Argentina weblog - the second installment

Argentina Blog by Bizzie Frost – Part 2

12th February 2008

All our plans had been going smoothly until I received an email from Chania to say that she & Dusko had been the victims of a “distraction theft” in La Paz in Bolivia.  They were sitting on a bench, waiting for a bus, when someone told them that they had dropped some keys and coins.  They bent to look for them, and Chania suddenly realised something was up – but by then Dusko’s small day backpack had gone, along with his passport.  This would mean an inevitable delay in their journey down to Buenos Aires – we looked on the Atlas and checked on the internet and La Paz is some 1450 miles from BsAs.  Meanwhile, the Embassy advised them to continue with their trip to Bolivia’s Salt Flats and come in to see them on Monday 11th.

Feeling a bit flat, but nonetheless excited, we left on time from Jeddah at 4.20 am on Monday 11th, and arrived on time in Johannesburg.  The South Africans are generally very good with disabled travellers and made sure that my own wheelchair was brought up to the aircraft door.  A friendly and cheerful wheelchair assistant took us to collect our bags, and then took us to the domestic terminal to catch our 1Time flight to Cape Town.  They were also great, but if you can’t walk at all, you have to let them know in advance as their aircraft park on the apron in Cape Town and a mobile lift is required.  They also had my wheelchair removed from the luggage hold and brought to me.

Our car hire rep was at the airport to meet us, and we set off on a very dull day for Hazelwood House in Stellenbosch, exactly half an hour away.  The owner, Jane, is friendly and welcoming, and our room spacious with a king size bed, good sized bathroom with bath & shower, and kitchenette.  She told me that she has had paraplegic guests before and they have done what they can to ensure they are ok, but my feelings are that unless you can walk a bit, it would be a bit difficult.  She provides an excellent cooked breakfast, with beautifully presented fruit salad first.  There is a lovely pool, temp 27 degrees when we arrived so we had a swim straight away.

Stellenbosch is packed with great restaurants so we set off for the Fishmonger.  It was full and buzzing with atmosphere, and has great staff.  An excellent 2 course sea food dinner, with delicious sparkling wine to celebrate our anniversary, and a couple of beers set us back GBP25.  The ZA Rand has devalued recently, so South Africa is good value right now.

Today, we woke up to glorious sunshine and came into town to find an internet café to see what is going on in Bolivia!  Luckily, we know the staff at the British Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and they have all our details.  The Embassy in Bolivia required not only Dusko’s British registration details, but his parents’ details as well, so we spent an hour or so contacting the British Consulate in Jeddah who have all our family details and they then forwarded everything to the Embassy in La Paz.  Travellers tip:  before you go ANYWHERE, log onto the British Embassy website and register yourself and your dates of travel and passport details.  Get everyone in your group to do this so that if anyone loses a passport, the details are already registered.  Also, take a photocopy of your passport and scan it onto your computer, then email it to yourself – you then have access to it wherever you are in the world.

We then took the walking tour around Stellenbosch (me in my while chair) which was excellent.  Such a beautiful little town, with all the buildings white, keeping up the tradition of when it was first built and they used limestone wash on the buildings.  The town was established in the 1700s to provide food for ships going from Europe to the Far East.  As a wheelchair user, you definitely need a helper as the pavements are not easy to negotiate.

In the afternoon we headed out to the Zorgvliet vineyard for some wine tasting – we were familiar with the area from a previous visit.  Everything is this part of South Africa is immaculate (gardens, buildings, vineyards, roads …) and everyone so friendly.  We picked out two wines to take with us to Buenos Aires.  If you ever come to South Africa, come to Stellenbosch – it is so mellow!

This evening, an old friend is taking us to another vineyard for dinner, and then we leave tomorrow at 10.40 for BsAs.  Sadly, Chania won’t be there to meet us as she had hoped.  She will be so disappointed (as are we) because she had set her heart on welcoming us to Argentina.