Gato por liebre

If you ever travel by bus from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, here’s a helpful hint: do NOT try to buy tickets direct from Santa Cruz. They’ll shout offers at you from a half-dozen offices in the bus terminal and assure you it’s the most dependable way to go, but it’s not—in fact, with the exception of one special bus line, it simply can’t be done. The bus lines in Argentina are run by different companies; therefore, your best bet is to wait till you cross the border to buy the rest of the trip to the capital. This is a minor detail they fail to inform you of in the recesses of the bus terminal. The problem, really, is ignorance (ours), combined with other people’s irresistible desire to take advantage of the ignorant. Sandra and I had never traveled by land to Argentina, so we didn’t know that you can’t legitimately buy tickets for the Argentine portion of the trip from Bolivia—that we’d be working with shady middle-men who’ve been in the hoodwinking business long enough to make an art of it, and cynical enough to admire their workmanship besides. This made it possible for the aforesaid to make us wait two hours (at 3:00 in the morning) at the border, then tell us our reservations for the next part of the journey were for 7:00 in the evening—unless, of course, we’d care to pay them 30 pesos (10 dollars) each to change our departure time to 10:00 a.m. Oh, and it was for a lower-quality bus line, on which meals were not included, though we’d already paid for that service. We stormed; we argued; we appealed to their consciences, in case they had any—Sandra told them they made her ashamed to be Bolivian—but aside from reducing our changeover fee to 20 pesos, they refused to budge. They had us in the palm of their hand, and we all knew it. So we prayed, resolved to bring the matter to the press’s attention once we returned to Santa Cruz, gritted our teeth, and paid. As we settled into our seats on our substitute bus, we decided to exercise the only power we had over this frustrating experience: to laugh about it. Here’s a little presentation we put together to show our MCC colleagues. The title: “Nos vendieron gato por liebre.” Literally this means, “They sold us cat when we’d ordered rabbit” (apparently the flavors are similar); it’s an expression that means, roughly, “We’ve been had.” They promised us... with... We got... with... We consoled ourselves with… At least the scenery didn’t let us down. The movie selection, however, was less varied… ...would you believe four Jean-Claude Van Damme movies within 31 hours? Fortunately, better food and entertainment awaited us in Buenos Aires. We met new friends, had a ball at the citywide book fair and reading promotion conference, and even had time for a little sightseeing. All in all, we were sorry to leave. At least this bus line actually served us food! P.S. Next time—and I hope there will be a next time to visit Argentina—we’ll travel differently. But I doubt I could find a better book to take with me: Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad. It does require wincing through the provincialisms and cultural stereotypes espoused by the narrator (at times an incisive commentator, at times the quintessential “ugly American”). But if you can find your way around these, you’ll find biting humor, thoughtful social commentary, and gripping descriptions of improbable adventures across Europe and the Middle East—all in a prose style that I think is what they used to call “felicitous.” Try it—it's quite a trip.