From the archives: In search of a swim
From Córdoba to Rosario. Laundry, rivers and a failure to make Friends
The weather has been getting hotter and hotter, and one of the things I’d planned to do once we arrived in Cordoba was go for a swim. You’d think in a part of the country where it easily reaches 36 degrees Celsius on a spring day that a public pool or some kind of body of water wouldn’t be to hard to find. But you’d think wrong.
Honestly, after a month in Argentina, politics and economy aside, I think it’s pretty close to perfect. The big But is this: they are clearly not a nation of swimmers. It dawned on me as we made our way down the coast and across lakes that even towns right on the water either don’t have a beach at all, or don’t make any effort to make the waterfront accessible to swimmers.
Three days in a row in Córdoba, we trekked across the city in temperatures favoured only by mad dogs and Englishmen to seek out the places marked “public pool”. Each of them was closed, despite Google telling us otherwise, which maybe we could put down to the elections enforcing strange opening hours. But some of them didn’t even have any water in them! The biggest disappointment was the Natatorio Municipal Parque Sarmiento, a beautiful outdoor pool the length of at least two olympic ones, completely empty of water. Why?! There was nothing and nobody around to explain it to us.
Later, when we got back to Buenos Aires, we tried again, making an afternoon pilgrimage to Parque Norte on the northern edge of the city (despite being decidedly on the coast, BA has no beaches). Again it was hot, again we walked miles, spurred on only by the thought of that delicious cold water, and again we arrived disappointed. “There’s no swimming pool here!” The women at the park gate hollered at us, incensed. “But it says so on the map?” I said, a bit pathetically. “Only in summer!” was her reply. “Idiots!” her face added.
I quizzed our new pal Sebastian on this. What’s the aversion to swimming? Why no beaches? Why do the coastal cities (Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires, and others) not bother making them? Why do the natural beaches that do exist (Puerto Madryn) not make more of the waterfront and build a load of pubs alongside it? Haven’t they heard of capitalism?
Sebastian’s response to this was fairly muted. “We’ll get in the water maybe in summer on a day when it’s 40 degrees or hotter, and we can’t bear it any longer,” he said. I told him that in the UK every town has a pool, every major beach has a Wetherspoons nearby and that even in January you’ll see me and gaggles of middle-aged women in wooly hats throwing themselves in the sea every morning all around the country. Sebastian shrugged.
My moment finally came in Rosario, our next-but-one stop. First we returned to Buenos Aires to complete our first travel loop around Argentina and attend Primavera Sound festival (mega 1990s Brit-Pop fun) before heading north towards the Iguazu Falls on the Brazilian border. Rosario, I’m sure, is a fun and vibing city in and of itself, but what we were both most excited for was the our first chance since Madrid (more than a month prior) to stay somewhere with its very own washing machine.
There is always a sacrifice of some kind to be made when choosing an Airbnb on a budget. Rosario had plenty of very bougie options for around £20 a night, but we narrowed down our choices to a brand new apartment with a beautiful private terrace, and a mediocre-looking place with a washing machine in a central location. Laundry won out.
To be clear, we are not complete animals: there’s been a lot of hand washing our particulars in the sink along the way. Supermarkets helpfully sell solid bars of laundry detergent in single units, an excellent idea in any case. What follows is another good travel game: the art of hanging laundry to dry… over drawer handles, window sills, lamps… But there are only so many times you can make up a bowl of sock soup in the bathroom before life starts to feel a bit desperate. Eventually, you just need a proper wash.
The stress began at Buenos Aires’ Retiro terminal as we waited for our bus to turn up. Our experience of Argentinian buses so far had been almost eerily punctual – fleets of very anal drivers making their steady way down huge and empty highways through the night, always leaving exactly on the hour and often arriving at the final destination to the minute as advertised. So the fact this bus was late – 10 minutes, then 20, then 25 – was irritating, not least because we’d flagged down a taxi to get there out of panic we’d miss it. (Side note: multiple experiences have since led to a new rule on our trip that we don’t go out to eat at wholesome vegetarian cafes when in a hurry. Wholesome vegetarians working in cafes are rarely in a hurry.)
