So here’s the deal. A few weeks ago, a good friendo of mine (and also Exchange student) Melli invited me to come visit her last weekend for her birthday. So, after discussing this with my hostmom (Because melli lives in a small town over 14 hours away, I would normally have to obtain Cesky permissions, signed letters of permision, and other annoying things to be able to go, because of Rotary’s procedure; but if I get the ok directly from my hostmom, all of this is avoided) I was informed that it would be best if I bought the bus ticket early, because of semana santa, the week around easter, when there’s lots of tourisic movement. So, I bought the ticket from Puerto Iguazú to corrientes, the place where I’d be going. About two days later, Melli kindly informed me that she was no Langer having the party, because she was travelling with her family to salta the weekend she had planned on having her party. Sh*t. So I thought to myself, there’s no way in hell I’m wasting that 200-peso ticket. So, I planned on visiting some friends of mine in the area instead. Around that time, an old friendo of mine, David, an argentinian that I’d met in a hostel in january, invited me to come visit him in Tucumán, and that if I did come, he would pay the ticket back to Iguazú. How convenient! So, I made the plan to stop first in corrientes/resistencia (resistencia is the neighboring city to corrientes) and visit my friends, and then continue to Tucumán. Of course, I had conveniently neglected to tell my hostmom any of this. With Tucumán being so incredibly far away (around 1400 kms), it would be almost impossible to get her permission to just go and stay with a friendo I met in a hostel. So, that Wednesday, after a delicious dinner, my hostmom dropped me off at the bus station. I had bought three beers to help me sleep on the bus (a trick I’ve found that works marvelously). When I arrived, I noticed that there was an enormous crowd of people all gathered in the waiting space. When I asked an employee what was the matter, he told me that there was a protest in a town about 2 hours south of Iguazú, and that they had cut off the route. Those bastards. So, I waited for about 3 and a half hours for my bus to arrive (it was scheduled to arrive at 21:00 and arrived at 01:30), and drank all my beers in the process. Hell, at least the bus arrived at all. I arrived in corrientes at around 11:30 am, where I quickly made the trip over to resistencia. After catching up with my friend yanina for a few hours, we decided to visit my friend Sam, another american Exchange student who loves to party as much as I do. My ticket to Tucumán was for 21:00, so we had the afternoon and the early night. So, we wisely spent it smoking and drinking, munching on peanuts and chips, and generally having a good time. At 21:00 Sam’s hostmom dropped me off at the bus station. Due to my extreme buzz, I passed out directly upon contact with the bus seat. The 10-hour bus ride went fairly quickly, and when I woke up I was in the town neighboring the capital city of Tucumán. When I got of the bus at the station in the capital, I was greeted with the embrace of my good friend. As we were leaving, I was delighted to find out that we would be travelling by way of his 110 cc guerrero, a tiny motorbike the likes of which many argentinians use. Before we stopped at his house, he gave me a tour of the city (which, I might add, was much larger than I had expected; Tucumán is a city of nearly one million people). We passed by the historical house of Tucumán, the plaza, the neighbor hood with all the clubs, among several other famous spots. Afterwards, we stopped back at his house for lunch. I got to know his family; his (quite old) mother and father, older brother, and sister (an interesting note for you americans; David is 28 years old and lives with his parents, so does his sister, who is older still. This is fairly normal in argentina, where families keep a very close bond). After an extremely filling and delicious lunch of umita, we went to a spot about 20 kms from his house called the Cadillal, a large lake with places nearby to go hiking, a beautiful view of the mountains, and is a very popular spot for the people of Tucumán and tourists alike. After relaxing there for a few hours, we went back to david’s house to eat dinner (umita again). After dinner, we went to a david’s friendo matias’ house to go drinking. Between the 3 of us, we finished off about 3 bottles of artificial wine and a quarter bottle of liquor (meager, I know, but we were quite full from dinner). We slept the night there, as David had to drive home, and upon arrival home, slept in until about 2 in the afternoon. After a delicious lunch of milanesa, we went into the city to go to a dance practice; David is on a reggaeton dance team that competes around the province. I must say, I was in shock for the first half hour. The amount of insanely attractive girls, and the way they moved their bodies, was just great. Really great. After the class, we went out to the plaza with a few members of the class to have some pop and cookies. I was excited to find out that they were having a party that night. After the cookies, we went back to his house, and from there, up to the mountain. Let me just tell you, every time we ever got off the motorbike, I was glad. After you’ve been to a zillion places every day, even just for the past 36 hours or so, sitting on the back of a 110cc guerrero is NOT confortable. But, the view from the mountains was quite nice. At night, with a clear sky, seeing the lights from the city from a mountain (we weren’t even at the top yet) was really quite nice. After enjoying the vista, we went back down, to go to the party. It actually turned out to be a lot less wild and dancing-filled as David had explained it would be, but nonetheless, it was a good time. Hot dogs, Fernet con Coca, a bit of (attempted)salsa dancing with david’s quite attractive friend Mariana, and some really big guy who came later who talked (or yelled) REALLY loud, told a lot of gay jokes, did nothing but try to be the center of attention, and generally annoy the host of the party (they were best friends, I suppose that’s why he tolerated it). In the middle of the party, maybe around 02:30, David and I went to a few boliches (clubs) so he could show me some of the Tucumán nightlife. First we went to some really small one, that Orly had maybe 20 people inside, Rausing our departure shortly after. We then went to a fairly large club called valentino, a place where we could easily get in for free because David knew the security guards. It was alright inside, pretty crowded, with maybe about 1000 or more people inside all together, with 4(?) dance floors, each one with different music. So here I was, dancing with some girl, when all of a sudden we’re pushed away, almost violently. Then, I noticed in the middle big circle of space that had just been instantaneously formed, there was a (woman) cop fighting with two guys. All I saw was her punch the one guy in the stomach, and then his friendo pushed her to the ground. She got up (apparently faster than he had expected) and hit him hard acoss the head with her nightstick, making him dazed, nearly falling. At that point, several security guards and other policemen came and finished the fight pretty quickly. We left about then. While outside, I noticed that the police that arrived had a hard time in figuring out what happened, as everyone “forgot” what happened, or didn’t see it. Awesome. When we got back to the party, we found that about 4 people had left, although things were mostly the same as the way we left them. We stayed until about 07:30, when we went home. After a solid 6 hours of sleep or so and a filling lunch, we went back up to the mountain, so that I could see the top of it, and in the daytime. At the top of the mountain, there is a huge statue of Jesus about 100 feet tall, similar to the on in Rio de Janeiro. On the day that we arrived, there was a religious festival-thing because it was holy week, so there was a Tucumán folklore band, accompanied by an orchestra, and later a choir. After an hour or so there we went back down. Later, we went to another dance class, where David taught me some of their awesome (and extremely provocative) choreography. Sweet! Directly after that, I walked down to the terminal with some of david’s friends to get on the bus back to Iguazú.
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