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Ever been to the top of a mountain?
Looks a little something like this.
For the rest of those and some eye candy from El Bolson, click here .
Don´t say I never gave you anything.
More stories later. It´s a nice day and I would rather not be inside this cafe.
I didn’t speak a single word today for over four hours.
Honest. Not a word. And, no, I wasn’t asleep.
I swear I think I might have sprained something.
It’s a different dynamic, traveling alone, especially when you are in a country where the vast majority of people do not, in fact speak any English. And when they do it is typically with the same Sesame Street level that I speak Spanish. I would strike up more random conversations, but the dialogue gets dull fast after you have asked their name and age seventeen times. And nobody is really interested in knowing that yo quiero ensalada mixta y agua sin gas. I could just begin to string together the utterly random nouns and verbs that I happen to remember, but no one is going to stick around after I announce that tengo el gato en mi pantelones.
If it weren’t for the logistical details I had to manage today, hell, I might not have spoken at all. As it was, I had to book two bus tickets, at least two plane tickets, and two hotel reservations. Throw in a couple meals and you can take all those words and almost form a complete sentence. A coherent one, well, that’s a different story.
It’s the same situation I encountered in Rome. It’s difficult to find people to chat with. Only Rome was crawling with young, American couples; yuppie, traveling lovers always gazing longingly at each other at every monument and bridge and street corner and café and frankly just making me sick to my stomach. Bariloche for certain has its share of starry-eyed souls (I was only recently one of them), but it’s balanced nicely by the number of positively smelly people in dread locks wandering around in jeans that have been washed less frequently than their hair.
I am still in Bariloche, but not for very much longer. I am leaving tomorrow on a bus bound for El Bolson. El Bolson is supposedly the location of one of Earth’s “energy centers,” as Sedona is supposed to be, and much like Sedona, the place more than likely attracts the same unwashed whole grain, crystal worshippers. It’s a self-proclaimed non-nuclear zone, so at least fallout is one thing I don’t have to worry about.
I would stay in Bariloche a bit longer, as I am missing a number of sights and hikes and climbs that look simply spectacular, but I don’t want to compromise my stay in Calafate and Chalten. Calafate is home to the Moreno Glacier and the Fitz Roy Range. Chalten is home to the finest park in South America, and the Towers of Paine. Now I don’t entertain any noble or foolhardy illusions of climbing any of those famous summits, but this is the heart of Patagonia, and it has some of the most spectacular landscapes on Earth. Also some of the worst weather, so I’m betting my Gore-Tex will be well utilized there.
I only recently discovered that the glacier-capped peak I spied from the top of Cerro Otto was Cerro Toronador, and excursions to that peak leave daily from downtown Bariloche. I also learned of a Yosemite style destination just two hours away with some of Argentina’s best climbing. Sadly, without any gear, a guide for two days is going to set me back roughly $200, and honestly, I’m not sure I can be quite so extravagant this early in the trip. As it stands, with taxes and bills and mortgages and that masochistic little float to the great white south, I’ve already burned through more than half of the money I had earmarked for this southern adventure.
All said, Argentina is probably the best single country I have visited and the first place I have giver serious thought to living in at least semi-permanently. The people are friendly and the streets safe. The country is surprisingly technologically advanced, even if WiFi is still a bit hard to come by. And dammit, I do so love that WiFi. I spent a little time in Bariloche today looking at home prices in various real estate offices, and sure enough, I could afford an apartment here, purchased outright for cash. Today. I could purchase a home for literally 1/10 of what it would cost in Tahoe. Bed and breakfasts are roughly the same price of a condo in the Midwest, and resort style homes with a view, well let’s just say that for that price in SoCal you would buy two. Maybe three. Possibly four.
Sure the exchange rate is stupendous at three to one, a ratio that can’t be destined to last, but even without it, the cost of living here is more than reasonable. I’m typically spending not more than twenty-five bucks a night for hotel rooms, and should I decide to downgrade to hostel style arrangements that price will be slashed at least in half. I’m sitting in Cocodrilo’s Pizzaria right now, and just finished a mushroom and red pepper pizza, a local beer, a salad, and a bottle of water for roughly the price of the bottle of water in the Los Angeles. Ok, so perhaps that’s an exaggeration. Very fewplaces in LA will charge seven bucks for a bottle of water, but don’t think for a minute that I haven’t been to some.
The food has been generally very good, and certainly more fresh and less homogenized than the typical American fare, but at the same time there appears to be far less variety. Yeah, I can dine at fifty different places within walking distance of my hosteria, but the vast majority of them share roughly the same items on the menu. It’s a diet much like that of Italy. Lots of white flour and cheese. Red sauce and wine. Only with more meat. A LOT more meat. These are people who take very real pride in the quality of their cows. A visit to a decent parilla is bound to clog your arteries and confound your colon for months to come. But if you like your herbivores dead and grilled, amigo, you have found your culinary nirvana.
Add to this the number of Argentines you will find puffing away on Marlboro Reds at the dinner table(most all of them), and I have a pretty good idea why I don’t see too many octogenarians out and about. The diet is the antithesis of everything Californian. Vegetarian? Hardly. Atkins? ¿Que? Ask for the non-smoking section and they seat you outside. Or just plop you into a single table inthe corner, usually surrounded by twenty-six chain smokers and next to the bathroom. My brother-in-law would love it here -- although he might panic when he discovers that football involves skinny boys running back and forth while wearing baggy shorts.
