Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Purple Number 12

Our hotel called a cab for us, told our driver where we needed to go, and off we went to the port. Our driver took us right to cruise ship dock, helped us with our bags, and off we went to go through Argentina immigration.

Taxi Stand

 They scanned our bags, we got detected  for metal and  then we waited in line for our turn with the immigration man. The fellow in the booth took our photos, scanned our right thumbs, matched them up with the photos and thumb prints we did when we entered the country, and  made sure we had our reciprocidad   papers, then  stamped our passports.

I wanted to ask him if I had to do all this again if I wanted to get off the ship on my own on Sunday, but he spoke no English. I gave him a smile and in my best Spanish told him Alaska, mucho freo…
 
 A short walk away we entered the terminal. Princess was waiting for us. They gave us a health form to fill out.

 
They wanted to know if we had Ebola, diarrhea, or a bad credit rating. I answered no to all the questions but I could see some of my future ship mates were having difficulty with the form…

After a while our group was called and we got to have our bags scanned again, and detected for metal again
 They Don’t Want You Taking Any Metal Away from Argentina

 At the princess counter they took our luggage, and gave us our cruise cards, and just before going out to board the bus that would take us to the ship Princess took our passports, and gave us a small yellow paper stub with a number on it.
They put all the passports with the other end of the yellow paper in long trays and said it would be all right, and they would give them back…Someday…What could go wrong with that

We are no longer free but prisoners of Princess.
We got our group number stickers this morning Purple 12 to ride on a bus out past where Juan Carlos took us to the Harley shop, out to Tigre to ride river boats on the Rio De La Plata.

The river is brown from silt, there appears to be no wild life or even birds around, but our boat cruises past houses with docks, where almost everyone sits and watches the boats go by…

On The Delta
 
Another bus ride back to our prison ship and after lunch, some pool time, and the entering life jacket drill, our home for the next 30 or so days pulled away from the Buenos Aires dock and set sail across the Rio De La Plata for Montevideo…
Leaving Buenos Aires

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