It was literally and figuratively rocky.

We decided to take a trip somewhere before starting new jobs in our new home in Colorado. We chose Argentina and we are so glad that we did, because it turned out to be an amazing experience. Part of what made it so rewarding was how often things went wrong and yet turned out just fine in the end. It was an adventure. When things went wrong, our motto was a line from the cartoon Adventure Time: “It’s fine…it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine.” And eventually, it always was.

On January 13, we took a flight from Denver to Orlando and then another one from Orlando to São Paulo, Brazil. That’s when the fun started. Our flight from São Paulo to Buenos Aires was cancelled due to an airline strike in Buenos Aires. We were extra worried because we did not have the required visas to stay in Brazil. We began rebooking our flight to Mendoza from Buenos Aires to the next day and tried to curb our stress with some delicious Brazilian cheese puffs.

After a long wait in the airport, everyone from our cancelled flight was put on a plane to Santiago, Chile. This meant that we got to fly over the Andes Mountains, which was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. This was the silver lining in our long travel day.

After being awake for over 30 hours, we arrived at our hotel for one night in Santiago. We have to give the airline TAM credit for putting us up in a nice hotel and giving us a three course meal. It’s a lot more than United ever did for us. We enjoyed a shower, our meal and about four hours of sleep before getting back on a bus with our fellow travelers, who were mostly Argentinians going home.

Finally, we landed in Buenos Aires, made it through customs and grabbed a  taxi to the other airport in the city so we could catch our plane to Mendoza. Stay tuned for photos of Mendoza in my next blog.

Traveler tip: Take the bus from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza if you get the chance. Unfortunately the buses were booked up for us and so we just took the flight that the airline was paying for, but we have heard that the drive through the mountains is stunning.