MP's guide to boat travel from upon the very boat in question.

First off, it's important to warn you that at some point sooner or later the captain is going to say something about how "el capitan y su tripulacion". This is not meant to suggest he's got three pule aka cocks, but is merely the bizarre manner in which Spanish speakers denote crews. They also call boats buques and so on. Anyway, don't panic, let the tripulantes tripulate in their manner and that's that.

Second off, let's consider some psychosexual as well as politically-social and historical considerations. As perhaps you may imagine, Argentina, much like the rest of Southern America, has serious issues with female sexual self-determination, which is to say that they're of the firmly impacted notion that should you manage to get some chick pregnant, it shouldn't be duly resolved with a visit to the specialised dentist office, but instead you should be stuck with offspring now. Here's an illustrative map of the problem :

Notice the blue spot rigth there, across the river from Buenos Aires ? Yeah, that's Uruguay, the destination of our trip. I suspect its entire existence is strictly predicated upon being the point "across the river" from Buenos Aires. Do you need an abortion ? You gotta go to Uruguay.ⁱ Need your Argentina stay extended ? Gotta go to Uruguay. Pissed off at Correo Argentino, their ineptⁱⁱ local post service ? Uruguay. Want to use an ATM without being stuck trading a dollar worth ~12 pesos for 8.50 ? Uruguay. You're starting to get the idea, I guess, without me having to add that pot is also legal there, as well as other things. So, off we go to Uruguay.

There are two ferry services competing. One is Buquebus, owned by a politically corrupt cardboard "entrepreneur", the other is Colonia Express, owned by I have no idea whom. They both service around 8, around noon, and sometime in the evening. They both take about an hour to cross. They're both stuck subject to the river's will, for instance heavy fog in the morning can easily delay a boat for a couple of hoursⁱⁱⁱ. Both will want to see your passport^iv in order to issue you a ticket. More importantly, they're both fucking retarded in that they don't allow passenger access to any free deck.^v

Buquebus is on Av Antártida Argentina. Most everyone seems to use them, it's the automatic assumption on the part of all the locals, including cab drivers. They will sell tickets in their office or online, but they will not take Argentine pesos^vi. A trip costs about 60 USD, maybe a few dollars less depending on arcana I've not bothered with.

Colonia Express leaves from Pedro de Mendoza 330^vii. They will sell tickets through an office on av. Cordoba 600ish. They will take pesos. The ticket itself costs 280, but there's some sort of surcharge added, bringing the total to 440 (roughly 35 USD). I was carefully warned that it's "feo" and especially at night quite dangerous. I fail to see it, honestly, but then again what do I know, I only travel a lot as opposed to the locals, who never leave their bario.

If you have to take one, I advise you to take the second. For one thing they run smaller ships, which means you probably leave before the larger one and won't be deluged with tons of passengers. For the other thing they're unknown to the expats, and not fashionable among the locals so you'll be spared a horde of English speaking fucktards and another horde of Spanish speaking wanna-be fucktards. For yet another thing it's actually closer. For a fourth, they're about half price. Finally, you can at least take some shots, like so :

1. Btw, lest you imagine that this was easy, and lest you forget how to correctly protest,

   

   

   

   [↩]

2. From what I hear, and from what the Internet loudly declares. I've not yet used them. [↩]
3. In which case you get a free reschedule if you wish, or else can return later. [↩]
4. But will be satisfied with an oral declaration of its serial number, your birth date and date of entry, or any approximation thereof. [↩]
5. That's right : if you use these schmucks to cross the river, you're spending an hour in a box and that's that. Let me take a moment here to publicly piss on the cult of "security" and the intellectual legacy of the United Shitstates. I do not care how many women lose their children to drowning in the fucking river, it's their fault for being dumb, fucking drunks and ending up with the sort of retarded children that tend to fall in the river. The sooner such scum is cleared off the books the better, and instead of wailing about it the women in question should be thankful the little shitheads died young and thus didn't live to cause more grief. In any case, not the slightest inconvenience to my existence can be caused by the illegitimate and morally wrong desire to unnaturally extend the lives of said shitheads. I hope I'm making myself clear ? And no, it's not okay to put speedbumps "next to schools", either. Let the kids learn to look both ways, and at the same time learn what the consequence for not doing so is. Through direct experience, if need be.

   But anyway, annoying as this bullshit may well be in the US, at least there they have the explanation of an overexcitable court system and a dumbass doctrine of personal responsibility (no, if I tell you you're fat and you should kill yourself, it's still your responsibility to start working out, fatso - you don't get out of it by doing yourself in). No such excuse is available here, you'd have a better chance trying to sort out your differences with a grizzly bear through a game of Chinese checkers than using the local courts to resolve a dispute. Nevertheless...

   Disgusting, really. Hey people of the world : stop trying to be like the shithole of the world. Why do you think the people that made it a shithole are leaving whichever ways their eyes can see ? Lemme tell you it's emphatically NOT because living in the shithole is fun, or good or pleasant. Yeah the US is the sad result of idiots trying to implement their idiotic dreams and idiotic "moral judgements", but it still sucks worse than Somalia. [↩]

6. I have no idea how this is legal either, but if you've watched the Bodou case (ex finance minister) then you possibly realise Juan Carlos López Mena's head may well be next in line for the guillotine. [↩]
7. Closer to downtown than the other one, if only marginally. [↩]