It was when I left Bogotá for the north coast of Colombia, I now realize, that my head left for home. The same thing happened my last week in Spain. Already looking forward to Buenos Aires and the new continent that lay before me, I wasn't fully engaged. Now I was even less present, and this time the fact that I was soon to return home was only partly responsible. I loved most of Colombia. But the oppressive heat and legions of hustlers that plague the north left a bad taste in my mouth.
My little sister had studied abroad in Costa Rica and said it was a bit of a culture shock coming back to America. But she stayed with a family, whereas I was almost exclusively in hostels, those outposts of anglophone civilization where the foreignness found outside the walls never takes complete hold. I did experience a little discord. Driving around my hometown in the coming days I marveled at American civic organization. So much of South America is run down, and after three months of choking on car exhaust every time I walked down a busy street, of seeing the ramshackle sprawl that comprises most cities where barefoot old women beg for alms and stray dogs feed from roadside trashpiles, I was a bit worn out. And of course it was nice to run an errand without having to use my much-improved but still inadequate Spanish, thereby provoking a bemused, mocking grin from the checkout girl.
The cumulative effect of these small comforts was a big one: the world I'd left behind was the same one I returned to. Seeing my friends and family was the best part. But I'd had some contact with them. What made it feel like home were the small things, things very tangible: my fireplace, my library, my old haunts in Chicago. Everyone on the road told me there would be a honeymoon. You're a tourist in your own city for a week or so, then the depression sets in. Still waiting for that - it's been three weeks home, and though I had vague plans to leave again fairly soon, I'd be hard-pressed to do that now. I'm done with my trip, and am ready to get on with my life.
About that life. One reason I set out on this journey was to become a professional writer, or at least get started down that path. And though I never counted on mere travel to do this for me, it did help. Travel gave me stories that I was able to set down in words more or less well. I gained a great deal of confidence in my ability - some of it quite recently. While abroad I heard some kind words for this blog from close friends but beyond that the response was, well, muted. Or so I thought. At the bar the night of my homecoming a more distant friend came up to me practically gushing about how much she liked it. A week later at a holiday party I was greeted with even more plaudits from unexpected corners. I did my best to conceal my delight. I had fans. No novel presented itself, and I'm not on contract with Condé Nast. But I believe like never before that I can make it as a writer, and others seem to agree.
And my other reason for going? It was a curiosity, an inclination, an itch. "I just want to see the places," was my response to pre-departure interrogation from skeptical relatives. Now, when they ask me how it went, I'm able to deploy a whole range of superlatives: "the time of my life", "best thing I ever did", "what an adventure." They're all true, but the reply that most accurately speaks to how I feel is, "it was the right thing to do." When that girl first planted the idea in my head at the Green Eye tavern fifteen months ago, I was electrified. The more I realized it was possible, the more I had to go.
But I wasn't sure why I felt this way, and worried my true motivation wasn't the right one. I was a writer without a story, a person who loved words working at a bank. Was a journey really what I wanted, or was it merely a grand escape from a life I'd become dissatisfied with but didn't know how to change?
I'm reminded of what Jake tells Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises: "Going to another country doesn't make any difference. I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another." I knew this quote before I left and knew it was true. Travel can't fix any discontentment that one is hanging on to, but that discontented state of mind can provide the conditions for attempting something you wouldn't otherwise have tried. I had always wanted to travel but never did. If I had liked my job and was doing well in it, I'd still be listening quietly, with self-pitying envy, when the subject of travel came up and others recalled their great adventures.
As I discovered, travel justifies itself. The times I've had, places I've seen, people I've met - I hope this blog gives a sense of just how good they were. Whenever you leave a place without knowing your destination, you'll be told you're running from something. In my case, the person telling me that was myself. Thank god I didn't listen. My heart said to go and I went. My reasons weren't the problem - the only problem was getting there. That's sure solved now.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Friday, December 7, 2012
Bolivia
A party hostel can really suck you in. There are good, wild times to be had at any given hostel but certain places really specialize in them. They have everything you need: good food, games and entertainment, fun guys, cute girls. And a full bar with a tab system. That part's dangerous.
