ScAmOsHiT
TRIVIA QUESTION: What do Leno, Letterman, Stewart, and The EcuadorTraveler all have in common?
All of the above Social Reporters have featured guest speakers. That´s correct loyal readers, a first on the EcuadorTraveler Blog, today´s entry features a special guest writer: The Commentator, who has been exploring the great country of Argentina. Enjoy. Stay tuned next week for the EcuadorTraveler´s take on Valentine´s Day and Carnaval in Ecuador.
OK, picture our turista couple walking along by the old English clock tower that reminds everyone of the Falulkand Islands fiasco in which the Argentine military attacked the English-held islands and then realized that their bullets didn’t match their ammunition. This and other stuff like no food for the soldiers led to a fiasco in which the Argentines were utterly humiliated. I say this both as a historical note and as a possible explanation for what happened next.
I am dressed in my uniform of dark brown short and cargo shorts. Mombo is in a bright yellow top with tan shorts. We´re walking towards the aforesaid clock tower (which is locked, who knows why) when out of the sky comes a shower of dark brown, bad-smelling stuff that can only be birdshit ¿¿¿???. First thing you do is look up into the sky and there are trees all over the place, so, yeah, it must be some crafty Argentine bird bombing away on the American touristas.
American touristas being nothing if not somewhat fastidious about bird shit covering their clothes, a period of consternation ensues, followed by a desire to find some agua to deal with the mess. But where are you going to find agua by the locked clock tower? Worry not, here comes an old lady with a half-consumed bottle of water. Not only that, but here she comes with that agua as she oh so sympathetically commiserates with you about the state of your clothes and actually offers to wipe this shit off before it dries¡ What kindness to a poor shit-covered tourista – clearly these Argentines have gotten over the Faulklands fiasco and it´s a brand new ball game.
The woman with the water bottle has a compadre with her, a dude who I never saw but who Mombo got a good look at, and sure enough he´s there to help, too. This is amazing grace, for sure. So now there’s some gentle wiping of the shit-covered skin, which is welcome indeed. At this point Mombo is ready to get out of here, as the hotel is just 2 blocks away and her yellow top is not looking too good at all. But these kindly Argentinians are not stopping with just the skin, they are actually going to do the clothing for us, too. Wow. So the lady gets behind me and starts wiping the shit from the top town. As I said my top was dark brown, so it´s in decent shape, but those light cargo pants are a wreck. So she´s really working on those, patting them down and dabbing as she goes. At this point a tiny thought crosses my mind that she’s patting like mad on the outside of the pocket containing my wallet (which, being the careful tourista I am, I had in my inside pocket and not in the back one), but what the heck, the wallet ain´t going nowhere so no hay problema here.
OK, that’s enough of this wiping, this is getting embarrassing. Muchisima gracias for your kindliness to these unfortunate touristas, we´re headed back to the hotel, hasta la vista. Mombo says the guy now seems somewhat sad, but hey who wouldn´t be after being such a good Samaritan on such a dirty job.
Hallelujah, there’s our hotel now. But it´s so hot, how about a quick stop for a cold water and while we´re at it, let´s get a bottle of wine to chill. That will cost about 20 pesos, what a deal Argentina is¡ Out comes the wallet, just pull out the 20-peso note.
Hold it. No bills in the wallet.
Scam. O shit.
Scam o shit.
(The good news: I only had one hundred in my wallet because just that morning I´d put everything in the safe and it was Sunday so there was no place to cash anything. And we´d just been shopping a little so we used all but $50 US of our pesos. That´s the least amount of money I´ve had in my wallet for as long as I can remember. That must be why the guy seemed so sad.)
Vivir e aprender.
Thanks again to the Commentator.
All of the above Social Reporters have featured guest speakers. That´s correct loyal readers, a first on the EcuadorTraveler Blog, today´s entry features a special guest writer: The Commentator, who has been exploring the great country of Argentina. Enjoy. Stay tuned next week for the EcuadorTraveler´s take on Valentine´s Day and Carnaval in Ecuador.
OK, picture our turista couple walking along by the old English clock tower that reminds everyone of the Falulkand Islands fiasco in which the Argentine military attacked the English-held islands and then realized that their bullets didn’t match their ammunition. This and other stuff like no food for the soldiers led to a fiasco in which the Argentines were utterly humiliated. I say this both as a historical note and as a possible explanation for what happened next.
I am dressed in my uniform of dark brown short and cargo shorts. Mombo is in a bright yellow top with tan shorts. We´re walking towards the aforesaid clock tower (which is locked, who knows why) when out of the sky comes a shower of dark brown, bad-smelling stuff that can only be birdshit ¿¿¿???. First thing you do is look up into the sky and there are trees all over the place, so, yeah, it must be some crafty Argentine bird bombing away on the American touristas.
American touristas being nothing if not somewhat fastidious about bird shit covering their clothes, a period of consternation ensues, followed by a desire to find some agua to deal with the mess. But where are you going to find agua by the locked clock tower? Worry not, here comes an old lady with a half-consumed bottle of water. Not only that, but here she comes with that agua as she oh so sympathetically commiserates with you about the state of your clothes and actually offers to wipe this shit off before it dries¡ What kindness to a poor shit-covered tourista – clearly these Argentines have gotten over the Faulklands fiasco and it´s a brand new ball game.
The woman with the water bottle has a compadre with her, a dude who I never saw but who Mombo got a good look at, and sure enough he´s there to help, too. This is amazing grace, for sure. So now there’s some gentle wiping of the shit-covered skin, which is welcome indeed. At this point Mombo is ready to get out of here, as the hotel is just 2 blocks away and her yellow top is not looking too good at all. But these kindly Argentinians are not stopping with just the skin, they are actually going to do the clothing for us, too. Wow. So the lady gets behind me and starts wiping the shit from the top town. As I said my top was dark brown, so it´s in decent shape, but those light cargo pants are a wreck. So she´s really working on those, patting them down and dabbing as she goes. At this point a tiny thought crosses my mind that she’s patting like mad on the outside of the pocket containing my wallet (which, being the careful tourista I am, I had in my inside pocket and not in the back one), but what the heck, the wallet ain´t going nowhere so no hay problema here.
OK, that’s enough of this wiping, this is getting embarrassing. Muchisima gracias for your kindliness to these unfortunate touristas, we´re headed back to the hotel, hasta la vista. Mombo says the guy now seems somewhat sad, but hey who wouldn´t be after being such a good Samaritan on such a dirty job.
Hallelujah, there’s our hotel now. But it´s so hot, how about a quick stop for a cold water and while we´re at it, let´s get a bottle of wine to chill. That will cost about 20 pesos, what a deal Argentina is¡ Out comes the wallet, just pull out the 20-peso note.
Hold it. No bills in the wallet.
Scam. O shit.
Scam o shit.
(The good news: I only had one hundred in my wallet because just that morning I´d put everything in the safe and it was Sunday so there was no place to cash anything. And we´d just been shopping a little so we used all but $50 US of our pesos. That´s the least amount of money I´ve had in my wallet for as long as I can remember. That must be why the guy seemed so sad.)
Vivir e aprender.
Thanks again to the Commentator.
posted by ecuadortraveler at 8:09 AM
1 Comments:
Quick note to everyone: I have been super busy and might not get my next entry up until this weekend. Thanks for being patient and take care.
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