Spent the night in Bogota, Colombia. Then, the next day flew to Buenos Aires via Santiago. 5.5 hour flight to Santiago. Got bumped to an empty exit row. Never knew why. OK. Via LATAM. Got on the flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires. Half hour late because of a mechanical. Guys in yellow vests finally tell the pilots we are good to go. Get into Buenos Aires about 11pm. Sort of.
The plane parks on the ramp and we get busses to the terminal. Fine. Enter the terminal looking for immigration. Usually it’s before baggage, but this time, not. Enter baggage area and look through to another hall. Immigration? Why are there doors there marked “Salida” with taxis waiting outside?
No immigration signage. Huh? Ask people in uniforms, “Immigration?” Blank stares. Something wrong. Guy in a porters uniform points back to where we came in. We head back that way. Other busmates do same.
Now, 70 or so people are yelling at a security guard.
It seems the bus driver dropped us off at domestic arrivals rather than international arrivals. Talk to a guy in a suit who says exact same thing happened to him here in the past. Before he realized what had happened he was arrested for entering the country illegally. Says he spent 3 hours in lock-up before they sorted things out. He missed his connecting flight and says he now has a record for entering illegally.
Fortunately, no one was arrested and 20 minutes later we were all shuffled onto a bus and trucked over to international arrivals.
After a night in BA I flew via Argentines Airlines to Ushuaia. Very very short seat pitch. It was only a 3.5 hour flight. But uncomfortable enough to strike Argentina Airlines from my preferred carrier list. LATAM is for me in South America.
It was/is a sunny blue sky day here in Ushuaia. It won’t last.
Speaking of rarities….I think I see a PT object. Take a walk tomorrow to find out.
