blanquitagringita:

We walked to the Sunday afternoon craft fair, eager to walk around and check out the local crafts after spending the first several hours of the day stuck with nothing to do (most stores, restaurants and services are closed on Sunday, and those that are open do so around 2 p.m. in Buenos Aires and 5 p.m. in Mendoza).

As we wandered, our small group dissolved. After Sarah and I purchased churros - thin doughnuts usually about six inches long with a cinammony-sugar taste, sometimes filled with dulce de leche or chocolate - I crouch down in front of a blanket to talk to two guys with dreds. It was my first time doing this in South America, and I was quickly rewarded. In less than two minutes, I went from asking (in crappy Spanish) if they had anything to put in the pipes they were selling to being the proud owner of about an eighth of weed for 50 pesos. Oh, and they threw in the pipe to go with it - got to sell those artesianal goods, too.

This actually turned out to be one of the easiest street buying experiences I have had in Argentina. No one has totally screwed me, but when I tried out this method a few weeks later in Buenos Aires, I got totally fucked with.

The jewelry and pipe seller told me that he could get weed in a half hour or so, and after an unncessarily long conersation, took half the money to go pick it up. I guess I´m lucky he even came back, but when he did, he wanted an extra 50 pesos because he could only get ´really good´shit. After another insanely conversation in which the seller pretended like the cops were around looking to bust people for buying pot (it´s decriminalized here), I found myself with a 150 peso eighth instead of the 100 pesos five grams I was supposed to get.

It was really good shit, though.