Post #99 - the "Pooh Pot"

Warning - do not read whilst eating

Ick.

Nothing to do with A.A.Milne, the "Pooh Pot" is someting that we've had to come to terms with everywhere on our travels except in 5 star western hotels and Buenos Aires.

I'd been to Mexico once before and seen signs in a couple of public toilets asking one not to put paper in the WC, but in the bin provided. I'd half assumed, but mostly hoped that they meant the hand-drying towels. They didn't.

It is the norm here to place all paper products in a little bin that is placed beside the toilet; thus only allowing strictly organic waste to be flushed away with the water.

This means that there is a little bin in each and every toilet that is full of used toilet paper.

I'll be honest, it took quite a while to actually start to do this. For the first few days I was strictly in denial. Somehow it seemed quite appropriate in Guatemala (it is, after all, a 3rd world country) and so I gradually overcame 40 years of indoctrination and started to go native. However, it doesn't feel right.

BsAs, which probably has a sewer system (like their railway system) designed by the British, offered a brief - and welcome - return to the natural order of things. But Argentinian hostels and Chile has brought us back to earth with a bump.

I hope our ferry is a Pooh Pot free zone.