About the only thing their lifestyle has in common with that of my adopted home state is the wine. And in Argentina there’s a lot of it, and most of it, save the one wretched glass of white I only recently polishedoff, has been excellent. At one dollar per glass of house wine or seven, maybe ten bucks for a decent bottle, it’s a vice I can afford to indulge. And, NO, I’m not bringing you back a bottle or six. Don’t ask. My bag weighs fifty pounds already. I’m not sacrificing my back for your liver.
Although I have been enjoying the food and have certainly been to some amazing restaurants, I am still fascinated at the overall lack of spice in South American cuisine. Pepper is virtually unheard of at any restaurant, and hot sauces? Haven’t seen a bottle yet. Sure the ingredients are fresh and the preparation tasty, but having spent most of my life either in the Italian influence of New York or the Mexican influence of the Southwest, I’m used to a little zing with my meal. At the very least, some fresh ground pepper on my salad. In Argentina, generally the only thing you will find ground onto your salad is corn.
On the upside, gelato is almost as east to obtain here as it is in Italy. It’s not quite as good, but really, who am I to bitch about cheap, frozen, confectionary treats.
I have also noticed that Argentina is probably the most dog friendly place I have ever seen. In Recoletta they employ professional dog-walkers to trot the neighborhood pups so the rich and filthy can go back to shopping for designer shoes and sipping café. Bariloche has a dog in almost every yard. Distressingly, these dogs tend to be Rotwiellers or German Shepherds, and the yards all have fences that can be easily cleared by a Daschund with a limp. I’ve spent much of the last week desperately wishing I knew how to say “BAD DOG!” in Spanish. Sure, I’m a dog lover and most of the barking is just canine for “what you looking at, gringo?” but I know first hand just what a pissed off pooch, even a small one, is capable of doing to a grown man’s Achilles tendon. Every time I would walk down Guemes at night, I would starta canine chorus line, as every dog in the neighborhood would run to the irrespective fence the voice their challenge to the strange bald man with the camera.
I would consider going out lessat night, but Argentines are also the most nocturnal people I have ever encountered. Dinner doesn’t typically start until ten, and restaurants aren’t busy until eleven. And these dinners include the kids. Every busy cafe in Buenos Aires and Bariloche would inevitably include munchkins – and I mean right downto the kids still in strollers. I have seen fifth graders playing Quake at internet cafés at midnight. And I don’t mean one or two. They fill the whole place. With dinners ending after midnight, bars closing at dawn, I haven’t the foggiest how these people remain functional in the mornings, no matter how much café con leche they consume. Yeah, there is that whole siesta thingin the afternoon, but I’m not sure even a four-hour nap is going to compensate for repeated nights of nicotine and red wine. But hell, come to think of it, certainly doesn’t hurt totry!
The only thing I really do miss (aside from my sweet, wonderful gear) is my car. Not because I can’t get around OK or mind walking. One of the reasons I like Bariloche so much is how easy it is to walk everywhere – despite the wretched condition oftheir sidewalks. It’s just that staring at all the lakes and all the peaks and all the rivers and all the cliffs that surround me here in Patagonia, I miss the insta-freedom of mobility. Taking a cab to atrail-head isn’t particularly convenient. And with the weather as schitzophrenic as it is here in Patagonia, having the ability to immediately alter a plan or a destination would truly be a blessing. I’m considering renting a vehicle once I arrive in Calafate, but I’m not sure I want to deal with a culture of drivers that feels perfectly content both driving at night sans headlights, and passing slow moving busses around blind corners up a hill.
Then again, perhaps that’s justevidence that cabbies are the same here as everywhere.
“Turns out not where but who you’re with that really matters.”
This is perhaps my favorite single line from Dave Matthews. Ironic considering how rarely I seem to apply it. More ironic still is how apropos it appears today considering how much she hates that band and how much I miss her.
What’s worse is how I managed to meet someone I’m fired up about who is truly fired up about me just a few short months before I was to leave on this cross-continental adventure. And as I am frequently reminded by so many, apparently this kind of vacation is tragically out of reach of most. At least not without a good half decade of planning and pining and pacing for it.
Regardless, that’s a story that’s been told and told and told.
As was inevitable, she left today. I took her to the airport in Bariloche where a plane was waiting for her. Somewhere, sometime, after no less than four airports and roughly sixteen hours in the air, Lord knows how many hours in the airports, she will find herself back in Southern California where with any luck my car is waiting to bring her to San Diego where her home and her job and perhaps most importantly her cat is waiting, probably impatiently, for her return.
What has been waiting for me is a desperately silent room that feels simultaneously barren and crushingly claustrophobic. A room I suspected was bound to be waiting for me when she agreed to accompany me on this first leg of my sabbatical. That said, I have no regrets and certainly wouldn’t have changed a moment of this experience. It’s strange. I wonder if knowing the end in advance makes things any easier. Sure, there is no surprise. No shock. But there is also that emotional pall. That sense of foreboding that lurks and grows deep behind the eyes you stare into every night at dinner.
But for just those nights with those eyes I would have endured a thousand goodbyes. Argentina would never have been the same experience without that someone to share it with.
