From Bmore to BA

I just got back to Buenos Aires this morning, after spending an excruciating 24 hours undertaking the task of renewing my Argentine visa. With my visa set to expire on Tuesday (tommorow), and with a German friend I met in Montevideo staying with me Saturday night, I planned to take the standard day trip to Colonia, Uruguay - the beautiful colonial town just across the river from BA - on Sunday. That´s about all I had ¨planned¨…and with this time of year being peak vacation season, did I ever my learn my lesson.

The ferry to Colonia was completely booked on Sunday, so the only other option was to take the ferry to Montevideo (which is much more expensive - 1 way it´s about 200 pesos, as opposed to the 100 peso roundtrip fare to Colonia), or take this other ferry from Tigre, which is a small town on the water 45 minutes north of Buenos Aires, to Carmelo, Uruguay. The thing is, I couldn´t get on the early boat from Tigre as it was completely booked, so the only option was to take the later boat at 4:00 and stay the night in Carmelo. But, throwing yet another wrench into the great machine (I believe that´s the correct metapor) was the fact that I couldn´t reserve my spot on this later ferry over the phone, I had to buy it in person. And so, after arriving home at 6 am Sunday morning after the obligatory night-out-on-the-town-because-you-have-a-guest, I woke up at 11 and set out for Tigre - even though the boat didn´t leave at 4 - because I wanted to get to the ticket counter early enough; I just couldn´t miss this boat.

Why couldn´t I miss it? Because I didn´t want to screw up my residency status in Argentina. You have 90 days on a tourist visa, and I was on day 88, or possibly 89. Sure, I´ve heard from alot of people if you overstay it´s no big deal, you just pay a fine when you leave, while others have remarked that ¨it´s just Argentina and there´s nothing a little something something ($$) won´t settle…¨ but truth be told, I plan on coming back here some day, and I just don´t want to get denied from entering the country 5 years down the road, even if ¨it´s just Argentina, man.¨

I get to Tigre around 1:30, buy my ticket at the counter, and go hang out by the river to chill for a little while. Little did I know ¨chilling¨ would be the name of the game for the next 15 hours…are you enjoying the foreshadowing? At 4:00 the ferry, which, with a capacity of 80-something people, is more like a Greyhound on floats, heads out…winding and weaving around the the swampy inlets of the river. As opposed to the BA-Colonia route, which basically is one straight shot across the end of the Atlantic (known as the ¨river¨ here, for some reason), leaving from Tigre was alot more interesting, as we passed alot of nice homes, yachts, jet skiiers, animals, and swamps.

Anyway, we arrive in ´Melo around 8:00 Uruguay time. I should mention here that at this point I have neither 1) any Uruguayan currency 2) a place to stay or 3) one damn clue about this town I just landed in! After confirming my trip home at 5 am the following morning, I set off to explore. As befits a town of 20,000 people on a Sunday night, not a whole lot was going on. My first impression of the town was pretty poor - block after block of dusty, drab, 1 story clay houses. And it seemed completely deserted. Finally I make it up to the main plaza and grab a bite to eat - fortunately they take Argentine money. During my dinner I was treated to the dramatic performance of Jon Ritter in ¨El Niño de Diablo¨ - ¨Problem Child¨ - which had me wondering, for the umpteeth time, how in G-d´s name do the most random of U.S. movies get chosen to be played in the most obscure of places - but that´s neither here or there.

After dinner I sit wracking my brain for ideas - I have 7 hours left, and not a damn thing to do. Then I remembered that I had read somewhere there were two casinos in this town - one at the 4 seasons, and one at another hotel for the common people. I arrange a taxi to the regular person´s hotel - named ¨Carmelo Casino Hotel,¨obviously enough. Happy to be spending 1,000 units of a currency on gambling (1,000 Uruguayan pesos is about 40 USD) , I arrive to the casino, slam open the door, and behold the site before me: a bunch of old people playing slots. That´s it. Just slots. With the prospect of playing slots in this dusty hotel for 7 hours about as thrilling to me as watching two blind men play a game of chess, I decide to hightail it back to town. Only this time, I don´t take a taxi, but the kindly 80-something year old man who works at the hotel offered me a ride back in his car. Now I know you should never accept rides from strangers…but he was just so friendly-looking. That, and I think I could take him if he tried to pull any funny stuff. This whole ordeal killed about an hour, so I find myself back in the plaza, right back where I started.

