22 january - back to buenos aires, back to the us

a restless night at the giramondo hostel in a shared bunk room with brandy, jason, tam, and two strangers. the noises of the room, the street, and the lumpy bed had me twisting in my sheets most of the night. at one point, kids on the street throwing stones and whooping caused me to close the outer windows even in the heat of the night.

the ceiling fan, <...phiw-phiw-phiw...>.

these last few days have me in my vacation endgame, its hard for me to think of anything but homeward. i believe buenos aires has been difficult for us all, the being forced together now for an extended period. i am having desires to flight off for any minutes at a time that i can to have to myself.

mar de las pampas was not the awe-striking paradise on earth sort of place as much as a family get away for the middle and upper classes of buenos aires province. some nice resorts and such.

i never could get rallied up late enough for the discotech experience. the one night we tried got rained out in a torrential thunderstorm after trying to get indian food. the restaurant, had the word 'india' in its name and some architectural accouterments that lent to the idea of indian food, so we gave it a try. unfortunately, the restaurant had nothing to do with indian food at all; ham and cheese, pasta, and steaks. the normal argentine menu. of course.

the night ended in the downpour with tam, bethany, and myself running to the car through the monsoon style rains and backed-up sewers. tam and i made the best of it though, laughing all the way.

much of the week was whiled away in our small grassy yard, drinking cocktails and playing scrabble, or on the beach, swimming in the ocean, reading under our beach umbrellas. one day, traveling to pinamar, a much larger city to the north, returning to cook in our little kitchen. then friday, my birthday, shopping for our evening feast and then getting drunk around the parilla substituting for a fire pit. saturday, renting atv's and burning sand down to the lighthouse south of town. sunday, a quiet day with goodbyes to sierra, bethany, and justin. monday, the long drive to buenos aires, drinks with justin and sierra, and goodbyes again. a late night walk down florida avenue and to the bunks for the restless sleep.

it didn't suck. for sure.

still, i am left with a feeling of doing it better, somehow.

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23 january

we spend the last day walking the cemetery of buenos aires, a veritable who's who of argentine history and culture. everyone from facundo to evita is here. rich, famous, or just connected. very cool.

a quick lunch then to the fine arts museum, followed by wandering around the puerto madero and visiting the historic fragata sarmiento sailing ship until time to go to the airport.

the long flight to d.c. the long wait in d.c. the long flight home, where erin picks us up at the airport and then deposits us at my house. 8:30pm, jan 24.

its 33°F and dark, cold winter. we pitch our luggage to the floor and head out for thai food.

14 january - mar de las pampas

we've been on the beach for a few days now, this being our fourth. trundled down (rather, up and over the dune, and then down) to the surf for a morning swim. at 07:30 my traveling companions are quite asleep though the sun is a good thirty degrees into the sky already. the beach is populated by joggers, wanderers, dog walkers. i swim, stretch, sit, and contemplate the future warren.

oh. what. to. do.
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15 january, tuesday

awake before dawn and forced myself out of bed to see the sun rising over the southern atlantic. groped my clothes on and stumbled over the dune to throw myself to the ground and wait it out.

as the sky becomes shades lighter, a group of seven later-teenagers run out of the brush about 300 yards to my left. one strips to his underwear and is soon in the break whooping and hollering. the other two boys in the group quickly follow suit while the girls take several moments, a confrence, a recon, and a deliberation before three of them strips down and head for the surf. the seventh stays clothed and with camera, shooting them all in the pre-dawn joy display. frolicking. indeed.

there are a few high clouds and the sky is the powder blue of the argentine flag. as the clouds turn pink and the kids dry themselves, the horizon is hidden. obscured by low fog many miles out to sea, the sun's appearance delayed by a half hour or so, ultimately showing itself first as a thin fingernail sliver of light. rising quickly and brilliantly over the ocean, it fills its disk. glinting light plays over the water with the gulls and cranes. lighting the sky and obscuring the stars.

i return to the cabana, shower the sand of of my body, and fall back into bed.
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19 january


from orion's feet proceed eight fists with an outstretched arm in the direction of his sword to the southern cross.

if not recognized at once, verify by following then the long leg of la croix a thumb's width to musca alpha and beta, forming a sort of fish-hook or making an anchor of the crux.

