Monte Tronadór

Our tour, booked at the hostel desk when we arrived yesterday, started at 9 AM. Gabriella was our tour guide and a pleasant woman with very clear English of about 30 something.

After a few more stops, picking up more customers, our bus went south on Route 40 for about 30 minutes and then took a gravel road on the right with just a small sign indicating that this road was, in fact, a full-fledged road, leading to Chile even, if one chose to go that way.
We took this road to visit Mte. Tronadór, an extinct volcano, situated on the border of Chile.

Half the mountain is in Chile, the other half in Argentina. With a height of 3,500 meters, this colossal Mte. Tronadór is visible from afar. Snow peaked; it stands solemnly as the highest peak in this National Park.
The gravel road we were on followed a river more or less.

The source of this rapidly flowing river is a glacier sitting on the top and side of Mte. Tronadór and is our target for today’s excursion. A few miles further along the curvy, narrow road, we paid our admission of 50 pesos and officially entered the huge environmental National Park, named Nahuel Huapi.
This gravel road is narrow, dusty and very bumpy.

On and on we went, for almost 2 hours, covering 900 curves in 50 km., and the driver was busy keeping the bus moving. We were gaining elevation since our start was at 750 meters and our destination lies at 1150 meters. Left and right along the narrow drive, strange trees greeted us. Beyond the nearby trees, an expanse clearly showed that the valley was carved by a glacier

or that the raging river helped sculpt the area. The look was primordial, lonely and wild but beautiful. We stopped a few times for picture opportunities, to stretch our legs but kept moving on and on. Other buses, not too many though, were on the same road. The dust created by their passing us or us passing them left a cloud, so we kept our distance and only encountered a few private cars along the way. No motorcycles, I would say that it is nutty to ride on this stretch of the world on a bike. The surface is rough, full of soft gravel and the corners are steep and sharp.
At one of the stops, where a platform had even been constructed, was a view of a heart-shaped island in the middle of an emerald lake.

The shape was not really visible from this side of the lake but I took a picture of the postcard Gabriella showed all of us.
Trees growing along the side of the road had names and characteristics I never had heard about. One such tree, Coigüe or Cohoui, grows nodes around some branches and from those nodes a fungi (Llao Llao) blooms once a year. Those fungi ‘bloom’ around October and are edible and sweet. The natives, the Huapi, inhabitants of the area for eons, ate them raw and treated them as a delicacy. Even today, those mushroom-looking blooms are coveted and are precious morsels if found. We saw one such tree with nodes hanging off its branches but could not take a picture in the moving, shaking bus.
Sometime after we passed the Ranger Station, we come to a large expanse, a scenic area with some platforms built along the river Manso.

This was as close as we could get to the Glaciar Negro (the Black Glacier) or the Glaciar Del Manso which feeds the Black Glacier. Naturally everybody clicked away with their cameras to get a good picture but the view was really delightful.

Huge chunks had broken off the black river of ice and were floating in the milky, light coffee colored waters below the edge of the glacier. This is the source of the Rio Manso we have been following; or part of the source because above this point, high up on the mountain of Mte. Tronadór, another all white glacier showed its edge to us.

The glacier, Glaciar Del Manso, looked tiny from our point of view but we were at the wrong angle. Gabriella pointed out that the little white we saw was in fact 100 meters deep of pure ice, way above the stone precipice. Waterfalls dotted the stone wall, wet areas discolored the stones. A huge space was visible between the upper, white Glacier and the lower, Black Glacier. Chunks of ice and water falling off the upper white glacier into the lower area mixed with the dirt, ash and minerals from the moraine at the glacier’s edge.

The whole mix became almost black in color as it refroze and formed the lower, Black Glacier. This is a picture of erosion at its finest.
We experienced a new outlook on these ever-changing conditions and natural phenomena. We had a small bus load of people; there were maybe 2 or 3 other buses in the small parking lot, and the strangest thing happened. We all exited the bus talking, chatting and in general having a good time. We all took pictures. We all walked down to the edge of the river and saw the floating ice blocks. And then..... one by one, everyone stopped talking; even the children on the tour. Within a few moments everyone just became quiet; no one spoke, moved or made any noise. Believe me, this is a very unusual experience in Argentina to hear total quiet, to experience nobody talking. The moment was special, the feeling awe inspiring. Everybody, even children, experienced this feeling. It lasted quite some time, too. Only the sudden thunder from way above near the edge of the white Glacier made everybody look in the same direction.