Someone who could decipher rapidly spoken Spanish far faster than I could, despite my experience speaking it. No surprise there, really. I’ve always been better at talking than listening.
She would have to be a far better listener simply to put up with my tiresome babble for two weeks.
Either that or stone deaf.
I’ve spent the last two weeks developing increasingly elaborate plans to keep her here indefinitely. Not surprisingly, my battle cry of “we don’t need no stinking money!” had little effect. We may not need money, but apparently mortgages do. I tried bribery, but as I all could really offer was some secondhand fleece and the occasional shinny bauble purchased from any of the scruffy, bearded vendors lining Argentine plazas, it wasn’t enough to compensate for a career lost. I recommended a luxury cat carrier and a fiver slipped to the UPS guy in order to get her beloved cat to Argentina post haste, but this was met with outright scorn.
I finally resorted to crime with an elaborate kidnap scheme involving a rogue gang of Marxist llama herders and a big, ventilated steamer trunk, but I didn’t like the idea of smuggling my sweetie as a stowaway in steerage on a boat full of drunken Russian sailors. That scenario could only end with her in the captain’s cabin and me frantically paddling a slowly sinking trunk back toward South America.
In the end, logic, not emotion prevailed.
We spent the last few days somewhat aimlessly in Bariloche whose Patagonian winds have blessed us with weather comparable to even the best days in Southern California. The sun has been shining through near cloudless skies of blue, a blue only rivaled by the lake that stretched out for miles beneath it. We walked along the shore of Lake Huapi, sat on the end of a decaying concrete pier and looked out toward the mountains and gazed through the clear, clean water to the smooth, round rocks that shimmered and wiggled beneath the near waveless lake. We built cairns along the rocky shore, decorating the beach with dozens of our temporary tributes to the spires in the distance that inspired them.
This far south the sun rises slowly and sets at the same leisurely pace of the people who live here, and by three in the afternoon, Bariloche was positively warm. Soon the pebbled shores of the lake were covered with exposed skin that only days before was wrapped tightly in fleece. We changed into bathing suits, cooked ourselves under the mountain sun, watched as it reflected across the surface of the lake like a million flashbulbs, and cooled off again in the shockingly cold water of Lake Huapi.
We hiked eight kilometers up a dusty, steep trail to the summit of Cerro Otto, discovered still more suitable crags for climbing, of course adding to our regrets at not bringing any gear, ate a late lunch with a truly decadent chocolate torta as reward for the two hour climb, and finally returned to the road via the gondola. My knees are still grateful for that luxury. My friends would mock me for taking the easy way down, but when presented with the choice of getting smoochy in the gondola or sore and swollen on the trail, the decision was easy. Best four dollars I ever spent. We had dinner and champagne and yet another truly decadent desert of chocolate fondue and fell asleep sunburned and exhausted and intoxicated from the hike and the wine and the meal.
I am more than likely staying in Bariloche for a day or so more of hiking, then, time permitting, leaving for El Bolson, the counter-culture capitol of Argentina, before flying to Calafate. I am flying solo from here on out, at least until I meet up with old friends in Brazil in March, or until some other intrepid souls I find along the way decide I’m tolerable company. Finding either saintly-patient or stone-deaf backpackers in remote corners of South America seems unlikely, so I’m betting on a lot of time for introspection.
Maybe this is for the best. Months ago my ex wrote me a somewhat surprising letter regarding my regular lamentations about the decision to jump ship and travel. She recommended traveling alone. Funny because with all the unsolicited and frequently unwelcome advice I receive as a result of this website, this was in fact both a valid and welcome suggestion from the one person who had been the least warmly discussed subject on my blog whose name didn’t begin with “George” or end with "Bush."
I didn’t completely agree with her, but as she does know me better than most anyone else reading my self-promoting drivel, she did have a point. By traveling alone perhaps I’ll be forced the confront some of the demons that have been clawing at me for too long. Maybe the isolation of Patagonia will remind me that my largely self-created frustrations were either frivolous or fantasy or both. Maybe the cold winds will erode my insecurities leaving a more confident and capable man. Or maybe it isn’t more time staring inside but gazing outside that I really need.
If that’s the case then the panoramic views in Patagonia seem as good a place as any to begin.
But in the end I think I would prefer to have someone to share those views with me. And right now her view is of South America from 35,000 feet.
She left today. I´m flying solo from here on out. It´s another gorgeous if a little windy day in Bariloche. And I´m sad.
I´ll write more later when being inside doesn´t feel so confining. Until then, you will have to settle for more pictures.
I added the rest of the new pics to the Bariloche file .
Enjoy. Hasta.
She started crying the minute we landed.
Ok. So maybe that’s not totally accurate. She waited at least until we pulled up to the guest house in the quiet little neighborhood on Guemes, and it started to rain on her while I was inside booking the room.
We left Sunny Buenos Aires, cosmopolitan, noisy, sultry, sweaty, intoxicating, Buenos Aires for Bariloche, a lakeside mountain town of towering pines and succulent flowers bursting from every windowsill and every yard-side. A cold, windy, damp, cold, green, quiet, cold, wet, and did I mention cold little corner of Argentina and perhaps the outdoor sports capitol of South America.