(fishermen and crosses. go figure.)

anyway, what latitude makes all the difference. in more northern climes the earth shoves her pregnant belly in the way.

of course, old and familiar ursa (ma and cub) are on the other side of the planet for me today. out of sight, but never out of mind.

i would like to think that someday i might think of this place and that crux. where ever that i may be and still count eight fists down, perhaps even into the earth's core, to see those stars yet again.

7 january - el chalten to buenos aires

early rise and hoof our gear over to the hostel calafete where we booked our next night. shuttle to the bus station, then the 5.5 hour bus ride to el chalten.

chalten is a remote village on the north entrace to the glacier park and we had glowing reports of the hikes in and around the area. the swede's recommendations at the puerto madryn hostel sealed the deal. we had to go, if only for a day trip.

the road to chalten was paved for a bit on each end, making the middle part of the journey a long and rocky pace across the glacial plain. this is what adds the hours to the not very distant 120km drive, i thought.

the geology of the place is amazing at every turn and crest; first reminding me of the north american west, dry and hard, then turning west around lake viedma becoming much like the run from jackson hole wyoming into yellowstone... except... except at the western origin of the lake viedma is a colossal glacier flowing down from the andes.

the bus dropped us at the ranger station in el chatlen for a quick orientation by the ranger (pack it in, pack it out. don't get lost. etc.), then we had a quick lunch before wandering off on our hike. we managed to get up to a couple of decent lookouts and viewpoints before the weather turned to wet with driving wind straight from the mountain fitz roy.

returning to town for coffee drinks while waiting for our bus back to calafete. then, having arrived at that place, a meal, then bi-lingual scrabble with a pair of women (one from holland and the other argentine). they played spanish words while we played english ones.
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10 january - thursday

where to start? the inner journey or the outer one? toss the coin, tails says 'outer'. so, i'll work backwards.

i sit this morning at the cafe la nina de oro on the corner of fray saint maria de oro and avenida sante fe in buenos aires, argentina. it is a mildly muggy morning and somewhat overcast after last night's thunderstorms. but also, and for the same reason, the city feels a bit cleaner.

it is about 10am and ave santa fe is an eight lane thouroughfare teaming with people attending to their morning business. hundreds of taxis and city busses jockey for position. pedestrians beware. it all tends to set me on edge, or perhaps it is the cafe con leche working through my veins.

i am in the pallermo, a barrio rather large. a working class neighborhood full of ten and fifteen story apartments with ground floor business fronts. our hostel sits a half block down sm de oro, behind my left shoulder. the din and hum of engines and mutterings of spanish by passersby sets me apart and observer.

the people, as you meet them on the streets, are brusk. it is not rudeness, it is the demeanor and sense of preservation borne of any high density population center. aware, but unwilling to be caught caring too much.

i slept well last night for the most part, waking only once to chug water and try and sooth my cigarette ripped throat. we keep the air conditioner on in the room blasting full 24/7. the days have been in the 100 degrees F range and about 80% humidity. the semi-tropical heat is great for plants and sweating out all of you clothes.

picked up laundry from the cleaners. there is a bit of paradise in a soapy smelling shirt. truth.

we came in a little late last night, a not terrible 1:30am, but i was stripped of energy after the day's adventures. a fine japanese meal at a place by the name of moshiemoshie. ultra hip and extra tasty after two weeks of beef and cheese, ham and cheese, criossant and coffee.

the late afternoon was disposed of exploring the museum of latin american art, a modern art must see here in Bs As. the walk there took us through the japanese gardens, an attempt at quiet reflection in the bustling traffic near the newberry airport. quite nice with koi ponds filled with hundreds of the gaping fishes. this bit of photo-op serenity was just as required having been moved to tears at the museo evita, a walk-through tribute to the social revolution and the instigating woman, eva peron. her wardrobe displayed in glass case boxes.

moved to tears. there's been a bit much of that the past twenty hours or so. julie called and maxwell is sick. oh, poor kitty. damn, and double damn. i've missed you so, and now you're to be gone forever. little pink paws.

January 5

(i've now returned home, and have to backdate the entries.)

