Gualeguaychu, Argentina 23 - 27 Feb 2012

Gualeguachu

I came to Gualeguaychu for one reason - The Argentinean Carnival. Since I can´t go to the Brazilian Carnival, I told myself I´ve to see this one before I head home. The carnival was held every Saturday of Jan, February and 1st week of March.. I arrived early on Thursday due to the unexpected changed of plan in Colon.

I found a family run hostel easily. It cost AP34 per night for weekdays and AP68 for weekends. I was glad I left Colon. This place is much cheaper. From the terminal to the hostel I stoped by the stadium to get my carnival ticket, it was AP100 for the entrance and extra AP40 for a seat. The carnival is from 10pm to 3am.

When I arrived on Thu in the hostel, it was empty, peace and quiet till everyone arrived on Friday. The hostel is very near to the Gualeguaychu river where they have a so call ¨beach¨ The water of the river is brown, if you go in with a white pants, it will end up brown. Many Argentinean enjoy soaking in it. I preferred to stay dry. :-) I will have plenty of white beaches to go when back in Malaysia. This is something Argentina can´t compete.

The problem with my hard disk still disturbed me, I wanted to give it another try. In town I found a Internet cafe with Win XP Pro, it managed to read all the shortcut folders. I tried to make a new folder in the HD and it appeared to be normal. So I started to copy all my photos from the shortcut folder to the new folder. It took me 5.5 hours! :-( I took the time to write my outstanding blogs. At least now I could retrieve my photos....phew!

On Friday my room was filled up with 4 Israelise, they were really loud and annoyning. I have joined a couple of Argentineans to a party but they started drinking from the hostel. This hostel do not have a rule that you can´t drink. It was a mess They were drinking Fernet mixed with Coke. It taste like medicine, I didn´t like it.

We only left to the club around 1am but people are still eating in the restaurant at this hour. Isn´t it unhealthy to eat so late? How did the Argentinean gals remain so slim? hmmmm

The club started to fill up slowly, by 4am, people has gathered in the club and on the streets, it was very crowded! They were using spray to spray everyone on the street, really crazy situation.

The 4 Israelise caused problem to the hostel, they didn´t check out in the morning and left their luggage in the room. The hostel is only 1 month old as such they didn´t have any Regulation written on a wall or something, because of the abuse, the hostel owner has established some rules. It´s ashamed that this people caused inconvenient to others, I find their behavior really selfish. After the 4 Israelise check out, another 2 check in. :-( Looks like I can´t escape from them. Surprisingly these 2 were well mannered and quiet. In fact, I´ve enjoyed nice conversation with them. We even go to the carnival together.

On Sat, the carnival started around 11pm. We got to our stage and find a spot where we can take photo. There was a high fence in front of us. We have to position our camera in front of the fence to avoid shooting at the wire. : -( The stage were mostly half filled, didn´t seems too crowded. There was a runway in between the stages, it was lighten up by spotlight. The music started to blast. First mobile car move forward slowly with sexy gals and men dancing around it. They were dressed with beautiful feathers, shining ornaments, or some completely naked with just a little stuff covering their private part. That was the most interesting sight of the parade! 
The parade was almost like a National Day parade minus the sexy naked ladies and men. I was expecting something more grand and everyone participate and dance but we were standing behind the fence which pretty much spoilt the mood. The first session lasted for an hour then there was a 30 minutes break and follow with another round of parade. We left half way during the second session when it started to drizzle. We also got bored with it. Overall, it wasn´t that bad. :-) We carried on to party at the club till 5am in the morning.

2 days in a roll of partying is too much for me. I needed a break on the next day. So I did nothing the entire day. I was planning to leave on Monday back to Buenos Aires to sort out my flight ticket. I couldn´t do it in Gualeguaychu because Winnie need to help me activate my SIM card and according to the booking website, I have to produce my Credit Card while check it. My new Credit Card is with Winnie in Singapore, so I don´t have a card to show them. I will have to go down to the Qatar Airline office to find out more. Last option is to use my POSB Master Card.

During check out, I didn´t have enough cash in pesos, so I tried using my POSB Master Card. Guess what? My one and only backup card didn´t work! I have US$10 with me so I used it to pay the balance. Now the question is why my POSB card failed to function? Damn, I have to find other options if I can´t used it for my flight ticket. I didn´t feel good about it.

On Monday, I thought I could catch a bus in the morning but due to the Argentinean holiday, all the bus were fully booked, I managed to buy a ticket at 2:40pm. The bus came late, on top of that, it broke down after 30 minutes. We were stucked at the highway. We waited for the mechanic to come and then the bus brought us back to the terminal to change to another bus. We lost 2 hours but we got upgraded to a Cama bus. We finally arrived at Buenos Aires 9pm at night. As quick as I can I made it to my host house.

Accommodations
Hostel Gualeguaychu - Weekday AP34, weekend AP68

Transportations
Taxi from bus terminal to Hostel - AP29
Taxi from Hostel to terminal - AP15
Bus from Gualeguaychu to Buenos Aires - AP100

Recreations
Carnival - AP140