northampton, ma

South American "business sense" tends not to make much sense to most Westerners. Businesses down here tend to be incredibly inefficient, bureaucratic, and don't operate with much of a capitalistic mindset. They also have incredibly bad skills with their client.

Now keep this in mind, and then remember that the majority of Argentinians come from Italian and Spanish stock, two countries famed for their inefficiency and bureaucracy. So, in short, Argentinians are really happy to tell their customers "no," and generally do so after said customer had to wait 30 to 45 minutes to get his answer.

Now keep that in mind as I recount the story of The Lost Lift Ticket (aka ski pass). I'm down here at Bariloche, and yesterday went up to Cerro Catedral, the main ski resort in the area. Bought a ski pass for the day, which was a piece of stretch nylon string looped through the hole of a magnetic card, which you insert into a card reader, which then beeps and lets you through a turnstyle onto the ski lift. I had to actually tie this thing onto my pants (Jesus, what year is this? when is the last time anyone had to tie a ski pass to their person?), and wondered as I did so whether the knot would stick. Well of course it didn't. First run of the day I notice that it had come off. And the adventure begins.

Remember the card is magnetic, meaning the system is computerized. So I figured it should be no big deal, I had the receipt and so I could get my old card deactivated and they'd issue me a new one. I was directed to the administration office, and there I began The Big Wait. 30 minutes in the first line, whereupon reaching the front of the line, the lady behind the counter kindly informed me that I had in fact got in the wrong line, the right one being the one three lines down. Of course there was no signs posted or anything to tell me what The Right Line was, so I had wasted a lovely 30 minutes.

I then wait another 30 minutes to get to the front of The Right Line, and I am greeted by Bureaucratic Puke, to whom I recount my story. She proceeds to tell me there's nothing she can do for me. Why? She could deactivate the card, yes. But issuing me a new one was "not possible". Apparently I had to come back the next day (today) and she would punch my ticket number into her computer, which would bring up a screen and tell her if the ticket had been used after I claimed to have lost it. This brings up the obvious question: if the card is deactivated, how is anyone else going to use it? She didn't have an answer for that one, other than "not possible". So 1 hour of waiting to talk to this lady and 30 minutes of arguing that went nowhere. She proudly mentioned that Cerro Catedral has "the best system in Argentina" (wow, something to brag about there, having the best system in your third world country must mean a lot) and proceeded to inform me that in the United States the ski passes get "wet and ruined" and "break" all the time, thus of course proving how her resort had a superior way of doing things (I had not, by the way, mentioned that the resorts in America have better ski pass systems, or that the resorts are better in any way, or even mentioned that I am American).

It was obvious that this incredible waste of a human life had never been to the US, since if she had she would know that our passes are tearproof, waterproof, and have some incredible spaceage adhesive that is impossible to pry loose. One of her other gems was her remark that it's impossible for the nylon string (that ties the ski pass to you) to break, upon which my friend showed her his pass, which featured a beautifully frayed string that he had to double knot to keep from undoing. She didn't have much response to this show, since any response would have to include "Ok, you're right about that one," which is something that you will never hear in this country when it's a customer dealing with a "customer service" representative.

So I went back this morning to see if things would be sorted out. Bureaucrat Puke #2 punches in my ticket number into the computer, and shows me the screen. The screen reads that my ticket had been punched into the card reader six times: at 11:48am initially and then about every 30 minutes thereafter until 2:47pm. This makes amazing sense since I bought the pass at 9 am, was on my first (and only) lift at 9:20am, and the card was deactivated at 12 noon. I asked the Puke, "Why would I buy this pass at 9 am and then wait 3 hours to use it? Why, if it was deactivated at noon, would someone still be able to use it almost three hours later?" Obviously this makes no logical sense and begs the question that the computer fucked up and was showing bad data. Bureaucrat Puke had a beautifully simple reply (no doubt representative of his mind's generel functioning ability) and said "but the computer says it was used six times!" "but the computer says it was used all day". I wanted to bash that computer right into his Dapper Dan addicted dome, leave a good dent there in his head, and then ask what the computer said. I figured maybe his head works like the classic old TV that needs a good whack to get it working again.

I kept calm though (serenity now, serenity now!) and restrained from any sort of violence, or even an argument of any length, realizing that I had just spent 2 hours of my life dealing with people that probably have the same IQ now as I did when I was ten years old, and that I would be better off just getting the hell out of that room full of "service" which had an amazing ability to putrify your brain with a combination of amazement and frustration (and the constant question, can these people really be this stupid? or are they just lying fucks who don't give a shit about their customers and are really good at pretending to be really stupid?).

Defeated I walked out of the office, bought a new ski pass, rode for 4 hours in glorious powder and sunshine, and had an all around fantastic day.

August is here (insert frown here). This of course means I have but one month left in my trip, which is scary and unhappy for poor ole me. The real life will return soonly - and it will be painful surely! At this landmark in my trip I try to reminisce about how it all started, and have this sensation in my head that the events of May and June and July happened a very, very long time ago. Odd what travel does to time: speeds it up in advance and reverse, meaning the present is accelerated since you are having fun, and past memories tend to fly away, like a roadsign you pass at 100 mph and watch fade away in your rearview mirror. In short, it seems like I have been out here forever or a day, depending on how you look at it.

Life in Buenos Aires has a daily continuity to it's ryhthms for our merry gang of three (which now comprises of myself, Sam, and Silje, the Norweigan gal who was last with us in La Paz). We tend to get up late, do more or less nothing during the day (shopping, movies, aimlessly wandering about), then go out for a great dinner (Vietnemese, steak, sushi [twice], and pizza have been our fare .. tonight is Mexican) and afterwards for drinks. We've managed to ruin two of the last seven days by recovering from the previous night's drinking, on one day I went to bed with the sun up and woke up with the sun down. All this wonderful debauchery has been just what the doctor ordered, after spending the three prior weeks zooming and zipping about from place to place, seeing incredible sights, but doing little in the way of pure relaxation.

In other words, Buenos Aires has been the perfect destination for my state of mind. There really are two travelling mindstates, for me anyway: drinking and doing. They sit on opposite poles of the spectrum. The "doing" mindstate is the one that gets you out of bed and off on the road, to go to a museum or a famous plaza or experience a bit of culture or history. The "drinking" mindstate is the one that thinks all of those ideas sound like too much work, that the real ticket is heading off to the pub. Doing too much of one inevitably leads to doing the other. It seems paradoxical that going out and drinking gets your mind prepared and ready to do touristy things again, but I swear it's the truth! Eventually you are lying there in bed, in another haze, and you come to the realization that you are sick of staying up all night, and the desire to see, use, and experience the day overtakes you. So you start doing things. But then you get sick of doing things all day and just want relax and be lazy, which leads to more drinking and less doing. As that wacko in Happy Gilmore said, "It's circular".