St Patrick's Eve Eve Eve
Unsurprisingly, given the previous day's bike- and alcohol-related exertions, I slept in late and wasn't planning on doing much. I got my admin done for my planned next stop, Salta, thanks to Pete's laptop and yet another of the seemingly omni-present WiFi links in hostels in Argentina - it's one of the abiding differences of my travel this time that so many people seem to have laptops, something that would have been unthinkable a few years back due to the expense. Now it seems like about 1 in 3 of the people you meet have the bloody things. Still, it made my life easier, by not having to queue for the couple of free access machines in the hostel or go out and find an internet cafe. After that, I went out to hunt for some kind of snack to eat, conveniently forgetting that many Argentine cities are damned near closed mid-afternoon, what with weekend trading and siesta (yes, whole cities here do basically close down between about 1pm and 4pm), so I ended up getting some empanadas and stuff to make sandwiches with from the supermarket and heading back to the hostel. There I found Pete in a flap, as he'd mislaid his bank card.
Now this has to be one of the more unfortunate things that can happen to you whilst travelling without involving actual bodily harm. Particularly if you're traveling with only one card, as unfortunately Pete was. Immediate reaction is to try and track down places you could have lost it. Kind of pointless when these include four wineries, at least 3 bars and a good deal of the Mendoza countryside. Pete actually still had the details of the card, so next thing was to work out what he could pay for, mostly online, before contacting the bank to declare it lost. Finally, we had to work out how he could get money sent to him while the new card gets sent out. In this, at least, I was able to help a little bit by buying up his remaining Chilean currency and his stash of US Dollars with Argentine cash, thus giving him a bit more liquidity on which to survive. As I said, it's one of the more irritating things to happen, particularly if you then end up stuck on the phone from another continent back to the UK, being told to "If you want to report a stolen card, please press 1..." and the like, and then when you do get through, you're fighting the effects of the Data Protection Act sometimes. Even getting a replacement passport can be easier than having to cancel and get replacements for your bank card, at least if you're within striking distance of an embassy or consulate.
At any rate, what with all of this going on, it was early evening before I headed over to Break Point to meet up with Dee and Ben as I'd said I would. We'd been planning on liaising as we were all headed up to Salta around the same time, so were going to try and get on the same bus and be in the same hostel. As it was, we'd organised our bus tickets separately, but had still managed to end up on the same bus, and they hadn't booked their hostel yet, so we managed to get that lined up as well. They were heading out for Mexican food with another lad from their hostel, but I'd already arranged with Pete to go out for more steak of some kind, so I agreed to try and meet up again later. Back at the hostel, Pete was still ringing the UK, struggling with someone from Visa on a bad line who didn't understand the phonetic alphabet, and had linked up with Evangelina, his new Argentine friend from two nights ago, again. In the end, once he had finished banging his head on a telephonic brick wall, Evangelina and Noelle joined us for food, along with our new room-mate, a Bolivian guy called Evo who was another of the crazy people cycling large chunks of South America.
Evo was actually an interesting antidote to most of the stereotypes people have about Bolivians, being visibly mostly of European rather than Andean descent and damned-near bilingual (to the point of having a fair smattering of British slang). And it was partly at his instigation that, having fed and then returned to the hostel (Ben and Dee had retired early pleading exhaustion), we joined some others in heading back to Believe yet once more, as they were holding a St Patrick's party. Now, yes, I know, St Patrick's Day is the 17th, but the pragmatic approach of the Argentines was that this being midweek would be damned inconvenient for a party, so they'd celebrate it on Saturday. And on Tuesday as well. And some of the other bars in town were planning parties for Monday night as well (on the basis that people here don't usually go out until after midnight, this does actually make sense). Thus, my supposedly relatively quiet final night turned, by the usual Sod's Law that applies, into quite a long and messy evening, resulting in getting home around 6am, having been conversing variously in English, Spanish, French and German with different people outside the pub, and had the almost-obligatory photo taken wearing a silly hat.
Now this has to be one of the more unfortunate things that can happen to you whilst travelling without involving actual bodily harm. Particularly if you're traveling with only one card, as unfortunately Pete was. Immediate reaction is to try and track down places you could have lost it. Kind of pointless when these include four wineries, at least 3 bars and a good deal of the Mendoza countryside. Pete actually still had the details of the card, so next thing was to work out what he could pay for, mostly online, before contacting the bank to declare it lost. Finally, we had to work out how he could get money sent to him while the new card gets sent out. In this, at least, I was able to help a little bit by buying up his remaining Chilean currency and his stash of US Dollars with Argentine cash, thus giving him a bit more liquidity on which to survive. As I said, it's one of the more irritating things to happen, particularly if you then end up stuck on the phone from another continent back to the UK, being told to "If you want to report a stolen card, please press 1..." and the like, and then when you do get through, you're fighting the effects of the Data Protection Act sometimes. Even getting a replacement passport can be easier than having to cancel and get replacements for your bank card, at least if you're within striking distance of an embassy or consulate.
At any rate, what with all of this going on, it was early evening before I headed over to Break Point to meet up with Dee and Ben as I'd said I would. We'd been planning on liaising as we were all headed up to Salta around the same time, so were going to try and get on the same bus and be in the same hostel. As it was, we'd organised our bus tickets separately, but had still managed to end up on the same bus, and they hadn't booked their hostel yet, so we managed to get that lined up as well. They were heading out for Mexican food with another lad from their hostel, but I'd already arranged with Pete to go out for more steak of some kind, so I agreed to try and meet up again later. Back at the hostel, Pete was still ringing the UK, struggling with someone from Visa on a bad line who didn't understand the phonetic alphabet, and had linked up with Evangelina, his new Argentine friend from two nights ago, again. In the end, once he had finished banging his head on a telephonic brick wall, Evangelina and Noelle joined us for food, along with our new room-mate, a Bolivian guy called Evo who was another of the crazy people cycling large chunks of South America.
Evo was actually an interesting antidote to most of the stereotypes people have about Bolivians, being visibly mostly of European rather than Andean descent and damned-near bilingual (to the point of having a fair smattering of British slang). And it was partly at his instigation that, having fed and then returned to the hostel (Ben and Dee had retired early pleading exhaustion), we joined some others in heading back to Believe yet once more, as they were holding a St Patrick's party. Now, yes, I know, St Patrick's Day is the 17th, but the pragmatic approach of the Argentines was that this being midweek would be damned inconvenient for a party, so they'd celebrate it on Saturday. And on Tuesday as well. And some of the other bars in town were planning parties for Monday night as well (on the basis that people here don't usually go out until after midnight, this does actually make sense). Thus, my supposedly relatively quiet final night turned, by the usual Sod's Law that applies, into quite a long and messy evening, resulting in getting home around 6am, having been conversing variously in English, Spanish, French and German with different people outside the pub, and had the almost-obligatory photo taken wearing a silly hat.
posted by Pat at 12:00 pm
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