We could clearly see an avalanche as a piece of the ice broke off and fell down to the lower section of the Black Glacier. A new water fall formed after the fall of the ice but then stopped. Quiet returned. We witnessed Nature giving us a wonderful experience, a show primitive yet exquisite. One by one, still in awe, we re-climbed the stairs back to our bus, having had an experience worth the admission to the park.
Just about 10 km further down the road, at the foot of Mte. Tronadór the tour ended.

We had time to reflect on what we experienced, time to grab a lunch, time to take a walk along another smaller river, rushing past us to meet the Rio Manso. The area was full of rocks, full of boulders, full of exposed tree roots, full of fallen trees, cascading waters, sunshine that heated up those rocks and full of cool shadows, perfect for a picnic.

The walking path had some difficult stretches until it came to a spot where it could only be continued with special equipment and foot wear. Some young people tried to climb but not for long before it became clear that even they needed to plan ahead to conquer this primitive world. The National Park, Nahuel Huapi, allows hikers to use the area for exploration and even continue on to Chile from here. I wish them good luck, I can see doing it at 25 years old, but I learned a few things along my way, one is not to push too hard.
Our way back on the bus took a good 2 hours, along the same narrow, gravel road but without stopping this time. We drove the same part of Route 40, this time going north, dropping people off at their respective hotels. The bus driver was really good on the gravel, sometime sliding around the corner, wheels spinning in the gravel and leaving a huge dust cloud behind the vehicle. I could tell he loved it, playing Latin Rock on his CD to the delight of the girls behind us who sang along, clapping and laughing, having a party. Ah, to have hormones (HAH!) and stamina like that again.
For me it was a more surreal outing. I laughed, too, and sang but more quietly and within myself. It was a new experience for me to visit a glacier that close, to see Mother Nature share her ways and to be part of this Universe. I loved the quiet, the no sound but what Nature had to offer. My delight was the sunshine creating shadows; the wind rustling the leaves of trees. The sound of the water moving the pebbles and rocks was my music.

On the road to San Carlos de Bariloche (famous Route 40)

The distances are great in Argentina. Another 17 hours on a bus, going due south from Mendoza to Bariloche. Long flights seem better; at least I don’t get jostled around so much in my seat when I fly. We had a few stops along the way to Bariloche to pick up other passengers.
Just after we left Mendoza at 9.00 PM on Sunday it rained quite a bit and yes, the roof of the bus leaked right over my seat. I had to use a blanket to hold the water off of me. It was a good, strong shower and luckily did not last too long. The rain wet the floor and all seats were taken so I could not switch seats. The crew had no answer to my predicament.
We stopped about 6 times for military controls along the way but nobody came into the bus to check out the passengers like they did on the bus to Iguazú falls. We were served dinner at 10 PM, breakfast at 7 AM and lunch at 1 PM on this trip. The food is similar to airline food with an Argentinean flavor. We had cookies and stale medialunas (croissants) for breakfast, for example). It was food to still one’s hunger, not to satify ones senses.
A speed alarm went off after one stop and could not be reset manually. Once the bus driver exceeds 90KM per hour, his speed limit, a red light comes on and a high pitched beeper sounds upstairs. The personnel tried to manually turn if off but it was stuck. So it beeped for a while, right above our seats, wailing at a high pitch that was actually painful for Carol. Luckily she had ear plugs handy. Only after the driver stopped the bus and restarted the engine did the buzzer reset itself and turn off.
The trip was butt numbing; my backside ached from sitting that long in a semi-reclining seat. I tried to sleep but fitting like a pretzel into the seat made it just a nap here and there. The landscape around us was the same flat landscape for miles and miles.

Most of the land was now desert, with just a few houses or small towns along the way. The land in between the towns was not farmed; I just saw scrubby bushes and a few grassy patches here and there. During the night no light shone and I saw only blackness.