At night these places are sheer craziness and during the day they provide a comprehensive survey of youthful human ruin. Half-naked men in wayfarer sunglasses passed out in the sun; bedraggled refugees from the previous night's cocaine bender drinking the shakes off; other cadres already back at it, taking whisky shots before noon.
My party hostel of choice in La Paz was Wild Rover, where the core of the Milhouse group from Buenos Aires was already assembled. I wouldn't see much of La Paz outside that hostel, which is a bit of a shame because the city has a certain chaotic charm to it and features beautiful views from almost anywhere in its Andean valley setting. But this crew was just too damn fun. I hardly knew them, at least in terms of length of acquaintance, and I already loved them. And hey, sometimes it's nice to lose yourself in a bar for a day or two. At least I like it. But when that day or two stretches into four or five it's time to flee.
The town of Sorata had been recommended to me by a girl I met back in Buenos Aires. It was little-known, small, and remote. A perfect escape. I crammed into a "collectivo," a minivan in which I was the only foreigner riding with 14 native Bolivians. Sorata lies in a valley and when we arrived at the road down the mountain we found a protest going on. I later learned that the mayor had been embezzling funds meant to restore the decrepit central plaza. The road was blocked to cars and the driver of the collectivo told me my only choice was to walk. I approached the occupied bridge. Aged campesinos with skin like creased brown paper stood shoulder to shoulder and would not let me pass. To come all this way jammed in that godforsaken van only to have to turn around would be one hell of a setback. But then a young guy at the end of the picket line motioned me over and let me through. Some of the old men shouted at me to stop but I just kept walking and didn't look back. Nobody came after me. The driver had told me it was fifteen minutes to town on foot. Forty-five minutes later I reached the main square and checked into a hotel.
The last day Kyle and I were in Buenos Aires there was an afternoon outing to an English pub to watch the Premiere League and play pool. We were joined - thirteen dudes that we were - by a Danish girl who had just arrived in BA. I'm not really into blondes myself but all the guys were drooling over her. She was admittedly very pretty and also turned out to be an awesome chick. I got quite the nerd-thrill when I learned her boyfriend lived in a Copenhagen apartment once inhabited by the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. By the time I was in Sorata it had been a month since that day. I was writing inside a little cafe on the main square of this Bolivian backwater, nearly devoid of gringo tourists, when who should walk across the open door but this girl. I went out and flagged her down and she joined me for lunch. She'd come to Sorata to do a three-day trek up to a mountain glacier and was looking for someone to split the cost with. I was just planning on doing some day-hikes, no camping. But follow the beautiful European girl into adventure. I signed up.
We were joined by an English guy we met later that night, plus a local sherpa who acted as our guide. It was to be a very difficult climb, but still I did not acquit myself in the most heroic fashion. Especially the first day - there were times when every ten seconds I was bent over gasping for breath. (It was the altitude, guys.) But my performance improved as I acclimated and for the final ascent to the glacier on the third day I was right there with my companions. The scenery was breathtaking, of course, as was the feeling of accomplishment when we reached the top. It was hardest physical challenge I'd had since high school football practice, since August two-a-days. I was really glad I did it, but once was enough.
After Sorata we all went on together to Copacabana, a little town on the shore of Lake Titicaca. The lake is stunning - it's renown for its sunsets and on the clear day I was there it did not disappoint. The Englishman departed for Arequipa Peru and the girl and I were left alone. We went out for dinner and then played pool against two Argentines in a rock bar. It was all platonic.
That was it for Bolivia; I was on to Peru. As a parting gift protests shut down all the major roads in the country the morning I left, including my road to Peru, and I had to walk five miles with my backpack from the town to the border. But that's how it's solved, isn't it.
