Basura in Buenos

To quote a favorite rap song........"Well, this is a story that must be told." I must preface this story by saying you may find this hard to believe, but I really did not get too angry during this entire process. It is ridiculous and almost far-fetched, but this is what exactly what to happened to me last week. If anything I am going to censor parts of this story!!! Let me state a random fact now that will make sense towards the end of this entry. The magnetic strip on my bank card was damaged (somehow) so I don't have any means of actually taking money out. So, this is the 4th country I've been to without bringing a camera and I figured that I really need to start preserving some of these memories. So, Argentina taxes all electronics about 50%. Therefore, the Canon 750 costs $700 dollars here. I have a very kind cousin in New York who agreed to send me the electronic DHL to save some money. If I'd only known then..... So, I've got a week off and I'm like this is the perfect time to do all the traveling I wanted to do. I was going to go to the largest waterfall in the world and Uruguay. However, by Wednesday I still do not have my camera and I don't want to leave without it because I'd like to take pictures of the largest waterfall in the world and the beaches and city of Montevideo, UR. Well, I get an email saying that my stuff cannot clear customs in Buenos Aires. So, I get on a bus that night to Buenos Aires. I buy the executive ticket to Buenos Aires because it's an 10:00 P.M. to 8:00 A.M. By the way Greyhound could learn a lot from this country's bus system. To continue, I get a Cama seat which means bed because its an overnight trip. It cost me all of 30 dollars (USD) so I'm very happy. Once the lights I go out I soon discover that my seat is the only one on the full bus that does not recline so I pass the whole night sitting up. Still, I'm not angry just laughing at my bad luck. I am able to sleep a little bit and when I arrive (two hours late to BA) So it ended up being a 10 to 10 ride. I get off the bus for my first time in Buenos Aires and immediately walk over to Manuel Tienda Léon, a very nice shuttle to the airport. I arrive at the airport around 12:00 on Thursday. I go to the customs in the main Terminal and after a few minutes of conversation I'm told to walk out of the building to the Cargo Area. However, I wasn't told "Cargo" Area I was told to find a white-topped hallway. Yeah, I know vague. So, after walking around the airport for about 30 minutes I found this place that is "Area Restringido" but I just walked in. I then present my passport and given some more directions to another building. I arrive at this building and find a small hallway with a group of people waiting to enter an office. Eventually, I'm told by some of the occupants of the hallway to knock on the door marked "Aduana" (customs) and go in. I knock and enter and for the first time in Argentina I was immediately assumed American and spoken to in English and they say "Wait, a minute." By the way, after they discovered I spoke Spanish they quit trying to speak to me in English. I then later enter and go in again and start maybe the longest process of my life. I start presenting documents like my DHL email and passport. I then get passport photocopies and I am told that the system is down. So, I must wait for it to come back up. This is about an hour, so far just for your records. The system comes back up and then I'm told to go talk to the people at DHL because I don't have enough documentation. By the way, I had to visit three separate offices to discover this one fact. Three offices and one of those offices three times!!!! After all of this they tell me a general direction of the DHL Cargo area at the airport and I eventually find it. Now, understand that I'm at the facility where they sort all DHL packages for Argentina and then I'm told that I can't get the papers I need here and that I have to go to downtown BA to get it. Now, the time is starting to get towards 2:30, 3:00 now and the customs place is closing at 5 and they won't reopen until Monday and this is Friday. So, I don't have time to take the bus so I have to get a taxi to downtown BA (expensive) and I pay some miscellaneous tax I still don't understand at DHl for $60 USD to get my papers. I then return to the Customs office thinking that I will be able to take out my package with ease. FALSE! Alright, so now it's near 4 a clock and I've got all my papers I see my package for the first time and then it's opened in front of me. They say well you have to pay taxes on everything in this box. So, I then have to sign some more papers and they I have to pay 50% of the taxes on the electronics I was sent. Of course, I don't have that type of money on me. So, I have to leave the customs (that will close at 5) and try to find some wi-fi to western union myself money. If you've noticed the theme of this week you'll of course discover that I was not able to do so. So, at the end of all of these expenses I have to leave and earlier I had been told that if I couldn't get my money out to come back on Monday and then I would just have to pay the fees for them "keeping it for me" over the weekend. So, now I've got to stay in BA over the course of the weekend. Now, I've got a few connections in BA, but my best connection had an incredibly important medical test so I didn't want to bother her. My other connection was that the girl I live with in Córdoba has a boyfriend that lives in BA. Well, he was currently at my house in Córdoba so I figured I would just stay at his house while he was in mine. I think I should interject here that I once arrived back in the city of BA after my uncompleted mission I walked 15 blocks until I found the Hooters and ate some hot wings to make myself feel better. Also, I should add that while eating this one meal at Hooters I was invited to join by two separate groups of porteños (people from BA) to sit with them. So, I ate dinner with one group and then watched another group eat and felt very welcomed by these people. The opposite of the vibe I got from the majority of the Aduana people. So, the first night I take a cab to San Telmo, the Barrio (neighborhood) where my friend (Dave) lives and meet his roommate. This night was actually really good. While walking around San Telmo waiting to meet his roommate I run into a black Colombian and in BA all black people acknowledege each other. It's hilarious and great. So, I discover he's actually just come from Córdoba and he gives me some people to find in my own town to play djembe with. Well, then Dave's roommate finds me on the street talking to this guy and we discover that he too is black and the three of us made a scene I had yet to see in Argentina. Well, the first night I stay in his place without any problems. So, I spend the next day trying to figure some stuff out and then when I return to the residence I find a problem in that the custodian doesn't recognize me and I talk to him about the deal I'd made and other people vouch for my being there. He is not overtly rude or mean, but he refuses to look at me or listen to me. Now, I'm definitely not incredibly fluent in Spanish or anything, but I've spoken to people from all the different countries and plenty of people from buenos Aires and most say that I speak more clearly than other non-native speakers and simply that I speak reasonably well. However, this guy acted as if he couldn't understand me and refused to listen to me. So, I began to get a little frustrated and just left the house and went looking for a hotel room because I could not support this type of behavior without getting upset. So, I go to a hotel I had early seen and find that all the rooms are full. They tell me about another hotel that was right down the street and I so I walk with Micky ( Dave's roommate who offered to stay with me) to this hotel. Ah, this hotel is also full, but they tell me of another hotel a few blocks down that isn't too expensive. Micky and I continue our journey until we get to the next hotel which if you cannot guess was also full. So, then we walk another 5 blocks to another hotel and finally find a room. For your records, its now about 1 in the morning and it is the 4th hotel we have walked to totallng about 15-20 blocks of walking with my backpack of clothes. Well, the guy is really cool at the hotel and lets us checkout a little later. We wake up and take the "Subte" Subterranean Transito (subway) to his side of town because we'd walked to another barrio. We hang out at his place again and I'm sure to sort things out with Dave's residence so the custodian doesn't give me problems again. Well, I saw a few things in BA that day and then I go back to his place and present the signed proof and receipt of my eligibility to stay at their crib. To my disbelief after presenting this signed copy from the very office of the building the custodian still calls the owners of the place to verify my ability to stay there. So, anyway I go to bed just hoping to get my stuff (I was able to get the money during the weekend) in the morning. I get up at 7:00 in the morning and take the Subway to a central location and get on the airport shuttle. I arrive at the airport to discover that the customs agents have all gone on a one-day strike. I walk into the office and I'm told to go to another office, but it doesn't open until 10 a clock. This place tells me to go back to the office and I say I went to the first office and they said well we are on strike and to come back tomorrow. (All of the people are in the office, but not wearing suits just chilling) They say this to me as if I'm the reason they are on strike and I don't appreciate the attitude so I muster a little courage and say that " I have to leave today." The woman answers me by just saying "Oh well." "Oh well!!!!!" I'm in disbelief and I have to leave the airport and I'm like I really need to go to Uruguay for my visa. I have to leave the country. So, I call Micky and ask him if he wants to join me in Uruguay (where I can only go for one day because I have class). Well, we go to the port and it is a mess. The people are about to revolt the police are all gathering together and there are lines backed up everywhere. We arrive and some man is grandstanding in the middle of the room and everyone is listening to him. So, basically the Aduana was on strike there too. However, a bigger problem was that one of the boats to Uruguay was broken and stopping everyone from going places. Also, they were saying that the port in Uruguay had too much wind. It's a big motor yacht. Not a sail boat. Anyway, the news shows up and starts interviewing people and people are going crazy. I wanted to run up to the news crew and tell them my story about the Aduana at the airport. So, after about 45 minutes at the port and discovering that I'd have to wait inline for another hour at least I decide that I'll have to leave the country again some other time. I go back into Buenos Aires. I go and see the Bodies Exhibit. It was really cool and kinda creepy, but my biology terminology is awesome now in Spanish. I am fortunate enough to have some very helpful exchange coordinators who I called in Córdoba and they discovered if they were on strike again on Tuesday. They weren't on strike thank goodness. So, I had to go for ROUND THREE with the Aduana people after our strike-day unpleasantries. (Not everyone was that bad) Also, let me add that I asked another person why they went on strike. Here is the story I was told: They put hidden cameras in customs and caught people stealing from people's packages and in response to being caught stealing stuff they went on strike. Believe it!!! Basically, after another couple of hours waiting and going back and forth between the three offices and having to walk to the National Bank (yeah I had to go to the Bank of the Nation) I received the contents of my previously opened packages. So, I won't even say how much this weekend cost me. I saw BA, but wasn't able to take any pictures of it. So, I got on the next bus back to home sweet home of Córdoba. The place I'd been dying to leave. Oh by the way that final night I just stayed in a hostel because Dave came back to his own room. I made some really good friends in Buenos Aires and ate at Hooters three times. Peace to the family

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