Needless to say, I thought I died and went to Vancouver (with almost as many Canadians but with a way better exchange rate), the same place I have been visiting annually with dreams of returning on a far more permanent basis since my first vacation to Canada in 1999.
She also thought she died and went to Vancouver (only the price of the ticket was a helluvalot more), the same place she sprinted away from so many years ago and just started to cry.
Where I was walking around in the cold drizzle of a Friday afternoon just amazed at the hundreds of different flowers blooming psychedelic amongst all the green and gray, she walked with a frown, and in a depressed monotone recited the names of all the flora as I pointed them out like a five-year-old in his own private Disneyland. “That’s a snapdragon, that’s a monkey tree, that’s a thistle, that’s a forget me not, that’s a rainstorm and that’s exactly why I left this godforsaken mud puddle of a life for San Diego.”
I, on the other hand, after nearly ten years of climbing (or trekking or biking or carousing) in different parts of the world and after four years of living in the social crossroads and alpine paradise of Flagstaff, was able to identify most of the fauna in Bariloche without difficulty. “That’s a bearded mountain goat, that’s a wooly rock hound, that’s a smoke-eyed dirt hippy, that’s a brown-footed river rat.”
Needless to say, I was amongst my people. Sure, you all know me as a flaming metrosexual and corporate monkey, but kids, there’s a lot of dirt under these fingernails. I might look good in polyester, but I feel good in Polartec.
Despite the tears and the light that comes across her face whenever I mention the words either Buenos or Aires, she has graciously pulled it together and has forced a smile as she has seen just how much I have been smiling since I arrived. I am doing my part to ensure that this smile remains on her lips with plenty of hot cups of cafe con leche and the more than occasional cuddle. It seems to be working for the time being, but I am pretty sure that if weather hadn’t turned today I would have woke up bound and gagged and strapped into the middle seat of the next available flight to someplace tropical and warm.
She is also doing her part to see that she remains sufficiently distracted from the damp chill of Bariloche by keeping herself occupied. However I’m not sure stripping down to our skivvies, pulling on damp neoprene and jumping into a 48-degree river of glacial run-off was an ideal first choice for an outdoor activity. I am still convinced the best tag line for the outfitter’s promotional brochure would be “Rafting! Fun through hypothermia!”
Of course, after we made our reservations, I realized that the pants and tee I was wearing were the only clothing I had as the rest were in mid-cycle at the local lavanteria, and I wouldn’t be able to pick them up until at least nine the following morning – the same time we were scheduled to leave for the river. This I assumed would have left me either pulling neoprene over my one pair of pants and subsequently frozen for the rest of the afternoon or, alternatively, stripping down to the barest essentials of The Mighty Jimbo in front of all of Argentina. And let me assure you, in that weather, Jimbo definitely doesn’t appear so mighty.
Thankfully for all those nice people around me, tour operators in South America are anything but punctual, and I had plenty of time to procure my laundry and preserve the precious little left of my dignity.
Despite those little setbacks and the cold and it being our first attempt at river rafting, we both had an amazing time. I have not been able to find my testicles for several days as a result, but I’m sure eventually they’ll turn up somewhere.
The Rio Manso even had some exciting sections of Class Four rapids (as defined by the number of letters in the word you will use upon first encountering them), ensuring both smiles and grimaces as waves of near frozen white water washed over our boat. The things we are willing to endure for a good time. It’s an interesting experience, doing something that might possibly kill you with a guide who doesn’t speak English. It doesn’t take too many smacks to the back of your head with the business end of a paddle before you learn the Spanish words for “forward,” “backward,” and “I said FORWARD, gringo!”
The bruises on my skull and my missing genitalia notwithstanding, the experience was certainly worthwhile. The river was clear and green, with shining granite boulders intricately carved by the water lining the banks and splashing waterfalls cascading through the lush green of the forest. Glacier capped mountains loomed overhead as we floated through this verdant if chilly corner of heaven, until we finally ended our excursion at a hillside pasture on the border of Chile, and watched as wool clad caballeros led horses down to the bank of the river to retrieve our boats. For the first time I understood why my friends love kayaking so, and now I am wondering if I have found yet another reason to shop at REI and one more way with which I can waste my weekends and worry my already neurotic mother.
Bariloche offers plenty of other opportunities to send my mother into conniptions. It’s a picturesque community set amongst the trees at about 800 meters. It is next to one of Argentina’s largest national parks and against the shore of the 90-kilometer long, sapphire-blue Lake Huapi. Surrounded by what appears to be dozens of Patagonian peaks, Bariloche is the epicenter of Argentina’s alpine resorts, and is a bustling ski town during the winter. Within a short drive of Bariloche I can find climbing, biking, rafting, kayaking, skiing, snowboarding, wind surfing, kiteboarding, wakeboarding, water skiing, alpine trekking, ice climbing, and paragliding.
Sounds a lot like my garage.
Basically, it’s Lake Tahoe, only with an average home price of about $75,000.
The town is crawling with tourists, but as Bariloche is also filled with interesting little restaurants and cafes, including two Mexican places (Chips! Salsa! Arriba!), about fifty chocolate stores, and literally dozens of cheap hosterias and guest houses, I’m not about to bitch about the crowds of bug-eyed window gazers.
