like she had been eating a hot dog, and somehow got some of the chewed hot dog on her cheek. I was afraid that she would spit on me when she was talking.
After about an hour (that´s how long the hostel people told me it would take), I went up to the bus driver to ask him how much longer to Ezeiza…
He told me that this bus doesn´t go to Ezeiza, it goes to Centro Mercado. Fuck!!! I got off as soon as I could, not knowing where the hell I was…hoping to flag down a taxi at 7:15am — still dark outside. I was on the feeder of a freeway, so there was some hope.
It took a few minutes, then I was able to flag a taxi down. My driver was absolutely insane. He went the wrong way down a one way street, almost ran head on into a car, and yelled at them when it happened. His meter seemed to be running way too fast. About 15 pesos later, he dropped me off at the arribos (arrivals) area.
Luckily, after that fiasco, I was still early to pick up Sean — an non-Spanish speaking gringo. I waited and waited and waited. There was a Peruvian woman waiting for her mother to arrive from Lima as well. She had to go to the bathroom really bad, but then asked me if it was okay to take drugs into the bathroom because she had some in her purse. Okay, that was too much information, and no, I was not going to look after her purse. Long story short, she never went to the bathroom.
Time had passed and I had seen no one come from the DFW flight. I looked on the arrivals screen, and the fight was not listed. Confused, I asked a security guard if there´s another arrivals gate. And sure enought, there is! I ran to the other gate, hoping Sean was still there. I told him I´d meet him at the airport so that he wouldn´t have to fend for himself down here (at least arriving). I looked around the area, didn´t see him, then waited in front of the glass panels separating the newly arrived from the greeters. Then I heard him call my name out. He´d only been waiting about 15 minutes, so it wasn´t that bad. I told him of my epic story on the cab ride to the hostel.
Note: For any of you wanting to take the 86 bus from central BsAs to the Ezeiza airport…look for the busses with EZEIZA on the lower left hand corner of the window, possibly in yellow with black lettering. If it says Ezeiza on the top of the bus (not on the window) and says something else in the window (ie. Centro mercado)…it WILL NOT go to the airport!!! Hope that helps someone out in the future :p
Tags: Buenos Aires, Travel
Marisa