Images of Argentina – photos taken in Buenos Aires, Puerto Madryn, Peninsula Valdez, and the southwestern glacier area. The stress of airline flight delays and cancellations just about froze my interest in photography. My last day in Buenos Aires — the Italian street festival rewarded me with excellent pizza, sausage sandwiches, music, dancing, regional cheeses, pastries and breads, and a few photos.
I have selected favorite images for my second photo gallery.
Argentina — one country, one dysfunctional airline. Two airports in Buenos Aires, international and domestic, one hour apart via high traffic, congested roads. Two enthusiastic travelers leave Tucson on November 8 and cannot wait to be back in the USA on November 20. Thanks, Argentina for a great trip spoiled.
We only met five Americans, and enjoyed the company of hundreds of frustrated European travelers — hardy hikers and backpackers with sturdy boots. Flights were frequently cancelled or delayed. When mechanics threw down their screwdrivers or air traffic controllers shut the tower, tourists lined up at the Aerolinas customer service office looking for hotel/taxi/food vouchers and alternative flights.
November 10 – Night flight to Trelew [Puerto Madryn & Peninsula Valdes] confirmed. We have boarding passes and seat assignments. Flight AR1866 departed but left fourteen of us in Buenos Aires. Once the vouchers were distributed, we took a one-hour bus ride with a map-challenged driver to the Torre Hotel. Our food vouchers for the pizza joint opposite the Torre entitled each of us to three slices of pizza or three empanadas filled with mystery meat. We had to order from the Aerolinas menu. We were also promised an airport bus at 5:30 a.m. Catch-22: The bus did not arrive, and three of us shared a taxi to the airport.
Ron, an IT guy from Toronto, had been in Ushuaia (Argentina’s most southern city). His next stop: Iguazu Falls, a domestic destination. For some reason, he took a flight that landed at the international airport. Of course, he missed the flight to Iguazu.
Four Swedish women were at Iguazu and going south to Peninsula Valdez. They wanted their luggage checked through to Trelew. No, no. They must recheck their luggage at the Aeroparque in Buenos Aires. They didn’t get on the flight to Trelew either, but at best they had their luggage.
November 11 – Since we missed the flight to Trelew, we also missed the 8:30 a.m. excursion to Peninsula Valdes. Only option, pay $200 USD for a private guide, driver, and car. We paid, had an excellent guide/driver, saw a herd of guanaco, and caught the 4 p.m. whale-watching boat. The southern right whales showed us their stuff, flukes and flippers.
I chatted with a cardiologist in one of the airports. His Catch-22: He and wife (who will only eat at McDonald’s) were on a boat excursion out of Ushuaia. “Is this the trip where we see the penguins?” “No, that’s the other boat. This is the Beagle Channel cruise.”
We met Lauren and Frank, a couple from Connecticut at the Hosteria Los Hielos in El Calafate. They had traveled to Mendoza, the wine-producing region. However, their return flight to Buenos Aires was cancelled. Catch-22: A 15- hour bus ride to make the flight to El Calafate. Lauren said they traveled in 60 countries, and knocked off Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand — Argentina air travel was the worst!
Nov. 15 – Richard and I were at the El Calafate airport for a 6 p.m. departure to Ushuaia. 
Flight delayed until 8:30 p.m. No, change that. The flight was cancelled! Forget our trip to Tierra del Fuego. (I’ll never walk in Charles Darwin’s footsteps.) We could get stranded and miss the flight home. Decision: become “stand-by” for Buenos Aires. We were given seats on the 11:30 p.m. flight. [Minutes before take off, six backpackers raced to the exit door in first class. They thought the flight was going to Ushuaia.] We checked into the Castelar Hotel at 3 a.m. courtesy of Aerolinas and another voucher.
Nov. 16 – We stopped at a multiplex cinema and planned to see Flamenco Flamenco at 16:40 the next afternoon. Taxied over, and we read the times listed under each movie poster. 16:40 was gone. The new time: 18:20 and we did not want to wait. Here’s the Catch-22: In Buenos Aires movie times change on Thursdays, not the films necessarily, just the times. [One advantage over American movie theatres — no previews, no commercials, just buy your ticket and watch the film.]
We had highlights – a hake and mussels dinner at Los Colonos (Puerto Madryn). In Buenos Aires, the Japanese garden and restaurant, a city tour, the dusty Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo, a bus excursion/boat ride to Tigre and its delta islands, and an Italian street festival with gladiators, great pizza, and a life-size Jesus laid out horizontally on a cross. Mothers posed their children for photos with Jesus.
November 19 – Eduardo arrived on time for our transfer to the international airport. Rain slicked the highway. Flight AA 996 to Dallas had a hour delay. We took our pesos to an exchange. Catch-22: The agent insisted on our original U.S. dollars to AR pesos document from Banco Nacional, which we did not have or were not given. Screw it! We spent our last pesos on an $8 beer, an $11 chocolate bar, and tossed the remaining money into a charity container.
November 20 – Online, safely at home, I groaned at a final Catch-22 — one that failed. Alaska Airlines erroneously sent an email stating American Airlines 996 for Saturday, November 19 had been cancelled.
Yosarian lives! Situations beyond our control made no sense. If you do not understand the Argentine paradigm, you lose and you learn.
* * *
A little known fact — in 1962 twelve women became engaged on the Ferris wheel in Palisades Park. Lulu Lilac let Chuck Garbinski slip a half-carat diamond on the ring finger of her left hand and became one of the twelve lucky, mostly young, ladies who wore an engagement ring at the end of the ride. How do I know the number of about-to-be-wed? I’m Dante and was the wheel operator and the first person to know. First, of course, after the young lady. I could tell just by looking at the couple — engagement in the sky and sometimes under the stars. A hundred feet off the ground in a swinging seat, slip on a ring, and a kiss seals the deal. “You got engaged up there?” I asked pointing my chin skyward as the seat came to its resting place on the concrete pad.