I noticed that Poplar trees were planted wherever possible to break up the wind coming out of the west, off the high Andes that look like a black wall in the distance.
Route 40, the famous road we are now on, 5000 km of road from north to south, runs parallel to those expanses of monster volcanoes, most extinct but some still quite active. Near the town of Neuquén, the land started to change. This is the official gate city to Patagonia. From now on the Route 40 no longer runs straight but finds the easiest pass thru the foot hills of the mountains but always bearing south. It must have been some work to put in this road through the western part of Argentina. The terrain is unforgiving, the desert, hot and dry and very windy, the mountains twisty and undulating, seemingly forever.
We passed spots of dead poplar trees and gray,

dust covered bushes. The air looked like we were driving through a cloud yet it was ash from a spewing volcano nearby.

This Volcano, Puyehue, southwest of Bariloche, has been erupting continuously since last July. Westerly winds make the ashes drift far into the land and sometimes block out the sun.
In this wild area of Argentina, the road is just one lane in each direction. Two vehicles can just about pass each other, there is not always room to pull off the side of the road, and there are just a few guard rails in the most dangerous spots. Since I sat in the driver’s seat but on the upper deck I had the same view as the driver. Sometimes the going was very tight, the curves difficult to negotiate. I noticed the bus driver cutting corners on steep curves,

but I also noticed he never passed when there was the slightest chance of oncoming traffic. Some cars, old and dilapidated, were very slow and never did the bus driver pass unless he could really pass in a safe manner.

Head on collisions on route 40 are part of life. We passed one such accident and had to drive through the dirt on the side of the road to get past the accident scene.

It was difficult going in the soft sand next to the road for big trucks and buses. We were lucky we did not get stuck but the driver managed with a lot of wheel spinning to get back on the tarmac again.
Once we entered Patagonia, trees were more numerous and the bus now had to contend with curves upon curves. Once in a while we saw different trees, most of them I don’t know, but I recognized a few Monkey Puzzle trees.
I watched the road signs and still it said, 340 km. to Bariloche, then after some time 280 km. etc. We were getting closer. We crossed rivers, we passed blue/green lakes, and we saw in the west the 3000+ meter giant mountains looming with their white snow hats. On and on we drove until finally, at 2 pm we arrived at the Terminal de Omnibus in Bariloche. I am so glad we had Hostel reservation; I would not want to drive around in a taxi now, looking for accommodation after such a long trip. My body aches, my head is spinning, and I need sleep.

Mendoza

Leaving BA was now straight forward and we traveled at night again to make the bus ride more bearable. Our destination, Mendoza, is about 1100 KM west from BA and the over-night bus,

this time a real sleeper, where the seats reclined a full 180 degrees (Cama Suite) made the 14 hour trip seem shorter and much more comfortable.
The landscape along the way is nothing to write about. Flat expanses left and right where trees have been planted for centuries to keep the soil in place. Former grass lands are now stabilized by mostly poplar, birch or pine trees. Not that it is woodsy but the endless flat terrain is now broken by those tree plantings. Still the landscape is nothing but a huge flat expanse, the Pampas.
We arrived in Mendoza around 9 AM on Friday morning and without difficulty the taxi took us to our already reserved Hostel Damajuana about ten minutes away. But at check in ….
“We do not have a room!” she said.
I am still sleepy, not comprehending the lady.
We have a reservation! See our slip of paper from the Travel Agent?
“Sorry, we booked the room to someone else; we do not have a room available!”
Well, I woke up quickly, the monotony of the trip, the landscape, the lack of sleep evaporated. What do you mean you gave our room away to someone else? This is not funny! A few phone calls to the owner of the Hostel and checking their computer system revealed that indeed, a new employee of the hostel made a mistake and gave ‘our’ room away. What to do? With some extra phone calls made we were given a room in the Hostel’s sister operation, just two long blocks down the street.
The ‘new’ hostel, Ítaka, is a backpackers place.

