Journal Entry #17

I find myself tonight miles above the ground, flying across the clouds on one of Aerolineas Argentinas’ Boeing 737 jets, headed from Buenos Aires to Córdoba. I have spent the last few days, some good, and some absolutely miserable in the capital city of Argentina. But before I get into that I would like to recount a story that was experianced earlier in the trip.

Road Ragin’ with the Taxi Cabs
In July of 2005, I went to Argentina to study for a semester in Córdoba, the country's second largest city of approximately two million people. Before the semester began, my mom decided to travel with me for a couple of weeks, using me as a guide to experiance a new country to which she would have never gone. As I am learning Spanish, I agreed that it would be a great way to practice translating. So we came down, with our first destination, Buenos Aires. Several days after our arrival to the capital of Argentina, my mom and I went to do some sightseeing and further explore the city. We began in El Centro, the downtown area of Buenos Aires. We saw sights such as La Casa Rosada (the president’s house), ventured down La Florida (an endless pedestrian street lined with shops), and stopped for coffee at the most historic of the Cafes, Café Tortoni. Finding ourselves in the most central of the city’s many plazas, Plaza De Mayo, we decided to hail down a cab. From there we were going to Recoleta, a close-by barrio (neighborhood).

Unaware that my mom was also trying to get the attention of a taxi driver, I began flailing my arms in the air, and with immediate success. I turned around to grab my mom, but she had stopped a cab as well, which would soon put us into quite the uncomfortable predicament.
Not thinking that it would be a big deal, I told her to forget about it, and we got into the cab I had hailed down. I told the driver of our destination; however the other car, which had stopped just in front of ours, continued to stay put. I knew immediately that we were going to have a story to tell.

Our chauffeur began to honk his horn, and the other just sat there in his place, shaking his head. After a few more seconds of this, our driver had enough, and decided to bust a move around his detainee. Although he tried, his attempts were futile, as the other man quickly pulled out in front of us, causing us to come to a halt . I told our driver, in my broken Spanish “Para! Para! Bajamos acà! (Stop! Stop! We are getting out!)”; but he did not stop! Instead, he made another break for it, trying to weave through the traffic on this busy downtown street. Again he was forced to a halt by his competition, as the other driver began veering into our side, nearly colliding with us. The renegade driver then began to roll down his window, still shaking his head and started shouting at the top of his lungs in castellano (Argentine Spanish) at our driver.
So after having narrowly avoided several accidents with other cars and experiencing the road-rage of the porteños (people from Buenos Aires), I grabbed my mom and we got out! After running across the street, we made it to the sidewalk and watched the chaos. The two little boys, trapped in bodies of grown men, continued yelling at each other for another five minutes or so. Just when I expected one of them to jump out and start bludgeoning the other, they both angrily drove off in opposite directions. My mom and I, shocked at what had just happened, decided to look for a new cab. This time, however, with more precaution, and we vowed to never to make the mistake of hailing down two taxis at the same time in this city again.


Well, my plane is landing, so I will talk to you later. Chua!!!