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Swine Flu in Argentina

It seems that the whole world is buzzing with the phrase, “Swine Flu,” and for good reason. A rather potent flu virus that emerged out of Mexico seems to be reaching to every corner of the world. Here in Argentina the first cases arrived in Buenos Aires and since then they have been unstoppable. In my town of Puerto Madryn it arrived through a doctor who had returned from a journey to Mexico.

Puerto Madryn city

The main street of Puerto Madryn.

Each town and city has a similar story. One person came back and did not know they had it, and before it could be contained, more people had contracted it. Until it was too prolific to be controlled. As this flu continues to sweep through most (if not all) the towns in Argentina, some cities are realising that they need to take drastic measures to try and contain it.

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A Train at High Tide

Weaving my way through the crowded Florida Street Mall, it was hard to think of anything other than getting back to my room. The last few days had seen me flat on my back from a nasty flu and even though I thought my strength had returned, this outing had proved otherwise. Any remaining strength was waning quickly as I struggled through the heart of Buenos Aires in the middle of peak hour. This was the last place I really wanted to be right now.

Reaching the entrance to the subway I allowed my feet to slide lazily down the steps while holding onto the side rail and concentrating on staying upright. Passing through the turnstiles it becomes clear that coming here was probably a bad idea. People lined against the edge of the platform from one end to the other. The masses waiting for a train stood in silence, forming a wall over five bodies deep, and a nervousness filled the air while the people waited impatiently for the train to arrive.

The sardines in a can

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Connections in the Bush

Well, to be honest it is not really the bush out here. In fact, it could never really be the bush out here, considering that we live in the middle of a desert. But the idea is the same. The bush means far from anything like a city. We are far from anything like a city.

A long way from town

Looking towards the city from halfway down the road.

The city of Puerto Madryn lies 6kms from us. The nearest point of the town, before everything melts into desert-scape is somewhere between three and four kilometres away. This is our nearest possibility for internet, as where we are, there is nothing. But that has all been explained before.

The point of writing this post is to tell you not of our problems, but our solutions. How we now have internet where there was none. How we connected everything up and worked it all out. The technical, and not so technical bits about it all.

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Documents in Argentina

One of the most known landmarks in Buenos AiresI have arrived in Buenos Aires to get my residency here. It would have been easier and more convenient to do this process in Puerto Madryn where I am now based, but the Immigration branch there could not do anything with my English language documents. So here I am in Buenos Aires trying to get everything together. The problem is that even though there is information about all of this, most people that have been through it have told me that there is always one more paper needed before you can actually start (or sometimes finish) the process.

None of this should really come as a surprise to me, since I have been through this process once before, with my old Siambretta motorbike (which I eventually gave away to a good cause after all of that). The procedure is that when you ask somebody, they will give you one answer, but when you get to the next person in the order of presenting papers, they will tell you that the other person was wrong and you need something else, or something different. This makes for a slow process in getting things done, but with persistence and a lot of time to stand in the long lines, and you will eventually get things sorted out. That was what I was about to do here in Buenos Aires.

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Tales of Travel in Argentina

It was 3.50pm by the time I called the taxi agency again. Where was that taxi that they had promised me for 3.45? My bus was leaving at 4.07pm and with a 10 minute drive from here to the terminal, time was getting tight. It shouldn’t have been this way, as I had already arranged everything, which would have given me plenty of time to get down there. Now, as the phone rang, I wondered what had happened to my driver.

The same young girl who had taken my first call and booked the taxi answered the phone again. I introduced myself, “Hi, I’m from the Quintas,” I said, “and I would like to know where my taxi is?” The moment I finished those words, there was a gasp and then a flurry of activity on the other side of the telephone, before she squeaked, “Oh! The Quintas! Yes! The Quintas! Oh my…! I’m sending a car now!” and with that she hung up.

Looking at Madryn city from the Quintas

The view of Puerto Madryn City from the Quintas. It is normally a 10 minute drive to town.

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