BA - barely
I’m in Buenos Aires. It ended up being harder to get here than I’d hoped. When the clerk at the bus station told me the bus would get in at eight, I naïvely assumed that meant 8 pm that same day. Nuh uh. It meant 8 am today.
For a variety of reasons, including a mechanical failure, lack of bathrooms, stale chipa, a minor back injury, and the full Depends of the old lady sitting next to me, that was one of my top two worst bus trips since I got to South America.
But I got here this morning, a little late but basically intact. Then, in between the bus terminal in Retiro and the subway station, some jerk tried to relieve me of my backpack. They’ve got this scam where a crook tosses a bolus of some . . . bodily fluid into the hair of their marks. For mental health reasons I’m going to assume it was just a loogie in my case. Then the accomplice comes up saying “ewww, gross, let me help you get it out!” and fluttering around and generally trying to distract you while the crook comes in from your blind side and yanks away your bag.
But it was my luck this morning to be in a bus-rotten mood and stomp past the thief and accomplice without even pretending to be a normal, sociable human being, so I got to see them fleeing empty-handed. And now I’ve showered, and gotten myself and my bag to the hostel, and am in the market for a nice long nap.
Buenos Aires, if you mean to impress me, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
August 19th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
UGGhh. I thought my two hour commute to Seattle from Tacoma was bad today! That really puts things in perspective. Very glad you and your bag made it to the hostel for better or worse.
August 20th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Man, this is a new one to pass along to my little European voyagers. All I know is that in a very few short days, you’ll be sleeping in a decent bed, probably curled next to a sweat little JRT, and eating something yummy. Can’t wait.