Crossing into Argentina

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The journey to Salta was a long long one. We took another huge semi-cama buses from Asuncion all the way Resistencia where we had to change for another huge journey to Salta. The journey was smooth to the border. Here everyone had to get off the bus. What should have been a simple process of checking out of Paraguay and checking into Argentina was made over complicated by some young men who insisted on taking our bags and getting us to stand out of the queue. No English spoken. They seemed to keep wanting to move our gear one way and then another way. They kept speaking aimlessy in Spanish. One thing that is a bit sad to be said of your average South America, same as most people I guess, if they notice you only speak a little Spanish then they are too stupìd to speak slower. Only if Cafayate much later has someone spoken at a slower pace. ´Tu hablas muy rapido para me´ sadly does not help. We gathered these guys were completely devoid of use. and took our luggage and went through what was meant to be some form of detector, but I cannot be sure what the point was. Cocaine, guns, fruit? Well probably not fruit, else I am probably a fugitive now. On the other side of the detector they tried grabbing our bags again wanting a tip for basically causing confusion and being utterly useless. I offered 100 Guarani which is less than nothing, they didn´t want it. We got back on the bus.

The bus passed through part of the Chaco, a vast grassland with huge numbers of birds. We stopped again, this time at a police check post - there are plenty in South America. The armed officers boarded the bus and did a walk down both aisles. They stopped at Ciaran and I and asked us for our passports. We obliged and after much checking of stamps and whatever else, they asked us to get off the bus. We of course obliged, you usually listen to people with guns, but as we stepped off, they told us it was ok and to get back on, so we went back up to our seats. Then for a reason mysterious to me, they asked us to get off again.

This was confusing and frustrating. Pick on the gringo day?

We stood outside the bus with a number of armed men as our passports were taken away and we were left to be asked a few questions such as where we were from and where we were heading. Being on a bus, this was clearly obvious, but we chose not to point this out.

Eventually after a stool curdling few minutes a guard came back with our passports and spoke to us in Spanish. With our pathetically limited Spanish it was very hard for us to understand what he was saying but we picked up some words that we seemed to follow along that I caused problems for them because I don´t look like my passport photo anymore.

In my photo I am 15.5 stone, pasty and clean shaven. Now I imagine I´m around 12.5 stone with a bit of a tan and very furry faced. In Australia I once puffed out my cheeks to get a bouncer to let me into a bar. In Frankfurt the immigration guy commented that I had lost weight.

We ended up shaking hands with the guards who seemed somewhat satisfied and got back on the bus.

Finally the bus left and we headed for Resistencia. On arrival we managed to jump on a bus that was running late and headed through the night onwards to our destination.

I had a shave on arrival in Salta.

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Comments

[mum]

Hmmm its amazing how much confusion these silly little passports photos cause,,, even with fellas, but with women who are constantly changing their hair styles etc its even worse..