transit
The news of the travelers stranded in Heathrow has been a staple of the morning TV at my parents' house this holiday season, and we shake our heads in sympathy. If part of travel's appeal is to remove us from our everyday surroundings, the concurrent risk is that we leave behind the predictability and security that comes from a familiar routine. The original plan on our Patagonia transit day was to catch an afternoon flight from Buenos Aires to El Calafate, the airport city for Southern Argentine Patagonia, sleep overnight at an Argentine-Japanese ryokan and then take a morning bus from El Calafate to the village of El Chalten to enjoy five days of trekking in Argentina's Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. The actual plan was to arrive at the airport for our afternoon flight, only to find it cancelled and unavailable.
We didn't initially worry because there were two more flights to El Calafate leaving later that day. We asked about trying to get on those flights, maybe as a standby passenger, but were told 'no'. We argued for a bit before realizing that this actually wasn't an argument, but just our agent patiently trying to explain to us that Aerolineas Argentinas did not 'do' standby seats. The next flight that we could take was for tomorrow morning, and the airline would give us a voucher for a free hotel room and transfer.
A part of my mind started recalculating the schedule; crunching flight arrivals, bus timetables and hiking times to sort out what this meant. The ryokan would have to be cancelled, but what else would we have to shave off? Would we lose a day in Patagonia? Next to me another couple had received the same news, and I could see one of them beginning to cry.
I had also picked up a minor head cold on the flight back from Iguazu so wasn't up to juggling logistics. Fortunately, silentq was calming and supportive, and helped me realize that we did have buffer built into our itinerary and that so long as we got a bus at El Calafate at a decent time, we weren't going to miss anything. Once we got back to Buenos Aires and checked into our hotel in Barrio Norte, we realized that Cumana was only a couple of blocks away, so we got a late lunch there and then silentq suggested walking around the neighborhood just to wander and explore.
We stopped at a sidewalk cafe for drinks and the waiter brought out a nice litte tray of picada with olives and cheese that we could nibble on as we sat back and watched people and traffic go by. The air was cool and the whispers and laughter of the other cafe patrons played like warm background music to the setting sun. I let the stress and frustration of the day drain out of me and just enjoyed a late spring evening in Buenos Aires, wishing that I could do this more often at home. I would have liked to have seen the ryokan on the pampas, but an extra night in Buenos Aires wasn't so bad either.
One gets used to this on the road. Flights get cancelled, buses run late, cars break down. All you can do is roll with it and make the best of the circumstances. Some may find the complications and risks daunting and frightening, but the unquantifiable potential that breeds such circumstances can also yield serene little evenings sitting by a sidewalk, listening to the music of a dozen cars and believing that the universe is still on your side, and that things will eventually work out fine.