Like a Che theme park
The computer room. Couldn't see a bloody thing.
We at least got a private room again. Although unlike the Palenque,the cleanliness left a lot to be desired. We unpacked, gingerly shook our big black round textured, supposedly designery, rug out the window to get rid of the fluff and bits stuck in it, and, unsatisfied, I shoved it under the bed, so my toes wouldn't plunge into its matted pile when I got up. Nice.
I also did have a very traumatising morning when I had to (*GAG* - skip this paragraph if you're squeamish or eating, seriously) get other people's long, matted hair and associated bodily/unidentifiable "gunk" out of the plugholes in the shower and sink (used about a half loo roll around my hand to do so and I nearly vommed) as they were blocking the drainage and gunk was floating round my feet in the shower and making me freak out. I thought my feet might catch something in there - it was FILTHY. And I couldn't use the sink to brush my teeth withouth looking at that and feeling sick.
I did complain - the cleaner was truly rubbish, a real clock-watcher - the only two times I saw her she asked me the time - but unfortunately the girl who was checking us out wasn't the one I'd spoken to originally and my use of the past tense in Spanish (and lack of the vocab for "plughole", "gross" and "nearly sick") was insufficient to make this a claim for compensation/discount. It was so bloody cheap anyway, I just vowed to never go back. Ick.
Although I did notice they had ditched the cleaner and were all pitching in themselves. Oops she's probably got 6 kids to feed or something. Shouldn't be so rubbish then, though, should she? I mean, a cleaner's only got to do one thing - clean!
I can't tell you much about Rosario, unfortunately. It's apparently got loads of really cool bars and clubs, cooler than those of Cordoba, but by now my sore throat was really wearing me out (what with not sleeping), the weather was *freezing* and rain torrential most evenings, so we spent rather more time than we should in the cosy (red) living room with the heating on full (they have heating - yay! No more watching TV in my coat as in Posadas), gorging on cable TV films and random game shows, only venturing to close-by restaurants for eats or the staff for cheap beer from the otherwise-locked fridge.
The living room. Red isn't it?
We even had contact numbers of people in Rosario, that Alex (from the Cafe in Posadas) had given us, friends of his who would show us round, but C couldn't be bothered to get them out, so we never got round to calling them either.
We decided not to beat ourselves up about it, we were conserving our energies (and money) for Buenos Aires. And seriosuly, if you've been away from home for this long, and out every night pretty much, it kinda wears you out after a bit!
So what *did* we do in Rosario? In no particular order, as I'm writing this up from home now, and can't remember the gory details: we went to Che Guevara's birthplace.
An unassuming uilding which is still residential, so you can't actually go in (someone still lives there) we weren't even sure we were in the right building, because the sign had been nicked (apparently a regular occurrence...probably bloody students!), but a nice lady spotted us looking puzzled and confirmed we were in the right place. Should you ever go to Rosario, don't bother - this is it.
Pottered round town a bit aimlessly and not really feeling Rosario after beautiful Cordoba. But did find this rather hilarious sign...
Just imagine...(!)
Next day, we checked out the Monument of the Bandera (flag) where the first ever Argentian flag is kept (it was shut)
Then we went to possibly the worst modern art gallery I've ever been to.
Seriously, 8 floors of shite.
I only liked two pieces of art, and they were by the same guy Guillermo Iuso. "Mi Primer Mes Con Laura" charts in detail, everything about his relationship with this girl in the first obsessive month - a cute idea, click on it to enlarge.
The other tells of his mum being on a TV show and his brother destroying the house whilst she was on this show.
We were driven there by a mad cabbie, who despite me giving him the correct address and showing him the gallery on the map, refused to believe there was a gallery there and kept (crazily and dangerously) stopping on a busy triple carriageway to ask pedestrians waiting at the crossings or walking down the street if they knew about this gallery (they didn't - we reckoned it was quite a new gallery, or everyone was cultural heathens).
Wednesday: our last morning, we did try going to the more traditional Museo Nacionale des Artes after breakfast, but it was shut, not opening till 2pm (like, huh?!) and we had a bus to catch to BsAs...so again we didn't sweat it.
In fact the best fun I think we had was getting on the bus, when we realised we had a CAMA SUITE. Omigod, I was in heaven. Shame it was the shortest coach journey we had so far, only 4 hours, and we FINALLY GET A CAMA SUITE!!! At least we got to experience one. If you ever travel coach in S. America, try and get one of these bad boys - on it, the journey just FLEW by. I've never wanted a 4-hour journey to last forever. This is proper plush, flatbed, with TV, fat headrests, SOOOO comfy. With a table for when they bring you dinner/lunch. We weren't even tired, but I had to flip the seat out and lie down perfectly horizontally just because we could. I was careful not to fall asleep though - I didn't want to miss a second of this journey. Sad, huh?!
Next stop - and our final one (sniff!) - Buenos Aires...
