Lessons from an Unprepared Traveler in South America

The mere fact that I'm currently writing a blog from the safety of our humble apartment in Buenos Aires is nothing short of a miracle that probably was granted us because of the Rosary I decided to pray while we were in the middle of nowhere in Uruguay.

I'll briefly describe our Saturday night before the real story begins. We went out to a terrible salsa dancing club where there was a stage full of Cuban guys showing us how to dance if it happens to be your goal to attract other men. It clearly wasn't for us. Especially once the lead dancer started sticking out his tongue and winking at Luke. We were all uncomfortable... Luke may or may not have simply enjoyed the attention of a non-Colombian who wasn't going to break his heart. Only his heart knows.

He's the guy with the black shirt and only one button. Fourth from the left.

We left. We got back home around 2 am thinking it would be cheaper to just have a few drinks at home and then head to another dance club in Palermo which is supposed to be the most fun place in the entire city. It didn't disappoint. We ended up at a place called Brook where we spent about 3 hours dancing and having a great time. When it closed around 5 am we thought the night was over--we were very naïve. Out on the street, we started talking to some girl who was alone and waiting for her friend to pick her up. She was pretty awesome. Her friend, Veronica, pulled up in a BMW that probably cost $60,000 in the US meaning it was more along the lines of $90,000 in this God-forsaken country.

Instead of just leaving the three of us to get a taxi home, Marina invited us to jump in her friends car and go to the after-hours party at Ink. We had heard about Ink but blew it off as a place that we couldn't afford since it's the hottest club in Buenos Aires and usually only open to people that have been invited. We were invited. The girls just told us not to talk and to follow them in. Veronica, our driver, apparently has more connections in Buenos Aires than Barack Obama has wiretaps. Yea, I made this political... sorry.

We got to the club and walked straight up to the VIP section which was full of people that looked like they had too much money and then there were two Americans and a Colombian. That was us. Not only did we not look the part, we were completely blown away about what had just happened. Which brings me to my first lesson that I'd like to impart on my loyal followers for this blog: Never be afraid to talk to anyone, especially if they look friendly and know way more about the city that you're traveling in.

We had the best time of our entire stay in Argentina thus far and it was all because we simply said hello to some girl that looked like she needed help outside a club.

Which leads me to another vital lesson--one that I know well, but that hasn't ever really been applied to me, it's usually just applied to friends of mine visiting me in China. When you're in a country with someone who speaks the local language better than you, you're only as good as that person wants you to look. While I was the one who initiated the conversation with Marina, Luke was the one who eventually won her heart. I blame it entirely on my inability to conjugate Spanish verbs. Luke hasn't stopped texting her since we left that club. I smell a romance brewing. I better be the best man.

Marina is in the middle. Clearly.

When Sunday rolled around, we definitely knew it would be a good idea to attend mass but we also knew that getting to Church before 5 pm wasn't really a possibility since we finally made it to bed around 8 am. Luckily for us, we had done our research and found a mass that started at 7 pm. When I woke up around 4 pm, my first words were, "Luke we don't have any more eggs for breakfast. It's also 4 pm, though."

After 7 pm mass we decided our best play was to try and get to bed relatively early and catch the train to Tigre where we could get a ferry to Uruguay and take out US dollars to bring back and exchange at a more reasonable rate than the one we had been getting at ATMs. Our lovely Colombian Aunt promised us that boats left Tigre every 15 minutes for Colonia. Well, she was wrong. We got to Tigre around 2 pm hoping to get a ferry right away and then another one back that night so we wouldn't have to spend more money for a hotel in Uruguay. As usually is the case when we don't plan very well, we were quite surprised to find out that only two boats left Tigre every day for Colonia and they had already left. Our only option was a boat that left Tigre for a city called Carmelo. Now, there's a reason only one boat leaves for this city every day. It's because nobody really wants to go there. It has a population of about 18,000 according to Wikipedia and has one hotel.

At this point, once again, Luke was ready to head home and cut our losses. I wasn't that easily convinced. Which leads me to another important lesson. There's never an adventure that should be forsaken simply because no planning has taken place. God will always provide a way out and if he doesn't, at the very least, he'll give you the strength to endure whatever suffering is required to survive. After about 2 hours of bantering, I finally convinced Luke that plans are for the weak. True adventurers first act and then put their heads together to find solutions as the challenges arrive. Luke said the only reason he acquiesced was because the same thing happened at the soccer game and we ended up having an incredible night.

Us on the boat to Carmelo.

We bought two tickets to Carmelo. The boat was supposed to leave at 5:30 pm and was supposed to be a two hour ride across the River. We were kind of banking on this because the woman that sold us our tickets told us that there should be a bus leaving Carmelo for Colonia at around 8 pm. That meant if we were 30 minutes late, we would probably have to stay in this small town with no hotel and nowhere to go. I've always wanted to try living homeless for a night to understand what it's like.