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the past day and a half involved almost all travel. fourteen hours overnight to rio gallegos and a six hour layover before the next six on a bus bound for el calafete. rio gallegos is the central transportation hub for the region; anyone going anywhere to or from tiera del fuego, chile, calafete, any of the inland or coastal routes come through here. i have never seen so many people in a small bus station.

the town itself was an unremarkable business center and port. we lunched and tried to arrange the evenings accomodations via the interweb since we would be arriving at calafete in the wee hours.

unsuccessful, we did arrive at calafete with no reservations and humped our packs around to several hostels (closed) and hotels (full), finally landing at the hotel cerro cristal for a room with a split bed and a well needed sleep.

out and about calafete in the morning and afternoon hours. it is a small mountain town at the southern gateway to the glacier parks. the place reminds me of tahoe without the hummers.

there are a great many travelers from all over the world here and i am feeling the bite of lost opportunities. earlier encountering a late twentysomething woman at the hostel traveling on an open ended ticket after finishing her masters degree. i am beating myself over spending the last year in portland with no job, no ambition, and no prospects. in many ways, perhaps a big pot ó lost opportunities.

...and then, to finally be here in this natural wonderland and only two days to explore it! sacrilege! blasphemy!

in any case, we sit in the streetside cafes and stroll the shops, whiling away the hours in the southern sun. it is not bad, really, and tam wonders why i spend so much time in a state of dissatisfaction. i suppose i am my own worst critic.

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6 january

we made the 80km trek to glacier moreno in the morning clouds, minor off and on drizzling. on the way up, we got the economic low down from our english speaking guide.

ten years ago, calafete was a small and occasionally traveled mountain village frequented by the hardiest of travelers. winter population 900, summer population 6000. then a federal president elected from the area and a current president from rio gallegos began a series of economic development projects for the region; roads, waterworks, airports, etc.

today there is a year-round resident population of 9000 and they are expecting 20k in the next five years. it is an economic and tourism boon, there is no wonder why everyone here is smiling.

to the park (argentine entrance fee of eight pesos waived due to national holiday, foreign nationals pay $40).

the glacier was increadible. tam and i walked the grounds and viewpoints with terminal grins across our faces. a wall of ice spanning nearly a full kilometer across its face and winding twenty-five kilometers up into the andes. the glacier moreno has the interesting characteristic of creating an ice dam across two lakes and periodically collapsing on its retreat as the water pressure on one side blows the dam out in a cataclysmic affair. we happend to be there as the passage was closed, the water on the southern arm of the lake some 6 meters below normal.

we stood and watched from the hills above as great sections of ice shed off of the monstrosity, crashing into the lake with furious cacophany. the ice then rolling slowly, tumbling in the water to find equalibrium. the sounds of the place are increadible. cracking and popping, explosions in the distance echoing up the valley. i wish to describe it as unearthly, but of course the pallet of sound is entirely of this earth. the sounds of battle, seemingly... crack, pow, groan. an ongoing conflageration between elements and physics. mass, pressure, inertia. water, sky, rock. temperature. gravity wins, retaining title of master. creator and destroyer.

i have returned to calafete to a streetside cafe having just had a beer and a cou-ple of empanadas. a van just went by, blasting its stereo. a couple of large home stereo speakers strapped to the roof. strange.

almost the end of the world

rode a tour bus down the coast. first, to trelew then on to rawson and the port there for a guided boat excursion to see a bit of Commerson´s Dolphins. these little ones are about 5 or 6 feet in length and have a striking black and white coloring not unlike the mighty orca. they behave somewhat like playful dogs around our boat; come over to check us out, follow for a while, then swim off. very cute and amazing to watch darting through the water, breaking out of the waves, and snorting at us through their blowholes.

continuing on to punta tombo where a clan of some one million magellin penguins make their summer habitat. penguin facts: they return to the same nest to mate if they hgad a sucessful mating season last year, they can also go gay, they sneeze, they see and swim well in the water but are nearly blind and waddle on the land, and are very much fun to watch.

went out this morning to garner some coin of the land without much success. my visa and debit cards both have been hijacked in the past month and i do not have a working PIN. i went first to the banco national only to be told that the french bank was the only one to perform a cash advance on a credit card. banco frances then tells me that, no, they don´t do that either. maybe in buenos aires, only. not here, or in the rest of argentina.

i feel sick, absolutely distraught.

here, in a foreign place, no cash, and no access to cash. i returned to tam and the hostel in near panic.

we brainstromed on the problem and then ultimately calling the card company, had a new PIN arranged for then and there. problem solved. off to the bank again.

due to some sort of monetary policies, individual ATM transactions in argentina are limeted to $320 pesos. that translated to about us$106.

four -transactions- later, i am a much happier camper.

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sitting in a pub for lunch.

note that 90% of all argentine menus are exactly the same: ham & cheese sandwiches, french fries, pizza, beer (two kinds), wine, and maybe cocktails. sometimes hamburgers.

not much for the traveling vegan.