Late that night I would arrive in the ancient Inca capital of Cusco Peru.
At night these places are sheer craziness and during the day they provide a comprehensive survey of youthful human ruin. Half-naked men in wayfarer sunglasses passed out in the sun; bedraggled refugees from the previous night's cocaine bender drinking the shakes off; other cadres already back at it, taking whisky shots before noon.
My party hostel of choice in La Paz was Wild Rover, where the core of the Milhouse group from Buenos Aires was already assembled. I wouldn't see much of La Paz outside that hostel, which is a bit of a shame because the city has a certain chaotic charm to it and features beautiful views from almost anywhere in its Andean valley setting. But this crew was just too damn fun. I hardly knew them, at least in terms of length of acquaintance, and I already loved them. And hey, sometimes it's nice to lose yourself in a bar for a day or two. At least I like it. But when that day or two stretches into four or five it's time to flee.
The town of Sorata had been recommended to me by a girl I met back in Buenos Aires. It was little-known, small, and remote. A perfect escape. I crammed into a "collectivo," a minivan in which I was the only foreigner riding with 14 native Bolivians. Sorata lies in a valley and when we arrived at the road down the mountain we found a protest going on. I later learned that the mayor had been embezzling funds meant to restore the decrepit central plaza. The road was blocked to cars and the driver of the collectivo told me my only choice was to walk. I approached the occupied bridge. Aged campesinos with skin like creased brown paper stood shoulder to shoulder and would not let me pass. To come all this way jammed in that godforsaken van only to have to turn around would be one hell of a setback. But then a young guy at the end of the picket line motioned me over and let me through. Some of the old men shouted at me to stop but I just kept walking and didn't look back. Nobody came after me. The driver had told me it was fifteen minutes to town on foot. Forty-five minutes later I reached the main square and checked into a hotel.
The last day Kyle and I were in Buenos Aires there was an afternoon outing to an English pub to watch the Premiere League and play pool. We were joined - thirteen dudes that we were - by a Danish girl who had just arrived in BA. I'm not really into blondes myself but all the guys were drooling over her. She was admittedly very pretty and also turned out to be an awesome chick. I got quite the nerd-thrill when I learned her boyfriend lived in a Copenhagen apartment once inhabited by the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. By the time I was in Sorata it had been a month since that day. I was writing inside a little cafe on the main square of this Bolivian backwater, nearly devoid of gringo tourists, when who should walk across the open door but this girl. I went out and flagged her down and she joined me for lunch. She'd come to Sorata to do a three-day trek up to a mountain glacier and was looking for someone to split the cost with. I was just planning on doing some day-hikes, no camping. But follow the beautiful European girl into adventure. I signed up.
We were joined by an English guy we met later that night, plus a local sherpa who acted as our guide. It was to be a very difficult climb, but still I did not acquit myself in the most heroic fashion. Especially the first day - there were times when every ten seconds I was bent over gasping for breath. (It was the altitude, guys.) But my performance improved as I acclimated and for the final ascent to the glacier on the third day I was right there with my companions. The scenery was breathtaking, of course, as was the feeling of accomplishment when we reached the top. It was hardest physical challenge I'd had since high school football practice, since August two-a-days. I was really glad I did it, but once was enough.
After Sorata we all went on together to Copacabana, a little town on the shore of Lake Titicaca. The lake is stunning - it's renown for its sunsets and on the clear day I was there it did not disappoint. The Englishman departed for Arequipa Peru and the girl and I were left alone. We went out for dinner and then played pool against two Argentines in a rock bar. It was all platonic.
That was it for Bolivia; I was on to Peru. As a parting gift protests shut down all the major roads in the country the morning I left, including my road to Peru, and I had to walk five miles with my backpack from the town to the border. But that's how it's solved, isn't it.
