No Agua Caliente!

"No ague caliente sin viento en apartmente," we say into the phone in our mangled Spanish to the woman who owns the apartment. To this she utters a large seemingly endless explanation of something or other (all in Spanish of course). We don't even pick up one word. So we try something different.

"No persona tiene venir," we say. "Oh," she replies. Then there is a long silence so we go in with our finisher:

"Que hacemos?"

Indeed. What do we do? We have taken a 13 hour plane ride and crashed out for another 13 hours. We are jet lagged to the max, we feel greasy grimy, gross (and probably smell that way too!) and, oh, did we mention that it is the Easter long weekend and that Argentina is predominantly Catholic?!

The owner of the apartment says something then hangs up. She calls back to say that the superintendent of the building will come up to help us.

So we wait.
And wait.
And wait.

By 5 p.m., with still no sign of the doorman, we call again.

"No persona tiene venir," we repeat. "Oh," she says again (followed by that same long silence).... "O.K."

A few minutes later her English speaking friend phones to explain that a plumber will come — will we be home at 9 p.m.? "Si" we say, surprised that a plumber will actually come at that time until we remember that 9:00 p.m. is basically the middle of the day for most Argentinians.

Sure enough, at 9, the plumber shows up. No tools or anything, but he is here. "Yup. It's broken," he says (but only in gestures - no words). Ummm, yeah, we knew it was broken! He gestures that he will be back tomorrow (Good Friday!) between 10 and 12, "mas o menos", he says. Keir walks him down to the front door of the building to let him out whereupon the kindly fellow warns him (all in gestures of course) to watch out for thieves and cautions him to look left and right before opening the door. Nice. It is only after he leaves that we wonder if he meant he will return between 10 and 12 in the morning... or at night?!

We boil pots to get water warm enough to have a mock-bath in. Thank goodness we have a small bathtub!

The next day, the kindly fontanero returns, thankfully at noon, and in about 20 minutes or so, has us up and running. Hot water again!

So, here is the best of our photos from our first two days in Argentina!






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