Jan 26, 2006
This is the second biggest city in Argentina, nestled in the foothills of the Sierras, which are older than the Andes, and a very popular tourist destination. I spent the night in Oliva, after having lunch in Rosario with an artist I met last year down near El Califate. Because it has been so hot, and there are no deer in Argentina and the cows are kept behind fences, I decided it might be a good idea to ride to Cordoba at night.
Unfortunately this part of the country is like their Arkansas, so I got pelted by bugs and some fairly large flying creatures until I could barely see through the encrustation of little feet and wings. Oliva is an agricultural town about 50 miles south of Cordoba. I was looking for a hotel, passed one which looked expensive and asked the woman standing on the side of the road beside it where another hotel was.
She turned out to be a transvestite working the passing truck drivers. And unfortunately this was the only hotel in town. But everyone at the hotel was nice, and they evidently have a notransvestite policy.
While there, I talked with the guy working the front desk about a bank robbery that is getting a lot of news in Argentina right now. Six guys went into a bank during business hours and told the employees they were robbing it. One of the employees hit the alarm, and the police showed up. The robbers began negotiating with them, and they were trading hostages for pizzas and cold beers for over six hours. When the police finally got in, they found out the guys had gotten out through a tunnel that ended two and a half blocks away, in a house. Last night the police had found another rubber raft in the river. They got away with about 25 million dollars in securities, 200,000 in cash, and the contents of 125 safe deposit boxes. Being Argentina, everyone here hopes they get away.
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