Late that night I would arrive in the ancient Inca capital of Cusco Peru.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Valparaiso
I was on the bus from Santiago to Valparaiso when I heard someone playing his ipod without headphones so we could all have the pleasure of hearing his music. I got up to ask the guy to turn it down. I spoke in English for some reason, probably because I was annoyed and didn't feel the responsibility to look up the Spanish expression. He didn't seem to understand and a girl seated across the aisle translated and he did turn it down after giving me some look.
I found myself next to him waiting for our luggage after the bus pulled in. Likely I was regretful about saying something that might have come off as rude to a local so maybe I apologized to him. Maybe I didn't though, I honestly don't remember. He looked at me.
"You wanna smoke a joint?"
"Yeah sure," I said.
"Ok, come with me."
I almost lost him. He got ahead of me and I had to jump up on a moving bus I saw him board. He was in his thirties, traveling with a woman that age or a bit older and her teenage kid. Through a mix of English and Spanish conversation I found out he lived in Santiago but was from Valparaiso originally and was here visiting. We went to their hostel and bought beer and drank it in their room. No weed was produced and I started wondering what was going on. Finally I asked him and he said he didn't have it and we'd have to go get it. Great. Whatever, I'd let it unfold. He had some errands to run first though.
After the hostel the four of us headed down to the street. My new acquaintance was carrying a duffel bag he had with him on the bus. We walked into a tienda off the main road. Dude made warm greetings to everyone in the store. He seemed to know everyone in Valparaiso. A fat lady behind the register appeared to be in charge and he heaved the bag up onto the counter in front of her and began to take from it all manner of store-bought goods, bottles of liquor and packaged meat and razorblades and cans of insecticide, to name a few. She questioned him on the price of various items and then they completed what business they were able to agree upon. He repeated this bit in several other stores until I finally asked him, in earnest, if there was some price difference in goods sold in Santiago versus Valparaiso from which he hoped to profit. That was naive. He then unashamedly pulled out some woman's credit card with which he'd bought the items.
He really wasn't a bad guy. He did force me to wait even longer after the fencing while he and his family went out to lunch in some disgusting restaurant but then finally we got a cab and were on our way. Valparaiso is on the Pacific Ocean but the land on which it was founded quickly rises up to surrounding hills and into these we drove. We went higher and higher and I was starting to worry. The property was getting shabbier, as it tends to in Latin American cities when you climb, and I had my ipad on me. Eventually the cab came to a stop at the end of a dirt alley that terminated at the edge of a cliff. I gave him twenty bucks and he ran inside a house. He came back five minutes later and got in the car and tossed me a handful of tightly-folded paper wads that contained maybe half a gram of shwag marijuana each. He'd bought some too and did the courtesy of rolling one for the ride down. The cab driver had nearly crashed head-on into a truck on the way up, while sober, so it made me nervous when we pulled over at a roadside vista and he smoked with us. But what the hell. And thus is the story behind the below picture:
When we got back into town he tried to fence the rest of the goods. Finally he led me back to his hostel and I collected my backpack. We said goodbye and I walked off toward my own accommodation. I got his number and told him I'd call him. I never did.
Neruda's house was a joy, and Valparaiso lived up to its vaunted reputation. I took some great pictures there, had some great walks. Now I was leaving the Southern Cone, and its relative wealth and development. Parts of Buenos Aires could be mistaken for Europe, parts of Santiago for a North American city. That wasn't going to happen where I was headed. I was going to Bolivia.
I found myself next to him waiting for our luggage after the bus pulled in. Likely I was regretful about saying something that might have come off as rude to a local so maybe I apologized to him. Maybe I didn't though, I honestly don't remember. He looked at me.
"You wanna smoke a joint?"
"Yeah sure," I said.
"Ok, come with me."
