F*ck Corrienties...and Niamh gets eaten by ants

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I’m sitting in a dusty Bar in the northern city of Correnties and I’m watching the mosquito at work. He’s hovering amid my vein lined foot, going from vein to vein inspecting each vessel as if it was a human being inspecting bottles of wine, he pauses at each vein, then pops over to the next one. I smush him before he gets too comfortable and have that rush of confidence and power that it only derived when you heroically conquer a creature that’s probably 1/10000 your size.

We decided to stay in a town called Corrientes and the decision was a poor one, Correnties aside from a pretty central square is devoid of anything interesting and extremely expensive by Argentinean standards.

The lonely planet has a section on Correnties that simply reads "Fuck Correnties, its too expensive and there nothing interesting there", shame we only read about this after we had departed, our own mucky guidebook describes the place as a delightful place to spend a few days. The only highlight was Niamh getting heckled with wolf whistles by some wily Corrientes construction workers.

We did however unintentionally experience the exciting Corrientes dining experience, or at least Niamh did. After an hour looking for a restaurant we choose what seemed to be a fairly decent pizzeria on a street corner, I have since nicknamed the restaurant "Klandawhu", the planet infested with people eating insects in starship troopers, you will see why in a moment.

I chickened out of ordering the pizza burger, a burger with a pizza built around it and covered in mozzarella cheese, the type of meal that constitutes an entire numerical value of a weight watchers point book and ordered a regular pizza while Niamh ordered some sort of wok noodle contraption.

What interesting about this dinner was that we were not the diners but the dinner itself, you see as Niamh soon discovered the entire floor INSIDE the eatery was covered in ants who made there presence known just as we were halfway through the meal. These little six legged walking biting apparatus obviously preferred blondes as Niamh got lots of ant sized hickeys all over her feet and ankles. bear in mind we are not talking about an isolated ant foraging party but a full on invasion, with reams of the creatures sallying out from a hole in the wall to lay siege to Niamhs sandals before helping themselves to her tasty toes. It was straight out of that scene in starship troopers when the bugs lay siege to Whiskey Outpost and begin eating all the poor unfortunate troopers trapped inside with Niamhs footwear being Whiskey outpost and her toes standing in for the unfortunate extras(I´ve added a youtube link to the scene in question at the foot of this entry for those unfamiliar with the film in question)

The waitress, seeing what was happening helpfully supplied Niamh with some alcohol and cotton wool to treat the bites, insects trying to eat the diners seems to be a regular occurrence at Restaurant Klandawho. As you can imagine both of us were eager to escape Correnties as soon as possible

We booked the first available bus to Rosario, the birthplace of Che Guevara and its apparently one of the nicest cities in the country, the original plan of visiting the marshes fell by the wayside with the location being only accessible by about 3 or 4 bus journeys down lots of back roads.

The first available bus available to Rosario wasn’t until 9 that night so we had another whole day of Correnties to ourselves before we could go; the only option was to have a very long lunch, hopefully somewhere free of insect infestation. We could ill afford another Klandawho.

We rolled into a steakhouse off one of the backstreets and seeing as this was the first time we saw steak on the menu since crossing the border we ordered two helpings of Argentina’s famous cuts. When the waiter appeared from the kitchen and I saw the steak I smiled like corrupt gynaecologist who just saw "The Saturdays" walk into the waiting room. All I’ll say is that if you ever hear someone bore you about Argentinean steak just take their word for it, it’s simply that good.

The bus trip was productive to say the least, I managed to earn 5,000 dollars selling coke and heroin and kill three prostitutes with a sawn off shotgun but alas such digital fun was cut short when the trusty DS ran out of battery, shame as Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars is a great way to get through the bus journeys.

Still merry from our earlier boozy lunch, doodling mickeys on the photos in Niamh's hello magazine was an infantile but nevertheless interesting way to pass 5 minutes before I succumbed to a combination of the afternoons wine and fell into a deep sleep.

The morning broke and all you can see around you are open grassland extending off in a green horizon, the grasslands themselves populated with some of the fattest healthiest looking cattle I have seen.These cattle belong to the massive Enciana ranches that are all over Argentina, massive cattle farms that supply the countries famous beef so it can be exported to Ireland and sold at prices comparable to concert tickets off Stephens Green.

When there isn’t Grassland massive conifers are planted in regimental fashion for obvious use by the timber industry. Every now and then there are gaps in the tall trees where they have been harvested and smaller saplings have been planted to replace there felled elders, these huge rectangular gaps in the masses of trees are surreal, it’s like a massive razor came down from the heavens and shaved the conifers themselves.

After the pothole that was the Corrientes experience we have high hopes for Rosario, the hostel is supposed to be state of the art and the city itself nearly reclining on the banks of the Rio Parana.

Ps. In relation to the promised here is the battle of whiskey outpost.

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Comments

[Jonny Rico]

i just want to kill some bugs sir
Glad you made it off big K, sorry it had to be your unit. That mission had a very low survival probability...

[Cillian]

funny stuff!
"I smiled like corrupt gynecologist who just saw "The Saturdays" walk into the waiting room." this blog just keeps getting better and better. keep up the good work Andy. hope your enjoying yourself as much as we are!