Rosario
ARGENTINA
Rosario Women are Mean
By AARON
Thursday, November 4, 2010
As much as I would love to tell the story of a pickpocket squirting “a conditioner like substance” on my bag to try and rob me, I leave that to Lyndi and hope that she can tell it with as much fervor and suspense as I just had written (and erased), when I realized I had been assigned the Rosario blog. We will all wait with breathless anticipation for that story in the Buenos Aires blog…
After a pleasant ride on the Buquebus ferry from Colonia, Lyndi and I walked from the station to the bus station in Buenos Aires. Having about 4 days to kill until Cal arrived, Lyndi and I decided to spend a couple of days in Rosario, Argentina’s third largest city, and attend the international food festival that they held every year early in November.
This was to be our first city in Argentina – one of the countries I was looking forward to the most. From its amazing red wine and steaks, to the beautiful, ever-changing landscape of Patagonia, Argentina had been a country I’ve wanted to visit ever since we started traveling. Another thing I had heard was that the buses in Argentina are unparalleled in service and price. Stories of first-class buses at third-class prices where you sip on Malbec and watch good movies permeated through page after page of travel book that we read; so it was with great anticipation as we walked to the bus station, that this would be the best overland traveling yet. Boy were we wrong.
Just as I became depressed when we were told it would be R$50 to camp in Bombinhas when we first arrived to Brazil, Lyndi literally hung her head in defeat when we were told that a 4 hour bus ride on the lowest level of bus would cost us about $35USD – $28USD more than our travel book had stated for the short, 4 hour trip. After talking to a bunch of locals, this was to become the norm for the rest of our Argentinean travels – instead of first-class for a third-class price; you will receive third-class buses for the first-class price.
Downtrodden and $56USD poorer than we had anticipated, we boarded the bus to Rosario and just slept the 4 hours to Rosario. Once we arrived and took the bus to the center of town, we found 83Rosario Hostel – situated in a good part of town and highly recommended at other hostels. We were greeted by a girl who obviously didn’t like her job (Mean girl #1), as any question we asked was greeted with an exasperated quick response, followed by a look of “What! What more do you want?”.
Putting our bags in our room, I went exploring around the hostel as we were not given a tour, and was quickly reprimanded when I walked up some stairs that I was supposedly not supposed to walk up. Deciding to get out of that place, we took off exploring, and walked along the city streets and headed down to check out the food festival which was to start the next day. That night was pretty mellow, as we cooked some food and went to bed around 11pm.
Next morning we went shopping (unsuccessful) for a dress for Lyndi, and then went to check out a couple of kayak tours for the next day. We then headed to Aerolineas Argentinas to buy our tickets from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires for December 20th, where we were ignored for 20 minutes by Mean Girl #2. After buying our tickets, we headed back to the hostel and as soon as the day had started, it was now 8pm, which meant one thing: FOOD FESTIVAL.
This was a yearly thing in Rosario where they celebrate their heritages and roots from countries as close as Chile and as far away as Russia and Palestine. Each stall featured foods from their respective countries and some even had stages set up where 12 year olds would prance around in skimpy belly-dance outfits and gyrate their hips. What parent in their right mind thinks this is okay? I’ll tell you – it’s Rosarian parents. Proudly watching their daughters do dances on stage that would make Lady Gaga blush, while drunken middle-aged men watched under the guise of “yep, I’m here for the cultural experience”. It made for an interesting experience, but weaving our way through pedophiles, Lyndi and I grabbed our cups of wine and beer and ate shwarmas from Lebanon and paella from Spain.
The next morning we decided to take a boat across the large river that borders the city to some beaches where the locals like to hang out on the weekends. Being a Saturday it was quite busy, but Lyndi and I just enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the beach pointing out the nice boats and watching the kite surfers on the unusually windy day. On our walk back to the boat dock, we even saw a Golden Retriever riding with his owner on a jet-ski.
Returning at around 3pm, we decided to try and purchase train tickets to return to Buenos Aires, as they were about 50% cheaper than bus tickets. Arriving at the train terminal, we were not so much greeted, but grunted at (Mean girl #3) by the teller who after a series of frustrated questions, told us that no tickets were available. Boo. Depressed that we had to buy another overpriced bus ticket, we decided to drown our sorrows in some popcorn and sodas while we watched “Paranormal Activities 2” at the local movie theater.
Leaving the movie and needing a clean pair of shorts, we headed back to the hostel and sneakily put a bottle of rum into my water bottle and yes, that’s right, headed back to the food festival. This time we enjoyed the local cuisine of Argentina and helped ourselves to a parrilla of beef and sausage, washed down with some rum and coke. It proved to be a fun night as we returned to the hostel and played ping pong with some locals, and then watched some episodes of House followed by “Return of the Jedi”… in Spanish.
The next morning we let ourselves out, primarily because Mean Girl #1 was passed out from partying too much the night before, and headed to the bus station to return to Buenos Aires where we would have one night before the arrival of Cal. Rosario was an enigma – good food/bad dancers, nice ping-pong playing guys/mean girls, but considering some past cities we had been to, Rosario was nonetheless a good time and if anything – made for an interesting blog.
