Gualeguaychu, Argentina

Feb 28, 2006

The difference between Argentina and Uruguay when it comes to using the tourism office to secure a hotel...

Uruguay- It is Friday night during the height of the tourist season. Late in the day. You go to the city tourism office. A friendly woman pulls out a binder full of hotels, prices and pictures of the hotels and the various rooms. She goes through them, taking time to show you the ones you like, and then, when you pick one, calls it to make sure there is a room available. You pay her ten percent of the cost of the room, get a voucher with a map and directions, and off you go. When you get to the hotel, the person at the front desk shows you the room, then registers you and there you are.

Argentina- It is early, has been raining all day, and you pull in front of the city tourism office. This is in a town where people go to sunbathe on the beach. It is Tuesday night. The tourist season ended a month ago. The woman at the desk looks like she liked the teeshirt she had on so much last week that she decided to wear it another week. You tell her what you want to spend. She pulls out a map and a pen and proceeds to make dots on the map. She hands you the map.You go to the hotel. The name is not quite what she told you it would be, but a few of the words are the same, and it does correlate with one of the dots on the map. When you track down the owner, you tell her what you want, and that the tourism office said they had rooms.

-We don´t have any. Well, not really, but we could put youin one for 60 pesos instead of 40.

¨But the tourism office said you have rooms. I guess I´ll just go back and have them find me something else.¨

-Wait!

She gets her husband. He looks through a paper, it could be any paper, a menu, yesterday´s newspaper, a laundry list.

-We have a lot of reservations, with deposits.

The place is deserted, the town is deserted. It´s a beach town and nobody is going to go there on a Tuesday night in a rainstorm.

-One night? Okay, I guess you could have it for 40.

After that, he´s my best friend. Introduces me to the neighbor, who offers to let me park my bike in his garage until the morning. Asks me if I am related to Hulk Hogan, tells everyone else standing around outside with nothing to do because there´s nobody in town where I am from...