After The Boss and I returned from our second visit to the Andes in as many days, it was finally time to move on. That same night we hopped on yet another bus from hell, this one on its way to Cordoba. Actually, let me get it straight: the bus itself wasn't bad at all, boarding the damn thing that was a nightmare. I had never seen so many people gathered right in front of the door of a bus they weren't even taking.
However, once we finally pushed through that impromptu moshpit, we found ourselves in one of the most comfortable buses I have ever seen, with more leg room and entertainment options than our hotel room in Mendoza. I just thought they overdid it a little when the bus attendant served, as dinner, two trays chock full of food, including half a roasted chicken for each person. Unfortunately I couldn't muster the nerve to try a bus chicken (or anything on either tray, for that matter), but, still, that was an A for effort if I ever saw one.
Despite being a reasonably large city and the capital of the province with the same name, Cordoba is not a very touristy place at all and we were there only for a day, really just to catch a plane. But that's not saying the city has nothing to offer. For example, they do have a Krusty Burger restaurant, probably the only one south of Tijuana. Their historical monuments look incredibly neat and well-kept (although we later discovered that they just had them restored for New Year's, so you have to deduct some points there). And The Boss even dragged me, kicking and screaming, to see a freaking rotating house that wasn't even rotating, so it's not like you can't find things to do in Cordoba. However, the temperature there was 47 degrees celsius and I just don't do tourism when it's that fucking hot. I was done, it was time to go home.
So the trip was finally over and, while I sat there on the plane and dealt with a bad case of sunburn, I mulled over the little things I had seen in Chile and Argentina. And here are my final random thoughts:
1) There's a staggering amount of Brazilians in Santiago. I don't know if it's the exchange rate, a newfound love for tourism or just a huge coincidence, but they (we) were everywhere. Still, what impressed me the most wasn't even their vast number, but rather how they don't even try to speak Spanish anymore.
Back in the day, Brazilians would resort to Portuñol in order to communicate with our hermanos. Granted, Portuñol is not really a language. In fact, it isn't much more than Portuguese with a thick Spanish accent and a few easy words thrown in for good measure. But we, Brazilians, were all born fluent in it and, when we speak it, we show we care. Spanish-speakers actually think we bothered to learn their language, we pretend we are more knowledgeable than we really are and everybody goes home happy.
Moreover, even though it's crap (and we know it), Portuñol goes a long way in helping them to understand us. It's odd and I never really understood why, but it is easier for us to understand them than the other way around (I do have a few theories on the subject, but that's for another day). So, with Portuñol, we can balance it out, making it a phony language that nevertheless serves a practical purpose.
But that's all in the past. Swarms of Brazilian tourists now invade South America, speaking Portuguese, loud and clear, and God help the poor waiter who can't understand them. Now that Brazil has finally established itself as a regional leader, they think they own the place and no longer reach for a middle ground. They actually reminded me of that stereotypical North American tourist who travel to Paris or wherever and doesn't even make an effort. And that's never a good thing.
2) Other than Brazilians, there was another overrepresented group roaming freely on the streets of both Chile and Argentina: the stray dogs. Dozens of canines, in each and every corner, of each and every city, just walking around, mingling with the crowd. And I'm not talking about your average urban fleabag either: most of them were not even dogs, they were freaking wolves (and yet, extremely well-behaved ones).
3) There were a lot of cars in Santiago that were missing that traditional front piece with the manufacturer's logo. After conducting further empirical studies, the Flip Flop University Research Center determined that roughly 10% of the cars in Santiago (that's uno in every diez) had said piece removed. The research also showed no correlation between the phenomenon and the price, maker or category of the vehicle, indicating it is in fact a widespread occurrence. Moreover, it seems that the Toyota piece (shown - or better yet, not shown - in the picture) is the trickiest one to remove, as there were more than a few Toyotas with broken pieces still attached to them.
What could not be established by the researchers was why the hell this happens. The most accepted theories are that either a) the pieces actually pass as currency in the Santiago underworld (and that Toyota one is worth a fortune); b) some of the Chilean car owners strenuously object advertising the automakers' brands without proper compensation and, when negotiations fail, they remove the pieces themselves; or c) the latest teenager prank fad in Santiago got way out of hand.
4) Speaking of automobiles, Argentina has the oldest, crappiest cars on the planet. They probably bought their latest batch from the USSR. Here's an example. Oh, and even though the photo is a little blurred and you can't see it, that piece of paper on the window actually read "For Sale". I'm not making this up, I swear.
5) Last but not least, the brave few ones who actually read this entire saga and clicked on every link might have noticed that a few of the pictures are blurred, especially the ones taken from the inside of a moving vehicle (e.g. that last one). I thought that was weird, considering that the camera we used has that image stabilization mode designed precisely to prevent that sort of thing. So I asked The Boss, owner of the camera, why she didn't use the tool and she said the camera actually had two stabilization modes and she wasn't sure which one would be more appropriate, the one where the little man was running or the one where he was skiing. I dare you: try and find the man skiing.
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