Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.
So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. --- Mark Twain

Monday, December 8, 2014

Season 3 - South America


30.11.2014– 01.12.2014
Journey: Tallinn – Amsterdam – Buenos Aires (KLM).

At first just a sentence from Woody Allen:"If you want to make God laugh, tell him your future plans." 11/30/2104. It is 4o`clock p in the afternoon. Checking in. I will give over one suitcase as my baggage , and hope to see it soon. Or just plan to get it back soon.

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Last hour at Tallinn Airport. This time this is only one -stop flight. Leaving at 6 pm Tallinn and arriving at Amsterdam two and a half hours later. And then proceed immediately, so that the next morning at 7 I should be in Argentina. All together 16 and a half hours of flight time and a half hour for changing the flights.
Last time in 2012 it took a bit more time. First: from Tallinn - to Helsinki, then from Helsinki – to Prague and in Prague waiting – time for 7 hours. Then - from Prague – to Dubai and in Dubai spending the next 7 hours. Then from Dubai – to Rio de Janeiro, and finally - from Rio to Buenos Aires. Totally it took 42 hours to reach the destination.
 
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Amsterdam. You take your suitcase, walk towards the gate E20. You walk, walk, and meanwhile, check from several displays whether that really is the right gate and the right flight. It should be so.

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At the gate there is a queue that moves slowly, but nevertheless is moving on. What is certain is - that there is no more need to rush. Every person in this queue will get on board the plane and no one is left behind.

There is still one of the ticket control and security check to pass and then you can take your place on board of the plane.

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The next 14 hours will be spent here. In case one has to have a seat on the same place for 14 hours- it is quite a long time. In the meantime- some food is brought, then there is a long interval and some food again. And that`s that.

The flight is over. The border. Passport Control checks my passport, finds a lot of Argentina stamps in the passport, and adds one more. Going to the luggage belt and looking forward to get my suitcase - it turned out that it was not among the other baggage and didn`t turn out that day. As promised by the airport authorities – it arrived at my place the very next day.

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The bus was right there, where I had left it seven months ago. At the camping site. Partially covered with green tarpaulin and unnoticeable from the street. Just in any case.

The laws of Argentina permit a vehicle to be in the country for 8 months at a time and in this spring there were more of such vehicles whose owners had temporarily traveled to Europe.

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One of the greatest.

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And some smaller ones, so there were all together four vehicles of this kind.

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And each of them - equipped with a map of the covered route on the side of the v

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The last days (or weeks) had been rainy.

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And the front part of the bus, which did not fit under the tarpaulin, was full of thorns and branches. Somebody had stolen the air from inside of one of the front tires.

But all that was not important, because all of the inside was dry. Everything was exactly the same as I had left in spring after a thorough cleaning. The ants had not moved in. That`s good . The situation of ants on the bus is actually quite distressing and troublesome.. Next it was necessary to get everything for driving on in order again.

But more of that in the next post.

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