Day Tres: Uruguay? Dude, That´s Cool Just As Long As You Don´t Hit On Me

What is with these people? Dinner doesn´t start till midnight, the bars don´t start hopping until 2, and everyone goes home at 6 only to be at work at 10? Do they just not sleep or is crystal-meth considered part of their government wellness program? Here´s the recap:

Went out with Victor again last night to a bar called Bangalore. Good stuff. After giving him some sound career advice "ex: Dude, work sucks compared to college" we met up with a few girls, one from Canada and the other from England. Spent the hours of 11:30pm to about 2am doing shots and generally causing a ruckus, always an enjoyable experience. We then hit Club 69 for transvesdite night. Oh yes! I don´t think I´ve ever been to a popular nightclub only to be greeted by a more than Rubenesque man dressed in a Garfield outfit and sporting glitter and heels, I was not sure what to make of it so I took a picture with him/her/it. The club was a little too Euro for me with all the un-tss-un-tss-un-tss music that is so popular down here so I took my leave at around 4am and jumped into a waiting taxi. Big mistake.

I wrote about the ´Taxi Mafia´ the other day and if this Mafia is anything like the one on TV and in the movies then this guy would have been a high ranking cappo. I´ve never seen a meter go from $3.00 to $9.31 in 6 seconds. Unfortunately I was texting Beans (shout out!) and didn´t realize what was going on until we started making superfluous circles around parts of town that I had seen 10 minutes ago. At this point the meter was nearing $30 and I had a strong feeling that I was being taken for two rides at once. I demanded to get out of the cab to which the driver said "No," and suddenly had visions of my body being pulled out of the Rio Plata. There are times in life when you´re finely honed evolutionary fight or flight instinct kicks into overdrive and you either have the urge to sprint mach 3 in any direction possible or bench press Toyotas while smiting tribes of people. Seeing as I was in a foreign country at 4 in the morning with a driver who could very well be armed while trying to take every peso and credit card on my person I very carefully reached into my pocket, discretly puled out a $20 and $10, threw the bills on the passenger seat and freaking bolted. (Aside: I never new I could run a 6.2 second 100meter dash). I just started running down the avenue, hair on fire and luckily ran into another open taxi (a Radio Taxi this time). He asked me if I was OK to which I responded "El otro taxi es un criminal." He totally understood and proceeded to take me the 3 blocks to my hostel. Yeah, it was the right thing to do but I didn´t know I was so close but hey, better parting with 4 pesos than my whole wallet and possibly a few fingers. First real scare of the trip, wasn´t pretty but I´m here.

Unfortunately, I was so worked up and had so much adrenaline screaming through my body that I could barely sleep and in my insomnia filled night thought that it might be wise for me to get out of BSAS for a while. Solution: Uruguay.

After an ice-cold shower to wake me up a bit I headed to the front desk and asked if going to Colonia del Sacramento was a good idea. Having just been named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997 for imaculately maintained 17th century Portugese architecture, Colonia del Sacramento served three purposes for me: 1) I´m a history buff and this was a historical place 2)It got me another stamp on my passport 3)It got me out of Buenos Aires for the day. It paid off, at least on the way there. The trip is by boat and requires fording the 40-mile wide mouth of the Rio Plate which the high-speed boat did with ease. While it is indeed an idyllic sort of place with wide open piazzas, cobblestone streets and quaint cafes, it´s a bit small. Spending 4 hours there turned out to be extensive and I spent the entire afternoon sipping an espresso, reading a book and watching the silty river make it´s way towards the Atlantic. Actually turned out to be a nice breather despite the fact that my shorts and t-shirt look left me ill-equipped for the 60 degree, overcast conditions featuring a guest apperance from a very brisk and consistent wind. I also managed to meet up with a couple of guys from Vancouver: Mike and Scorpio (yeah...I didn´t ask). We managed to chat about the ´94 Stanley Cup, a still festering wound on their consciousness, and exchanged small talk to the point where we ended up sitting together on the way home.

Now, the boat that took us out there was big and fast, a nice combination because it gets you to where you want to go quickly and if the water is choppy the vessel can just slice right through everything. Neither Mike, nor Scorpio (yes, that is his real name) nor I new that we´d be taking the SS Minnow on the way home. I knew things were not looking so promising when the attendants starting handing out preemptive vomit bags before we left the harbor (Hmmm...they didn´t do this on the way here I thought). Not 30 seconds had gone by before this deluxe motorboat started listing and tilting and causing feelings that make me nauseated just writing this. A young man in the row ahead of us turned around and we could see that he was struggling; covered in flop sweat with his face resembling the color of a Greek marble statue, I soon realized that this guy´s lunch wouldn´t be making the normal anatomical exit. Sure enough the bag came out and the people sitting next to him left in the same manner and with the same facial expression as one would if a total stranger just started showing you nude photos of himself. The ride was seriously brutal. It was an hour and twenty minutes of "movin´and groovin´" but we made it to the other side unscathed and. Despite being good guys, Mike and Scorpio (seriously!) are leaving tomorrow so I doubt I´ll be seeing them again and we parted ways. I took a brisk walk through Avenida de Florida which remdinded me a lot of walking down 5th avenue during the holiday season except it was warmer and people weren´t strangely happy. I´m now off for a much needed seista but not before my daily observations:

1) There was a slight drizzle on the walk back from the port. Fine, no big deal except that the urban planners thought it would be a good idea to make the sidewalks with a material that, when wet, has the same friction coefficient of freshly Zambonied ice. Nice work. Who´s going to pay for my hip replacement after I bite it on the way home from the Internet cafe?

2) I´ve become quite close with a few of the people staying in the hostel. It´s something of a UN convention with James (Brit), Tio (German), Else (Dutch), Neil (Aussie), Nigel (Irish) and Ella (Norsk). If there is one uniting factor amongst all these people it´s their love of travel. Tio headed home today after a 3 month trip around South America. A year ago he went around India an Nepal by himself for 4 months. James has been in BA since December taking Spanish lessons. Else has been down here for 2 months and Neil is heading home in 2 weeks after being away from Australia since October. Beyond their love of travel also lies a simmering sense that none of these people has much direction in life. Neil has proven to be a tremendously intelligent and well-read individual but is 28 and has never had a job longer than 3 or 4 months. It´s like hanging out with Peter Pan´s Lost Boys but there is a lingering sense of depression that manages to weave its way into most conversations. They are genuinely in awe when I mention that I´ll be returning home to start a new job.

3) The first question foreigners tend to ask me after telling them I´m from America is "You didn´t vote for Bush did you?" While my answer is a resounding "No", I can tell you that he´s not the most popular guy amongst this set. I hate to say it but he has damaged the perception of America and Americans by foreigners for a very, very long time. Sad.

Well then, another disertation. Of for my siesta but I´ll be back tomorrow. Same place, different day!

Zed