Our new room does not have A/C and the day temp is around 32 C (94F). The room is cooled by an old fashioned, very noisy, standing fan. The exposure is west, so the sun beats on the room until it finally sets. No curtains to draw, just some shutters that are hard to operate. The bathroom is a joined affair down the hall. We are above the bar. The place is noisy with the energy of the young people from all over the world coming and going. Yet, what choice do we have? We took the room. The lack of sleep or not wanting to fight for anything else got the better of me. The floors of the place are all tiles, the walls are bare, and so the noise level is amplified. The personnel however treated us nicely and were very apologetic.
We stuffed our bags into the room and took a long walk to explore the town center of Mendoza. With a small city map as our guide, we walked to the main plaza and confirmed what we expected. Nice city! The city Plaza was filled with trees and little kids playing along its walks and blanket merchants, offering trinket jewelry nobody needs or even wants, from their blankets on the sidewalk. A small army of leaf cutting ants was our entertainment for awhile.

We walked for close to 4 hours and were tired so returned to the hostel for a siesta.
There is nothing to report from Mendoza, only that it is a city. Sure it has small drainage ditches, acéquias,

running along the roadsides since pre-Inca times but it is a busy city with buses, cars, bumpy sidewalks and noise and heat during the day. The earthquake in 1861 leveled the historic area; the ‘new’ Mendoza is just a city; planned in a checker board layout, more or less. It is the commercial capital of the region.
As an apology for ‘their’ freely admitted mistake, the Hostel owner gave us free lunches and dinners for the two days we were booked. A nice touch, yet those folks do not understand how ‘older’ people like their peace and quiet. Food is not the leading indicator of a ‘nice’ place. We would have much preferred the original place, especially since our first ‘free’ food event was a BBQ that evening in the court yard of the hostel Damajuana, our original hostel. Argentina eats late. So the BBQ was scheduled to begin at 10 PM and actually started at 10.30 PM or so, we are on Argentina time, remember that. In the court yard of the Hostel Damajuana, next to their small pool, a make-shift setting of assorted chairs and tables was set up. Using some long-staying clients as helpers, the Hostel put on a traditional Parrilla.

At our table we had a couple from Argentina, he was from Tierra del Fuego, she from Mendoza. A single Chinese man from Hong Kong but living in California, two women from Holland, a single woman from Oregon and a hitchhiker from Australia rounded out our group. The languages flowed back and forth, English being the most prevalent at the table but Spanish was tried and used, too.
The menu was meat.

Every kind known to Argentineans was on the grill and was served, one piece at the time. Even the infamous blood sausage was on the menu. The side dish was a ‘handmade’ salad. I said handmade because we saw the lady make the salad in a big tub, using her hands deftly to mix the ingredients. The drink was a local wine in a plastic pitcher. No label just a red local wine. The food was good, but it was not the food that made the evening memorable, it was the international atmosphere that we liked.
Carol and I were the oldest people at this affair by far. In fact the age difference was driven home to me after the BBQ when we left the backyard. We stepped out of the sheltered environs of the Hostel Damajuana just after midnight, tired and wanting to sleep, but the street had converted itself into a party street. I could not believe how many people were about, eating, drinking, talking and looking for a mate, etc. non-stop. For block after block, the street was full of young people having a good time.

As far as I could see in each direction, it was ‘party time’. Everywhere, music was playing from CD’s. It was almost a shock to see the happy mood and the joie de vivre all around us this late at night. Wow, where did all those people come from in just the 2 or so hours we were attending our BBQ? It was a giant party, all the restaurants, fairly empty on our way in at around 10PM were doing a humming business now at midnight. Money and drinks flowed continuously. Carol and I walked home surrounded just by young people. We did not see anybody over the age of ?40?
Mendoza is for the young, Mendoza is a party town; especially on a Friday night in the summer.
Even the advertised activities are for the young. I cannot see myself rappelling down cliffs or mountain climbing any longer. Adventure tours are offered in the mountains, daylong horseback rides stretching into weeks, if you want to do that, can be had.
Anyone want to raft on white water? Go Sky Diving?
I learned many years ago that my butt cannot take a day long ride in the saddle. I learned also that mountain climbing is very difficult; I got stuck on a wall once as a youngster trying to climb some rocks. I learned that white water rafting or kayaking is hard work. I do know my limits now.
We had booked a wine tour for Saturday afternoon and drifted along in the morning biding our time. I felt no interest in visiting more of the busy streets, just to look into shop windows. The weather, closer to 100 F, with no wind, did not help me to feel exuberant about daring to walk again. We zoned out in the backyard, listening to progressive music of 2012, with its repeating phrasing only a 20 year old can love.

