Happy New Year!  

After last night’s fun festivities at Hard Rock Cafe Argentina, we need to be up and our early and out the door.  After seeing the small size of the Ubers and taxis, Kyle booked us a van in advance that can easily fit us and our luggage to arrive at 7:45 am.  So we need to be up and packed, have cleaned the Airbnb and gotten our luggage down 10 floors on a tiny, slow elevator that will only fit one of us and a suitcase at a time.  We collectively sweep, check under beds, collect trash, empty fridge. 

It’s all going smoothly until ...... Yikes!  

Justin heads to the elevator at 7:35am to start the procession down and comes back and says, “the elevator’s not working.”  Upon confirmation that there was no power to the elevator, Kyle says, “no worries, there is the back door to the stairs down.” Note that there is only one apartment per floor so the only two exits are the elevator or stairs. The Airbnb doors do not have normal locks; instead there is a keyhole that you have to use these skeleton looking keys to lock and unlock the door from the inside.  The key ring they provided has three keys that look identical.  The key can be inserted face up or face down resulting in six different possible key permutations.

Kyle grabs the keys to figure out which is the magic combination of the three golden antique keys that opens the two deadbolts on the apartment’s back door to the stairs. Kyle methodically tries each key in both directions.  One key appear to turn and click but the door wouldn’t budge.  

“Oh shit, we’re stuck!” Kyle declares.  Problema.  Problema grande. Major Problem.  

As Kyle’s saying that his phone rings and it’s the van driver telling him that he’s downstairs waiting. And of course, he doesn’t speak any English.  Talk about having to remember Spanish from 30 years ago in a pressure situation.  Kyle fumbles “El ascensor no esta trabajando y la Puerta no esta abierto. Nesicito diez minutos, por fover.” Kyle’s intended meaning is the elevator is not working, the door won’t open and I need 10 minutes.”  This respond engenders a response in quick Spanish and the driver hangs up.  

“Is he going to wait?” Leanne asks eagerly.  “I have no idea; I didn’t understand a word he said in response,” Kyle says.  “Well what we are going to do now?” Leanne asks.  The idea of throwing our luggage over the deck and descending via a fire ladder if there even is one Is quickly ruled out.  

By now, Kyle is quite frustrated at the stairway door. While he stops short of attempting to kick the door down, one can easily tell that really wants to do so.  He tries again for several minutes. Nope!  Strike out. Corey steps to the plate trying to help. We hope his natural patience finds the magic key combination. Several minutes pass. Nope. Another strikeout. Next batter.  Leanne jumps in to see if SHE can figure out the magic combination.  Perhaps it needs a woman’s touch?  Nope. Another strikeout ending this inning. Next batter. Justin. Same result. We are all literally stuck inside an apartment before a flight with no way to leave the apartment or floor. 

Sweat is forming on Kyle’s forehead by now. No open doors. No working elevators. Taxi waiting. It’s like in those action movies where a bomb is going to go off in 10 minutes but 10 minutes in the movie takes an hour in real life. Ring, ring.  Kyles cell. It’s the van driver again.  Kyle looks down at his phone and 10 minutes have passed and we are still stuck.  

The van driving is asking questions in Spanish he absolutely can’t decipher.  We’ve been left in the past by inpatient drivers. Kyle tries again to explain in broken Spanish we are literally stuck on the 10th floor.  He has to settle for another “necesitamos mas diez mintuos, por favor.” Hopefully, he understands because Lord knows we have no clue what he is asking us.  Calling another van would be impossible as it took much maneuvering to secure this one. 

Our basic Spanish conversational skills have already led to a few harmless mistakes .... like flat versus sparking water, corn vs onion pizza, arriving two hours early for the tango show or arriving at a restaurant two hours before it actually opens for dinner.  However, nothing with consequences of 7 people missing a flight on New Year’s day. The problem is we still don’t have a plan. This doesn’t seem like a 10 minute fix, Leanne thinks, but let’s go with it and keep faith. 

Then… Kyle suddenly remembers that the Airbnb owner had given him Martin the Doorman’s cell phone number weeks before we arrived.  He frantically pulls up the ‘Airbnb app and dials Martin’s number. Given the early hour, Martin could still be out celebrating New Year’s Eve, who knows?  The phone rings, and rings, and rings, and finally after the 7th ring, a groggy and tired sounding Martin answers the phone.  Martin speaks no English either so Kyle is back in the position of having to explain we are stuck in Spanish.  Martin responds sluggishly into the phone and hangs up.  

