Don´t Worry - It´s An Adventure

After a highly eventful Carnaval, I was faced with a tough decision - whether to allow the debauchery to continue with my buddies in Rio or head back to Argentina to head to Cordoba and Mendoza with a high school acquantance, Hannah, who I haven´t seen in 7 years. After much guilt and persuasion, I was like what the heck, RIO IT IS! But then my plans got shattered by the fact that my ticket was non-refundable and non-transferable. Well that made my plans that much easier, well i guess it is Argentina then. Getting there might have been another story with having the last bloco begin at 1030pm on Tuesday and my flight left at 345am on Wednesday.

Through all the beers that were consumed, masses of Aussies at the bloco, my bad Spanish and even worse Portugues I was able to hail a taxi and make it the airport. What makes this trip back to Argentina that much more exciting is that my friend Hannah has provided me with little to no direction about my trip to meet up with her.

Getting back to Argentina, it was to be a struggle to get everything together. I had forgotten amongst all the chaos that the bus ticket I had bought was not for the right city, it was for a city an hour outside of Cordoba, where she lived. In addition, I would get in after she would have had to go volunteer, so she would not be there to greet me. With all that, I had not a cell phone to contact her so I was going to be basically stranded with my luggage in a foreign place; FUN TIMES.

Upon arrival to the bus station in Buenos Aires, I had to man up and use my best Spanish to communicate that I needed to go to Cordoba instead of Carlos Paz. Once again I surprise myself with my Spanish and the guy understood my dilemma and he said he would drop my off in Cordoba instead. One problem down and onto the next. Hannah tells me if my plans change to call her in the morning, to my dismay she gives me a local number without a country and city code - so how am I supposed to call her?!?!? Once I arrive in Cordoba, I rush into a taxi and try and make it to her house before she has to go volunteer. Communicating with the taxi was not as easy as the bus driver, I end up in the slums. I´m like is this where she lives??? There were no houses or anything in site looking remotely liveable, but the taxi insisted this is where I told him to take me. I knock on the door with the number in which Hannah gave me and look who opens the door, HANNAH!! Woohoo...MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! We were very surprised that I was able to find her.

I accompany Hannah on her last day of volunteering with these kids in the rural areas of Cordoba. It was a lot of fun and a lot of pictures were taken. I got to work on my spanish, help the kids with some english, provide them activities to keep them off the streets. After it was all said and done time to pack and get ready for Mendoza; WINE FESTIVAL!

While I was at Carnaval, Hannah booked a hostel and bus ticket for me to make sure we would all have the same travel arrangements. But I thought, don´t you need my passport number to travel on the bus. I ask her and she tells me she made one up for me. MADE ONE UP?!?! I hope that isn´t a problem, if it is it will be an ADVENTURE she says. When I came to Cordoba they didn´t check my passport so I thought it would be cool. Famous last words.

It was time to go and she looks over her confirmation, only to see her own and not mine. I was like did you book my ticket, she swore she did yet had no evidence to suggest that she did. So we rush to the bus station to try and fix the problem. We ask the ticket office if we don´t have a confirmation what do we need to do - OH JUST SHOW THEM YOUR PASSPORT. FUCK! Clearly my passport number doesn´t match the one she gave them - we´re screwed. I tried to get away with showing them my driver´s license, no such luck. I pull out my passport and they look and see the numbers don´t match. We get ushered to the bus ticket terminal and they go back and forth about my passport and I tell them it had to be a glitch in their computer cause we typed in the right passport number. I showed them several identification suggesting it was indeed me. Ultimately they let me on the bus...yeah that bullet was dodged, but I wonder if this was going to be indicative of my travels with Miss Hannah! It already has been interesting up to now, could it get any more interesting?!?! I´ll just have to wait and see.

IT´S GOING TO BE AN ADVENTURE - LIVING FULL OUT!