Backpacking Boredom

Most of the time when you hear about someone’s travels, you only hear about the best parts and it sounds like one exciting adventure leading right into the next. By the same token, as the traveler you don’t waste your breath re-counting the endless hours waiting around for buses, hopelessly hunting around for a decent place to stay while the pack just gets heavier and heavier on your back, or sitting in cafés with medieval computer equipment, reading your neighbor’s emails while waiting for your next page to load. In fact, your brain doesn’t want to waste memory space either and thus after a while you hardly even remember that those moments ever existed. But the truth is that travelling – and especially this long term, low budget, little planned type that Kristian & I are undertaking here in South America – is almost equal parts “eye-popping” and “nose-picking”, with not a lot in between. A few of these moments come to mind right off the bat:

Our first day in Koobah . We arrived at 12am (New Years Eve/Day) with a plan to leave our bags at the airport party in the streets all night until we could check into our B&B the next day. But…there WAS NO party in the streets (at least from what we could find) and the club we ended up at was not that happening, really expensive (especially after the U$D exchange rate and fees) and closed up around 4am AND THEN the sun didn’t come up until after 8am the next morning, which meant tired, hungry, nervous sitting around in the dark for 4 excruciating hours!

Another moment was in Bolivia when we wanted to take a bus to Villazon from Tarija during the day so we could see the famed “Sama” mountain reserve on the way, but all the buses went at night. So instead we caught a short-distance bus during the day to the in between town of Iscayacha, supposedly within the Sama, with the idea that we could hang out there for the afternoon until the night bus came along. BUT this place was so devoid of anything that if it weren’t for the fact that it did in fact have a central plaza, it could hardly be considered a town. The landscape was barren, rolling hills as far as the eye could see, the 3 tiny restaurants were disgusting and food horrible, and the wind was too fierce for hanging out anywhere outside, which left of really nothing to do and nowhere even to sit around and wait. Se we began begging passing truckers to give us a ride and once we got a lift, it wasn´t for another 3 HOURS before we left the barren hills to find the beautiful part of the Sama. Woops.

Even our first day in our new Argentinian “home” (Mendoza) lacked excitement, as we not only arrived on a Sunday, but decided to venture out into downtown just during their sacred siesta period. It was like a ghost town – NOTHING open and NOTHING to do. Plus, our hostel was quite a ways from the center in what we would later find out was their seediest red light district!

Recently, in Ushuaia, however, we experienced a rather unusual type of backpacker’s boredom, which I suppose could be classified as being stuck someplace where you can’t afford to have fun. It takes 3 long, boring and expensive days of busing through the empty pampas in order to get from the lake district to Ushuaia, at the southern tip of the continent. Once you arrive it is indeed filled with incredible things to do and see but everything is so expensive that we spent most of our time gazing at the unattainable scenery as we cooked our own meals in our hostel on the hill.

The Days of Good Beer

Argentina is not known for it’s beer. It has decent, cheap, light, beers; and sweet, cheap, body-less, dark, beers; but for the most part, nothing special. Mendoza has a handful of microbreweries. All of them except for one produce what might be likened to pee. I’m no snob either, I’ll drink just about anything. Sometimes I would marvel at how long it had been since I had a beer, but when you think about all the wine, it all makes sense.

The one good brewery in Mendoza is called Jerome’s and it’s up in Potrerillos, or El Salto, to be exact. This is, even after these past few days, the best beer in Argentina. The trouble was, you had to drive some 68 km to the brewery to drink the beer and we did not have a car, plus, the stuff wasn’t cheap. Regardless, every time we were in the neighborhood, we paid a visit to Eduardo at his brewery in the Andes and drank some of his fine cerveza. Our last trip up there, the day after our full moon rafting trip, Eduardo rewarded our repeat patronage with free beers for us and our friends. I don’t understand why his beer was not sold in Mendoza. He is even looking into exporting to a couple of markets in the US; maybe Colorado (hopefully) and Oregon.

These past few days we have had an abundance of micro-brewed beers. Here it’s called cerveca artesanal. Here, they use the word artesanal a lot. I would even go as far as to say that it is overused. I mean, come on, how can you have an artesanal car wash or dry cleaning? Our luck started in the Swiss Colony near San Carlos de Bariloche. Oh, before I forget, I should mention that these days of good beer have also been marked by tasty food from fairs. Argentina has tons of ferias, or artisanal fairs, and we have been to too many. The one in El Bolsón is the best by far.

