On the edge | bad luck blues

Have you felt like you had enough? Like our Australian friends would say ’had a gut full'... Well this trip has completely challenged our abilities or better said inabilities to deal with unpredictable fate. The reality is that no matter where you go; ’shit happens’ and that's also part of the whole traveling adventure. As my mother would say: “if you walk in the rain you will get wet!”. Off course you always hope the odds work for you and you wont be the unlucky fellow getting face planted in a creamy black forrest cake. This time though against all odds I was the victim.
Where are the bastards that robbed my backpack? And what's the deal for these dudes anyway? Oh, I collect old underwear from backpackers and sell the rest in the black market? Or maybe I just like to find presents (normally old stinky clothes) to give to all my lady friends? The fact is that this time I got screwed... After 3 weeks of intensive shopping in Lisbon and another 5 weeks of carrying it around Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina I found myself with nothing other than what I was wearing that same day! Luckily as it was quite cold, I happened to be wearing quite a lot.
To make things even more exciting I had to spend the next few days organizing formal complaints, police reports, valuations, insurance, etc... all these things that put you off from doing any kind of traveling.

We blame that darned black cat in Cordoba that surely must have given us some bad luck. I hope somebody catches you and turn you into a can of overly salty dog food.
First the bus from Cordoba to Tucuman was 4 hours late. Then it was bloody cold inside the bus, but of course just where we were sitting. The rest of the bus was quite pleasant and fully occupied by happy faces.
And when we arrived at the hostel in Tucuman we realized that the pictures on the web weren't quite telling the whole story. Too tired to complain and find something else at close to midnight we accepted the odor of mildew, the noise from the road just outside and the bathroom just behind the hostels reception which was only separated by a badly closing door so you felt as if you were actually having that shower, no. 1 or no.2 right in reception.
“Get the hell outta here!”, we thought the next day.
So we decided to rent a car and make our own way. We rented our super Chevrolet-olé, the cheapest (and for this reason shittiest) car for rent in Argentina. The person responsible for putting this scrap heap on the market should be shot. After 120km on the road the car had a major mechanical failure and stopped working altogether in the middle of nowhere. Awesome. Almost before sunset when temperatures drop to zero degrees (and below at night) and the air is as thin as an anorexic supermodel because you are close to 3000m above sea level. In this case we were lucky enough to be rescued by an Argentinian family who understood mechanics a bit better than we did and helped us bring the car back to the previous village and find a place for us to sleep! Thank god the way back was downhill otherwise you would be able to find our frozen bodies next to the road skillfully blending in with the army of silent cacti soldiers ready for passing tourist to photograph. Hertz! We want our money back!
Anyway a few days later, back on the road with a replacement car, we managed to return our good deed to some fellow travelers, traveling in the very same super chevrolet-olé, stuck on a dirt road an hour from the next city with a flat tyre and thanks to the rigid check of the rent-a-car company a flat auxiliary as well. Luckily our spare solved their problems! KA-TSCHING! Plus one good deed point for us!