Shawn goes to Lujuan
Trip Start
Oct 19, 2007
1
79
126
Trip End
Ongoing
Lujuan,
Argentina
Monday, January 14, 2008
Cotton Mcknight - "It looks like the clock is about to strike midnight on this Cinderella story, turning Average Joe's into the proverbial pumpkin". Pepper - "I sure do like pumpkins Cotton"
Jan 14
Catch a bus to Lujuan which proved to be difficult since I am stupid. Lujuan is the religious epicenter of Argentina and contains the most specatcular cathedral in the country. Lujuan became a place of such religious significance sometime in the 1600īs supposedly when a wagon became stuck in the mud which was carrying a 3 foot high terra cotta statue of the virgin mary. The wagon could not be moved no matter how many people tried until the prosaic and rather small statue of the Virgin was taken off the wagon (reminiscent of the sword n the stone). The owner of said statue took this as a sign from God and decided that the statue was destined to reside in that exact spot and a basic shelter was built to house the statue but at some point in time (early 1900īs I believe) someone who has much more money than me decided to build a grand cathedral in itīs honor. The result was Lujuan cathedral (see pic). Pope John Paul II gave mass here in 1982 (btw, possibly the shockingly funny yet most distasteful tshirt I have ever seen said this, this is even a bit much for me: Front of tshirt: Everytime I masturbate a pope dies back of tshirt: Oops. Obviously this shirt came out right after the Popeīs death). I get something to eat at a charming little spot with a birdīs eye view of the cathedral and I drop a piece of chicken on my shorts and they leave a small stain. However, I realize I have been wearing these same shorts for like 3 weeks now and that the newly acquired stain merely blends in with the others that are already present. I decide tomorrow will be a good day to switch to my other pair of kakhi shorts. The restaurant charges me $5 pesos for a can of sprite, reasonable. Food here is very cheap, but restaurants get you when you order drinks.
I visit the cathedral and obviously at some point I stop to bear witness to the famous statue. I notice people offering candles to the statue and Iīm thinking to myself, yeah, that what she wants, fucking candles, sheīs an inanimate object with more diamonds in her crown then are at Kayīs Jewelers. Candles, rrrrrrrright. Giving a statue a candle is like giving the Cowboys a playoff game, you know they arenīt going to do shit with it (Iīll help you out Hogger, or giving an entire season to the Royals). The best part is you just know that the church authorities simply collect all the candles and other boshit offerings and resells them to the next suckers. Talk about a low cost of goods sold. What a sweet deal this is. I mean name another racket where you sell the exact same product over and over again without ever having to initially buy that product over an over again besides prostitution. The church has a crypt that I want to check out but the lady tells me that you need a minimum of 8 people. Hmmm, why bitch? Why do we need 8, you need witnesses for when I beat the shit out of you. Where the hell am I going to find 7 other people? If this was Brazil I would have just given a bottle of beer to 7 dudes chillin outside and I would have had my crew. I guess I could wait around for people to show up but that goes against my principles and shit. Needing 8 people to see a crypt is like needing 8 people in a group in order to do a solo project.
When I get back I go to the boat place (not the proper name) to get a ticket to Uruguay for tomorrow but fuck me I need my passport. I take the subway back to the hostel to get it and when I arrive I meet one of my new two roomates. When I first arrived however Santiago asked me if it was OK if two other people stayed in my room, hah, I think heīs scared of me, of course dude, itīs your hostel, you have to make money and there are 5 other beds in the room. Hilarious. I think they think Iīm like part of the family I have been here for so long. Juan assures me he will save my bed upon my imminent return from Uruguay. Anyways, the roomie I meet turns out to be a 21 year old hottie (rare to find hot chicks in hostels) from Springfield IL. Things just got much better. Sheīs super tiny with crazy nice cannons and Pops you will appreciate this, she goes to IL college. She was very suprised when I knew that it was Jackson IL. I talk to her for like 1/2 an hour and I am my typical charming self but this turns out to be about 15 minutes too long as she ends up telling me the other roomate is her stupid brother. Bollics (thatīs my new word, itīs from England and is basically a synonym for the word shit but more fun). Damn it, things just got a lot worse. I get back on the subway and upon my arrival to the ticket office at the boat place I realize that it closed 10 minutes ago. Damn, skinny big titty biatches. Now I have no idea what time the boat leaves tomorrow. Iīll just get there at 8:00 or so and hope for the best. Thatīs what I usually do on this trip, hope for the best.
Iīve walked the same exact way now 3 straight times and still the same idiots with cards in hand trying to sell sex shows or whatever still bug me. This one person a few days ago tried to sell me a sweater, hah, hey fuckface itīs like 38C (100F), what the hell am I going to do with a sweater besides putting it on and dying. Get back to hostel and hang out with the brother for a bit. Heīs pretty cool, but I still despise him. I do find out from him though that heīs getting a bit annoyed traveling around SA with his sister. I contemplate this newly discovered information and I think I could probably play devilīs advocate and sort of play the two against themselves. This would accomplish creating a situation where maybe they would want to spend some time apart and I could then have a night out on the town with lil sis. However, inevitably when we get back, big bro would probably be there. Bollics. Whatever, I leave tomorrow anyway. Not enough time to put this little plan of mine into action.
Fin.
Lujuan Cathedral
