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.