“Yes, we did.”
After running the wheel for fifteen summers, I could tell what went on. “Ya know, not all of them rides was happy ones.”
“How about signing my book? I keep the names of people who get engaged on the wheel. You’re making history.”
“I was afraid he’d drop the ring. His hands were shaking,” said Lulu. “We were so high up. It was beautiful. All the lights from the rides, and the light of the moon. Look!” Lulu stuck out her hand and a silvery sparkle caught the lights of the wheel.
Twinkle, twinkle. Diamond bright.
* * *
Lulu met Chuck three years before their engagement. She worked at Sears, Roebuck on Elizabeth Avenue and walked home after work, even in the rain. She passed the A&P and the J&G Auto Parts store. Chuck was a driver for the parts place and began to notice Lulu long before she noticed him. On no particular Wednesday afternoon when Chuck stopped her to say something like “hello,” Lulu did not know she would become part of Palisades Park history. She also did not anticipate that when the engagement was broken, a clerk from Abelson’s would call to say the ring had a balance due and, therefore, must be paid for or returned.
Since she didn’t make history with a first novel at age sixteen, the wheel was good enough for now. How do I know? She drove up to the park last Saturday and said that the engagement went bust. The romance was over. He told her had been married and divorced. He also told her he was married twice and divorced twice. “Show me your divorce certificate!” That what I said to him. “Prove it! “You know what that jerk did? He had a printer friend make a certificate. It had the gold seal of New Jersey glued in the left-hand corner. Looked official enough to me.
“Dante, I wouldn’t be telling you the story, except my name in is your log-book. We did not have a marriage. He left me a letter and concert tickets he bought for my birthday. Fr. John called from St. Michael’s and said I needed to get down to the church immediately. Chuck went to the priest and spilled the story of his not yet being divorced and how awful he felt. So, Ferris wheel operator, not every engagement made under the stars sparkles on the ground.”
* * *
Wild is the heart Of a flower being kissed By the summer wind. The mistresses coyly tease, Yet shy and wait again. Their dancing forms given invitation. They long to follow the floating air. The wind is on his way To other fields of flowers. No time to linger On one sweet mouth, When a gallant wind might touch The petals of every virgin flower.
The 90-minute fast ferry will take longer this afternoon. One of the engines has lost power. Still, even if we dock late, I will have time to catch Jet Blue’s red-eye to Phoenix. Besides, I have a plan for the ride from Provincetown. I’ll continue reading Ann Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea. Admirable intentions, but the passengers are a definite distraction.
My eyes and ears settle on a man and a woman sitting shoulder to shoulder in the first row of the cabin. They stare at a small screen television set into the wall. They watch Wolfe Blitzer giving a CNN news report. I watch them, the man and the woman watching the TV in silence. How can they sit with perfect posture like two mannequins. I silently yell to them, turn off the television!
A woman appears and stops. Leaning over the couple she begins her own news report. She once lived in California; she majored in psychology. She stayed with friends who have a house in Provincetown. Blitzer’s report on the Michael Jackson autopsy has no audience among the three. Forward in the bow seats, a girl child babbles loudly to her mother and father. She lets out random, piercing screams followed by silence. Four rows ahead a Japanese man holds a cell phone to his left ear. His eyes are closed as he listens to something.
On the starboard side, a yellow Lab is stretched in the down-stay position. Its owner hovers over a laptop keyboard and screen. The dog watched enviously as the man paused to eat from a Styrofoam container. Good dog. He never moved.
The engine noise, constant and loud, adds to the distractions. Gray water and gray sky barge by the cabin windows. A man on the bow has a wide lens attached to his camera. The wind rips and billows his nylon jacket. He is ready to shoot those first harbor sightings – oil storage tanks, bridges, and old custom houses along the wharfs. Did he photograph the cruise ship Celebrity as it passed? Happy people going to the Bahamas.
Sitting still has chilled my bones. I pull my already buttoned jacket on over my head. I cannot read or concentrate. I go to the snack bar for a cup of hot water. Back at my seat I bob a green tea bag up and down and inhale the musty aroma. No point in forcing the quiet of Lindbergh’s book into my brain. Maybe on the flight to Phoenix I’ll get back to grace and solitude.
At Long Wharf we disembark and head toward Boston’s downtown streets. I look for a “T” – a transit station to take me to the airport. The weekend in Provincetown with its casual, party-place attitude ends at MacMillan Pier. A red-haired man rushes to a friend walking ahead. A quick few words are exchanged. His knees fold into a jump, and he plants a full-mouth kiss on the lips of his tall friend.
“See you on Friday,” he says with a laugh and a smile. Off he goes rushing to another destination.
I designated myself a clam chowder critic during last week’s trip to Boston and Provincetown. Here’s what I discovered: Clam chowder has many variations. Thick with white paste and a few clam sprinkles does not make for a pleasant first course.
Seaglass restaurant in Salisbury: thick, served well-heated, diced potatoes, and horribly thick. Legal Seafood: Okay but thick. Bubabla’s: Too thick, minced micro-clams. [Steamers were great!]. The winner: Cafe Heaven in Provincetown.
The best, best clam chowder to my liking was at a church yard sale on Block Island, 2010. The recipe was non-dairy. Only clams, diced potatoes, a little onion, herbs/spices, clam juice and water. The taste was divine.
Come on back and relax.
A tour of Public Lands & National Parks in the USA
Consider Writing 