I almost lost him. He got ahead of me and I had to jump up on a moving bus I saw him board. He was in his thirties, traveling with a woman that age or a bit older and her teenage kid. Through a mix of English and Spanish conversation I found out he lived in Santiago but was from Valparaiso originally and was here visiting. We went to their hostel and bought beer and drank it in their room. No weed was produced and I started wondering what was going on. Finally I asked him and he said he didn't have it and we'd have to go get it. Great. Whatever, I'd let it unfold. He had some errands to run first though.
After the hostel the four of us headed down to the street. My new acquaintance was carrying a duffel bag he had with him on the bus. We walked into a tienda off the main road. Dude made warm greetings to everyone in the store. He seemed to know everyone in Valparaiso. A fat lady behind the register appeared to be in charge and he heaved the bag up onto the counter in front of her and began to take from it all manner of store-bought goods, bottles of liquor and packaged meat and razorblades and cans of insecticide, to name a few. She questioned him on the price of various items and then they completed what business they were able to agree upon. He repeated this bit in several other stores until I finally asked him, in earnest, if there was some price difference in goods sold in Santiago versus Valparaiso from which he hoped to profit. That was naive. He then unashamedly pulled out some woman's credit card with which he'd bought the items.
He really wasn't a bad guy. He did force me to wait even longer after the fencing while he and his family went out to lunch in some disgusting restaurant but then finally we got a cab and were on our way. Valparaiso is on the Pacific Ocean but the land on which it was founded quickly rises up to surrounding hills and into these we drove. We went higher and higher and I was starting to worry. The property was getting shabbier, as it tends to in Latin American cities when you climb, and I had my ipad on me. Eventually the cab came to a stop at the end of a dirt alley that terminated at the edge of a cliff. I gave him twenty bucks and he ran inside a house. He came back five minutes later and got in the car and tossed me a handful of tightly-folded paper wads that contained maybe half a gram of shwag marijuana each. He'd bought some too and did the courtesy of rolling one for the ride down. The cab driver had nearly crashed head-on into a truck on the way up, while sober, so it made me nervous when we pulled over at a roadside vista and he smoked with us. But what the hell. And thus is the story behind the below picture:
When we got back into town he tried to fence the rest of the goods. Finally he led me back to his hostel and I collected my backpack. We said goodbye and I walked off toward my own accommodation. I got his number and told him I'd call him. I never did.
Neruda's house was a joy, and Valparaiso lived up to its vaunted reputation. I took some great pictures there, had some great walks. Now I was leaving the Southern Cone, and its relative wealth and development. Parts of Buenos Aires could be mistaken for Europe, parts of Santiago for a North American city. That wasn't going to happen where I was headed. I was going to Bolivia.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Santiago de Chile
My only regret about Europe was that I didn't get outside more. I love cities, but even in Europe you get sick of them and have the need to go into nature. I saw plenty of beautiful country from the inside of buses and trains, but I could count on one hand the number of days, out of three months in Europe, that I spent outside one concrete jungle or another.
I consoled myself with the notion that South America was about outdoor tourism anyway and I would make up for it there. My first opportunity for this was in Mendoza, a charming city set at the foot of the Andes in Argentina's wine country. I went trekking, horseback riding, cycling; the whole bit. It was just a start, and I'd get further outside later. After this brief respite, though, it was back to the city.
That city would be Santiago, the capital of Chile that lies on the other side of the mountains from Mendoza. The bus ride there was the most scenic of my trip. The weather was sunny and mild in Mendoza but where I crossed the border high in the Andes it was snowing hard. About four hours after clearing customs I'd reached the capital.
The rap on Santiago is that it's sleepy and no great loss to skip. But I was to have one good night. I was drinking beer with a couple guys from Switzerland who were touring South America on motorcycles - and who were the greatest, nicest guys - when a local girl who worked there invited us to a party. She was studying to be an actress and it was some kind of theater fundraiser. We had nothing better to do so we followed her.
