9:30pm. Wandered over to Reconquista for a drink, not in the mood for trying to find anywhere knew. It's amazingly dead, half the places are shut and half are mostly empty. Came to Kilkenny partly in desperation and I had the second floor to myself for about five minutes. Maybe 10 people downstairs. Sort of came here as (last night too) it is just slightly cold out (last night the wind was strong enough to be chilly) and it's a more insidey place. Do wonder if places will get busier later or if Sundays are just as dead and dull here as in London.
Loads of rubbish on street corners. I have no idea why. I mean like several square metres of the stuff. But it's not all bagged up so I am not sure it's just out for collection, although that's the most likely situation.
This crap phone keyboard is reducing my desire to write and I'm sure is reducing my expressiveness.
I was almost scared to leave the flat earlier. That's a bit of an exaggeration but even (perhaps even more so) back in London I find it somehow a bit eerie to go outside when I've been in all day and then it's dark out. Thinking about it, it's sort of the same even if I've been out already that day. There's something about leaving home once I've got back that sometimes gets to me.
I wasn't depressed or anything when I sort of decided and sort of 'just kept web surfing' and didn't go out. I just didn't want to do anything. I guess even apart from the late nights I need(ed) a bit of time just NOT DOING ANYTHING. I really need to formulate my immediate travel plans as I will have to buy a bus ticket tomorrow but even that just feels like too much effort. I wasn't that hungry but I knew I had to eat, which is why I did come out in the end.
It's a bit grim being out and it being so dead, but somehow I don't want to just go back to the flat straight away.
It's all OK but I am clearly just feeling a bit listless.
I was going to go over to La Boca earlier but I'd have had to get a cab and for some reason I just couldn't face the effort, hence my dithering around in the flat just web surfing until it was too late to be worth doing.
11:20pm. Still dead, not that I expected anything else. Am having one more. Feeling a bit down for whatever reason. Am wondering if I should just get a bus to Puerto Iguazu, my guide book says its about 17 hours but if it's overnight and the arrival time reasonable that may not be so bad. I guess I just need to see if I can find somewhere midway which is attractive. I have made next to no effort so far, the map at the front of the guidebook showing the whole continent shows only a few places, so I had no super easy way to find the names of anywhere suitably located. But really I need to make a bit of an effort and dig out a map on the web or something. I've just been so lazy about it ever since I got here.
11:55. Mentally picking up. Still dead but the music has turned upbeat and I think that's helping. To paraphrase Wodehouse, I can't believe I was worrying about such a footling task as picking a town between here and Iguazu Falls and buying a bus ticket there. It's as easy as falling off a log.
I keep falling into the mental trap of treating the trip a bit like work. I mustn't waste any time, I must see as much as I can, I have to achieve my goals and even those of other hypothetical people ("You went to country X and didn't see Y!?"). Get a grip Stevie boy. I'll pick somewhere and if it sucks well no harm done, I'll go somewhere else. Yeah time is a bit limited, but I think in my own way I've experienced BA quite adequately even if I could have done more (and I may end up back here later on anyway, as I did in Santiago, since I fly on from here to Panama), and if I get to IF then I've done everything I particularly wanted to do in Argentina and anything else is a bonus. Besides, it's often the small random places that are the most fun. While I'm glad I didn't stay longer, I enjoyed Chañaral even though it has little beyond Pan de Azucar park nearby to nominally recommend it.
I am drinking far too much but maybe I'll manage to be strong when I get somewhere smaller and have a few days off. And if not I'll probably live til I get back to London and can try to turn over a new leaf there.
Judging from sudden noisy clashes with the music I have the crazy idea there's going to be a live band downstairs...
Mon 00:30. Yes, there is. It's far from rammed but there may be 50 people down there. The trouble is that while the band are good, I'm not exactly getting a major amount of enjoyment - the music is not exactly not my taste (it's English-language but lots of instrumental stuff, vaguely blues I guess - although they opened with "Mustand Sally" - I suspect it's all covers but know too little about blues to be able to tell) but is not giving me the sort of 'energy' I would like. I think if the atmosphere was a bit livelier or I wasn't so concerned (despite feeling better than I did) about being out yet again and wanting to be up before 2pm tomorrow to sort buses out and so on and hence feeling a bit more mellow I might be able to get into it a bit more, but there you go. On the other hand, it's quite cool I stumbled across this live music and it is pretty good and I feel it tempting me to stay out. So I'm feeling torn and maybe that's why I'm not totally chuffed.
