grid layouts don't always make life easier
we have had a rather interesting morning, following our 21 hour bus ride from iguazu in the northwest to tucamun in the north east along roads that go straight for hours and hours. the change from the lush tropical jungle of iguazu to the hot, dry bit of the country we are in now could not be more noticable. we attempted to hire a car but failed and spent about 2 hours trying to find the information office in astonishing heat. this is the 4th largest town in argentina and is based on the grid system. but, as marv pointed out, that only works if a. it's in new york where you can't go wrong cos the numbers go up and down or b. if the streets are sign-posted. unfortunately for us, they're not here, and our trusted rough guide doesn't seem to be so up to date on this bit of the country. oh well.
it's a funky kind of town...sprawling, and busy. run down in places but with commerce a quite big deal with loads of shops selling mainly clothes. there's a main square surrounded by a mixture of neo-classical and mock baroque buildings right next to white churches with blue tiled onion dome rooves. it is resolutely not touristy which is great and means we can't get away with smiling sweetly at people and hoping they understand our terrible spanish...talking of which...
Learning the idiomas
for a relatively large city, everyone has been extremely friendly. but no one appears to speak english - our opening gambit is, inevitably, ¿habla usted ingles? (do you speak english) and, categorically, the response has be 'non', with a big smile. excellent - and i mean that - cos it forces us to stop being so lazy and shy. so, we have been learning a few key phrases and words of spanish a day. gratifyingly, most of my phrases have been very useful. for example, los cubiertos is cutlery - trying to mime to a waiter that you don't have a knife and fork makes you look like a prat. asking for los cubiertos is slightly easier and it's also one of those lovely complete sounding words which is not hard to pronounce so gives me confidence that one day i may be able to speak a little more of the language than i can currently. as opposed to zanahorias which is one of marv's chosen words yesterday. it means carrots. it hasn't yet come in handy though i will let you know if it does.
adios!
we have had a rather interesting morning, following our 21 hour bus ride from iguazu in the northwest to tucamun in the north east along roads that go straight for hours and hours. the change from the lush tropical jungle of iguazu to the hot, dry bit of the country we are in now could not be more noticable. we attempted to hire a car but failed and spent about 2 hours trying to find the information office in astonishing heat. this is the 4th largest town in argentina and is based on the grid system. but, as marv pointed out, that only works if a. it's in new york where you can't go wrong cos the numbers go up and down or b. if the streets are sign-posted. unfortunately for us, they're not here, and our trusted rough guide doesn't seem to be so up to date on this bit of the country. oh well.
it's a funky kind of town...sprawling, and busy. run down in places but with commerce a quite big deal with loads of shops selling mainly clothes. there's a main square surrounded by a mixture of neo-classical and mock baroque buildings right next to white churches with blue tiled onion dome rooves. it is resolutely not touristy which is great and means we can't get away with smiling sweetly at people and hoping they understand our terrible spanish...talking of which...
Learning the idiomas
for a relatively large city, everyone has been extremely friendly. but no one appears to speak english - our opening gambit is, inevitably, ¿habla usted ingles? (do you speak english) and, categorically, the response has be 'non', with a big smile. excellent - and i mean that - cos it forces us to stop being so lazy and shy. so, we have been learning a few key phrases and words of spanish a day. gratifyingly, most of my phrases have been very useful. for example, los cubiertos is cutlery - trying to mime to a waiter that you don't have a knife and fork makes you look like a prat. asking for los cubiertos is slightly easier and it's also one of those lovely complete sounding words which is not hard to pronounce so gives me confidence that one day i may be able to speak a little more of the language than i can currently. as opposed to zanahorias which is one of marv's chosen words yesterday. it means carrots. it hasn't yet come in handy though i will let you know if it does.
adios!
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