Life on a plate

I would like to tell you about the bus rides I've done here in Argentina. First of all I have to say that they have the best buses I've ever seen (long distance coaches that is). You can choose from three different seats. Semi cama, cama and 1st class. I usually take cama, wich is equivalent to business class on the air planes. Yo have a foot rest, the sets are big and you can lean the seat 45% backwords.
You usually get served dinner, breakfast and snack, depending on the company. Some companies stop on their own restaurants for a while, and you get dinner, beer, whine and dessert. On some coaches you get served by an bus attendant(!) I have friends who dreams about beeing flight attendants, I wonder if it's the same way with the bus attendants.. "When I grow up I'll be a bus attendant. Then I get to travel a lot and see the country".

Anyway, you sit there on the bus eating your lamb chops, mashed potatoes and sipping wine. When your done it's time for bingo. You can win a bottle of wine. I'ts brilliant. I got to learn all the numbers in spanish, and its fun and exiting. More exiting than the movies they put on afterwords. Or at least the buses I've been on. They've put on three Ben Stiller movies, some of them were dubbed in spanish, one Schwarzenegger movie, Universal Soldiers with Van Damme, an 80's music compilation with Boy George and Cindy Lauper to name a few. And now on my last bus journey from Córdoba to Buenos Aires they managed to put on a really bad german movie, dubbed in english with spanish subtitles and tradisional Argentinian folk music on the radio in the background. I watched it for a while, then i put on my Ipod and started reading my book.

The buses are usually on scedule and the system is working very well. One system that isn't working as well is the post office. I went with Susanne to the post office in Córdoba, she was sending home some stuff. It didn't help that we both speak very poor spanish, but anyway.. We asked the guy in the information desk where we could send parcels to Europe, he told us to ask the people in the other information desk. They told us where to go and we went to pick a number and started waiting. Our number was 908, the number on the screen showed 889, not to bad. Most of the people were picking up parcels, so this shouldn't be a problem. Then we saw some people in the same waiting room with other kinds of numbers. Hmm.. after a while we figured out that we had picked a number to get in a line to get a new number.. OK wel just have to do that. When it came to our number we went over to the guy with the other numbers and he asked us what our purpose was and Susanne said she was sending some stuff to sweeden. OK, he wayed it, and gave us a new number. There was two blind persons sitting behind one of the desks. One was sleeping (it was not siesta yet) and the other one was wrapping peoples parcels. It took her about 20 minutes to do one single parcel. A bit slow, but she was the best damn wrapper I've ever seen.
After about 2 hours it was finally Susanes turn to speak to the guy in scharge of the forms you had to fill out when sending a package. So he gave us a form and told us to fill it out and go to the blind lady to get the stuff wrapped. After waiting for her to finish two other parcels, she wrapped Susanne's stuff and we could finally go back to the first guy to fill out another form, and way the stuff again.
It turned out to be almost as expencive to send it as the price of the stuff she sent.

Whoohh. that is what i call making a short story long. Most of you probably didn't read all of it anyway. But thats allright.
Im down to my last three days in argentina now. I've spent two months here now, and I'm starting to understand the spanish now. I can understand a conversation, but I still can't speak it. If I stayed a few more months I would probably be able to make a conversation. Some other time I guess..

Thats it for now

Keep it real

RonnyRamone

Well, I've now spent a month in Australia, and it is now time for me to move on. In a few days i will fly over to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I have about three and a half months to spend in South America before i make my way towards Norway, with just a minor stopover in the Big Apple, New York.

My plan was to visit Colombia and Venezuela, but there is lots of tension there at the moment, so I have to consider going to some other countries instead. I’m looking at Costa Rica, Jamaica or Cuba as possible destinations, but ill figure that out later on. Its easier to organize things once you’re there. I've also checked out the possibility to fulfill my life long pirate dream and go to Tortuga in the Caribbean, but unfortunately there is tension in Haiti as well.

My deepest concern about going to South America is that I don’t speak any Spanish. Basically the only thing I know in Spanish is “no habla espanol”. It is a little disrespectful of me, but I will hopefully pick up the Spanish once I’m there. I have no choice.

The other day at the beach I spoke to this Argentinean guy who lives in Buenos Aires. We exchanged emails, so I will meet him there and he will show me BA and give me some tips on where to go in Argentina.

Keep it Real

Ronny

Map of journey
http://www.resdagboken.se/Default.aspx?documentId=24&section=journey&journeyId=250270&userId=193344

Ive now been travelling for 83 days, and i have been sleeping in different beds for just as many nights.
Lately ive been staying in the cheapest guesthouses i can find to save some money. Sometimes you have to deal with loud noise, insects and strange smells. Here are some examples of what ive had to deal with. I am not complaining, i think its a good experience.

Most guesthouses have a bar, and they are playing loud music untill 3 or 4 a.m, the walls in the rooms ar very thin, or made of bamboo, so you can feel the bass shaking your bed. The mattresses are often wraped in leather or plastic, it is hygenic, but when youre sweating like a pig because the room is 30 degrees its a bit uncomfortable. You can often see cockroaches on the walls, and hear rats in the walls. The fan is always making too much noise and youre waking up all the time.

Right now i am living in a bungalow dorm and it gets quite humid and cold at night, dogs are barking all the time, people are making loud conversations in the bar, the staff has the tv on too loud and the mosquito net is moving all the time because of the noisy fan. But despite all this i am sleeping remarkabley well.

It makes me think of those rich business men and women on the hotel i used to work at. They often called down at night shouting and swearing at me because their pillow were to soft or too hard.. I feel sorry for them, i really do.

Well thats just some of the daily life of a backpacker. Oh.. and one more thing.. I have been eating all my meals the past 83 days in restaurants, Thats a lot of meals. Im looking forward to cook my own meals for once, but i will eventually get tired of thet as well.

I know my english spelling isnt perfect, but ill just quote the simpsons once again: "Me fail english? Thats unpossible..." -Ralph Wiggum