If you’re thinking about traveling to Buenos Aires from Montevideo, it’s worth it to know about this chick in Uruguay real quick. Read PART ONE here before you proceed…
TIME: I don’t know
PLACE: Buenos Aires, Argentina
So I woke up at 5am and cleaned the Airbnb I was stayin at for two weeks in Montevideo and went over to The Tres Cruces bus terminal to catch my bus to cross the border into Argentina.
It was a three-hour bus ride and I sat next to some dude that kept falling asleep and lettin his legs fall into my leg space… I took a video of him, slandered him on my Instagram Story, then got to Colonia (some town on the coast of Uruguay). I went through customs and boarded a ferry to Buenos Aires.
It was a big boat with cinema-style seating. I was tired as fuck from the few hours I slept the night before and woke up to the sound of the captain announcing we were in Buenos Aires.
I check into the Art Factory Hostel and am greeted by some dickhead named Martin.
“Hola.” I said to him, but he said nothing. “Uhhh I have a reservation.”
“Name?”
“Greg.”
But now I’m mad, so I short-change him all my answers.
“Kah-a-eh-ya?” He asks.
“Ye.” I didn’t even give him a full ‘yeah’.
“I have charge you for 640 pesos and deposit for room key is 100.”
I take out my international motherfuckin credit card like a gangster, but he says:
“10% for use credit.”
“It’s 10% to use a credit card?”
“Yes.”
“10 percent?!?!”
“In cash it is best, pleeas.”
So I said, “No tengo plata ahora y estoy cansado HIJO DE PUTA” but the last part I didn’t say. I just told him I didn’t have any cash in Spanish, then said I was tired.
“Is okay you pay later maybe if want.”
Thanks. Even though I hate you.
So I walk into my room and there’s a young dude from Venezuela that came to Buenos Aires to study. He’s nineteen.
“Is it really that dangerous there? In Venezuela? Cause I think I am goin there.”
“Yes. Very. I wouldn’t.”
“Oh.”
Then I see there’s a chick’s shoes by my feet. So I ask who else is in our room.
“My sister.” He says in near perfect broken English.
Oh, cool.
I went to bed cause I was tired af.
But then his sister walks in. She’s the good typa tiny.
“Oh you are just got to here?” She asks me.
I act like I’m not tired. “Yeah! I was in… Uh, fuckin… ya know… Uruguay. Montevideo.”
She’s like eighteen. But then I find out she’s twenty-two.
“Oh no I am so feeling bad for you talking if you are so tired.”
“Nah, I mean, I wasn’t gonna sleep really, I don’t think. Maybe. I don’t know.” So we talked for a while until I was about to pass out mid-sentence.
Then some Canadian chick from Vancouver walked in. But she had that ‘don’t fuckin talk to me’ look on her face. So I talked to her immediately.
“HI!”
“Oh, hey.”
And she got on her top bunk and rolled her eyes into the sky till the whole world felt her frustration about… Well, whatever it was she was mad about. Me, maybe. But then we became good friends.
I told everyone about my world record cause that’s what I do.
We were ambushed by a Colombian dude who said they were all going salsa dancing at some club.
I froze.
I can’t dance.
By now I wanna plunge into the Venezuelan girl, but what else is new. I hope nobody is reading this.
But so yeah, I say nah, I ain’t goin. But the Venezuelan chick said, “Plees, but come is sooooo fuhhhnnnn.”
“I dunno how to salsa dance.”
“Is easy look”
And she grabbed me with a tender touch. She was about 5 foot 2 maybe. Her fingers felt like cotton candy and her voice was as light as helium.
Anyway, she showed me a few moves in the room and I was sold. So we walked down some seedy streets and got to the salsa club. The Venezuelan girl grabbed me immediately and brought me into the middle of the dance floor. I stepped on like thirty-eight toes in a span of thirty minutes.
We left when the reggaeton came on at about 2 in the morning and walked back to the hostel. At night the streets of Buenos Aires are dark and desolate with random groups of dudes hanging out in shadowy sections of streetlamp light.
We dodged them.
They scared me.
The next day this French couple that can’t speak a word of English, or Spanish, walk into my room. They’re my new bunkmates. I exhaust my only two sentences of French that I know and then they ask me to join them for a drink.
So I tell the Canuck to come with me so I’ll have someone to talk to. The French couple is with another couple and nobody really speaks anything but French, but so yeah, she came with me and we got to the restaurant. I’m tryin my best to translate their French to Spanish for the waiter, but in the end, I’m not sure what the hell I ordered. The Canadian girl was busy lookin at the French guy she thought was hot, plus she only spoke Canadian so there was nothin else for her to do.
THEN
One of the French girls says to the Canadian chick, “Yew beutful”
“Oh thank you!” The Canadian girl says before the French girl corrects what she meant—
“Wehl- noht beutful but, shar—sharm? Sharmn?”
“Charming!” I say like I discovered ten bitcoin.
“Oh”, the Canadian girl says a bit offended but still complimented by the compliment that had been downgraded to a semi-compliment. We all laugh cause that shit was funny, but I don’t know if the Canuck thought it was as hilarious as the rest of us, and the French chick REALLY had no idea what was so funny. Anyway…
The next morning the Canadian girl (her name is Tan) and I walked over to The Retiro bus terminal to leave Buenos Aires. I had a twenty-hour bus ride further South in Argentina, and she was goin to Rosario or some shit to study Spanish or whatever. I walk her to her platform after finally figuring out what the hell to do at that shit-show of a bus terminal, then buy a belt from some vendor cause either my one pair of pants is stretching or I’m losing a billion pounds from not eating all the shitty food… Which is basically bread–for every meal, then stop off at an ATM and take out 2,000 pesos, which is like $120 USD.
I buy some water and food and get on my bus.
I sat alone for an hour until we got to some other bus terminal in another city and some guy named Carlos sat next to me. The bus stopped again at like 4AM and we had dinner together in Bahia Blanca, Carlos and I.
I walked outside after dinner and watched the wild dogs roam the bus station parking lot.
Then a pigeon shit on my hand while I was on the phone with my homie Eric so I ran into the bus station and washed my hands then got back on the bus and woke up in some beach town named Puerto Madryn.
I quickly packed my pack back up and rushed off the bus before it took off again, and Carlos walked me off the bus.
“Sabes donde ir?” (you know where to go?)
“Uhh… No… Pero, puedo–” (no, but I can…) then I took out my iPhone and googled where the fuck to go. “Aca. Estoy yendo aca” (here. I’m going here) and I showed Carlos where I was goin. It was only 750 meters away.
“Bien. Suerte. We keeping in touch por Facebook.” He said, and bid me farewell.
I had no idea where I was and I had no agenda. So I walked 750 meters to my hostel and that’s when these two chicks asked if I wanted to drink mate with them and go to the beach.
Well… Sure. Why not.
Something told me it was gonna be an interesting day… And it was.
BUT THEN…