Eventually I settle on having a drink at an outside bar. That ends at about 12:30, and the waiter there informs me of a ¨club¨ that´s open 24 hours a blocks up the street, so I pay and set off on finding this place. After walking 6 or 7 blocks through this ghost town, I conclude that there is no club. Either the waiter has a sick sense of humor or was just trying to help - which of these, well Dude, we just don´t know. After a brief stint in the internet café and a bit of spacing out, it´s now 1:30 and everything in the city is literally shut down. Too cheap to get a hotel (I mean I´m only staying till 5 am), I go the plaza and plop down. And that´s it. Like an approaching black cloud on sunny day, the Boredom is on the cusp of overwhelming me. For the next 4 hours it´s just me and a bunch of stray dogs, hanging out in this plaza. It was really cold so I put on my bright red windbreaker, hood and all, and lay down on the bench, infinitely bored out of my skull for the next 4 hours. The only amusement came in the form of the people who would spot me lying down and then cross to the other side of the street, likely thinking I was a crazed homeless person and would rob them and take all of their money. If I was a bit bugged out, being alone on a bench in this ghost town in the middle of night - it was offset by the comforting knowledge that more times than not, people are alot more scared of homeless people than the homeless are of them. If you don´t believe me, see how many people make a special effort to avoid ¨those crazy, mentally-deranged homeless people¨ next time you walk down the street. I really wonder if people thought of me that way…if they didn´t cross the street, they´d just shuffle past, avoiding all eye contact. I think I actually felt the part, and started believing I was - I even copped a particularly sinister-looking grin, with the requisite Evil Look in My Eye. At any rate, I take it these people didn´t spot my Lacoste shoes…

2:00 passes…2:30…3:00…3:30…3:35…3:40…3:42….4:00…and finally at 4:30 it´s time to head down to the port and get this godforsaken boat back to civilisation. I´m telling you time went slower than a Pittsburgh Steeler fan at a mathematics convention (Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl…pshhhhh). I thought…and thought…and thought…and then 5 minutes would go by. And it was cold too, probably in the low 50´s. Without a doubt, this was the most agonizingly slow day of my entire life. If G-d forbid I should be diagnosed with only 2 weeks or a month more to live, I´m hightailing it back to Carmelo, Uruguay, that´s for sure; I know of no other place where those 2 weeks or 1 month could possibly feel any longer.

5:00 am the boat leaves Carmelo, and 7:30 we get to Tigre. Another 40 minute train ride and 20 minute bus ride later, I´m in bed and fast asleep. I´ll you this - I´ve done alot of nothing in my day, and Lord knows I´v done enough since I´ve been in South America, but this was just too damn much nothing.

At any rate, they´re a few lessons to be learned here. Being homeless really sucks. I´m not saying this to be a smart - ass…it was shady enough sleeping a bench in an isolated town of 20,000 - I can only imagine the sketchiness of being homeless in a huge crazy city like BA or NYC. We really have no right to bitch about our places if the ceiling´s too low or the bay windows open up sideways and not vertically - C´mon, it´s a warm roof over your head (message)!

Also, sometimes a little planning is worth it. But just a little.

In other news: last week I found a place that has a hot pastrami sandwiich on rye with mustard, pickles, cole slaw and potato salad…I can´t even begin to describe my happiness upon this discovery. They also have a good bagel and lox, and a roast beef platter…I´m now salivating. Also, I have alot of pics I want to put up but I seem to have misplaced my USB 2.0. cable, so stand by for updates.

That´s all for now. Take care and stay warm.

Adam

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