Lightening the Loan, and Back to BA

Wednesday, Mar 5 – Day 79

We kind of got carried away with dinner last night, so I had to do all my packing this morning. I was determined to start dumping stuff, so I left a pair of jeans that I never liked, three rather plain t-shirts, a pair of sweat pants I’d never worn, and a golf shirt that I never really cared for. It’s a small start, and it felt pretty good, but there’s a lot more work to be done here.

We get to the airport, and the check-in lady advised me that our flight has changed gates. Instead of Gate 1, we’ll be leaving from Gate 2. Well, there are only two gates at the entire airport. Furthermore, the gates are so small, they check your passport and do the X-ray and metal detector right as you go into the boarding area for your flight. And these are not NTS knuckle-heads manning the stations, these are fit, military-looking guys dressed all in black with guns strapped to their thighs.

The lady, in front of me had a problem because she forgot to take a Swiss-Army knife out of her carry-on bag and put it into checked baggage. They catch it in the X-ray machine, and are confiscating it. As she is holding up the line I look back at my buddy John, only to see him being taken away by another of the armed security guards.

I think to myself, well, I guess I really don’t know the guy all that well, and maybe he’s got an outstanding international warrant or two. Turns out, he had bought a camera in BA right before coming up here and had it in the original box. It cost about 3x what a similar camera would cost in the US because the Argentines tax the crap out of everything electronic. A lot of people come up here and cross into Paraguay to buy electronic stuff because it’s so much cheaper. The Policia wanted to have a little chat with John about where he bought it, thinking that he may owe them a little “tribute”.

Turns out our flight was delayed by a little more than an hour. The strange part was that not a single announcement was ever made about the delay. And about 30 minutes after the in-bound flight finally arrived, people just got up and boarded for the departure, again, without any announcement or order.

Arriving in BA this afternoon was really cool. After being gone a month, it just felt very comfortable, almost like I was coming home. Flying in, I know all the landmarks and the neighborhoods. I give the cabbie directions on where I wanted to go, and asked him some questions to follow up on some of the stuff that was going on when I left. I made some calls to local friends, and picked out a couple of restaurants that I knew (and missed) for upcoming dinners. Like I said, it kind of felt like coming home.