I had made plans to reward myself after my first week of school in the city with a weekend excursion to Iguazu Falls in the northern part of Argentina, The falls are about 900 miles (or 24 hours by bus) away, so I decided to fly there to take advantage of the time.
Unfortunately, the winds shifted--carrying the ash from the volcanic eruption in Chile that was originally heading Australia’s way to now heading Argentina’s way. It completely closed both airports in Buenos Aires the day I was to leave (The acidic nature of ash can potentially clog an airplane engine).
So, forced to make lemonade from the lemons I was given, and once regrouped at my temporary home in Buenos Aires, I set forth on a mission to explore the city. The mission: to find Harley-Davidson Buenos Aires. After a brief research session online, fortified with plenty of helpful advice from my host Mom, I set out to find a Radio Taxi that would take me there. Armed with the directions from the Internet, I could not fail!
Fortified with my newfangled city bravado, I confidently flagged down a Radio Taxi and gave him the address I had copied from the Internet website. Off we charged into the Buenos Aires winter sunshine, bravely exploring a part of the city neither of us had seen before. All the bravado came to a screeching halt once we both realized the address I had written was not anywhere near where we needed to be. After numerous fruitless transmissions to the head office of the taxi company, my taxista, Alejandro, called a friend on his cell who directed us to the exact place we needed to be.
What was supposed to be a 15 minute trip ended up taking over three hours and costing me almost 200 pesos—but in the process, I made a friend and saw a part of Buenos Aires that most turistas rarely see. It was a good day all around.
