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Published: October 30th 2018
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Retiro bus station 2 departure boards, the big red one and smaller blue one. Careful to check salidas/ llegadas Yesterday was a travel day. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it but it looked fairly easy. At least I’d managed to book my bus ticket online, after googling I used a comparison website called plataforma10 . There are a few companies doing the same route so I went for La Rosarina as the journey time was a whole 3 minutes shorter than the others. It was a double decker (as they all were) and I could choose my seat. I got the front at the top, seat 4, which was on its own. Perfect! The cost was £25 for a return 4 hour journey and buses go every 30 minutes.
I ordered a Cabify, charged to the company and Pablo arrived in a tiny little car. He again didn’t speak English and gave me a lot of info in Spanish, the finer details went straight over my head. But in the 25 min journey (terrible traffic and right through a construction sight) I found out that most of the immigrants are from Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru and most work in construction or textile manufacture. He was really nice, I gave him a tip which he didn’t want to take
and dropped me at Retiro bus station outside the entrance to platforms 36-50. There are several entrances but my ticket said that my bus would go from 26-36. It’s important to get off at the right one as the station is very long. Also to tell your Cabify which one if you are being picked up. The train station is next door.
I trudged in with my stuff, having read a few negative reports about it, it it was actually OK. There were lots of cleaners, no rubbish, plenty of seats and departure boards showing destination and company (most important). Apparently trying to find the right booth if you haven’t bought your ticket in advance can be tricky. There are loos, clean enough but really narrow and so difficult to negotiate with a case. You pay a tip, 5 pesos is enough. I left my big bag outside the cubicle and hoped for the best. There are lots of little shops selling all sorts. The bus came on time and people were already queuing. They must go from the same bay more or less and the destination is lit up on the front. When you give the driver your
ticket he puts tags on all your hand luggage and you get stickers for each item. You take your big bag to the guy at the back. He also tags it and gives you a sticker. He asked me for money. I hmmmed and went back to ask the people in the queue. They were very helpful and said yes, it’s polite, and 10ps was more than enough. Probably 5 is OK but I didn’t have one. He was very happy with that. I went upstairs and a guy was in my seat, but apologised and moved. Another guy was in his seat at the front but he wasn’t bothered so we all sat in a line. Really comfy, the seats more or less recline fully, have a foot rest and we all had a sleep. You get a box with 2 packets of biscuits and a teabag of something called mate. Apparently this is disgusting. I didn’t see anyone have it. You would have to go downstate get hot water, I guess. There is also a loo on board which was ok and not difficult to use as the road was so straight and flat. No WiFi on the
bus. It was really quiet.
The journey was dull, I cannot tell a lie. Flat, flat farmland as far as the eye can see, no features whatsoever. There were some little stalls selling stuff (no idea what) and they put flags along the verge so you can slow up in time to stop. We stopped in a few places to let people on and off. The only excitement was when a group of armed police got on and checked everyone’s ID, including my passport, which he stared at for ages and checked my entry stamp. He was very smiley when he gave it back but they had proper guns, an inch from my nose. My buddy in the next seat said they were either looking for a particular person or for drugs, but nobody got taken off. It delayed us a bit but apparently it’s a normal thing.
When we got to Rosario it was raining a bit. I could see the taxi rank on the other side of the bus station, got in the front one and showed him the hotel address. I thought about walking but it looked too far. It was too far, and I
would have set off in the wrong direction. Very, very disorienting being on a grid system and a lot of one way roads so you go round and round to get anywhere. He seemed to go round and round a bit more than necessary but I couldn’t use my phone to check. The cost was 120ps, I gave him 200 and he obviously thought he’d just keep that but I asked for 50 back, which he was a bit pissed off about. He did print me a receipt.
The Hotel Solans Riviera is quite swanky in a dated sort of way. They gave me a room on the 5th at the back, which I’d asked for. Actually it is 2 rooms, one with a big desk, kettle, fridge. No view but it is quiet. The reception guy was very friendly and someone brought my bag up. I gave him the 50change from the taxi driver, which he was very happy to take. I didn’t have anything smaller. They gave me a useless map. Hardly any street names, Just a mass of squares. I could have drawn it myself without any prior knowledge of the city, a river and lots
of blocks with a few green squares. I was only given one piece of paperwork and was expecting much more. Maybe it would be sent through later. Then every time I went through reception they’d found some more. At 6am today a duplicate was pushed under my door. So now I have multiple copies of the same thing. 2 places are picking me up from the hotel, including today, which is great.
After unpacking and googling cambio places I went off in the drizzle to change some money. It was easy to find but the door wasn‘t. The frontage looked like solid glass. There was a security guard. The non smiley girl gave me 50ps to the pound, excellent rate. There was a lot of typing on her computer and thy took a copy of my passport. You have to take it with you. She asked blah or blah in Spanish and I didn’t get it. She sighed and said it didn’t matter. Then I realised she’d said single or married. Why would they need to know that? Married? Does your husband know you are changing money?? Haha! So we had a joke about it in the end.
Then I found a little coffe place where you could get a coffee and a pastry for 85ps. I had one of the worst empanadas ever, but they were very friendly and I stayed a while as it was pouring down and I’d didn’t have an umbrella. i got a bit lost on the way back as I hadn’t counted the blocks properly.
Fist impressions are not great. Maybe when the sun comes out and I can explore without getting lost or rained on I will find some hidden charms. I really hope so as I’m here for 12 days!
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