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jan 3 - (argentina means "no")

much of yesterday became a frustrating wild goose chase from one end of the business district and back again. the missions we put ourselves to as mundane as buying shoelaces to important as securing airline tix from the end of the world back to buenos aires.

all became epic in their scale to confound and confuse in this background of foriegn landscape.

communication was not the problem, suprisingly. rather, the issue became that we could just not do the thing we wanted to do. shoelaces? si, go to the kiosk. kiosk - no shoelaces - go to the shoestore. shoestore - closed. airline reservations? yes, but can you come back in half an hour? and only if you are residing in argentina. and, no, not on the days you want. internets? yes, but we take too long.

as it turned out, running this gauntlet of impossible tasks left no time in the day for the things we actually wanted to do, and we eventually surrendered to the situation, settling in for a fine evening meal at the restaurant picador where tam ate fish out of the sheer boredom of pizza and pasta dishes.

our major chores undone, we slip off to bed, procrastinated into the next day. we must leave puerto madryn somehow.

it is amazing anything gets done here at all. seriously. when your morning hours are from 9 to noon and it takes one full hour to complete one (yes, one) transaction for a pair of seats on an airplane... well, you begin to see the frustrations borne of this comedy begin. the conversations ultimately end with them agreeing with you that they know exactly what you want but the answer is simply "no". we don´t do it that way.

in any case, we got it done. leaving puerto madryn this afternoon bound for rio gallego, an overnight affiar of about 14 hours in a bus. did i mention that argentina is big? hopefully we get a bus to el calafate upon arrival and have several days there to settle in. unfortunately, time is getting short before we have to return to buenos aires and we will not make usuaia, tiera del fuego.

its the "almost the end of the world" trip.

should old acquaintance be forgotten

the cabbie took us indirectly to the bus station after circumnavigating a group of six hundred or so kids spilling out of the discotech at seven in the morning. we rolled into the station at 6:10 by my watch and 7:10 by the deskclerk´s with no bus in sight, the ticket window closed. what to do but wait?


so we wait.

the sun is rising, rather, well up in the sky by this time, and its a beautious and fine morning as the wind blows through the palm fronds. other travelers are hanging around muttering about the time change and there is a subdued confusion about. we sit in the sun as feral dogs wander about begging for attention. the pace slows considerably. to a crawl.

after a while, the ticket window opens. i show the man mine.
"okay?" i ask.
"si, es okay." says he.

i go back to our perch and wait some more. an hour passes. we are again to our wits end by this point as it is well past 7:20 on my watch, and presumably 8:20 on the deskclerk´s.

i search my phrasebook and compose the sentence, "¿el autobus esta retrasado?", which i pose to the man in the ticketbooth.

"si, es retrasao." says he.

it´s delayed. no problemo. saga, over. next adventure, puerto madryn.

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we spilled out of the bus and made our way to the hostel El Gualicho which turned out to be a great multi-cultural stay with friendly and helpful staff. a bit on the spendy side at 130pesos for a double (we´ve been getting rates around 90 pesos). we tried to cook up a veggie stir fry, but could only come up with a couple of peppers and onions at the market. ending up with instant soup thing and champagne. down to the beach, then back for social hour with the collected travelers before retiring to bed.

the next day, we strolled all around the immediate area of the the hostel, then moved to the hostel La Tosca, just two blocks away and 30 pesos cheaper. tried to go to the bank (closed for new year´s eve), walked the pier, and had siesta. the sun is on the way down, time to change into the long pants and head out onto the town.

taking your vegan girlfriend out on the town on new years eve in argentina sounds a lot easier than it actually is. first, we tried to make our own food, but the markets had all closed. then we tried restaurants, but none served an ala carte menu, only the special buffet on account of the holiday. special buffets heavy on the meat and cheese and not much else.

the argentine new year consists of big family dinners and not so much of the going out we experience in the states. we went back to the hostel and rang in the hour with a shot of vodka. salut!

the fireworks were wicked cool, and walking the streets and seeing the families gatheredhad me a bit homesick and recalling the ghosts of new year´s eves past.

next, penguins.

aiming for puerto madryn

dec. 29

we left bahia blanca in the wee hours of saturday morning (3am wake up for a 4:40 bus) after spending our last day there wandering the plazas and shops. our afternoon to early evening was occupied by a three hour long conversation with juan carlos, the gay hairdresser of bahia blanca. juan had aquired a limited english and between his english and our poor pitiful spanish, we whiled away the daylight over cocktails and cigarettes, discussing his and our travels. when asked where we were going next, we said viedma. juan about fell out of his chair. "why?" he exclaimed, "there is nothing there!"

i then had to try to explain that it was okay that there was nothing there. i kind of like going to places where there is nothing but people living their normal lives.

weary of the mishmash of spanglish, we excused ourselves and mosied back to the hotel, picking up a bottle of red on the way. tam and i jockied the wooden slat shade to our room´s veranda with a chair so we could sit outside and drink that bottle.

three a.m. came awful early.

