Keeping busy instead of sleeping
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2006
1
264
551
Trip End
Dec 01, 2007
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Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Friday, February 16, 2007
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Last day of classes. Still completely lacking sleep, but I started to learn the subjonctive.
After the classes, it took an eternity to leave from the school, as we had to take pictures of everybody who was leaving, a picture with the diploma, a picture with the teacher, a picture with everybody, a picture with only the boys, a picture with only the girls. But that was the atmosphere at the school, very energetic and outgoing, and the photo session took place every time someone was leaving the school.
I took David and Caro and Stefan with me to San Telmo, where we picked up Sam and Tomo. We left some of our stuff and bags at their hostel, as we were going to La Boca, which is a rough neighborhood of BA. Not that I was too alarmed, but a guy from my hostel had been victim of an attempted robbery in the middle of the main tourist street, and we were planning to go somewhere a bit out of the way.
La Boca used to be the town main harbour, and is a very touristic place today because of the colorful houses: they are made of corrugated iron and painted in various bright colors, historically because the people there used whatever paint was left from the paintwork on ship hulls. La Boca is also home to the Boca Juniors, the team of Maradona, and their huge stadium, La Bombonera.
The day was rainy, quite a change after two weeks of heat. We took two taxis to La Boca and went to a place that my profesora had recommended me, supposedly a very fine cheap place to eat. As we were getting there, I understood better why she said we should not go there at night. The taxi driver asked if we were going to see friends, I answered we were going to a restaurant... as we got there and saw it was closed! The taxi driver told us we should not stay around there, but we had already figured that out by ourselves. So we went back into the taxis, and drove to the main touristic street: el caminito. On the way to there we were driving along a big cargo harbor and under a motorway, the houses were "handmade", as in "made by unqualified persons out of non standard construction material", as Sam pointed out. Quite creepy, I would not dare say interesting, and we were happy to be in the cab, unless we would have liked to play "start from here and see who gets home safe". Anyway we had decided at a majority less Caro, that in case of any problem we should hand over the money and the pretty American girl.
Caminito was closer to an Asian touristic place than anywhere in BA: touts would come to us to try take us in their restaurant or shop, looking quite angry if we did not follow, and overly happy when we did.
On the way back I hailed a first taxi, then we saw a bus and ran to get it, then the taxi driver almost ran over me and told me he had started the counter and that we could not go away like that, then I told him I was very sorry but he should not have started the counter until we were in the car, then he was getting more angry as he was running out of arguments and I was saying more "disculpe" while waiting for him to get out of the car, but he did not so we went to take our bus before he changed his mind and gave us our own La Boca Dodgy Story.
Later I went to the international post office, and that was another adventure, but in the end I managed to send the parcel for my brothers birthdays, after a week of trying to do it (at the first post office no you can't send more than 2kg here you have to go to the central post office where they said no you still can't send more than 2kg from here and anyway you need to show your passport oh you don't have it too bad no we don't accept a photocopy and anyway you should go to the international post office so I went there and was scolded by the customs officer cause she was leaving but she inspected my parcel and gave me the all clear and then I did not have enough money cause the post is bloody expensive in this country so I had to remove things from the parcel but in the end I did send it, Yes!).
Then with Sam and Tomo who had accompanied me we crossed the road to the bus station and bought our tickets. I had no idea of where I should go, looked at the map, and took a ticket to Bahia Blanca for monday. I knew that if I did not buy the ticket in advance, I would always find a reason to stay a bit more in BA, and I was already two weeks late to go to Patagonia during the "warm" month of february.
I got home exhausted, but the day was not finished, and at around midnight I headed to the nearby apartment of Eva and Jimena, two girls from the hostel who had just found a place to rent. So it was house warming party till 6 in the morning, with half of the hostel being there, it was fun. We played that game where one person of the team has to mime a film name to the others... in Spanish, not easy!
I had also prepared my usual mango Ti Punch, and there were a few casualties.
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