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…