We almost got that opportunity. The boat left 45 minutes late and we arrived in Carmelo around 9 pm. With no idea what to do, we decided to run to the city center with the hopes of finding a bus that might be late or willing to take us to Colonia. Really, we were living on a prayer. This city had more rabid dogs walking around the Tijuana and there was at most 2 people in the entire city square by the time we got there.

We ran with our one backpack that had a bottle of water and an extra jacket. Remember, we had no intentions of spending the night in Uruguay. But there we were in a city alone with zero Uruguayan pesos and no idea of what our next move might be.

When we got to the city center we pulled out as much US dollars that we could and then about a hundred dollars worth of pesos. We ran to the bus stop and as I said, miracles happen. There was a bus that was leaving at 10:30 pm. We bought our tickets to freedom and ran to the nearest restaurant to get some sustenance.

Luke stoked we got our bus tickets.

Uruguayan food is incredible.

The bus ride was only an hour and we arrived in the very beautiful town of Colonia around 11:30 pm. Then we realized once again we had no game plan. After asking around, we found out the first boat left Colonia for Buenos Aires around 4:30 am. We definitely didn't need a place to sleep. On a Monday night in Colonia, turns out the only promising option was to spend the whole night in a casino. But first we wanted to go try a local beer. While at the bar, we struck up a conversation with the bartender. He talked to us for about an hour and we decided to ask him if he was in our position, what he would do for the next 3 hours until we had to be at the port.

The bartender is the guy on the left. He would put us in a precarious situation later.

That was our first pretty big mistake. Which leads me to another important lesson. Even if two countries claim to speak the same language, that isn't necessarily always the case. In Argentina the world for dance club is boliche. Not so much in Uruguay. The bartender called a taxi and we were on our way to what he claimed was the best boliche in Colonia around 1 am. He told us the place was right next to the airport so when we saw the airport signs we had high hopes. We also realized that we could be on our way to an organ factory where we would meet our maker and we would be dismembered and sold on the black market for a couple thousand dollars. Well, luckily that wasn't the case, but the reality of what happened wasn't exactly much better.

We turned down a really dark alley that didn't have a street sign and wasn't a paved road. I looked to Luke and simply said, "Seriously, be ready to jump out of this car and run as fast as we can into the darkness." We were both pretty terrified. Then we pulled up to what looked like a house. My hand was on the car door. Then he told us we had arrived. There was one woman in the window and the place was absolutely empty. He told us to walk in and check it out. We thought we should just leave. He insisted it was a great place and to knock on the door. We told him that he needed to wait 2 minutes because it didn't look quite like what we had hoped for.

After we opened the door, we immediately realized that boliche in Uruguayan spanish could only mean one thing: brothel. The place was absolutely disgusting and had girls playing pool and a hallway of rooms with a bar full of guys.

We got back in the taxi and got the hell out of there as fast as we could. Our only remaining option was the Casino at the Radisson hotel which was open until 3 am and would put us only an hour before boarding our boat back to Buenos Aires.

I snapped this picture of the wonderful boliche as we were driving away.

The casino was anything but exciting. We realized we had to gamble a little bit in order to justify being in the place at all. We sat down with $30 USD and literally lost it all in 3 hands. Our gambling was over. We headed to the casino bar and ordered a few drinks. The night was just getting worse with every decision. Finally, I decided to ask the pit boss if he would give us free drinks if we gambled more. His answer was a none-too-ecstatic yes. They poured us another round and we changed $50 USD into chips for the blackjack table--but it was closed. They were going to make us play roulette and Luke refused since he supposedly did an entire research paper on the probability of winning at roulette and was adamantly against it. I put all my money down on black.

After the boliche, before the casino.

I'd love to end this story with me winning $50 to put us back above even but that's not what happened. The pit boss told us we were only allowed to bet a minimum of $100 on colors. I took back my $50 chip as Luke and I tried to figure out our next move. Since they had just purchased us two drinks, we kind of felt obligated to gamble a little bit but our only option was roulette and that wasn't a very good one.

I began thinking and usually when that happens, Luke gets worried. I told Luke that our next play was for him to go outside, get my backpack at the coat check and I would change my $50 chip for cash again and we would sprint out of the place and toward the boat dock. He didn't like the idea, but it ended up working quite well. We left the place having only lost $30 and picked up two free drinks along the way.

The rest of the story is quite similar to what you would expect. We made it to the boat at 4 am. It was supposed to leave at 4:30 but ended up leaving about 2.5 hours late. We got back home around 8 am and slept until 4 pm. We had planned to change all the money we had taken out, but by the time we got to the back alley money-changing site, it was closed.

So here we are, sitting in our hotel room with 0 pesos and $300 USD in our pockets. We leave tomorrow for Bariloche and we don't want to exchange our money at a bank because we will get skewered.

Let's hope God has another miracle in store for us tomorrow morning before we catch our flight.

God Bless Argentina and all of you for reading this really long blog post.

Michael

Pictures for your enjoyment:

Sunset on the boat ride from Tigre to Carmelo.

We met another awesome dog that we named Milo again in Colonia.

On the boat back home to Buenos Aires. Pretty much summed up the past 24 hours.