23

On the buses that we take from place to place, they show films pretty much continually. Sometimes they are in English with Spanish subtitles; sometmes vice-versa and sometimes just Spanish. From memory, we have seen:

• Some Spanish film in Spanish
  
• Swordfish
  
• Driver
  
• You and your stupid mate
  
• Deja Vu
  
• 23
  
• A Night at the Museum
  
• Catch a Fire
  

Sometimes the sound is piped over the PA, sometimes you need headphones. Anyway, the final film on the Santiago del Estero to Puerto Iguazu bus was 23. It's a dark film with Jim Carrey playing a serious role. I'm not going to spoil anything by saying that part of the plot revolves around some people feeling that they are being persecuted by the number 23 and feel hounded by it.

Well, I know how they feel. The very day after seeing the film, the couple below were sitting on the train at Iguazu falls right in front of us.

Polo 23

Then, our bus ticket ended in 23

Bus ticket 23

At this point I started to feel that the curse of 23 was transferred to me. The change I got from my next purchase has the following serial number ...

Banknote 23

9 9 3 0 3 2 1 2.

Now, if you add up all those digits, it comes to 29. But, clearly, as it is a two peso note, you then need to subtract 6 (four for the two twos in the serial number and two for the fact that it is a two peso note.)

29 minus 6 is ....

23

Scary.

And it doesn't stop there, oh no. Our room number at the hotel was ...

503.

O.K. maybe it did stop there.

Utter bollocks.