Perhaps most importantly however, nearly all of the tourists are like me – dirty, booted, and marsupial. Thankfully, the spine-bending, overstuffed packs hampering the postures of the Bariloche locals are usually countered by the panoramas that lift the eyes and frequently drop the jaws.
We’re staying in a tiny hosteria just a few blocks from downtown with a large comfortable common area owned by a warm, grandfatherly gentleman whose name I believe is Cholo, but seriously, don’t quote me on that. The property has at least dozen different flowers blooming around the yard. I don’t have high speed internet – hell, I don’t even have an power outlet in the room, but we have views from all the windows, at least four peregrine falcons zipping around the trees in the yard, and both a vegetarian restaurant and a Mexican restaurant only a block away.
We took advantage of the sunshine today and spent the afternoon perched high up on a hillside climbing steep and pocketed cliffs with Martin (pronounced Marteen), a young, local guide who blessedly happened to have a pair of shoes that fit the battleships I call feet. The cliffs overlooked the carpet of evergreens leading to yet another shockingly blue alpine lake in a quiet valley between at three separate peaks. We ate a late lunch of fresh pastries and strawberry tea, and I climbed up and over craggy roofs, pulling on deep pockets of rock until my forearms were so leaden I could hardly close my hands. Weather permitting, I’ll climb again with Martin on Thursday, and still hope to fill a week with several treks and perhaps a single-track ride somewhere in these hills before leaving first for El Bolson, and eventually on to Calafate, and El Chalten in Chile on my way deeper into Patagonia and closer to my date with a penguin.
Bariloche and the Lake District has made me remember why I loved Flagstaff so much and why I continue to visit Vancouver despite the number of my trips cut short by weather. I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t tempted to look seriously at purchasing one of those cottages around town, something with a view and a big fireplace and a lawn, buying a dog that speaks more Spanish than I do, and moving to Patagonia at least semi-permanently. But life is full of trades. And the comfort and convenience and opportunity of Southern California is a hard hand to fold. I would consider a vacation home, but a seventeen-hour trek seems daunting for a long weekend in Patagonia. Then again, to afford this lifestyle in America I would need work seventeen-hour days, so perhaps that trek isn’t so daunting after all.
Again, hasta.
Yeah, I know this isn´t a real post, but I haven´t time for writing. Too much rafting. biking. trekking, climbing, and boating to do.
My life sucks, I know.
For all the voyeurs, here´s the eye candy; Bariloche .
For all of you who like to watch.
The rest of the pictures (that I uploaded) can be found here .
Go on. Click it. You know you wanna.
I’m sitting in a middle seat. In fact, this is the second time in a middle seat this week. Honestly, this is the first trip in four years where I have found myself in a middle seat – aside from those few occasions when I was flying at some desperate hour to get home from some desperate city after some desperate customer call when I was too desperate to complain about it.
Oh, who am I kidding? I totally would have complained about it.
I’m sitting in the middle seat because she is staring out the window at the verdant, exotic, green panorama of Northern Argentina and smiling, and when she smiles I get all squishy inside and suddenly don’t mind that my elbows are bruising my kidneys while I type. And when I get squishy inside I frequently feel compelled to lean over and breathe in her ear causing her to immediately blush and giggle, and when she does that I totally forget about the pain and discomfort of bruised kidneys.
Blushing Canadians and bruised kidneys aside, I have to accept that she probably deserves that spacious window seating if only to tolerate my stench for two hours on this aircraft. Let’s just say that Iguaçu is a bit sultry, and my supply of clean clothing has long been exhausted. With the exchange rate being what it is, I’m seriously considering just purchasing a new wardrobe back in Buenos Aires and burning my bags. Sure, I know the combustion of non-natural, petroleum-based fibers isn’t exactly eco-friendly, but seriously, the stench from my luggage isn’t either.
We spent the last several days on the border of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, hiking and boating around the spectacular Iguaçu Falls. I’m told they are one of the seven natural wonders of the world, bringing my personal total of visits to three. I’m tempted to see if I can knock off the other four on this extended sojourn if only to say I have done it.
The things I do for a good bar story. And you think I’m boorish and long-winded already. I’ll be positively unbearable by the end of this trip.
Iguaçu Falls are a collection of dramatic waterfalls plunging as much as 80 meters over glistening basalt cliffs. The Falls are smack in the middle of a rain forest, and lizards, monkeys (still hate monkeys), monitors, snakes, coati, and toucans are fairly easy to see. The coati and monitors are perhaps most common as both don’t seem fearful of humans and are often hanging around trails and snack-bars for fairly obvious reasons.
The falls themselves are spectacular, and I seriously lack the vocabulary to accurately describe either their magnificence or immensity. I can say that despite the heat, humidity, throngs of smelly tourists, and my own overpowering stench, I am thrilled we made the decision to visit them, and consider my self blessed to have been fortunate enough to see them with my own eyes. Seriously people. Pictures only tell a fraction of the story. Your first thought at the sight of them, and seriously, there are hundreds of them, are usually something along the lines of “holy shit” (this trip will make a poet of me yet). Of course, Gary, my climbing partner and confirmed adrenaline junkie would probably have seen them and looked for paddleable lines with his kayak, scoping out 100-foot drops and thinking, “Yeah, I could do it.”
Thankfully for my mother, I totally lack instinct for adrenaline-fuelled self-destruction.
