Argentina´s Moneda Situation, horn honking, and Welcome to Bolivia

I think that I have already mentioned that Argentina is having a presidential election later this year and that the current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, have tried to win some popularity points by creating some federal holidays. (She also is advertising herself via photos of her hugging her late husband, the president before her. He was pretty well loved prior to his death and is much more loved since he passed away. Clearly trying to gain some points from his memory). However, if Cristina REALLY wants to secure her re-election she should find a solution to the moneda, or coin, situation in the country. The problem is scarcity. There just aren´t very many coins. In B.A. this problem is exacerbated by the fact that the bus ONLY take coins. People horde them B.A. Sometimes a shopkeeper won´t sell you something if they have to make change and in Northern Argentina you end up getting lots of carmelos (candy) because the shopkeeper owes you 50 cents but doesn´t have it, so they just give you that much candy. Why the problem exists? I have no idea. But if Cristina could fix it I´d vote for her.

My last days in Northern Argentina were good. They involved some relaxing time in the town of Tilcara and some time exploring the interesting landscape of Quebrada Humahuaca. The area is a desert and the rocks are multi-colored, streaks of red, yellow and green catching your eye and bending and twisting with how the rocks have been moved over the ages. (You´d get pictures, but there is no way that this computer or internet can actually handle it). A girl from my hostel (who I´m actually with in Bolivia now) and I walked between the town of Maimara and Tilcara one afternoon along the road. Practically every car driving towards us honked and the men driving them waved or made some sort of signs. I understand that this is a cultural thing, a simple difference in gender relations maybe, but I just DON´T get it. I DO NOT understand what these guys are trying to accomplish. Are they expecting me to wave them down and climb on top of them? Are they just trying to express some sort of appreciation for having been able to ogle my breasts for half a second as they passed? Why would they think that I would appreciate it? Do Argentinean women appreciate this? And I have to say that I find this different than the people who mutter comments to you or whistle at you when you walk past them on the street. At least those people can actually SEE me, whereas these guys can only tell that I´m woman and really have NO time to determine if they think I´m attractive or not. Which makes their honks meaningless in the appreciation department, I mean really. Interestingly none of the cars going the same direction as us honked, just the ones going the other way. We got so annoyed by it after about an hour that we waded across a river to take a secondary road.

So I have escaped Argentina and am now in Bolivia. My last few days in Argentina it was evident that we were getting closer to Bolivia. The looks of the people, the food, and the handicrafts all changed some and the buses weren´t quite as nice. But crossing the border was still interesting. It was exhausting and simple all at the same time. I was stupid and kept putting off getting American dollars to pay for my $135 visa. For some reason the Argentine border town had NO casas de cambio (there were dozens on the Bolivian side, but that did me no good) and the bank had no American dollars (probably the only Argentinean bank with no US dollars) so I ended up paying for my visa half in Argentine pesos and half in US dollars and getting ripped off by the exchange rate. I knew better, its my own damn fault. In the Bolivian border town I was told that there was no cash machine (though a traveler in the town we are in now says there was one. Dammit). Luckily I had gotten 40 Bolivians in change from the border guard so we had enough to buy our bus tickets to Tupiza, where we expected to find a cash machine...expected... Our bus broke down on the way to Tupiza (it took about 20 minutes to fix), a far cry from the luxurious double decker semi-camas of Chile, Argentina, and Peru. Then we arrived and found out that not only is there no ATM here but Monday is a holiday so the banks are closed until Tuesday. For a moment we thought we were going to have NO way to get money, but thankfully the banks were open for 4 hours this morning so we were able to get cash advances...Ah, the joys of travel. BUT, on the flip side, for a grand total of $20 a night we have our own room in a lovely hotel with a pool and a GREAT breakfast. And we spent a grand total of $11 (put on my credit card) for two pizzas, two fresh squeezed juices, and a big salad in a nice restaurant.

Tomorrow we head off on a for day tour of the salt flats. Very excited.

Addendum: Argentinean Spanish has completely screwed with my head. Argentines pronounce "y" and "ll" sort of like the "s" in treasure and they don´t really understand you if you pronounce those sounds like they do in nearly all other spanish speaking countries. Plus they use "vos" rather than "tu" and the conjugation of some verbs changes (ie vos tenes instead of tu tienes or vos podes vs tu puedes). Bolivian spanish is music to my ears; they speak slowly and they pronounce things the way I´m used to. BUT I keep pronouncing things like an Argentine and using vos. Sigh.

I just had a conversation with a Bolivian shopkeeper who let me pay 7.50 instead of 8 for Snickers bar (mmm dinner) because of change issues. Apparently Bolivia has the same problem as Argentina. In response to my question "Why?" he said that the coins are taken across the border, apparently to Brazil, and melted down. That is the word on the street apparently.