MondayMorningMutiny.com

It is approximately 20 hours by bus from Puerto Iguassu to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina.

This journey was to take longer, getting off to a slow start by leaving 45 minutes late.

6 or 7 hours into the journey, I had just dozed off when I was abruptly snapped back to reality by a man standing over me, shouting at me in Spanish. It sounded urgent and obviously important but having just risen from slumber, it was difficult to tell exactly what was going on.

A robbery?

A bomb?

War has just broken out?

Then I recognised the the words, “Fuego! Fuego!” – Fire! Fire!

Everyone was leaving the bus with haste, so I grabbed my bag and swiftly made my way outside. The fire was more or less extinguished by the time I had disembarked but smoke poured from the engine compartment at the back of the coach.

We waited a few hours in the middle of nowhere, not really knowing what was happening, until a replacement arrived.

A young child kept kept herself busy by examining a large toad with great curiosity; eventually touching it, causing it to jump a little, whereupon she would run after it.

This endearing cycle of prodding, jumping and chasing was repeated until the child became bored, at which point her charm disappeared and she tried to stamp on the unfortunate creature, chasing it into the darkness as it fled – all to the amusement of the parents.

When the new bus arrived, it was an improvement on the first, offering greater comfort. I celebrated this fact by sleeping the majority of the journey.

On this occasion I only spent a few days in Buenos Aires but first impressions were good and I look forward to spending more time here in a month or two – perhaps renting an apartment, setting up base and taking Spanish classes – which I figure will be more useful than Portuguese as it will be handy for Mexico as well.

I opted to stay in a hotel rather than a hostel as I felt like I needed a few days of my own space, thoughts and some much needed rest.

Hostels are great for meeting people and finding out about activities in the area but I didn´t want that now, preferring to spread my belongings over as much of the room as possible.

I stayed on a road called Lavalle, a pedestrian street in central BA. My room overlooked the street which was exactly what I was after – perfect for relaxing and people watching whilst the sounds of tango floated up from the busy bustle of life below. 

On Sunday night, I stumbled across a poker game at an American expat bar. Not having played a proper game in a while I jumped at the chance. My tournament lifespan was short lived due to rapidly increasing blinds and I busted out early without seeing any good cards. This worked to my advantage however, as it gave the impression that I didn´t really know what I was doing and also allowed me to gauge the competition. There were a few players to watch for, one in particular was dangerous but the rest were casual tourists, here for a short time, having fun, getting drunk and didn´t seem to mind losing money.

With this in mind I joined the cash game – 100 peso buy-in with blinds at 1 and 2 pesos – a nice casual affair, which favours the patient.

3 enjoyable hours or so later, the player to watch for and I had cleaned everyone out – some people several times. We left together, happily walking down the street, discussing poker strategy with enough winnings between us to rent a nice apartment in downtown BA for several months.

That was the good part of the night.

The bad part was losing one of my bank cards.

One down..

If anyone has any suggestions as to where I should get the new one sent to, please let me know!

This entry was posted on April 3, 2007 at 11:23 pm and is filed under Argentina. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.