I had the chance to travel to La Plata, a small city outside of Buenos Aires. I assume that the rule of thumb in any smaller city is that you can get to any point in the city within 15 minutes walking, so I agreed to meet up with a friend for lunch break. The issue is that La Plata, a city "smaller than Buenos Aires," has a population of nearly 800,000, and is not the little town I was expecting. It turns out that my friend was across the city, and that I needed to take a bus or two.
In Buenos Aires, I have a guide book that references 200 different bus lines and 33 pages of maps. In La Plata I had no map and no bus guide. Those situations are always a little thrilling becuase I knew I would be relying 100% on advice from strangers. And so I started out walking, asking for directions to a plaza. It's always hard to know which bus stop you need, and once in the plaza, it turned out I was at the incorrect stop. By the time I got on the bus, my hour and a half lunch break was not seeming long enough. A kind lady next to me helped me to figure out where to get off, (a very important step) but when I got off of the bus, I still hadn't arrived. I was in a neighborhood of dirt roads, with much more of a small town feel. Of course, I had to ask for directions one more time, but I finally reached my destination: lunch in a university cafeteria- always a good bargain!
Setting out in La Plata alone- and successfully arriving to the other side, was a great feeling of independence, all while fully depending on directions from kind strangers.
