Since we’re pondering the unsolved mysteries of life, I thought I’d add two more to the melting pot for consideration.
As a woman, the perennial question to which I have never received a satisfactory answer is this: What is it that other woman find to do in public toilets that is so much fun and takes them so long? It’s not like they’re even doing their hair and make-up because in order to do that, one needs to exit the little cubicle and go to the open area where the sinks and mirrors are. (Not that I’m an expert on hair and makeup, but I’m usually the one waiting to wash my hands behind the person applying eye-liner).
The second is this: What is it that other people find to do in cash-point cubicles? The other day I went to the ATM and there were three people in front of me. “Oh good” thinks I, “won’t have to wait too long, gives me plenty of time to buy a bus ticket…” The three of them took over twenty minutes. I took about thirty seconds, including fifteen seconds checking the cubicle to see if there was a hidden button to turn the thing into a flight-simulator. In fact the whole exercise of extracting money and buying a bus ticket only took four minutes. Which was lucky because that was all the time I had left after queuing for the cash-point.
Geed up and encouraged by my vagabonding episode in Buenos Aires the other week, I’m plotting an even madder trip to the northerly province of Salta, involving sixteen hours on two buses, leaving tomorrow night, to a little place called Pichanal. In Pichanal is a school, where they have been working on a model of inclusive education for the last couple of years, and I am going to meet with the director. Today I spent some time looking for information on accommodation in Pichanal. After trawling 200 hits on the web, I narrowed it down to two potentially useful websites. One had a section entitled “Hotels in Pichanal”. It said (in Spanish) “We are very sorry, but at this moment, no hotel, room to rent, inn, hostel, or motel has been added to our website. If you would like to suggest one, please click on the link below…” Good-oh. The other site had the words “Pichanal” and “hotel” in fairly close proximity to each other, but since the rest of the site was in an Eastern European language, possibly Polish, I wasn’t entirely sure what it was saying about either. Here’s hoping it’ll be alright on the night….