Well, almost totally. I think our next trip will be river rafting in Bariloche, but I’m sure that is totally safe.
We spent our first afternoon visiting the falls from the Brazilian side of the park, giving myself another opportunity to completely butcher the Portuguese language, and spent all day yesterday on the Argentine side. We even took a boat out to the mouth of several falls to be drenched beneath its spray.
The Brazilians offer boat tours along the river on the upper part of the falls, but I opted out of that trip. Honestly, just seems like a spectacularly bad idea. I’d rather not be on the top of the falls when the engine seizes and the driver starts screaming at everyone in Portuguese to “Paddle, dammit! Paddle!”
With the exception of the mosquitoes that have been using me as their own Italian all-you-can-eat buffet every night, Iguaçu has been without incident. The other night one managed to take a sip from the tip of my already prominent proboscis while I was sleeping, leaving me looking like I had just been smacked in the schnoz. A pugilist in a parasitic prizefight, and kids, I’m totally the loser.
I have been in desperate need for a chiropractor – the result of an improperly loaded daypack. Unfortunately, knowing my short-bus Spanish, I’m just as likely to request a plastic surgeon as I am a doctor of chiropractic care. With my linguistic prowess, I’ll walk in looking for a back adjustment and walk out with a breast augmentation. Then again, my back may still hurt, but at least my new tits will keep me sufficiently distracted to care.
Overall, the trip thus far has been nearly perfect, sore backs and swollen noses notwithstanding. Argentina is a wonderful country, and I have not missed the pace and the progress of SoCal even once. I may not have found any answers in the Argentine wine, but I have found a wonderful, if tragically temporary travel partner I couldn’t be happier about.
The flight is about to land. Even in South America they have rules on airplanes. Chickens and goats totally welcome, but a laptop might interfere with the landing.
Until Bariloche, hasta.
We’ve been in Argentina for, well…hell. The trip must be going well so far, as I have already lost track of how long I have been here and just what day it is. As it stands, Elaine has yet to leave me for a swarthy tango dancer (although the night is still young by Argentine standards), and I just barely managed to escape potentially permanent incarceration for that incident with the governor’s daughter and the goat. This probably has less to do with my charm and good travel juju and more to do with the exchange rate in Argentina. I handed the governor a five spot and managed to procure both his daughter’s once sullied honor and a new annex for American studies at the local library.
Buenos Aires is a beautiful city – bustling and noisy and warm. A strange merger of Miami and San Francisco, with both wonderful turn of the century buildings and the same, unremarkable concrete apartment complexes common in nearly every South American metropolis. The streets are crowded and noisy during the day, cooking under the light of the South American summer and the heat from the countless busses and taxis congesting the narrow streets. The boulevards are lined with giant trees – the town is remarkably green. More than I expected. However it is still suffering the effects of a difficult economy as many of the potentially wonderful parks and plazas are in serious need of repair. Graffiti is sadly just as common here as everywhere with a large population of disenfranchised youth, but the original charm of the community still manages to shine through.
We are staying in a little hotel downtown, a relatively short walk from most everywhere, and next door to the headquarters for the local communist organization, and across the street from “The Pelvis Show” nudie bar. Those commies definitely know how to, uh, party. We originally chose this place for cost, but once we discovered the value of our dollar here, I was tempted first to upgrade to a better property, but then decided just to purchase the place outright. The soon to be renovated Mighty Parisian opens in July. Empty out the change bucket in your car and you probably have enough for a suite.
The rumors of Argentines as shockingly beautiful people is, sadly, a myth. Sure, there are a few supermodels lurking in Recoletta, but generally, Buenos Aries is filled with people who look exactly as you would expect for a country raised on beef and tobacco. Basically, they look a lot like us. Only less blonde. And with far fewer fake boobs. They are however, very friendly and near saintly in their patience with this obnoxious traveler who is frequently reduced to communicating through grunting, pointing, and potentially obscene gestures. I learned long ago that speaking English loudly and slowly does nothing for their comprehension, however, if I speak the only Spanish I know, namely numbers and letters, loudly and slowly, people look at me like I am retarded and I generally get whatever I want.
Dining here has been surprisingly easy for this vegetable killer, although not so easy on my arteries. The Italian influence in Argentina is perhaps no more apparent than in the pizzerias that find a home on every street corner. I swear all this dairy is going right to my hips.
As it stands, by far the most interesting place I have been is the famous cemetery in Recoletta. A massive walled complex of sometimes towering, frequently ostentatious crypts and memorials to Argentina’s most elite. It’s a gorgeous if sobering experience, and full testament to the hubris of man in his vain effort to extend his life by glamorizing his death. It was an amazing experience, and perhaps one of the most unique and interesting places I have ever visited, but I still maintain that in the event of my untimely demise as a result of a tragic penguin mauling, my death should be celebrated by only the worms, and the memory of my life is honored most simply by living your own, as completely as I would should I manage to escape the crypt.
We plan to leave Tuesday (when is Tuesday?) for Iguazu and, later Bariloche. Not atypical for me, we flew to Argentina with no plans, no reservations, and generally no idea between the two of us just how in the hell we were going to get anywhere. I spent the better part of the morning locked inside a phone booth at the locotorio down the block, burning off the seventeen pounds of cheese I had for breakfast in the sauna like conditions, using the vocabulary of a two year old to book our flights.
