Resistencia, Argentina

Writing to you from Resistencia, a small town we decided to stop over at en route to Cordoba (where we are going tonight). In an internet cafe and we´ve got a bit of time before we need to be at the station so we thought we´d fill you in on what we´ve been up to. A quick update on the fake watch progess - Nadia´s fake Puma (Puba) purchased on the mean streets of Paraguy didnt even last a day. Steve`s Bolex is still going strong, and the locals in this town now refer to him as Él Senor con Huevos (Man who Owns Nice Watch and has Biggest Biceps).

We arrived here after (yet another) overnight bus on Friday morning and were seriously tired. Our heavy backpacks weren´t helping and our moods were dropping rapidly as we wandered aimlessly around the town trying to find a place to stay and discovering that everywhere was full (who would have thought?). By 10am the heat was pushing up to the high thirties (hotter than hotazhell) but luckily (or maybe not so luckily) we found a place to stay. We soon discovered why this place was not full. But for the tv and the bathroom, it was pretty much a solatary confinement cell. But the Sandton Gringos made themselves at home and made the most of the place by turning the fan to superhigh and the tv to superloud. By that time, due to our rough morning and the delibilating heat, we decided that a siesta was the best option. After a nap, we headed out to explore the town and discovered that it was not quite as bad without heavy packs. We found a restaurant and ate lomitos (a steak roll with everything on it - ham, cheese, egg, lettuce, tomato... steak, roll). We went past an Icecream shop (the Argentinians are Italians in disguise, so there are many Gelaterias) and payed R10 for an enourmous amount of very good ice cream. & Looking around at the people, we realised that there were some unique aspects to this town. Firstly, there are no robots or stop streets at intersections here, the town planners clearly decided at the time that ´them new-fangeled things called traffic lights were a silly invention and people would have the sense to sort their road affairs out without intervention. This did not really work. Thus to navigate your way through an intersection you must drive your car forcefully into the stream of oncoming traffic and shout obscenities in Spanish and if you´ve been to church enough you´ll probably be ok. Secondly, the 2cc Moped is the preferred family vehicle here. The people clearly saw the Volvo SUVs and the BMW X5s and thought that it would be much safer to pile the whole family on the back, front and sides of a piece of equipment smaller than a child´s bicycle. It is fantastic. We even saw a guy and his dog (both had helmets) riding around town, the dog´s paws on his owners shoulders, the wind blowing through his hair, all the girl dogs swooning as he flew past in a whoosh of canine rebellion. We would show you pics but the buggers go by so quickly its not possible to take a photo.

That night we decided to have a big one, and we`d heard that Argentinians only go out really late. With this in mind, we purchased some Fernet and Coke (the local drink) and a really awful bottle of white wine, and chilled out in our prisoncell I mean hotel room waiting for the hours to tick by until it was late enough to go out. At about midnight, we hit the town and took a taxi to the other end of town where we saw a few clubs. After getting ripped off by a Taxi driver who nearly killed a dog, we walked towards the door of our first Argentine club. The bouncers laughed at us and told us that only crazy people go out before 3:30am. One of the clubs we tried told us they would only open at 3. After cursing this way of life and walking around trying to find likeminded people who partied at a reasonable hour, and sobering up in the process, we settled on a bar where people meet to have some drinks before they go out (at 2:30am!!!). We could not last much longer and so we soon returned home, beaten gringos. We vowed to return triumphant the next night.

Saturday:
That morning Fausto got back in touch with his innerchild by watching Hook on TV. It was sad, but touching. After emerging from the Roomofdeathandsweatiness, we stepped out into a ghost town. What had been, just the night before, a bustling place, was now a deserted town with only a tumbleweed rolling down the main drag (ok there was no tumbleweed, but had there been it would have been perfect). We went to a bar called Fenix and had some lunch (another Lomito). We realised we´d got the lifestyle schedule all wrong so we went to have a siesta in the hopes that that night we could keep up with the locals. This did not work. After sharing a bottle of rather nice wine in the park, we went to Zingara, a little cocktail place. As it got closer to 1am, it began to fill up and the Dj spun pop from the 80s and 90s (but only played 30seconds of song). We realised we had made an improvement on the night before. However, we did not manage to stay awake long enough to make it to the magical time of 3am, and so did not go out, so we went home, despondent and defeated yet again by the Argentine way of life. If the Falkland war had been decided on staying up really late, the Poms wouldnt have had a chance.

Today we watched Man U (very narrowly and quite obviously with less class) beating the mighty and stupendously genius Arsenal. Fausto is getting very upset that it is Steve at the helms of these keys, since he´s a manc. The Gringos were slightly hated by the locals, since we stopped an entire restaurant from watching Nalbandian (an Argentine) win a semifinal of the Davis Cup, so that the three foreigners could watch some English footie...classic. We ate pretty bad pasta and when we got the bill we saw that we had been charged for the use of their cutlery. Had we known, we would have brought our own. Baaastards. After the tennis incident, the townsfolk began to chase us down the main drag with torches and pitchforks, so we found refuge in this UN Internet Cafe. They are trying to knock down the door to get at us. Ok thats really not true, they were quite nice about the whole thing, and only pitchforked us once.

Alrighty, we gotta go catch our bus to Cordoba.

Hasta Luego.

Los Gringitos

To see pics from Resistencia, go to http://picasaweb.google.es/steveo.zogg/Resistencia - sorry we couldnt put em in the blog cause the internet wouldnt let us. Blasted Internet. We will try put em in soon.

Next stop Cordoba