Arriving in Buenos Aires

Stepping off the airplane in Buenos Aires was a great relief.  After travelling for over 24 hours it was great to finally arrive.  We were quite excited to be there and at the same time we seemed to have a bit of a nervous “Now what?!?” feeling.  The warm air was quite nice after a month or two of winter weather, so off came the shoes and socks right away, and on went the flip-flops.  There’s just something about wearing flip-flops that make you feel like you are on vacation.  I don’t plan on wearing shoes and socks during this rip unless I absolutely have to.

The next thought was, ok – where too now?  Joh had tried to book a hostel online right before we left but we had gotten an email back saying that the room was unavailable.  We didn't have any other addresses written down other than this one hostel, so we figured we’d just go there and see what can be done.  If they didn’t have any room, I’m sure they could just refer us elsewhere.  So, with an address in hand we now had to determine how to get there.  There were taxis and buses.    The taxis would be the most convenient because they would take us straight there without getting lost. The taxis were $40 -however; the local buses only cost 50 cents.  The local buses would get you there but you would need to figure out which bus to take and where to get off.  The easy option was of course the taxi, but being a couple of frugal dutchees, the 50 cent ride was too cheap to resist.  We need to think about each dollar we spend if we want this trip to last as long as possible. Besides, we were sure the bus ride would be more interesting anyways… well, we were right.

So we went to the information booth at the airport, and inquired on how to get to our hostel with the buses.    In half-English, half-Spanish, the woman there managed to convey to us that we would each need exact change, and that we would need to take the #8 bus for an hour and a half to 3300 Avenida Rivadavia, and then walk 5 blocks away.

 

So, plan in place, we set out looking to get some change.  The ATM in the airport only split out 100 peso bills, which are the equivalent of around $25 Canadian.  We each needed a 2 peso coin.  We went to vendor after vendor looking for someone to give us change – most didn’t understand what we were asking and the others seemed to laugh at our request.  I guess getting small change was going to be a problem.  Finally, we just went to McDonalds and ordered two small ice-cream cones and gave the cashier the 100 peso bill.  At first they didn’t want to take it, but after calling the manager over, and explaining that the 100 peso bill was all we had, they decided to accept it. The change for the cones included a 5 peso bill, which we then needed to change too. The manager begrudgingly made change for us, and finally hurdle number one was cleared.

So we walked down to the bus stop and found the #8 bus and got on it.  Now this was definitely a “local” bus.  The other passengers stared at us two gringos lugging our giant backpacks onto the bus and nervously taking a seat.  I’m sure they were all wondering what the heck we were doing on their bus.

So now we just had to be on the lookout for Avenida Rivadavia.  After an hour or so of driving around we saw a sign for the road, and we attempted to confirm with another passenger that we indeed needed to get off here.  The other passenger enthusiastically told us that we should get off.  So we did.  Big mistake.  As we started walking down Avenida Rivadavia, we realized that the street numbers were around 15000 – nowhere close to the 3300 number that we were supposed to walk from.  We decided to “hoof it”, but it soon became obvious that this was a really long street.  With the aforementioned giant backpacks on our backs, there was no way we were going to make it.  So we stepped into a small shop to ask how to get to 3300 Avenida Rivadavia.  Not knowing any Spanish really didn’t help.  All we could do was point at the address we had written down and say “donde?” which we were pretty sure meant “where?” and we also said “bus” – we weren't sure what the Spanish word for bus was. Eventually the guy figured out what we were asking and sent us to the bus stop and told us to wait for another #8 bus. Duh… We should have figured that out. Oh, and we needed change too – so another difficult English/Spanish conversation asking him to give us change for the 20 peso bill we had. Eventually we got the change, and waited for the bus.  A #8 bus came right away, and we moved to get on it.  The shopkeeper (who had been watching us) ran over quickly and yelled No, No!!  Apparently there are a bunch of different #8 buses.  We needed a different one.   The correct bus came a few minutes later.  We got on it and figured we were good. Well… not so much.

We bused down the road, and got closer and closer to 3300. 7000, 6000, 5000, 750… What???  Where was 3300?  We got off at the next stop and tried to assess our situation.  We walked around trying to find where the number trail went.  After scouting it out, it looked like the numbers just started changing.  We saw 5000, and then the numbers changed to a completely different sequence.  We had no idea what to do. We walked around for a bit to see if we could find anything that made any sense, but there wasn’t anywhere to go.  We needed a map.  We stopped at a kiosk, found a map book of the area, and then attempted to locate ourselves within the map book.  Now, I’m usually pretty good at maps, but I do need some sort of reference point to determine where I am – especially in a 50 page map book of all of Buenos Aries.  I tried asking the clerk to help me find where we were right now.  Again I asked “Donde?” and then pointed at the ground.  He had no idea what I was asking.  This wasn’t working.

By that time it was starting to get dark and it was starting to rain a little.  We decided to forget the frugal Dutch attitude and just get a cab.  We found one right away and he punched the hostel’s address into his GPS and drove us straight there within 10 minutes or so for about 20 pesos (around $5).

So this was all well and good, but we just went through all this and we still didn’t know if the hostel was going to have a room for us.  Fortunately they had another room available – just with two single beds instead of a double.  That would have to do.  Neither of us were too excited about the process of locating another hostel.

So… lessons learned:

1. LEARN SPANISH!!!  Very few people we’ve met here speak any English at all.  If we’re planning on being in South America for 8 months, this is going to need to be a priority.  Joh and I have resolved to spend at least an hour every day studying Spanish from now on.
2. If you have no idea where you’re going, just take a taxi.  Yes, it may cost a few extra dollars but it is probably worth it.
3. Taxis at the airport are expensive.  Our taxi was around 5 dollars.  The airport ones wanted 40.  It’s probably worth it to take the bus into downtown and taxi from there.  Even after 2 bus rides and a taxi ride, it only cost us 13 dollars instead of 40.
4. As soon as possible, get a map of the city you’re in and study it. Find the airport, find your hostel, learn the major roads, etc.
5. Whenever possible, use up your big bills right away.  Get small change. It’s precious!

All things said and done, I’m actually happy about the way we got here.  It would have been far less exciting to just take a cab from the airport.  We got to see more of the city and have some fun exchanges with locals.   We also would never have learned those 5 lessons.