Starting Off Heavy

We are carrying some of the weight of having lived in an apartment for the last ten months. We had begun the process of evacuating our apartment weeks before our first family members came to visit back in September. Thanks again family for taking so much of our stuff back to the States. Unfortunately, neither of us are as good at paring down our stuff as we would like. Yeah, I’m a pack rat, I know. Plus, I’m sensitive to over-consumption which I see as wasteful and having an aggregate negative impact on the naturaleza which I so love to enjoy. I don´t think that people should refrain from having things, just that they should be aware of the impact of their purchases. For example, a washing machine or an oak dining room table are nice things to have. For me, however, getting a new thing if I already have one that still works, or because it is old, or I don’t like the color anymore, or some such nonsense, is not a luxury I bestow on myself lightly. We did our best to find appropriate new homes for all of our things that would not be making the onward journey with us. When we passed our balcony bar and stools on to one of our neighbors, I almost shed a tear. That was probably the epitomal piece of furniture we had and a pivotal part of our lives in the apartment. Update Feb 20, 2007: Pablo informs me by email that he is enjoying mucho the bar and that with it, he is the envy of the building. Gotta love those friendly, dramatic, Argentines.

We leave the house with tons of crap (actually good stuff, some from our families): beef-jerky, craisins, yogurt covered raisins, good, cheap, backpacking foods from Mendoza: trail mix, dried mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, powdered soups, a mountain of teas, coffee, vitamins, blank CDs & DVDs, neck pillows, a beach towel, etc. This is just a sampling of the lighter stuff. We also had the big old Dell Inspiron 5000 laptop with external DVD/CD burner and spaghetti tangle of cords. Plus three bottles of wine and another small bottle of sweet dulce de leche liqueur that Marí Carmen gave us as a going away present. Everybody in the world knows that glass bottles of liquids do not make for a comfortable backpacking experience. However, two of the wine bottles are from Ana & Roberto’s (part of our Mendoza family) bodega, another going away present. The three bottles will not last more than three nights. The first one was enjoyed within hours of our departure from Mendoza on our overnight cama bus to Neuquen. Another bottle tomorrow night in Junín with our diner of brown rice and left-over chili, over conversations with Argentines from other parts of the country, mostly Buenos Aires, enjoying their vacations. How appropriate that we will enjoy the third red wine given to us by Roberto at a place (Lago Paimún) and in a manner (under a starry sky) that he suggested.

Bidding Bittersweet Farewell to Mendoza (La Despedida)

Sad because we never know when or even if we will ever see these people with whom we have developed such important relationships. My guess is that some we will see again and some we won’t and in unexpected circumstances. Happy because the connections we made with people here are one of the most important aspects of our time here. Happy because new adventures await. We spent a large part of our last few days in town visiting all our friends and adopted family to say goodbye. Instead of sticking it out to the bitter end at our apartment, we decided to spend our last weekend in our favorite day trip town, Potrerillos. We got it all cleaned up, got our deposit back, and moved out the day before had to. Aditionally, our landlord bought our refrigerator, matress, and cordless phone from us. We had one more big asado with our friends in Potrerillos and went rafting down the Mendoza River after midnight to the light of the egg shaped moon. As our bus left the terminal in Mendoza for the last time, our friends Monica, Eric, and Vanina chased the bus away waving and blowing us farewell kisses.

How We Spent Our Summer Holidays

We made our third and fourth trips to Ana & Roberto´s bodega in Vista Flores. We relaxed. We caught up on the sleep that the heat and mosquitos of Mendoza had been depriving us of. We lounged by the pool. We chatted, and read, and harvested fresh, ripe, juicy peaches, and ate them. We played ping-pong and left-right-center. We researched the next stages of our travels in our library of guidebooks. We attended a Catholic mass on La Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) and were paid a surprise visit by Papa Noel around midnight. He was somewhat hideous in his mask and must have come from Hawaii considering the amount of goodies he brought from there. We shot off fireworks. For New Years Eve, we went to a fancy restaurant and watched as people launched globos that floated away into the night, carrying their problems and worries from 2006

Happy Holidays

Wendy and I wish all our friends and family back home, and all over the world, peace, love, and happiness. We miss you guys. We were quite sad to miss two weddings of some of our best friends. We were with you in spirit and will celebrate with you in person when we next see each other. I don’t imagine that you feel sorry for us. We are living our dreams. We had the best times with our recent visitors. We were fortunate enough to spend time and have adventures with both sets of parents and Tricia, my younger sister. We have been lucky in that we have made some very good friends during our time in Mendoza. Even luckier still to have a wonderful adopted family with which we will spend Christmas sucking down that marvelous Mendoza malbec. I almost can’t believe that we only have two more weeks here in Mendoza. Communication is going to become a lot less frequent but we are going to try our best update you on our whereabouts with this blog and upload photos to show you where we have been. Here are couple links to little posts I just put up on other recent holidays in case you don’t like to scroll.

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Incapable of Change

Argentina suffers from a bizarre cultural phenomenon wherein nobody ever has change. One day, recently, I went to purchase a couple of 30 centavo tortitas with a 2 peso bill. “Do you have anything smaller?” asked the cashier. I did not. “Take them…” she waved me off, “just take them and go.” I left with my two warm little biscuits that I didn’t have to pay for because the task of coming up with $1.40 in change was just too daunting. This situation repeats itself every day all over the country. Here, the act of making a purchase is viewed by the vendor as a collaborative process. Many of the kiosks even hang up signs that say “Please collaborate with the change” or even “There is NO Change”. Even in the supermarkets, the checkout clerks will inevitably ask the purchaser if they have some coin or combination of coins and smaller bills; anything to minimize the amount of change they have to give you after your purchase.