More pressingly, I’d told our Airbnb host, Maria, with some confidence that we would be at the apartment in Rosario by 8pm to meet her. Pulling into the bus terminal at 8.15pm, I begrudgingly agreed to buy a bottle of water from the cafe in return for their wifi password so I could message her to apologise. So sorry, bus was late but we will be there in 15 minutes, I typed. “I will stay for five minutes only, and then I have to go,” she replied. Brutal! We ran to find a cab, half my mind thinking of contingency plans (a hotel, probably at twice the cost) and half how I would word my complaint via Airbnb. Another stream of angry messages from Maria suggested this woman might actually make us homeless for the night if we kept her waiting much longer.
When we finally bundled out of the taxi outside Maria’s apartment block, sweaty apologetic messes laden down with more bags than any backpacker should have, Maria was stony. Younger than I had imagined, dressed in her gym gear, headphones in that she didn’t bother taking out as she handed over a pair of keys in silence. My rubbish Spanish apologies were met with dead air. Oh well, I thought, the joke’s on her because I’m going to rinse her of air conditioning and multiple loads of laundry. And we did.
Cut to the following afternoon at the beach. A lovely river beach, festooned with mosquitos, but I didn’t care. Finally, a body of water to swim in. Sure, it was brown, and when I got out of it so was my bikini, but the feeling of wading out in that filthy, warm swamp water was glorious after days of humidity and travel. Bizarrely, Argentina even places a closing time on its rivers, apparently, which I discovered as the sun went down at 8pm and the lifeguards started honking on their whistles for me and the other lone swimmer to get out. Still my mood was not dampened. That is, until I checked my phone to see a voice note from “Scary Maria Rosario Aaah”. Uhoh.
I know I have certain friends at home who favour voice notes over text, and I’m not opposed to the odd voice note myself. But Argentinians really don’t seem to communicate any other way. I’ve noticed it on buses, sitting next to people of all ages while they play endless 10-second messages out loud, shouting back replies without embarrassment.
I braced myself for – what? Eviction or something, I don’t know – but Maria’s voice note sounded bored as much as irritated (her whole vibe) and told me something I didn’t quite understand about the air conditioning unit. I started texting back but she replied again via voice note, clearly not grasping or caring that my translation skills still relied on google for support. What was she trying to tell me? Had she received some kind of energy usage warning already? I hoped not, we’d squeezed in three laundry loads that morning but I was gearing up to a sneaky fourth that night to rid our towels and swimming gear of river swill.
Time for back-up. I scanned the beach and selected my targets: two young guys who looked like they might be students, sipping on mate together. A likely demographic for speaking at least some English. Luckily, one of them did, and together we deduced from Scary Maria’s voice notes that the air conditioning unit was full of water and her neighbour had complained that the water was dripping down onto her windows. We needed to empty the bucket, and presumably cut down our use a little bit. Fine.
Relieved, I thanked the dudes for their help and started an excruciating older-person conversation about where the English-speaking boy had learned to speak it so well. “I want to travel so I am teaching myself,” he said, “and I like movies and American TV shows so that helps.”
That’s cool! I replied, What kind of shows? My social brain was trying to catch up and tell myself to leave the kids alone already. But it was too late, I’d fallen into that Boomer-like trap of false security, buoyed on by their patience for me thus far. And before he could reply, and before I could stop myself, I suggested: “Friends? Do you like Friends?”
Without even a pause, dude number one started at me cold, dead in the eyes, and said: “I’m 18. I don’t watch Friends.” I’m still recovering.
We headed home to lean out of Maria’s window by torch light, empty her air-con bucket and wash ourselves of all our shame.