Restless in Rosario

Erik's entry: Continuing our rollercoaster travels from one extreme to another, we next opted on Rosario, the 2nd largest city in Argentina. According to our guide book, it boasted a beautiful riverfront, great food and night life, and some interesting cultural diversions (museums, etc.) Upon nearing the city, our bus entered into a fog bank that was to last for several days. The weather matched our opinion of the big, noisy city: grey, cold and boring.

We spent the better part of the first day lugging our packs around looking for affordable lodging. Every place we found that we could afford had some major drawback - no windows, no heating, dirty, or uncomfortable bed, etc. Finally, after 4-5 hours of searching, as we were about to give up and go back to one of the windowless rooms we´d seen, we found an old, run-down, but charismatic hotel, Hotel Romijor. It didn´t have heating, but the room was enormous, and the bathroom ridiculously large - about 8 large strides from one end to the other, and with a large, claw-footed bathtub to boot! It even had its own private balcony next to the retro neon hotel sign. The staff were very welcoming and friendly, and as we´d find out later, breakfast included the best espresso coffee we´d found in Argentina thus far. We were a little cold, but happy.

The next day was foggy and cold again, but we walked all over town, including the riverfront, which, contrary to the guidebook, was ugly, dirty and run down. So far we were none too impressed with Rosario. We did manage to find a small, divey neighborhood lunch place, with delicious, simple dishes (steaks, pastas, arroz con pollo, etc.) It was cheap and very cheerful, and brightened our moods. The city still seemed grey and boring, but at least we were eating well. After lunch we wandered back down to river, and up to Rosario's main landmark, a huge edifice dedicated to the national flag. The outline of it is that of a ship, as Rosario is a port town, and the front boasts a huge phallic tower, with the back of the ship dominated by a greek-collumned mausoleum to the unknown soldier. We took a ride to the top of the tower and were underwhelmed by the dull grey vistas, though the monument itself was quite impressive. (and we do like Argentina´s flag as well...) In fact, the monument, despite being a bit overbearingly partritoic, was more impressive than most things we saw in Buenos Aires.

It was about this point in our Argentinian explorations that we were fighting off regret at not having stayed in Central America and spent some time in Panama. It was warm, cheap, and mostly cheerful there. While the Argentine people had been nothing but kind to us, the country was (comparatively) very expensive - lodging, eating and traveling all cost about 3 times more than we'd been led to believe, partly due to the overabundance of tourists visiting Argentina these days, and partly due to the huge inflation the country is suffering from. It was also very cold, and as it turned out, both difficult and expensive to get into other countries in South America. When you add in the fact that we'd paid a princely sum to fly down there (rather than a $28 bus ride ride to Panama from Nicaragua), we had plenty to feel down about. But regret is not a healthy thing, and we chose to simply make good note of the misstep for future travel reference, and try to get the most out of our time in Argentina.

The next night we did just that. Talor had heard about a small, local "peña", or folk music club, where locals go to hear traditional tunes from all over the country. True to the Argentine rhythm, the place didn´t even open until 11pm, and we were the only ones in the place when we arrived. Once we´d been served our bottle of wine, the two musicians on stage and started playing. It was a very simple set up - a guitar player and a drummer-singer, but they were very good. I had thought at first that this was a club set up for the tourist trade, but there really is very little international tourist traffic there, especially during winter, and we were happy when about 1am, groups of locals began coming in and filling up the small room. The first to arrive were a group of 5 women, who sat at the table just behind us. Between songs, they would ask us questions about where we were from, what were doing in Rosario, etc., and soon they asked us to join them. They were great fun to hang out with. They loved the folk music, and would let us know which region each song was from, as well as where they were each from and which areas were the best to visit (usually the same place they were from!) After several bottles of wine (taken with a splash of soda from a soda siphon on the table), we were all having a great time. As the evening progressed, more musicians joined the ensemble, including a vivacious older woman who (I believe) ran the club. She was dressed in a silk suit and sang with an amazing, gravelly voice. At one point, to my great embarrassement, she spent an entire song serenading me. By about 3am, the place was really getting going, and all the tables were taken with people standing near the back. Unfortunately, we'd not yet adapted to Argentine time (well, we never actually did), and having consumed several bottles of wine, we said goodbye to our new friends and stumbled home, which was thankfully only a few blocks away.

The next day we woke up feeling none too well, and after several of days of cold weather, and a late evening of too much wine, I started coming down with a cold. I wouldn't have cared much, except that we'd decided to move on that day, and had an overnight bus that evening to Mendoza. I'd really wanted to go north up to the Iguazu waterfalls, but given that we had only about 10 days left in Argentina, we decided that we should relax a little, and get to know a couple of places well, rather than making a mad, sight-seeing dash across a very large country, and end up feeling frustrated and tired. We spent our last day in Rosario (which finally turned out to be a bright, sunny, warm day), walking around, trying to see museums which were mostly closed for renovation. So much for what guide books will tell you! At this point in our travels, we've finally learned to use them only as rough indicators, and sometimes more as guides for what to avoid rather than what to see.

Perhaps the funniest and scariest moment of our time in Rosario came as we were killing time waiting for our bus. We had dinner in a none-too-special restaurant across the street from the bus station. We had about 2 hours to kill, so we ate slowly, studied spanish, etc. I'd thought the bus was at 8pm, but Talor, who had the tickets, assured me that it was 8:30pm. A little before 8 we decided we saunter over to the station and find out which gate the bus was leaving from. Inside the station, we looked on the big board, but it didn't list our bus. The ticket agent had said that it would leave from one of 3 gates, so we went there, but there were no buses going to Mendoza. Talor pulled out the tickets to recheck the gate numbers, and saw to both our surprise that the bus was indeed at 8pm, and it was now 8:10 or so. Oops! We ran back to the ticket agent, who was at a loss as to what to do. There were no more buses to Mendoza that night. He then disappeared in the back for several minutes. When he reappeared, he said blabbered something very quickly in Spanish that we didn't understand and shoved us gently out towards the taxi stand. He spoke to a taxi driver and put us in the cab. Finally we understood that he'd radioed the bus, which was now waiting for us on the outskirts of town. He told the cabbie to hurry, which he did. About 10 minutes later we squealed around a corner and there was our bus, idling by the curb, patiently waiting for us. Unbelievable! With much humility we thanked the driver and fellow passengers as we got on and took our places in our plush semi-cama (half bed) seats for the over night trip to Mendoza.

Talor: Just a few curiosities...

1. The local lottery places were all run by the Chinese... why? Chinese mafia? Perhaps...

2. Rather than washing car windows on street intersections, people juggle for change. Probably about the same amount of work, but far more entertaining, don´t you think?

3. On Friday, it was the last day of school before winter break. Students from all over the city gathered at the flag monument to celebrate with loud singing, dancing, marching, fireworks, and best of all, tearing up pages and pages of school notes and homework and scattering the bits and pieces all over!

Our photos for Rosario: http://picasaweb.google.com/erikandtalor/Rosario