Yesterday we went on a wine tour and at the end of the tour, decided to purchase a bottle. One would think that the idea behind getting people to come to your bodega and giving them a free tour and wine tasting would be to sell them bottles of your wine. We selected a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon for $15.50. We went to pay for the bottle with a $100, which is the default bill provided by the ATMs. She was unable to sell us the wine because she could not make change. She asked if I could come up with the exact amount between my wife and the two friends we brought with us. Between the four of us, we actually could have done it, but then we would have been screwed for the rest of the day. Already we did not know how we were going to get back on the bus.

The Bus. What is it with public transportation that people are always trying to take a good, working system, and smash it into the ground? So, the entire network of Mendoza city busses recently adopted a policy of not giving change or accepting paper bills. What are they thinking? They are throwing gasoline on a fire. Yesterday, on the way to catch the bus to the bodega, the headline on the local paper read, “Bus companies have amassed $240,000 pesos during November since deciding not to give change.” I thought I was being proactive by taking a bunch of different denominations of coinage with me to the bus stop. With four of us, it shouldn’t be too hard, everything should add up to five and change and we’ll be on our way. That was before I knew that they now require each rider individually to put at least the proper amount of coins into a little box that gives you a little, paper ticket. “Is this a transfer?” asked our visitor, Jason. “No,” I said, at a loss, “It is Argentina.” So, with far, far more planning and preparation than went into the Iraq war, we managed to extract enough change from the change deficient Argentines to get us four gringos back and forth to the bodegas of Maipu. It was truly a battle. Shame we can’t enjoy our victory over a bottle of wine.

Turkey Day

With a few minor substitutions; like beer-up-the-butt chicken for turkey, cherry sauce for cranberry sauce, and our familia Mendocina for our natural ones, we brought to Mendoza a lovely Día de Gracias. The day also served as our going away party for our Mendocina sister, Lula, who was subsequently leaving to entertain offers to play professional handball in Spain and work in Andorra where she can have a blast while earning a bunch of Euros.

An Occasion to Dress Up

Our secret plan to subvert the staid and steady Argentine culture with frivolity and mayhem was a smashing success. Halloween is not celebrated here, although many are aware of it’s existence. We were concerned, at first, about the success rate that we might have what with all the questions and concerns about dressing up we were receiving from our invitees. I thought they wouldn’t really get into it, but boy was I wrong. Rather than being timid about the putting on costumes, everyone put a lot into their costumes. It was as if the human desire to dress up as something you are not, to escape who you are supposed to be, had been repressed, and we opened up the floodgates. It was fun chatting and dancing and drinking. We even had two jack-o-lanterns. One was mine and a guy from Montana (the state) brought and carved the other one. I guess the repressed need to hollow out a squash and carve a face in it is not as deep as the one to costume up.

Nothing kicks a Halloween party into high gear as much as the arrival of the transvestites. These guys, like the rest, made their costumes from scratch. The kitty-cat, in particular was quite elaborate. The karate boys (not transvestites) put on a good showing as the Powder Puff Girls. Our Mendocina sister, Lula and Danish friend, Astrid, tried to drain everyone of their blood. And like the good Argentines we strive to be, we stayed up all night until the sun of the following day shone brightly enough to evaporate those feisty vampires.

These two photos, as well as some of the others in the photo set on Flickr are courtesy of Astrid who appears above as the vampire with a goofy hat. Thanks Astrid!

Hot Fresh Brownies

My wife’s funniest job was as a brownietelera. To give you a hint of what a brownietelera is, or might be if the word actually existed, cafételero is the guy who rides around on his bike chanting “Hay café, café, café. Hay café, café.” I wrote about the people who go around selling you the stuff you need in my Termas de Río Hondo post. I realize now, though, that I never mentioned one of the best chant sellers that I have ever encountered. This occured at the “Colorado” fútbol game I attended in Brazil. A big black man walked throught the stands bellowing “CERVECA!” in an almost ground-shaking voice. How could Gigi and I resist? “We’ll take four.”

So, she has this great idea to sell hot, fresh, brownies to the artisans & hippies along our street and in Plaza Independencia. Who could resist such a sumptuous temptation? Well, the locals turned out to be, if not anti-brownie, then at least brownie-apathetic. Sadly, the hot and fresh that she so painstakingly tried to insure with speedy delivery right out of the oven, in a towel wrapped pan, was completely lost on the Argentines. She sold one good and hot to a guy as she headed up one side of the street. On her return, half an hour later, she was dismayed to learn that her once hot, fresh, brownie had been left alone to get cold and dry out.

Ingredients to make hot, fresh, brownies: 25 pesos

Total hot, fresh, brownies sold at 1 peso each: 25

Hearing my wife chant “Hay brownie, brownie, brownie!”: Priceless