Frankly, I think I did surprisingly well under the circumstances.
Tomorrow, we tackle the hotels. Anyone know how to say “pay per view porn” in Spanish?
Until then, hasta.
And so it begins. It seems the travel God’s are not without a sense of irony. We leave Southern California on the first day of sunshine in three weeks.
I swear there wasn’t a single cloud within a thousand miles of OC this morning. It’s like someone went and Windexed the sky. Last night? When I had to drive first to Riverside and then to Mira Mesa? Thunderstorms all the way to San Diego.
The blue, however, did nothing to keep our flight from leaving on time. We sat and waited in John Wayne for a solid hour before departing, eating into our three hour layover at DFW. DFW, however, appeared to be socked in with the same relentless thunderstorms that slowed my trip to SD last night, and our plane was forced to land in Abilene to refuel, scenic, cosmopolitan Abilene, apparently the dust capitol of the Midwest as the ground was barely visible until just a few hundred feet from the tarmac – a detour that would chew up the rest of our layover.
That plan for lunch at TGI Fridays? Poof.
It appears that the gods of travel are also keenly interested in my physical fitness, for immediately upon our exit from the plane, the booming voice of the DFW archangel announced the final boarding call for our connection to Buenos Aries. The ONLY connection to Buenos Aries.
And so begins the 33 gate dash.
Travelers, take your mark.
I’m surprised the announcement didn’t include the crack of a starter’s pistol, but then again, that probably wouldn’t go over so well in an airport. Of course all the diving bodies would have made the run more direct, but no matter. We made it.
What does matter is that Elaine has to sit next to sweaty, hungry, cranky, quite possibly flatulent Jimbo after a dinner of dried fruit, Balance Bars and airline food, for more than eleven hours.
Anyone want odds on the luggage arriving?
PS: It’s already more fun than work.
Buenos Aries. More later. For some reason this shit ass computer will not read my Word file off this USB key. Internet cafe computers blow. It is a universal truth on all continents.
Hasta.
Wouldn't you guess it?
The day I'm leaving SoCal, the sunshine returns. Three weeks of this "rain." I tell you I don't like it. I think I just ruled out moving to Vancouver.
If it's raining in Buenos Aries I'm gonna be PISSED.
Elaine and I leave at noon. Buenos Aries first. Iguazu Falls next. Then Bariloche for the lake district. After she leaves (which may be sooner than she expects after faced with the prospect of spending two weeks with my unwashed ass in a foreign country), I'm off to Patagonia, and finally Antarctica.
With any luck, my next story is going to include a close encounter with a llama or something.
Peace, and, finally, out.
I am so NOT going to forget your birthday on Sunday. I will not be too stupid or too drunk or too busy carousing with slutty girls. I'm the good one in this family.
You will so. You are an insensitive jackass, no matter how many of my friends want to jump you. Don't argue with me. I'm a lawyer.
So? I'm clearly the smart one in the family. And the prettiest. Just cause mom likes you best does not make you right.
Look at the date, jackass.
Hate it when the bitch is right. Now I have to send her a hot Argentine boy in the mail. I don't even want to know the kind of postage that's gonna take.
Happy birthday, Boo! I love you more than anybody in the world. Except your dog. I love him maybe a little bit more. I'm stealing him when I come home.
It's an El Nino year. It's been pouring rain on and off for weeks on end. Hell, it's been raining non-stop for five days straight. The worst storm to hit California since 1966. And despite "Wet Watch 2005," fifty people braved the terrible, treacherous trek to my house in order to celebrate that they won't have to see me again for at least six months.
And really, if that isn't reason to celebrate, I don't know what is.
Well, sure I do.
How about two bottles of good tequila?
It only gets uglier from here. The house was filled with happy, largely intoxicated people. Part of me thinks maybe I was the only intoxicated one, but as we managed to finish four bottles of vodka, two bottles of tequila, a galon of sangria, and lord knows how many beers, I'm thinking that I wasn't alone in the altered state. At least three people boarded airplanes to attend this little shindig. Others drove in from cities across SoCal. We had gay people, straight people, occasionally gay people, and several straight people who may not have been too sure about that after the liquor started to flow. There were people making out on the couch, people making out on the balcony, people making out on my bed, and as someone broke a candle in my shower, I'm thinking even it saw some action. At different points in the night, several people licked my ear. And with this crowd and the amount of tequila in my bloodstream, I'm not entirely sure which people they were.
It all began with that tequila, sweet, sweet nectar of the devil, and kids, like I said, it only gets uglier from here. The rest of the debauchery is behind the link in order to protect the innocent. Oh hell. Who am I kidding? At this party, NOBODY was innocent.
(Photographs courtesy of, well, nearly everyone.)
Brent managed to be the stealth freak all night, randomly popping up in the background of nearly every picture to make some ridiculous face. Brent, you are welcome at my parties ANYTIME.
I love this photo. You'd think that as often as I have seen those boobs, I'd be bored with them by now. Apparently not. So busted.
Which of these two clean-cut, seemingly-normal, shockingly-suburban, pretty people knows more about off-road vehicles, dirt bikes and getting naughty on ski boats? Total toss up.