“What did he say?” Leanne asks. “Well, I think he said he’s going to check on it, but it’s equally likely he just hung up and went back to sleep.  He didn’t sound so chipper and I’m sure he wasn’t happy getting woken up this early.” 

As we turn around, Ashley casually walks up to the stairwell door, grabs the keys, and opens the door with one attempt and says, “why haven’t we left for the airport yet?” Oh my God! Go figure. Yes! At least we can now access the stairs.  We send Corey downstairs first with a bag.  It will be hard to carry our heavy rolling bags down the curvy steep staircase ten floors yet not impossible.  After two of us have started descending the stairs, a rumbling, whirling sound kicks in.  Kyle runs to check the elevator and sure enough, Martin has magically fixed the elevator within minutes. 

We still have no idea how Ashley pulled that one off after four of us tried a collective 100 times to unlock it. No matter, Ashley is clearly the heroine of the day. And we have no idea how Martin fixed the elevator in less than five minutes but sure enough, five minutes after our desperate prayers, we were delivered a working elevator and an open stairway door.  Gracias Martin! Gracias Ashley. Thank you God! 

As we all race down 10 floors, Leanne says a little prayer that the van driver is both patient and understood our feeble early morning attempt at Spanish to please wait (esperas por favor). Alas! Yes!  The driver WAS there down the street closer to a nearby hotel than the apartment building waiting with a van big enough for a small army. 

“I thought you were at the hotel?” The driver tells Leanne in half English, half-Spanish.  Oh, that’s what he was asking on the phone earlier, realizes Leanne.   He could have easily just waited in the hotel driveway where we would have missed him entirely. Fortunately he was patient. 

Whew! Crises averted. What a way to start the New Year.  

We arrive at Modo International Airport to a relatively empty airport.  Few must book early morning flights on New Years’ Day. Oh no, we notice the maximum baggage weight allowance is 16 kg whereas the weight restriction up to this point on the dozens of flights we have taken has been 23 kg or higher.  This means virtually ALL of our checked bags will be overweight today.  Problema. Problema muy caro. Expensive problem. 

At the baggage check-in desk, the attendant is going through the tickets and passports and looks at Kyle and says “Esta problema” followed by a wave of Spanish as he informs us that something is wrong.  Uh oh. This is a worst case scenario when someone speaks to us in Spanish with a problem and absolutely we have no clue what it is. Oh no! Problema. Problema mas grande.  Big problem. 

The agent holds up the ticket and the passport for Ashlynn pointing to the name.  Oh crap, Kyle got the name wrong when buying the plane ticket so it doesn’t match the passport. Yikes. Kyle must have entered over a 1,000 data fields by this point buying plane, train & bus tickets, booking Airbnbs, hotels and tours so a mistake was bound to happen.  Frankly, Kyle is shocked there was not a single data entry mistakes in the first half of the trip. The agent points across the airport to the ticket window for LATAM airlines.

Kyle and Ashlynn head off for the ticket window while Leanne stays and continues the check-in process for the rest of them. Kyle approaches and says hopefully, “habla ingles?”  “Yes, I speak English,” he responds.  Kyle is relieved and explains the situation and asks to have a new ticket printed with the corrected name.  The agent starts typing away at his terminal and then shakes his head and says, “I’m sorry it is not possible.”  Ashlynn face turns a visible ashen grey color as she has visions of sleeping in the Buenos Aires airport while we jet off to Patagonia.  

The agent then continues on, “the first agent already checked her in so it is not possible for me to change the name in the system.”  This is the no bueno scenario as the flight is sold out so buying another ticket is not an option.  Now Kyle’s face turns an ashen grey as well. “However; she is ok to fly, it is no problem.” Kyle thanks him profusely and high tails it out of there before he can change his mind.

Kyle re-appears at the counter where Leanne is still there and explains to her what happened.  “If the name doesn’t match, we’ll never get through security,” she points out.  First we have to explain what the guy just said in Spanish which doesn’t work so the agent calls over to the ticket counter guy.  He nods and confirms that it’s ok.

As we approach security, those drop of sweat on Kyles forehead in the Airbnb now look like a Nepalese waterfall and it’s only 9 a.m.  Leanne reminds him to have faith. 

We have Ashlynn go ahead of us and she hands her passport and ticket to the security guy.  He checks all the items on the ticket and nods yes and waives her through without even looking at the passport.  Fortunately it’s a domestic flight within Argentina and the passport is not as critical only serving as identification.  

“Hell of a way to start to the new year,” Kyle comments as we board the plane.  We also realize the ticket agent never said anything about our bags being 50% over the weight limit.  Score for LATAM airlines.  Rough morning but we make the flight.