"You mean you DRIVE in Buenos Aires!"Yep. It's really not so bad once you get the hang of it. The are, however, a few things you have to know.
If you have a US drivers license it will only be good for a short time here in Argentina. I'm not going to get into how long it will be good...that will only lull you into a false sense of security.
If you already have an International Drivers License...that too will expire before you know it. You can get one here in town at Automóvil Club Argentino, a wonderful place with a great history behind it and a museo in the lobby.
BUT IF YOU PLAN TO STAY IN ARGENTINA FOR ANY SERIOUS LENGTH OF TIME YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST GET A REAL ARGENTINE DRIVERS LICENSE OR YOU WILL GO TO JAIL AND/OR BE FORCED TO FLEE THE COUNTRY LIKE A RAT FROM A SINKING SHIP!
And if you start now...everything will be much easier than if you wait until your foreign drivers license expires.
Take your DNI and your unexpired drivers license to Dirección General de Licencias in la concha de la lora at Avenida Roca 5252 and be prepared to wait all day. If you get there early in the day it probably won't take as long as that.
I showed up a month before my Illinois license was to expire and they gave me a freshly minted Argentine license that was good for another 4 years...and I dint even have to take a test, written or otherwise.
That's really enough for this post. However, we probably should broach the subjects of driving in the city, parking, driving in the provinces, driving during different times of the day, drinking and driving and... of course...
...the traffic ticket.
6 comments:
You make me laughing a lot! I imagine an english speaker asking where is "la concha de la lora" and the ocassional argentine trying to explain the sentence. :)
Maybe "donde el diablo perdió el poncho" has the same accuracy but more polite. Anyway thanks for the good moment.
Juan
...o quizás ¡"donde Jesús perdió sus chancletas"!
...o ¡"en el fondo de la ninguna parte"!
A mi también me encanta este dicho.
un abrazo,
Mike
You know I have talked my way out of tickets two times. I didn´t even ask them, I just started talking to them nicely.
Owning a car - if you are an Estadounidense and you are planning on owning a car here then be prepared to change your whole approach to owning a car. Forget what you feel about personal space and anything related to how you feel about it. Here it´s just some metal on 4 wheels that gets you from point A to point B. Very few people care about their cars the way we care about them up north. You might get bumped in traffic from behind and that normally is just waived off - sorry, didn´t mean it, have a nice day. Parking in the street you will see people parking by brail - very common. People just live with scratched bumpers. It´s a car, get over it. Next time you are driving around take a look at the car bumpers and you will see lots of little scratches and dents. Just something to keep in mind. It´s just very different here. I have so many stories about my car here that I can´t really share with local Argentines becuase they just wouldn´t get me.
Mike, its quite outstanding what you've created here. A very interesting point of view of what I friendly like to call 'a gringo'.
See u.
d.
www.desdeunbosque.blogspot.com
hahaha i like that "la concha de la lora"... very funny and very argentine.
Bye
I like "culis mundis"
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