Travel Day - 2 buses and 2 planes!

Sunday December 5^th.

The pictures are all from Saturday, as today was a prolonged travel day, and I took no photos. It started at 11:30 Saturday night, as I caught a bus from Paraty to Sao Paulo. I talked to an Austrian backpacker waiting for the bus and sat beside a Belgium backpacker on the bus. I tried to sleep for the whole ride, with some success, but there are an awful lot of speed bumps in this country and the driver seemed to be trying to make time and hit some of them faster than usual. However, I did get some sleep and awoke with a start at the Sao Paulo bus station. We arrived at 5:00am. This place is huge! Managed to find a kiosk that sold the power cord adaptor I need, but it didn't open until 8:00. I found a little shop that sold fresh orange juice, yogurt and a fresh fruit cup. That was breakfast. Read my book as I hung around waiting for the shop to open. After I bought what I needed, I found the ticket booth for the shuttle bus to the airport. Waited an hour for that. The ride was about a half hour. Arrived at 10:30.

Had little trouble finding the TAM booth for the flight from Sao Paulo to Beunos Aires. Checked in, dumped the backpack and then explored the airport until departure time at 2:30. I got on the plane and started to read but my eyes got tired, so I closed them and missed takeoff entirely! I woke up when they were serving food. The flight was only three hours but they fed us a full dinner meal, roast beef and not bad. Arrived at 5:00 local time.

Upon arrival at customs found out Canadians have to pay $70US to come to this airport (Americans $140), but I didn't have to pay because I was in transit and flying out the same day. I had heard about this tax before but when I entered Argentina before it was by bus and I didn't have to pay, only at this airport so far.

Found the line for the night flight from Beunos Aires to Kuala Lampur, via Capetown. Sat in that line for an hour, before they started to check us in. Then I had three hours to kill before take off. Talked to a guy from a South African rugby team who was flying home with the team. Did some shopping to spend the last of my pesos.

Then we boarded the plane at 11:30. Again I read for a few minutes, shut my eyes and missed take off! It was one of the huge planes with two floors on it. Goodbye South America!