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the bus ride to viedma was not long and we exited the station at about seven something in the morning, tickets in hand for the next day´s bus to puerto madryn. viedma is the provincial capital and sits across the river negro from carmen de patagones. the riverside parks on both sides of the river filled with people picnicing and swimming, but both towns absolutely dead otherwise on a saturday. we cooled our feet in the river, had an early meal, and then heads to the pillows for the again early bus appointment the next morning.

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the ticket said 07:10

we figured we should be in the lobby calling for a taxi by 6:15. as it turned out, i was an early riser and we were asking for our taxi right at 6:00, according to my watch.

why "according to my watch"?

what happened next became a frantic and anxiety rising exchange of guestures and broken spanish. first, the desk clerk told us in slow and articulate spanish a bunch of words that we did not know, except the part that sounded like "son seite" and "taxi". we figured she might be trying to tell us that we could not get a taxi until 7:00, which ment a very close call to making our bus! oh, no!

i then tried to explain that our bus was at 7:10 and we really needed to get to the bus station before that and was there anything she could do? she said no, so i tried again with different and grander guestulations. she said no, and then started showing me her watch and motioning with her finger around the clock face one hour, saying a lot of words i did not understand, and ending with english, "all of argentina".

oh. no. oh no!! some sort of daylight savings thing had occured overnight. it was not that a taxi was coming at 7:00.

it was 7:00 right now!

bahia blanca, thursday dec. 27

we dressed for the eighty degree early afternoon weather and head out for a bit of lunch at a resaurant adjacent to the plaza rividavia. the food is amazingly good and the total with our cocktails fits the budget rather nicely. back to the room for siesta, then out into the evening where we find a nice bistro set in a second floor balcony overlooking the street. later, walking through the plaza we encounter a native (indigineous) band playing traditional instruments over a roy orbinson track blasting out of a gas powered p.a.

wander further, and we find a plaza filled with families and clans gathered for ice cream and conversation, a cafe to satisfy the carne (me) and the vegitariano (her), a nice cocktail made of very sweet limon juice, vodka, and 7up over ice.

back to the hotel and again sleep is calling our names. it is summer here, the windows are open, i am barefoot, and the market on the corner is selling fresh cherries. perhaps in the morning i will buy some. buenos noches.

dec. 28 friday

hell of a night of non-sleep and then finally comatose around 2am. snapped awake again at 7:30; shave, shower, and the walk around the nieghborhood to the internet cafe, to the produce shop on the corner to negotiate some cherries, before returning to find tam still asleep in the room.

i sit now on the veranda smoking and waiting. the morning triffic on the street getting into its full swing. most of the shops open between 8 and 10. a horse drawn trailer just went by mixed in with all the cars and scooters, collectiong scrap metal off of the sidewalks.

the pace of life here is not leisurely, but certainly lacking that sense of urgency that permeates the American Dream as we tend to understand it. something like: morning hours 10 to 2, siesta, afternoon hours 4 to 8, evening meal at about 10pm.

not a bad way to do it. at all.

far and away, part 3

what transpired was a rocking and rolling, uncomfortable, loud, dark, cold journey across the argentine steppeland that set our wits to each end and our patience to zero. sleep, if any were to come, occured in twenty minute segments interrupted by more loud dirty gloom.

finally, the sun begain to rise in the eastern sky. this would be over soon.

the morning lumber over the cattle and hay fields of the pampas took multiple lifetimes. at every frequent stop we had to wonder in this was yet our destination. the answer, no, just as frequent at the train´s squeeling brakes.

sleep, frustrating.
conversation, acidic.

this would be over soon.

as we each broke and alternately consoled each other, finally taking solace in our shared misery, the train arrived at bahia blanca.

we packed our bags over the twenty minute hike to arrive at the hotel residencial del sur where the room ran double the price given in the guidebook. my god, a warm shower never felt so good.