Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Going round in circles in Cordoba bus station

Fact-checking information on buses for work went a bit like this:
“Hi, we are journalists and wondered if we could ask…”
Man behind counter stares at us with a fake smile and his face doesn’t budge as he picks up the ringing phone. 10 minutes of waiting for him to end what turned out to be a personal call - during which we learn about what he has had for lunch and what he would like for dinner - we try again:
“Hi, we’d like to know how many times a day this bus company goes to Villa General Belgrano?”
“Go to ticket office number 40”
“But I thought this bus company went to V. General Belgrano?”
“Yes it does, but we have two ticket offices and you must ask the other one”
So we trot down to ticket office number forty and start again…
“3 times daily” the fake-blonde says robotically.
“And to Carlos Paz?”
“No, we don’t go there. Try ticket office 23.
So off we go again.
Ticket office 23 say, “we don’t go there. Try ticket office 40.”
“No, no. They told us to try you!”
“Que raro. We don’t go, they go.”
We give up on these two and try another ticket office altogether, having seen signs for Carlos Paz advertised on their stand.
“Oh no we don’t go there.”
“But it says here that you do?”
“No, we used to but we don’t anymore.”
“And to Catamarca? It says on this sign that you go there…”
“Nope, we don’t go there either. Our sign is wrong”
So, this is the glamorous world of fact-checking in a bus station with over 90 ticket offices. Needless to say, it took a while.

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