I do know who has the better boobs. See what you people miss? Occasional lesbians rule.
It's not a party until the pink people arrive. Don't like this blog? Blame the pink people. One way or another, it's all their fault. And I so love them for it.
It starts here.
It end here. The girls ask. The girls get. Enough said.
Do you see the way she is looking at him? Do you? Oh, Halcyon, how I envy what's gonna happen later. This woman has plans I tell you. Evil, evil plans. Just make sure you send me pictures.
It starts here.
It ends here. Why Todd has decided to lick MY ear is something I still haven't figured out, but I do know this made him VERY popular with our Laguna Beach guests.
Maybe I shouldn't mention that all of these women at one point or another have been in my bed. Whether or not I was there with them, that's something for your imagination.
That she flew down from San Francisco just to see me off is what is keeping the smile that she put on my face with this smooch. Bridget, I love you so.
Thank you all for coming. Plan on a follow up in July. More sun. Less clothing. Seriously, how can you resist?
Want to see ALL the dirt? You can find the rest of it here .
In my kitchen you will find:
Two liters of Sky.
Almost two liters of Kettle One.
Half a liter of Absolut.
A liter of vanilla vodka.
A liter of some random designer vodka.
Two liters of Bombay Sapphire.
A gallon of my famous sangria (where are you
Jaden
?).
A bottle of Corralejo Reposado.
A bottle of Don Julio Reposado.
A case of Corona.
Some Midori.
Some Kahlua.
Some Wild Turkey.
And a smidge of Brazilian Cachaca for caipirinhas.
Mix liberally with a few hot occasional lesbians, a couple gay boys on motorcycles, an internet porn star or two, a whole bunch of hot rock climbers, an iPod full of good house, down tempo and hip hop, a web cam, and a freshly shorn Mighty Jimbo, and I think you have the recipe for a good house party in Newport Beach.
Are you coming?
It's your last chance to bid me adieu.
Dear Unsolicited Internet Marketers Who Deserve a Flaming Case of Ass Cancer:
Thank you so much for the regular and often repeated information about how I can achieve more powerful erections. Your frequent interest in the turgidity of my member is much appreciated. However, if you REALLY want to interest me in a product, a drug that would guarantee a more utilized erection would be a much better sell.
Thank you.
PS: Unless your all-natural, herbal pills are orally administered by scantily-clad underwear models, they aren't gonna do a goddam thing for my erection.
When someone gives you a brand-spanking, shiny-new Buck knife for Christmas, please be aware that just because it can be opened with one hand, doesn't mean it should be. I'm now fairly convinced that one hand opening just means you can still use the knife after you slice off a few of your fingers.
Today was my last day at work.
Well sort of. It was my last day until I panic somewhere in South America and come crawling back to corporate America desperate for my fix from the great suburban narcotic. I'll do anything! Spreadsheets! Overtime! Just give me my cable television and my BMW back! Just a little! How bout a taste? Ten minutes of HGTV. I promise, I'm good for it.
Somehow I don't think that will happen. Granted, I don't think it's any more likely you will find me in six months wearing hemp drawstring pants and braiding beads into my chest hair after finding my inner child on some mountain top in Mongolia. I suspect I'm gonna land somewhere in the middle.
Regardless, as of tomorrow, I am no longer working. Heh. Not much really is changing. From now on I won't be a ridiculously over-compensated slacker with a laptop. I'll still be slacking with a laptop, only the whole compensation part will have vanished unless I start on that lucrative career in international gay porn.
It's a joke, Ma. Chill.
I leave in seven days. Still so much to do.
I spent two hours with my doctor today. Well, I spent 10 minutes with my doctor and 110 minutes waiting for the doctor or for the pharmacist. I also spent $100 for this pleasure of sterilized air, uncomfortable chairs, and wheezing, wandering people.
At least I now have a sack full of medicinal miracles to keep me nice and comfortable on my little international adventure. I have drugs to keep me from getting seasick, drugs to keep me from feeling seasick should the first drugs fail, drugs to keep me from getting altitude sick, drugs to keep me from getting really sick should I eat something, uh, foreign. And some drugs for that rash that just won't seem to go away. But maybe I shouldn't admit to that kind of thing. Never mind. Forget I mentioned it.
Regardless, a few more bottles and I won't feel a goddam thing. Might as well stay home and watch the travel channel.
Nah. I know what the world looks like from my living room.
It was raining up and down the coast. We wanted to climb. So we left. We packed the Pathfinder and headed east until we outran the clouds. We found ourselves in Tucson. Found ourselves on Mount Lemon and among the saguaro and cholla of the Sonoran Desert. Found ourselves climbing perfect granite walls and spires with miraculous views of the green and sprawling valleys below. We found ourselves alone with just the mule deer and occasional hummingbird and raven as visitors.
A weekend of rocks and ropes. Three days without email. Without weblogs. Without work. Without pixels and cursors and broadband. Three days without you and without me.
Three days of an analog life.
A new year in an old town. New friends and old friends. The desert and the rain.
Happy new year.
Let's all resolve to laugh a little more. To climb a little more. To fall a little more. To risk a little more. To rediscover a sense of wonder. To be the people we describe ourselves to be. A new year with more of the things we love. The people we love. The places we love. And a new year to live a life we love.
(Click for larger images - I'm good that way)
