Money, Credit Cards and Bureaucracy

From Sweden and also from Brazil I have gotten very used to paying everything I consume with credit card. Here in Argentina, you can pay a lot by card, but it seems they really prefer to have cash payment. The prefer it that much they will in most places give a 10% discount if you pay cash. However, by cash they are very flexible though, they will gladly except a number of currencies in one and the same payment. So, that's what happened when me and my friend were shopping for leather jackets. After having discussed the price for our three jackets some time (which of course was very long, since at least two of the involved were Brazilians) and agreed on what we thought was a good price we were informed this price would not at all be valid if we were to pay by credit card. As we did not have that amount of pesos required, a new negotiation starts, on what this would be in differnt available currencies. After still some more time we finally paid in a mix of Argentinian pesos, US-dollars, Euros and Brazilian reais. The last missing amount I had to go and get from an ATM. Afterwards I was quite sceptic to whether it was such a good affair in the end, as I feared that the discount we negotiated so hardly for, might have gotten lost in the different exchange rates and finally in the fee for an extra cash withdrawal from the ATM, but my friend was still very positive and optimistic about it.

Another thing that I find a little annoying are those landing cards that some countries in this part of the world insist that you should fill in before entering the country. It just seems so completely useless. You basically just fill in the same information that is already in the passport plus which flight you come with, how long you will stay and where you will stay. I am sure no one really reads what you write on this paper. And I feel absolutely sure that no ones bothers to connect the information on these little paper slips with the electronically read infromation from your passport and also sure that no one ever checks whether the information you give about where you will stay in the country is correct or not. Nowadays most countries have electronically readable passports which means more and more information is allready stored on the entry of the country and if it is really that important I am sure it would be faster and more efficient for everyone if the immigration officers would just ask and add the information directly in the computor on entry. Because I really find it hard to believe they will collect all the little paper slips and enter the information later, most likely those slips will just be stored somewhere for a while and then thrown away.

The strange thing is also that they wont tell you what this slip is for and what you are supposed to do with the part that you get to keep. I have been told that in Brazil it is important that you keep it and leave it on exiting the country, but when I arrived in March i didn't get one and no one asked for it when I re-entered in June. That time I got a slip that I have keept but now, on leaving again in September no one asked for it and even though I had it I did not hand it over as it was not asked for. In Peru however I had to present the slip on checking in at the hote and also at buying some tickets. Just a good fortune I kept it handy. Now, on entering Argentina you had to fill in three papers, one they kept, on I suppose I will have to leave on leaving tomorrow, but the third, that was for the customs, no one asked for, so that one I still have. I am kind of glad they did not ask for that one, because it was very difficult to fill in. One question was whether you carry items purchased outside of Argentina. I mean, as I had never been to Argentina before, it means everything I had was purchased outside of Argentina, but I am not sure they would want me to declare that anyway...

A rough night

The view from my hotel room

I had a rather interesting night in Aguas Calliente, but not in the way I would have likes. The thing is that I am really not feeling very well. My cold just won’t give up and yesterday night I was really tired and didn’t have appetite enough to have dinner. Because of my cold I felt incredibly sensitive to smells and as soon as I felt the smell of any kind of food I felt slightly nauseous so I decided to give up and go to bed early. But as my hotel is just by the train station and my room facing the station, with a very nice view over the mountains and the river, it also get all the noise from the station. I read about this before I came here but other travellers wrote it didn’t matter that much as the trains stop running at 10 PM. In a way I think they did, but then at some moments during the night there was a horrible noise again. Maybe the trains didn’t move, but there was for sure some work going on and at moments I thought they were almost coming in through the wall. So even if it was a long night of sleep it was quite brutally interrupted at times and I still feel a little dizzy.

Birds of Brazil

Brazil has one of the richest bird diversities in the world. The avifauna of Brazil includes a total of 1832 species, of which 234 are endemic. This is enough for someone like me, who normally maintains that there are only three kinds of birds; big bird, small bird and duck, to admit that this might not be a sufficient classification anymore. And a little reluctantly I have started to find some interest in watching the birds and trying to learn the names of the different kinds. And here the birds are interesting, they come in all colours, forms and shapes, some rather funny-looking.

This morning however I felt like getting a gun and shoot some of them. Or at least one. At about five o'clock this morning I woke up by something that sounded like a very loud alarm. Several high, strong tones after each other at a regular interval, then silence only to be repeated again after some seconds, and then repeated and repeated and repeated and.... I thought first it was my alarm clock, but then rememberd it sounds completely different. Then I thougt "my godness, it must be the fire alarm", but then again no, it came from outside. Then I started to think about what kind of alarms we might have at the compound or what might actually be going on outside. It took me quite a while to realise the noise came from a bird!! And the bastard just wouldn't stop.

I had to get up and get some ear plugs to be able to go back to sleep. When you say you wake up to the sound of birds one would normally believe it to be a nice experience. This was very far from nice. This was actually the second time I was woken up by some bird, the first time it wasn't this one but some other very repetitive bird that just wouldn't stop. I hope this is not a new habit of our featherd friends.

Creeps

I don't know why, but it seems the amount of insects in my apartment is increasing. The first days i didn't see any insects at all, but after a while noticed mosquito bites so I realised there must be mosquitos. And there is. Now I have got some mosquito repellant so that problem is under control. Yesterday ther was this strange little creature on the kitchen wall. It did not look very fierce so I let it be. Don't know where it is now. Yesterday I also noticed there is an ant path on the wall behind the TV. Don't know it it is new or I just didn't see it before. A little while ago I saw a very strange creep lying on its back on the floor. I have no idea what it was but as it almost looked half dead anyway I just helped it a little with one of my Hawaianas.

And bang, there another mosquito just died...