Our trip to Gualeguaychu

I have returned to Buenos Aires, from Gualeguaychu, Entre Rios, and one of the craziest weekends of my life. Fifty something hours of river swimming, carnival watching, fernet drinking, getting lost, getting found, trying to contact people on telephones, telling men I like their arms, and waking up at six in the evening with an unknown rash on my right bicep.

We were supposed to leave Buenos Aires at 7pm on Friday night, but by the time we actually did, it was probably closer to 7.45. The ride to Gualeguaychu is supposed to take three and a half hours, but it took more like four and a half hours, so we arrived late on Friday night, (or maybe it was Saturday morning) and were let into our five bedroom apartments, located about 150 metres from the street party that takes place next to the river during carnaval.

I have to say that I was unimpressed with my bed, a partly broken, fold-out number with a mattress that might has well have been tile flooring (and later in the weekend I didn’t know the difference), and a position that could only be accurately described as ‘in the kitchen, next to the sink and fridge’. Disheartened and wanting some comfort, I immediately sought dinner and a beer. I can’t remember the name of the bar we ate at, but there were about 12 of us, and we ordered one and half too many pizzas.

A few beers later, and with dinner finished, we headed back to our apartments, take-away boxes in hand, through throngs of pizza-hungry, groping, drunken Argentineans dancing in the streets to reggaeton and cumbia supplied by hatchback cars with huge sound systems. So we decided we should return and join in. I stayed for about an hour, and I was probably back at the apartment and supplementing my mattress with sofa cushions by about 3.30am. But I heard that there were others who remained out until about seven.

I woke early the next day from an uncomfortable night’s sleep, and headed downstairs for the free breakfast which consisted of two medialunas (sweet croissant shaped pastries, only smaller) and a cup of coffee. If I’d had the choice of remaining in a comfortable bed, I would’ve. And I think almost everyone else did. I only saw two others taking advantage of the free breakfast. They said they’d gone to a club and gotten home an hour ago.

After breakfast I went for a walk in an effort to rediscover the hotel I had stayed at seven years previously. I walked up the river, and recognized an unusually shaped tourist information hut in the middle of a grass clearing. I also remembered visiting the main plaza in town. But by this stage, the only real thing I’d discovered was the fact that I quite badly needed to take a shit.

Now there aren’t many public toilets in Gualeguaychu, so the way it normally works is to buy something from a café, and use theirs. I found a nice big sunny ice-cream shop, ordered a pepsi, and asked where the toilet was.

“Over there”, replied the waitress, and pointed to filthy hole hidden behind a tiled concrete wall.

I considered withdrawing my order, seeing as she hadn’t yet taken the cap off the Pepsi, but then I reconsidered that withdrawal, knowing that if I did so, she would know that I was simply at the restaurant to do number twos.

So I headed towards the filthy hole in the wall, which turned out to be the entrance to a filthy tunnel. At the end of the filthy tunnel was a filthy cubicle, with a filthy toilet, which was lacking any sort of filthy seat. Or toilet paper.

But by this stage I was committed, and had tissues in my bag, and I thought to myself “I’ve been to India, how bad can this be?”, so I went with it. I lowered my dacks, and then lowered my arse to the bare porcelain, attempting a half-squat, but I over balanced and ended up with my full weight on the toilet. Which then moved. And broke. And sprayed water all over the cubicle. I finished an uncomfortable Pepsi in record time, paid for it, and on my way out, turned to see a cleaning lady entering the bathroom.

Back at the apartment, I did what I needed to and soon after we boarded the bus to head to beach at Balneario Ñandubaysal, on the Uruguay River. On the other side of this river you can see Uruguay. It was a pleasant enough few hours, but it’s got nothing on Australian beaches, apart from beers you could drink on the sand. We mucked around playing piggie-n-the-middle with a soccer ball in the warm water, and headed back at about 6pm.

From there we headed to the Carnaval proper, which is held in the Corsodromo about 2km south of the town’s centre. It’s a 500m long structure, which seating on either side of the display area, which must have been specifically designed for the carnaval. Near the entrance were a bunch of street vendors selling pretty hats and masks to people. We all bought something. I personally bought a blue and yellow glittery top hat for 15 pesos.

