Getting to Baradero and la comunidad

I heard about a project to build a sustainable community (Comunidad Hogar German Frers) on couchsurfing. I arranged with one of the project founders to go and help them out for a few days. The project is in a place called Baradero which is about two hours from Buenos Aires.


I decided to take the train and got to the train station about 45 minutes before the train was due to leave. There were a few different train stations all beside each other, after trying a few I eventually found the correct one and found the correct counter to buy the ticket I needed. But they would not sell me a ticket, I know the Spanish for why so I said that, it was a bit pointless as I still don't know any Spanish so I didn't understand his reason. I concluded it was full as there is only one train per day.


The bus station was nearby so I went there and got a ticket. I had an hour to wait before the bus so I found the correct platform and decided I'd wait there listening to my iPod. 3:00pm, 3:15pm, 3:30pm and still no bus. I knew the final destination of the bus and it was never displayed on the list of departures. Eventually I asked someone if they spoke English (I know this much in Spanish) and they said 'un poco' which is a little. So I showed them my ticket and they said bus not arrived yet. So I waited and eventually at 3:45pm the bus appeared on the departures monitor and soon afterwards it arrived.


2 hours later I was in Baradero. I tried calling the guys who I'd been talking to on email to get them to collect me but I couldn't get in touch with them. So I got a taxi, luckily I was prepared for this and know how to say my destination in Spanish. Baradero is quite a small town and after driving for about 2 minutes the road disappeared and we were driving on a dirt track, eventually we came to a junction with a main road.

Here I saw the sign for la comunidad. I paid the taxi driver, got my luggage and was greeted in Spanish by lots of people. The guys who I'd been talking to that spoke English were away and not due back for another hour. Next week I'm going to start learning Spanish.

Choripán in Buenos Aires

Choripán is an Argentinean sandwich made with chorizo and bread (the spanish for bread is pan).

Choripán

You get a choice of pork or beef. They cost about a euro and are sold by street vendors throughout the city.

Parrilla on the street

Arriving in Buenos Aires sin equipaje

Our plane stopped in Sao Paulo to refuel, some people got off, some new people got on. This took about an hour then we had a 3 hour flight to Bueno Aires. About 1 hour before landing in Buenos Aires the flight attendant came down and asked if I was David. I said yes and he said that I had to contact the ground staff when we landed. He didn't say anymore and he didn't give me the opportunity to ask more. I had no idea what it was about so I figured I'd find Seamus and see if they had said the same to him. On my way to find Seamus the guy we had met earlier from Buenos Aires saw me and decided to join us also. Turns out all 3 of us had been told the same thing. When we were running the get the connecting flight we never considered our luggage. It was probably still being unloaded from the plane when we were taking off.

Our Plane after landing in Buenos Aires

Once we landed in BA we got talking to the British Airways ground staff. They were very helpful, took our contact details and the name of the hostel and said that our luggage would arrive the following day. They also gave us £35 each on a prepaid debit card so we'd have money to buy whatever we needed until our luggage arrived.


Unlike a lot of airports the taxi setup in Buenos Aires is quite good. There is an official taxi desk where you tell them where you want to go and you pay in advance. 45 minutes later we were outside our hostel. The taxi driver thought it a bit strange that we had no luggage as did the hostel staff. My luggage was delivered to the hostel the next day. Seamus was not so lucky, they had some problem finding his so it took a few more days before it arrived.

I need to learn Spanish.

Our flight from Dublin to London was delayed by over an hour, then when we got to Heathrow we had to wait 20 minutes for a landing slot. Once we were off the plane we had less than an hour to get to Terminal 5 for our connecting flight. I knew Heathrow was big but I didn't realise it was this big. We were told it was going to be tight to make our flight and that we would have to run. So we ran through a maze of corridors, duty free shops and escalators until we reached the bus to terminal 5. This bus took over 10 minutes then more escalators and corridors and security checks. We met a guy from Buenos Aires somewhere along the way who was running for the same flight. Finally terminal 5 except we now needed to take a train to get to the building where our boarding gate was located. There were lots of people in the same situation as us, some made their flights some didn't make it too the security checks as they were told they would never make it in time.

We made our flight. I found my seat and sat down. The two passengers either side of me spoke to me in Spanish. Then the flight attendant said something to me in Spanish.

I need to learn Spanish.