Canada to Patagonia at a Worrying Age

Well, as far as I am concerned, I’m now a fully-fledged porteño. I go out late for my tea, try to get a nap in the afternoon, wait without getting upset for the bill, attend a demo most days, watch footy, sit by the obelisk and tango with beautiful women until dawn. (One of those things is not true.)

Apart from one little incident (when I managed to incapacitate 17 of my 20 attackers – Angela underplayed the attack so as not to alarm others) and the madness over trying to get an apartment, everything else has been sweet, at least for a week.

Life got better after my true low ebb about this time last week. I was still recovering from the ‘event’, and extremely unhappy at my failure to land a flat. It was clear I would have to make other arrangements, so I got a list of hotel numbers (BA was full) and sat down to ring them. It was a total failure and with nowhere to sleep that night (and knackered feet from an ill-considered shoe purchase scenario) I was ready to scream at someone. I collected my stuff from the phone cabin and noticed a piece of paper on the floor. It wasn’t mine, but it was a flyer, printed from the internet, of a hotel (The Pelicano) close to where I was, offering a 20% discount. Could this be the break I was looking for?

I rang the number and asked if there was a room tonight. “Yes, but…” I couldn’t understand what came after the ‘but’ (my Spanglish is even worse over the ‘phone) so said I’d be there shortly. Got to the address and was surprised to see there was no sign outside the hotel.  Thought it must be new.  Good.  I entered and noticed that the lobby was nightclub dark.  However, it’s not that unusual in energy-conscious Argentina to have less light than unsual.  The receptionist peered out from the gloom.  Do you have a room?  “Yes, but…”  And how much is it?  “We do have a room, but…”  Fed up of these buts – Can I look?  The poor exasperated women delved into her best learnt-on-cable English and almost shouted “Boyfriend! Girlfriend!”.  Oh – I see.  We both laughed as I digested the fact that I was trying to book into a Love Hotel that rents by the hour.  For 4 weeks.

Although it was another little slap, it was actually the moment when things started to go right again, and I hope she has luck for making me smile (even if a little ruefully).  Since soon after that moment everything got cool.

What is decidedly uncool is the death of Ivor Cutler, a genius and yet another one of my small band of hereos to die.  His quote below is a message to which we can all adhere, I’m sure (except for the bit about loud pop music, obviously).

“When I do die I shall be glad to get away from loud pop music and motor cars, but I shall miss – insofar as when one is dead one can miss anything – the beautiful kindnesses of those people to whom courtesy comes naturally. Unfortunately there are fewer of those people than of the other kind who deal with their problems in a very anti-social way.”

Today’s tune is Pellets by Ivor.

Tags: Buenos Aires, Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.