I read a book on my kindle surrounded by young adults doing their mating dance in or near the small water hole they call a pool.

Some guys were cooking up a storm for lunch. I can see that to sunbathe is still in. Tattoos of any kind adorn the skin of the young adults. Smoking is still a big thing with the young in Argentina. I watched, read, and hugged the shade to stay cool.
Our tour began with the news that nobody spoke English. Great! Yes, of course we booked the wine tour in English but something along the way went wrong. So, perched among the folks in the bus, Carol and I listened to a descriptive tour, given by a jovial man with a beard, all in good Argentinean Spanish. I understood 20% of it, if that. Ok, at each actual visit to the wineries we had a guide that spoke Spanish-English but I felt we got a token tour in English even though we paid full price.
The first winery we visited, Baudron, was an antique affair,

set up to show us what it was like in 1930 or so, this part of the Winery no longer operates today. Today this place is visited by tour buses, one after the other and we were given some wines to taste that were supposedly rated as good, if not rated as outstanding. I am no connoisseur, I pretended to know what I am doing but to my taste buds the wines were not to my liking.

I never-the-less bought a 25 Peso bottle for later use that was a bit sweeter. We had this bottle with dinner at the Hostel that night and it was better than I anticipated.
The second stop on the tour was at an olive processing plant. Extra Virgin Olive Oil, pressed on location was their specialty. It was an education since I had never before seen how olive oil was made. Our guide was thorough, explaining in English the selection of perfect actual olives as the main factor for getting good olive oil.

After crushing the fruit, after stacking the pulp into presses with metal filters in between each layer, and using a hydraulic press, the fluids were pressed out of the pulp and then pumped into successive holding tanks.

I think there were a total of ten tanks in line. Since oil rises above the sediment, it swims on top of tank one and is then lifted off to be pumped into tank two, then from two to three, from three to four etc. after which, at the final tank teh, only pure oil remains, which is then bottled and sold as ‘Extra Virgin Olive Oil’.

I liked this tour, it added something new to my knowledge base, and I just wished it had been in better English. The girl tried but her accent was heavy and made it difficult to understand.
The last winery visit for the tour was Pasrai, an organic wine maker.

All the grapes were home grown and no sugars or yeasts were added. While most of their wine was aged in bottles, they did have a cave with oak barrels. We again had a tasting, and this time I passed on the wine altogether. Carol learned that the oak aged Malbec wine was much smoother than the bottle aged wine and she particularly enjoyed the Malbec which had been aged nine months.

My favorite wine is a Riesling, a white wine. I like Mosel’s Spätlese, a sweet wine. I like true Ports from Portugal as red wines. Call me eccentric, I like what I like. All the wines I tasted on this wine tour were vinegary tasting to my taste buds, bitter even. I passed, thank you.
Ok, Mendoza is a wine city. I am sure Argentina makes great wines. I just should not have taken any regular, tourist tour. I know too little about wines to be a good judge of wines. All around Mendoza are wineries, lots and lots of them.
Mendoza is for young people, for 20-somethings, for young and fit folks. I felt out of place in Mendoza. I have seen it, but I am moving on to Bariloche next. I am going South, again by bus, again at night.
See you in San Carlos de Bariloche!

Alvear Palace Hotel

The “good old days” before fast food chains, before mega malls, before e-mails or iphones will never come back. In the middle of Recoleta, in the posh district, next to the best of the best, stands the best hotel, too, the Alvear Palace Hotel.
Alvear Palace reminds me of the Plaza Hotel in NYC. The Hotel in BA is a left-over from the era of Argentina’s golden age. It has all the charm of an elegant place and it is still intact and open for business.

The service personnel wear uniforms. Bellhops look like bellhops. Doormen look like doormen. Waiters wear their liveries. Cooks, dressed all in white, don their hats. It is a wonderful place to visit.

We had lunch there, sumptuous, simply delicious. We shared a Club Sandwich, a chocolate dessert, bubbly water and a Corona. Not only was the food excellent but the ambiance was delightful.

