R-r-r-r-r-rosario

Early Saturday morning I found myself cruising along the highway out of Buenos Aires. We were on our way to Rosario, a weekend road trip out of the city with some fellow gringo friends: Kyle, a yanquis, Jer, and Sergey, a Russian.

Sergey works for a large American oil firm here which was further exemplified as he pulled up in his brand new Toyota 4Runner Turbo company truck. After picking us up, Sergey complained about the drivers here, saying that they are all crazy and insane. I agreed, saying that you have to be quite a defensive driver in Latin America. We took off.

The truck was complete with three security kidnap buttons, which were accidently hit a total of two times, and what Sergey calls "almost bullet proof windows". We left Buenos Aires behind us to the loud, rythemic dancing of late-90s European/Russian techno and American hip-hop.

Sergey, who is a racecar driver, proceeded to drive between a range of 30 km/h on the freeway to 170ish km/h. At one point, after one of his security buttons was accidentally tapped and his phone rang, he hit the brakes and proceeded to drive 30 in a 110 zone with giant semi-trailers honking and veering past us.

He had purchased a GPS device, which was another source of hilarity, as it would tell him to turn right or left at certain moments and he would then slam on the brakes and veer immediately at times; occasionally coming to a halt as we yelled at him before proceeding down one way streets in the wrong direction.

Another time, we came along a protest that blocked the highway, thus diverting traffic momentarily. He decided to drive over the grass median and towards on-coming traffic. He then cut back up the grass embankment, slid through three lanes of crawling traffic, and floored it up the gravel shoulder, leaving a cloud of dust behind us.

Regardless, we made it to Rosario in one piece.


As usual, more hilarity ensued with Sergey. When understood in Spanish, his name is the unconjugated verb 'ser' (to be) and 'gay' (homosexual). Sergey has thus attempted to alter his name to Sergio at times to remove this confusion. As we all lazed around in our beds at the hostel after dinner, three young men came into the dorm. We made light chit chat, asked them their names, what they were up to, etc. Eventually, it came for us to say our names. We all go, and then Sergey says Sergio. We laugh, as this is the first time he has used his new name, and then he laughs, and says "No, soy Sergey" and I said "Sergey" at the same time, at which the young man immediately responds "yo tambien" (i also; i as well). We all stifle our immature laughter, not at the man, but at the unfortunate meaning of Sergey and the now awkward situation we are in.

Later Jeremy and Kyle go out to the kitchen and had some drinks with the guys. The guys asked Kyle if we were all gay, and Kyle had to explain the Russian and his confusing name. The boy said he was quite embarrassed and we did not see him again.

On the way home we stopped at a roadside bbq parrilla were we ordered the mixed grill ... for some reason. This one lacked kidneys, but it had the intestine and the brain - which was new. We all tried the brain and laughed at the chewiness of it. Sergey then asked the waiter if he could have more brain 'to go' which caused us to laugh again as the waiter brings Sergey a giant plastic, greasy bag of bbq brain.

In short, Rosario is a nice city on the river. Quiet and peaceful, the weather was beautiful and it is getting warmer. Good to get out of the city!