(About one song in the first four have been applauded. That's not a bad summary of the atmosphere. It's far from hostile but it's a bit indifferent. And as I say, they're pretty good, so I don't think they are just judged unworthy of applause. Oh, and the song that got (mildly) applauded was as obscure to me as the others, so I suspect it wasn't just a popular song. I feel a bit sorry for the guys to be honest, they deserve a better audience, but I guess on a Sunday night they can't expect too much, and I guess they're putting in the spadework to get to play on better nights or in better places.)
On a purely waffling note, last night (not long before I got to the bar I spent most of it in) I came to a level crossing with bells ringing. 30 seconds later some enormous and (to my mind) fearsome looking vaguely American style locomotive pulling some passenger coaches roared through. I have (and I remember having it as a kid too) the probably unusual feeling that level crossings are a bit sinister and scary, which gives them that "playing with your fears" atmosphere which is somehow romantic at the same time as being unpleasant. And seeing that enormous ugly powerful-looking fucker of a train go through after standing there with the bells going (and seeing some guy cut across the crossing on foot, despite the bells, about 20 seconds before the train came - I remember thinking "rather you than me, mate, I'm standing here if it takes all night for the bells to stop") was an experience in its way. On the odd occasion I experience a similar situation in the UK I get something of that
feeling, but the boxy, huge "exoticness" of the train added something compared to the UK version.
I wonder if I got this feeling of "fear" about level crossings from public service broadcasts on TV when I was a kid, but I suspect it's just some personal quirk.
01:00. The band have stopped or are on a break. I will have another - sod it, I'm not getting to bed early now - and maybe go after that. It's all good.
I just went to the bog and note that the condom machine at least claims to vend at 1 peso, or less than 20p. Unfortunately the women here aren't as cheap as the condoms. :-) But if memory serves it's two quid in London pub toilets. I wish all prices here were in the same ratio.
I must admit there is a faintly decadent quality to being down here on a Sunday night/Monday morning with the place half empty. It is busier than it was when I arrived, perhaps illogically - Sunday night is clearly not party night as such, so why would people come out late? But I guess if you come out late on a more popular night, that's just your habit and you'll do the same on Sunday. I must say I don't get the feeling most people here are tourists, although except for the odd overheard (Spanish, i.e. probably local) conversation and a couple of minor chats with people on other nights I have no really solid evidence for it.
On a completely random note, I am reading some of Orwell's essays now and in one he says he was 17 in 1920. It takes an intellectual effort for me to be able to believe anyone was young in 1920. Stupid I know, but there it is.
I don't feel drunk but the way my thoughts are wandering makes me wonder. A chance reference to Mexico in one essay reminds me that, if memory serves, the Mexican revolution occurred in 1910 or thereabouts, yet this is the 200th anniversary of Argentinian independence. Was Mexico really that late? Or maybe I am confusing some kind of internal upheval with actual independence. I wish I knew more Latin American history but unless it's presented to me in the right way, my brain seems to "slide off" historical facts, in the same way it does when reading corporate reorg announcements.
I am vaguely deluding myself that tomorrow night (with checkout the next day) I will go home after bus ticket buying and a bit of sightseeing and resist the feeling that I "ought" to be out for my last night here (and, to be honest, my general affinity with bars and so forth). But I suspect that once I do get out during the day I will not want to go back home and end up staying out.
01:55. Band doing a second set. I am reminded by my lengthening hair (it now gets screwed over slightly by how I sleep on it) that when I got it cut (back in Santiago before Easter Island) I asked for a number 1. I am not sure but I think WHEN SHE HAD FINISHED, the woman who cut it said "I've given you a number 2, is that OK?" Partly not being sure I understood correctly and partly because I couldn't see myself insisting she redid it as I'd FUCKING ASKED FOR (and my Spanish may be poor at times, but no matter how shit your accent or skill may be, "uno" and "dos" are not confusable) I said "that's fine". I suspect she really did give me a number 2, it shouldn't be getting this long so soon. I am not likely to get it cut here in BA, I will see if I can find a cheap small-town barber somewhere in the near future. Someone who is numerate enough to appreciate the difference between one and two for preference.
02:30 I think I'm going home. It's too late and although I'm sort of enjoying myself in a quiet way there's no point pushing things. I wish I didn't have a ten minute walk home, but I suppose really that's no big deal. Fingers crossed for getting up not too late tomorrow, I cannot push it too far as I do have to go over to the bus terminal once I make a decision.
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