We never felt rushed, service was impeccable. No, we did not eat in the dining room, it seemed too fancy. We ate in the bar along with some business men and other visitors. The place was not crowded.
Naturally, the clientele used iphones, the service personnel used computers and the lighting and general furnishings were very modern yet the décor was from a past long gone.

The Alvear Palace Hotel is a must visit when in BA. I suggest you have lunch there, take your time and enjoy the good old days. This is a perfect place to visit, to experience ‘how it was’ but also, if you have the money, to stay for a few weeks or days (US$495.00 per night).

www.alvearpalace.com
We enjoyed this visit.

Teatro Colón

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teatro_Col

We were here a few weeks ago; I still cannot go in. Carol wanted to visit this Opera house which has some of the best acoustics in the world, I could not do it. Why? It’s a matter of principle for me. Porteños have an admission price of 30 Pesos (US$ 7.00) to take the tour. Foreigners pay … not double, not triple but a whopping 110 Pesos (US$ 25.00) for the same tour.

Sorry, that smacks of first class discrimination to me for a country that should know better.

I took the mask pictures, but here is Carol’s report on what she saw and learned:

The original opera theatre was a much smaller structure, constructed beside the Casa Rosada (see Hans’ Blog #3 “A Crappy Day”) near Plaza de Mayo and opened in 1837. Its smaller size was no impediment to obtaining seats as only the Upper Class of the population attended operatic performances.
Then in the late 1800s, after a large influx of mainly Italian immigrants who loved their opera, a new, expanded venue was required. An Italian architect was hired but he died prematurely at the age of 44 before construction could commence. A few years later, his successor was murdered, also at the age of 44. Then the chief financial backer of the project died. Many thought that these deaths were omens of disaster for the project and work on the building halted for some time.
A German architect (much older than 44 years) was eventually hired, so work recommenced and the project was finally completed after 20 years in 1908, under the direction of a fourth architect – a Belgian. The grand opening performance was Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida.

The building shows the influences of these different nationalities with the austere German-influenced columns on the main level contrasted with the rounded, Italian inspired columns on the second level and the filigreed French fluting at the tops of the second level columns.

In 2010, the Teatro reopened after five years of renovation. Since then, the group who scientifically measures the acoustics in all the great opera houses of the world has claimed that those of the Teatro Colón are unsurpassed. Pavarotti once complained that this Opera House had one great flaw – the acoustics were so good that every mistake could be heard.
We learned from our guide that many things contribute to the outstanding sound quality.

First, the oval shape of the theatre directs the sound to circulate around the room. Secondly, the sound absorbing qualities of the furnishings and the walls of the first three levels combined with the echo-inducing qualities of the remaining four levels produce a naturally amplified sound with no echo.

As well, the curved shape of the fixtures helps in the dispersal of sound. These strategies are so effective that microphones are not needed or used. We had fun singing “Happy Birthday” to our guide to test out these acoustics for ourselves. Imagine that – I sang in the Teatro Colón!
Applause, PLEASE !
The Theatre has almost 2500 seats with standing room for an additional 1000. Many visitors for the standing area bring small chairs and take a spot there for an admission of only 40 peso per performance. As well, there are small rooms behind iron grille work on the main floor which would accommodate widows. At one time, widows could not be seen in public for several years after the death of their spouse so these private rooms, each with a private entrance to the outside, allowed the widows to experience the opera secretly. Eva Perón abolished this custom along with many other repressive practices against women.
The cupola in the main theatre is 28 meters above the floor and the huge chandelier is surrounded by a platform (see the gold ring around the chandelier).

During the production of Joan d’ Arc, when she is burned at the stake and her soul rises to heaven, a choir of 15 singers stand on this platform and sing as the heavenly angels welcoming her to heaven.
Several halls are used as Intermission Halls –

one has busts of the classical composers ringing the ceiling and another has been likened to the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles.

All are ornately furnished and richly carpeted.
I discovered that the funds raised from the tours provide scholarships for young men and women studying music. The Teatro Colón conducts an opera school, classes in symphonic music, opera art work and staging.

All costumes are made on the premises. The three floors below ground level are devoted to these endeavours.

