Flying out

"Bum."

"What's the matter?"

"The stupid esim app is complaining about my email address."

"And?"

"I can't see if my esim for Argentina is installed."

We spend a delightful couple of hours fiddling with my phone. The end result being that it doesn't even recognise my esim adapter. Brilliant.

"Can't you just buy a sim at the airport?"

"I suppose so."

I remove the esim adapter to leave room for a standard sim.

As always, I get to the airport hours before my flight. And head straight to the sim shop. Where there are no lights on. As it’s closed. Fucking brilliant. I guess I'll have to buy a sim when I arrive.

The boring/annoying formalities don't take long. The airport is pretty quiet. I head straight for the lounge, pausing only to buy a bottle of Tomatin in the duty free. About the only reasonably-priced single malt. I dream of the days when I could afford to buy Lagavullin. 

Two whiskies sitting on a table in the KLM lounge.

It's my standard drill: kick off with a brace of whiskies then get some food. This time: beef rendang plus spuds. The rendang is far too runny, but tastes OK.

Feeling a bit dehydrated, I get a whisky and an orange juice on my second round.

I notice that the flight is 10 minutes late. Not too bad. But I know what airlines are like. I’ll be amazed if the delay is under half an hour.

I drag myself down to the gate about when boarding should start. And see that it's now 25 minutes late. I notice someone seems to be poking the wing with a stick. What is he doing? Whatever it is, we won’t be going anywhere until he's finished.

To pass the time, I just doze. Which makes the minutes rush by. Why have I never done this before? Are strategic naps an oldie superpower? Just as well I’ve learned the trick. It's 90 minutes late when we board.

If you look closely, you can see the man with a stick.

I seem to in premium economy. Did I book that? I don't remember. But I'm not complaining. I watch some crap films. Jojo Rabbit, What Happens in Vegas, Valentine's Day. They pass the time.

After eating - a meal which is a good bit better than the usual KLM slop - I get my head down At first I'm not that comfortable. But when I do drop off it's for real. We're only a couple of hours from landing when I wake up.

Everything runs pretty smoothly on arrival. Soon I’m landside wondering where the hell my driver is. I walk around arrivals for 15 minutes, then give up and go to a taxi counter. I really can’t be doing with any around-fucking than 100% necessary.

Dawn is breaking spectacularly as we weave our way through the morning traffic. It cheers me up a treat.

Sunrise in Buenos Aires.

I'm way too early to check in. So I dump my bags and go in search of a sim card. I get one in a kiosk just down the road. Not the easiest transaction, given the bloke behind the counter’s total lack of English. And my, er, existing level of Spanish. (Existing, as in Eastern European Socialism.) I leave with a prepaid sim of some sort. Not sure exactly what sort. Probably should have researched that a bit more.

Wake-up juice is what I need. Do they have cafés in Buenos Aires? Well, there’s one on the big road just around the corner from my hotel. I drop by and order a coffee with milk. And take a look at my shiny new sim. I struggle to understand the attached instructions.

The coffee is pretty good. Who would have guessed that? And it’s doing its job pretty well. I’m feeling positively lively when I leave.

Inside Sumo cafe.

Back in the hotel lobby, I install my new sim. And try to get it working. With no luck. I ask the bloke on reception for help. He speaks pretty good English and lends a hand.

To activate it, I need to send a photo of my passport and one of me holding the passport. What the fuck? When I've done all of that, it still doesn’t fucking work. There's no money on the card. It’s prepaid to zero. 

OK. All I have to do is load up gigas and gigas of bytes. The very helpful young chap on reception helps me through that data uploading. Until the credit card transaction fails. With both credit cards. 

My ever-helpful chum on reception suggests I load up with cash in a kiosk. Though obviously, I’ll first need to get some cash. This is getting way too complicated. He very constructively shows where the nearest bank is on a map. On the main drag. There and back is just exactly far enough to be annoying.

Some random buildings.

20,000 pesos in my pocket, I return to the kiosk right next to my hotel. The one where I bought the sim card. With so much difficulty and miscomprehension. What could possibly go wrong?

“No. We don’t do that.” Is what I think he says to me. Or it could have been: “Your cabbages love potatoes. Cigarettes?” Given his accent and my near zero knowledge of Spanish.

Whatever he said, he clearly doesn’t anticipate any further financial activity between the two of us.

Should I try another kiosk?  I've now been fucking around for 2 hours. I'm done. Time to accept that I’ll be relying on wifi and head to the pub. 
 

 

Sumo
Av. Independencia 797, 
C1099AAH Cdad. Autónoma de Buenos Aires. 

 

Disclaimer: my hotel, some meals and some drinks were paid for by Copa Argentina de Cervezas.