Knotty ticket purchase in a non-English speaking bus terminus

A prudent plan that almost turned wacky

Our South America cruise started in Los Angeles and ended in Rio de Janeiro.

Our port of call after we rounded the Cape of Good Hope was Beunos Aires. It was December 30th 2015. We were going to come back in about a month for a week long stay travelling overland from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires via Sao Paulo and Iguazu. So Drink made this port of call a business trip. We would purchase our tickets from Sao Paolo to Iguazu right now.

Poof, and he's gone!

As we walked through the local terminus, Retiro station, close to the cruise port, and out into the city I lost Drink. From the corner of my eye i spied his disappearing form in an alley. This is Argentina and most of the businesses are closed during the celebratory period. There was hardly a soul on the streets. There was paper confetti every where.The confettii is shredded old documents from the previous year, clearing out the old to usher in the new year. That a very cautious person could be lured away at the blink of an eye was incredible. Stunned into inaction for a while I woke up to reality, and launched into action, as I am wont to do. I had to find him. The only thing to do was to follow him. Stepping into the alley, taking bold steps towards where I last sighted him, I found myself turning into another desolate alley, and there he was waving to me from a little shop. He was exchanging US $ fo Argentinan Pesos, not only to buy our tickets, but also because we would need the currency when we returned to Argentina. Here we are, in spite of having been warned about fake notes, accepting the change without even holding the notes up to the light to check for authenticity. We had to keep our fingers crossed till we got to use these notes.

We reached the inter City terminus without getting lost anywhere, but it was a different story within the complex. It was split level and the counters seemingly not grouped together acvording to destinations, we found ourselves trading up and down ramps and stairways until we found what we wanted. Then it was a matter of pointing , repeating the name of our departure point and destination, and then, after what seemed like ages, the stamping of our tickets. The lady at the counter checked our notes. We passed! 

Mission accomplished, we had time to saunter through the city, even checking out the place we were going to stay in when we returned.

Horror! We got ourselves into a mess.

We reached Rio de Janeiro  a few days later. Comfortably ensconced in our Airbnb, and also familiar with our vicinity Drink, on a hunch, took a look at the tickets we bought in Buenos Aires. To our consternation we  found that the ride would take us into Argentina, through Paraguay, beyond  the Brazilian side where we had booked our accomodation. We did not have a visa to enter Praguay while we were visa waivers for Argentina and Brazil. We went in search of the intercity bus terminus in Rio and to the ticket counter of the company who sold us our tickets. It was going to be very complicated for the bus did not have a scheduled stop at Iguazu, Brazil and they could not accommodate our request. They was no way they would refund or issue another in its place. That was a lot of communication in a mixture of modes -- sign language, spoken languge(English, Spanish), and facial expressions.

Mexican ( Spanish speaking) to the rescue

So we went back 'home'. Drink connected the lap top to the wi- fi and Skype called a cruise friend in Mexico City ( We had a cruise friend in Buenos Aires but she was out of reach). Drink explained to him our situation and gave him the contact number of the company from whom we had purchased the ticket. Within moments he called back with the good news that the company would issue us new tickets with our chosen destination. 

This time our walk to and from the terminus was jaunty.