THE JACKET...THE DVD...and ASSERTION

Day 294

Iguazu, Argentina, South America

Well...we got home last night in a taxi for 10 paesos (one paesos by bus but the bus only runs in the day!) and after i finished looking around the large hostel dining hall with my suspicious face on (Anyone wearing my black Mont jacket??) we looked up the Insurance we have. It´s travel insurance for a year..and it doesn´t cover loss of garments..well it does, but it looks at depreciation...and we were thinking..ok, i´ve been wearing it for almost 10 months, every day....so....i think i´d end up owing them!!!!

So..we´re not bothering about insurance..but i tell you...it had just been washed..and was in great shape! haha

Secretly, i´m glad i can justifyably go out and buy myself a cool new jacket because we´re going to need one in Calafate, which is in Patagonia, way down south and is very cold. It´s home to glaciers and mountains..so that´s where i´ll find my new one i think. It´ll be a good momento too. As you can see, i´ve recovered! Does make me think you can´t leave anything in a hostel, especially not one that has about 300 under 25´s who know the value of Mont!

We also arrived back to the hostel last night to find our picture from the Falls was there..and we could take it..because yes, we´d paid 5 reais for it.

But..the dvd was there..and no, we could not take it because we owed 30 reais for it!

Talk about scammers...

The guy said he´d come back to collect the rest of his money...

And Greg was LIVID!

He waited for the guy..and had it out with him.

Greg was very assertive! And we ended up with our video after Greg explained that he paid with a mix of paesos and reais and he was TAKING HIS DVD!!!

The guy...went off with his tail between his legs..

But it does make me think you do have to be assertive in countries like this.

Even while we were sitting at the cafe last night having dinner i was watching and listening to this guy, german i think, sitting on his own at a nearby table. He was having an infusion and just looked like he was soaking up the atmosphere.

An infusion is a metal or ceramic cup that has a pipe looking device in it that you drink tea made from leaves from. It´s common for tea drinking here in Argentina.

Anyway, a local guy walked up to him and asked him for a cigarette. German guy said ok and got out a cigarette for him. He then lit it up. Local guy sat down and started smoking the cigarette. Then he asked if he could have some infusion...which seems to be common, people do share them, but with strangers?

He then brought out his rather large cylindrical pipe he was carrying strung to his back. It had woven bracelets, a bit like the friendship bands you can make, circled all around this cylinder.

He then asked the german guy if he´d like to buy one. How could he not. So he gets out some monety to buy one while local guy produces one for him. Local guy had no change so he asked the waitress of the cafe if she had some. No, she didn´t.

So, German guy gave his cigarette, his tea, his money and ended up with a little friendship bracelet!

I was thinking...How vulnerable can tourists be?

We see it all the time..people getting conned and scammed...it really makes me want to go over and say..hang on a minute, don´t do that!

I think we´ve become cynical travellers..because we´re constantly looking out for scammers and even think a smile from a local means, ´´Do you want to buy?

Sad isn´t it...

Oh well, i guess we´ve learned that´s the way it is in these countries. To survive, you must take advantage of the have´s.

It´s pretty good that Greg and i are now considered the have not´s..because we rarely get scammed ore even asked anymore!!!!

Maybe they can read the band on our forehead that reads,

¨Seasoned¨!!!