Airports are fun!

After discovering our flight to Buenos Aires was delayed by 4 hours and sorting it all out on our day of departure, we thought it would be smooth sailing all the way to Santiago.  You might be familiar with the phrase, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.  It all started at the check-in desk at Auckland airport when Kurt had a brief argument with the prima donna behind the desk and was threatened to not be let on the flight.  Thankfully it was only a brief skirmish and we made it through to the next round.  While waiting to board we spotted Ma'a Nonu who was trying unsuccessfully to slip unnoticed through to the priority lounge, but had to put on a happy face for photos with his adoring public.  The flight itself was uneventful - no TVs for entertainment yet again.  12 hours is a long way to go staring at the back of someone's head, so it was lucky we had the laptop to watch movies.  The fun started again on arrival at Buenos Aires airport trying to clear immigration.  Keryn made it through a piece of piss, but because of the reciprocity fee Australia has with Argentina and the confusion around whether we were still in transit or not, it took Kurt 40mins of going back and forth to get through.  We had been told by the airline staff to collect our bags from baggage claim, clear customs and approach the help desk to claim our free transfer, accommodation and food vouchers for our night's stay in Buenos Aires.  Yet again, smooth sailing it was not.  The staff were extremely unhelpful and tried to tell us we were supposed to collect the vouchers before we came through customs, and hoped we'd just disappear.  Tough luck bitches!  After waiting for about an hour we finally received our vouchers and headed off to our 5 star hotel.  It turned out to be the best perk of flying with Aerolineas Argentinas and will probably be the nicest place we stay on our travels.  More fun was to be had at the Buenos Aires airport the next day.  As soon as our boarding gate was announced we lined up for immigration to depart Argentina.  We weren't even halfway through the line when our flight was called, so we followed others on our flight to the front of the line to be rushed through only to be told to return to the back of the line.  If it wasn't for some nice people who were on our flight the night before letting us jump to the front of the line, we wouldn't have made our flight.  Kurt was also asked why he had paid the entrance fee (US$100) as he was technically still in transit.  This is an ongoing discussion we're having with Aerolineas Argentinas.  Thankfully that should be the last flight we have to take for quite some time.  Despite all this, we're in South America and couldn't be happier.  These are the first issues we've had flying anywhere and it won't put us off travelling.