IB MadridgtSantiago The Hindu Vegetarian
07.27
IB6831 Madrid>Santiago.
The Hindu Vegetarian was crap on this flight too. Fortunately fish was available, for one who eats swimming vegetables.
Around ten hours in the air I…
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Lights have come on for breakfast.
13.32 Casa Nuestra Senora Del Transito,
Franklin Villanueva y Maza,
(5517) Lunlunta – Maipú.
Breakfast was also a modest Hindu Vegetarian purporting-to-be breakfast. The cabin perked up with daylight…
We arrived an hour late in Santiago, c. 09.50, with 45 minutes to make the connection. I was first off the plane, first in line for a boarding pass from LAN Chile, a young female service person whose attention was on chortling and chuckling with her pals behind the desk rather than the job in hand, and then hurtling to the gate. If I had not been the first with whipcords snapping, this is a connection that would have been not.
I was assigned a window seat in a full row, although there were several empty rows nearby, and I moved to one of them…
A short c. 33 minute flight over the Andes I…
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…. to Mendoza.
Straightforward baggage collection and screening (in Argentina, baggage is also screened coming into the country). Director Nunez and the Mighty Bull of Mendoza were waiting in Arrivals. Into the MightyBull Mobile…
… for the 40 km. journey here. While on the outskirts of Mendoza, the wheel of a car, not attached to the car, came rolling into the road in front of us (a second wheel following it, Hernan mentioned afterwards). The Mighty Bull shrugged: Argentina! No idea how a car lets go of two of its wheels, propelling them onto the other side of the road. Argentina!
Almost exactly 27 hours door to door, with two major and one minor wind-ups. Hernan flew into Mendoza from Buenos Aires yesterday, but his luggage did not arrive with him. Our Director’s journeying here from Germany to Buenos Aires was harder and more cruel than my own hard-and-cruel adventure. The hardest work for me, on a course in Argentina, is getting to the course. Long-distance, multi-connection travel severely impacts my quality of being alive.
Lotsa tasty things waiting, as if the Crafty Team believe I have a sweet tooth.
Lunch at 13.00 with c. 30 Crafties around the tables, many of them the Usual Culprits.
14.13 Unpacking…
A call to the Sistery Person. Her 25-year friend Bob Falstein, the pianist, has just flown away of cancer at the age of 63. Patricia went to see Bob perform, perhaps his last performance, about five weeks ago; a good saying-goodbye visiting.
15.25 A call from the Minx. A neighbor of ours from a few doors down the street, of a respectable age, has just flown away; also of cancer.
17.12 Down the corridors to the dining room I…
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… for tea at 16.00. An at-the-table catching up with Hernan.
Returning by the notice board I…
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… and the dormitories…
This retreat house is ideal for large courses.
18.14 A further catching-up conversation with Hernan in our little corridor kitchen.
19.19 One of the three Gringos on this course has dropped in to deliver a present from NYC: special tasty halva.
20.28 Dinner at 19.30 with c. 35 people around the tables. Good dessert of the Policemen’s NightWatch variety.
Mr. Lurch has arrived, one of many Argentinians who relocated to Spain and have now returned.
No events called for this evening.
21.19 Time to settle. It is 01.19 body time.