By this time we were running late, again, so we rushed thru the gates and were corralled by the tour guides to the display area. But the wrong end. So we had to run about 475m down to the other end to join the rest of the people who had bought wrist bands and the welcome float which was making its way up. Cops tried to stop us, but somehow our tour guides seemed to be able to convince them we weren’t doing anything wrong.

So from there, we danced the 500m to the other end like lunatics. As we progressed, more and more people jumped the fence to join us, making us realise that the wrist bands were totally unnecessary. I took about 500 photos, most of which were of nothing, but there were a few good ones, and ended up at the other end literally soaked in sweat. It was incredibly fun. There are photos of it to the top right. In almost every one, people are grinning like madmen. Really, really fun.

Then we headed round to watch the rest of the parade progress from the side. Our seats were quite good, near the front. The costumes and floats were incredibly impressive and the music was really cool too.

After that we were all packed into a couple of vans (there would have been 20 something in each) and we headed back to the town. From here, things get a little hazy. Most of us headed out to the street party near the apartments, and dance and drank a bit. That kinda continued for a few hours, and then the next major thing I remember is that people started leaving, so I decided to join them, and followed a group of people. I felt a little confused, because after a while of following them I realized that we couldn’t be going back to the apartments simply because we’d been walking too long. So I just assumed we were going to another party somewhere.

But then the road started having fewer buildings lining it and more trees. I don’t know why I didn’t ask someone where we were going, but I didn’t and just kept following. Eventually we were on a dirt road with a paddock on one side and trees on the other, and this dirt road led to a campground. Only then did I accept that I was completely and utterly lost.

I asked someone where we were, and he told me, but it meant nothing to me, so I told him I wanted to go back to the centre of town, and he very kindly walked me about 600m to the road I needed to take. By now the sun was coming up so it was a little easier to recognize where I was, and I eventually did, and headed back to the street party to see if I could find anyone from Uni.

But I didn’t. I ended up talking with a group of Argentinean blokes who were incredibly drunk. One of them spoke OK English. Another one was this kind of body-building muscle-man type. I think he was a rock climber. Trying to make conversation, I told him that I liked his arms, which caused considerable amusement to the rest of the group. They walked with me to another plaza (I think) where there was more partying going on. I have an extremely vague memory of people climbing street lamps, dancing on top of hatchback cars, and drinking Fernet with coke (it’s horrible at first, but you get used to it).

Eventually I told them I needed to go home, but couldn’t remember where it was, so they walked me there, and lent me their phone to call Yasmin to let me into the house. Nice guys. I got into the house at around 11am, looked at my bed, and decided to sleep on the tiles. I slept until about 6, and when i woke up i had an enormous, itchy, red rash on my right bicep. I had no idea what it could be but i was slightly worried as there's the possibility of dengue fever in the area, and one of the symptoms is a rash, and sore muscles (and my calves were hurting, but probably just from all the lost walking). Anyway, i thought i'd just deal with it in the morning. We went out for dinner later, and caught the bus back at about 11pm. Crazy weekend.

I went to the University doctor (who spoke no English) a couple of days later, and the rash turned out to be an allergic reaction to some sort of insect bite. She gave me some pills, without asking anything about me except my age, and told me to come back the next day. Either my immune system or the pills did their work, because things were looking much better in the morning, and it was feeling less itchy. She gave me some more pills when i returned and a couple of days later it was gone.

In other news, I started classes this week. Level 2 spanish is challenging to say the least. It’s also somewhat interesting ‘doing’ subjects in Spanish, seeing as I don’t actually ‘speak’ it.

Well that’s not entirely true. I think I had my first real conversation last night with a couple of locals. Brennan and I talked with them about the differences between Argentina and Australia and the United States, homeless people, music, and some other things. With no real fluency, but I’ll still call it a milestone.