It was an interesting, informative tour led by a delightful, young woman with impeccable English.

Sidewalks

I should be used to it by now but it irks me every time I come to a country or a city that does not have some ordinance or does not enforce it. I am talking about bad sidewalks and on top of that ‘landmines’. Ok, not landmines but ‘dog-mines’; brown droppings, some solid, some rather squishy. When you step into these droppings you get this stuff deep into your grooved shoe soles. The stink of this mess stays with you. Dogs just drop these mines, where ever the owner lets them crap. Those mines are hard to see at night, believe me.

In addition, BA has uneven, crooked, broken sidewalks.
Can you see me walking down the streets in BA?
I look like I am drunk! Hopping over lifted tiles, skipping over holes, avoiding mines….. Believe me, it is hard to not step into one!

Can I call them ‘holy sh…..ah, stepped in one?

Correo Argentina

We needed three stamps for our postcards; one for a U.S. destination, two cards to be sent to Canada.
Near us, on Santa Fe Avenue, is a post office, so we stepped in at 1:43 PM to buy the three stamps.
I walked up to an empty window and asked for 3 stamps and the man behind the empty counter said, “Take a number, you have to wait”. Well, nobody was at his window; he was looking at his fingernails.
Ok, Carol took a number, we are # 810. The No. board said next customer # 780 on window 8 please.

We waited, along with maybe 30 other people, coming and going for our number to come up to buy 3 stamps. There was a constant coming and going, some walked in and walked out, some stayed for a while and then just left.
And we waited……… and we waited………..customer 781 please, window 6.
Window 1 was open, manned by a blond woman doing nothing.
Window 2 had a sign on it, closed.
Window 3 had two clerks talking to each other.
Window 4 was open but empty, had no customers.
Window 5 was closed; a postage machine sat on the counter
At Window 6, the young female clerk had a customer
At Window 7, the rotund clerk had a customer
Window 8 was open, but not manned.
We waited…………and waited.
A total of 8 clerks or more walked around, or stood around or were on the phone, or looked at their finger nails, or talked to each other.
The waiting Postal customers sat on chairs; the room had a hushed atmosphere. # 782? 783? 784? 785? Ok, 786 at window 6, please.
After waiting an amazing 15 minutes the count was up to 793.
None of the waiting folks complained or talked much.

All the waiting clientele sat and waited for a clerk to call the next number. Most of the clerks however, were just hanging around looking bored, and biding their time to the extreme. After each No. was called, they left their stations and took a break. Only windows 6 and 7 were taking customers on a fairly continuous basis - for awhile. Talk about slow. 794? # 795 to window 1, please!
Wow, she got a customer! After the postal client stepped to the window, she got up and left him standing there and then came back 5 minutes later.
And on and on it went. I cannot believe the rudeness of the postal clerks.
One man walked up with a small package; window 6 took it, weighted it, shook it, measured it and then complained that the tape was not sufficient. No she did not have any tape to help him out.
He got the package back and left; I could see the frustration on his face. Some other folks had the audacity to ask questions. The answers were short, curt and the facial expression of the clerk was a frown, a “why ask me?”
I have never in my life seen such inefficiency. A woman sitting next to me told me that this is ‘normal’ for Argentina.
The phone on the wall rang and yes, someone picked it up but it took at least 5 minutes away from his time behind a station. One clerk in particular, a good looking guy with a goatee took just one customer in all the time we were there.

The other man took none. We waited and waited and waited.
# 805, we are waiting! People came and asked a question but again, the answers were curt, no smiles! All the clerks were young, between 20 and 35, none older. All wore white shirts or blouses and their uniform looked great. All were behind a glass partition; it seemed like a bank counter. Some waiting folks were agitated, pacing back and forth, rubbing their faces, scratching their heads, but can they do anything about the wait? NO! The power was with the clerks and they knew it. And totally abused it.
It was infuriating to wait for our 3 stamps a solid 45 minutes.
That was exactly how long it took me to buy 3 stamps. The cost to me…. 27 pesos for the stamps and 45 minutes of my time and 5 more grey hairs on my head. Argentina?? This is terrible, fix your Postal Service! Correo Argentina? Shame on you!