OK, this has gone on long enough…

Carnaval

In five hours or so, I’ll be heading to Gualeguaychu, three and a half hours and 220km north of Buenos Aires, close to Argentina’s border with Uruguay. It has a population of 75,000 people, so it should be a nice change from Buenos Aires. It’s CARNAVAL time. Gualeguaychu holds the country’s largest and longest carnival celebrations, and the biggest party is reserved for the last week. This week. The week we’re going.

I stumbled across this celebration last time I was in Argentina, about 7 years ago. But I was alone, and feeling stupid, leaving my friends for Brazil, due to a visa which I failed to utilize within the allotted time. I was two days out… But even though I was alone, the show was awesome, and the beers were BIG.

This time, I’ll be going with about fifty people going from my university in an organized tour so it should be quite a different experience. They don’t muck around with the costumes as you can see from this video. Be sure to watch the security guard/cop...

Horacio and Hamlet.

So the other night, we went to a bar to watch one of the Canadian ice hockey matches partly because two of my house mates are Canadians and partly because we were invited by Brennan from Uni, who's an American and a fan of Ice Hockey. The place was called el Alamo and until 12pm, girls drink for free, so it's obviously pretty classy - one of those places with a toilet permanently covered in vomit. And i mean permanently, because it's 24hrs.

Anyway, we got a bit tipsy as was to be expected, and decided to get a midnight snack from Guerrin on the way home , an excellent pizza place on Corrientes. There are two ways to order a pizza from this place; you can sit at a table and be served by a waiter, or you can go to the cashier, order what you want, and then stand at a bench. We chose the second option.

So we're standing eating our pizza (Yas and I that is), and not for the first time. We'd been there once before and struck up a conversation with a very cute little old man who lived a block from me on the same street. Man, he was short. But the conversation went very well, he was very friendly, and smiley, and just an all-round nice fella. So i encouraged Yas to do it again with a guy standing next to us this time.

"Hello! How was your day?" says Yas...
"Hello..." he probably says. I can't remember exactly, but he probably said he had a great day, because nice people generally have good days most of the time.

"So, what do you do?" asks Yas...
"I'm a lighting technician at a theatre nearby", says Horacio, which is what his name is.

"Oh! Very good!" says Yas...

Meanwhile, we're getting some help in translation from a couple sitting opposite us, who are taking quite an interest in the conversation...

"He says you can go to a show if you want. For free." says the female component of the couple.

"Huh? Free?" I say.

"Yes." says Horacio.

"What is it?" i ask.

"What's what?" responds Horacio.

"What's the work?", i finally manage to slur...

"What work?"

"The work, the work of art..." I say, trying desperately to remember the word for play.

"Um..." It dawns on him what i'm getting at... "Shakespeare. Hamlet." says Horacio.

Meanwhile, the couple are looking longingly at Horacio in the possibility of free Hamlet tickets.

"Why the puta is he going to give Shakespeare tickets to two Australians who don't speak spanish?", thinks the woman's brain.

"Is it in English?" I ask.

Horacio smiles at me. And then grins at the couple. "No! Spanish, of course."

I look at Yas. We know we won't understand a word of it.

"Very good!! We'll take them." we say, and organise a time to meet him.

Which is what we did. Last night at 8.00pm. There he was, waiting at the door for us, eating a yoghurt. He greeted us with a kiss on the cheek and took us to the box office for two complementary tickets.

Once inside, we couldn't even understand where the usher told us to sit. So you can imagine what the play was like. But luckily, i roughly knew the story line. Poor old Ophelia gets a bit of a raw deal. The theatre was very nice. Not too big, but not too small either. The production was unusual. The costumes were somewhere between fantasy and science fiction. Sound effects included machine gun noises, and music included synthesizers. The lighting was particularly good... :)

After the play, we thanked Horacio very much. He told us that he'd been treated well in his travels and work throughout South America, and he felt like he should do the same to others. He gave us his number, in case we want to see it again. I'm gonna drop a box of chocolates to the theatre today as thanks.

Update - bought him a box of chocolate and coffee Havanna biscuits and delivered to the theatre with a card. Hope he gets them.