The setting was the first floor of a long, narrow house. It was an old building with high ceilings and worn crown moulding. In the front at a folding table students were selling beer and a mixed drink they put ice cream in. It was an ok scene, people milling about, smoking, talking in Spanish. The real show, though, was in the back.
Here was a large room with a concrete floor that could fit about a hundred people. There was a rudimentary stage set up in the back of the room and to the sides of the entrance bleachers that faced the stage. Up on it was a group of adult musicians playing traditional Chilean music. There were four men, some with instruments (an accordion was present), some who just sang. A sole woman playing a guitar. They all wore country clothes.
To the music they played a troupe of children danced. I guessed they ranged in age from 10 to 15 years old. The girls all wore the same white dress with a purple floral print and purple accents. The boys wore gaucho outfits, with wide black hats with neck cords and red tassels hanging from their waists. The boys wore spurs. The dancing was wonderful in its childish uncertainty and what a way, I thought, that some societies have for channeling the feelings that arrive at that age.
But in Chile despite a perhaps more wholesome upbringing kids still grow up weird. The music came to a close and the dancing children and their parents who'd been watching from the bleachers cleared out and who gets up there next but a young drag queen. The room went dark. He began (or should I say 'she'?) by lighting a cigarette and smoking it, or pretending to smoke it, way too fast, like she was out of breath and the smoke was air, to the point where she looked like she was about to vomit coughing. There then followed a monologue in Spanish that I couldn't understand but which got some good laughs and then a striptease dance.
After he/she finished a salsa band got up there and played for hours. We danced the night away. The two Swiss guys both pulled girls. I didn't feel like working. I'd be working the next night when I was supposed to meet up with a girl from Santiago who I'd met in Buenos Aires. Around this time I was feeling very lonely for a woman. I saw a cute hipster girl at the party, a local girl, who wore glasses. I watched her dance and finally I thought of something to say to her. She had a boyfriend, an American. "I guess I'm late," I said. She smiled honestly and sweetly and said, "but we can still talk!"
I had bad weather the rest of my time in Santiago and the girl I'd met in Buenos Aires cancelled on me. In one redemption I stumbled onto a dusty antiquarian bookstore where I found an old hardcover of T.S. Eliot's essays on poets. I sat down on the floor and read the one on Goethe.
I'd heard from everyone who had an opinion on Chile not to miss Valparaiso, a seaside city full of street art and a cultural hotbed. The poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda had a house there you could tour. That was my next stop.
I consoled myself with the notion that South America was about outdoor tourism anyway and I would make up for it there. My first opportunity for this was in Mendoza, a charming city set at the foot of the Andes in Argentina's wine country. I went trekking, horseback riding, cycling; the whole bit. It was just a start, and I'd get further outside later. After this brief respite, though, it was back to the city.
That city would be Santiago, the capital of Chile that lies on the other side of the mountains from Mendoza. The bus ride there was the most scenic of my trip. The weather was sunny and mild in Mendoza but where I crossed the border high in the Andes it was snowing hard. About four hours after clearing customs I'd reached the capital.
The rap on Santiago is that it's sleepy and no great loss to skip. But I was to have one good night. I was drinking beer with a couple guys from Switzerland who were touring South America on motorcycles - and who were the greatest, nicest guys - when a local girl who worked there invited us to a party. She was studying to be an actress and it was some kind of theater fundraiser. We had nothing better to do so we followed her.
The setting was the first floor of a long, narrow house. It was an old building with high ceilings and worn crown moulding. In the front at a folding table students were selling beer and a mixed drink they put ice cream in. It was an ok scene, people milling about, smoking, talking in Spanish. The real show, though, was in the back.
Here was a large room with a concrete floor that could fit about a hundred people. There was a rudimentary stage set up in the back of the room and to the sides of the entrance bleachers that faced the stage. Up on it was a group of adult musicians playing traditional Chilean music. There were four men, some with instruments (an accordion was present), some who just sang. A sole woman playing a guitar. They all wore country clothes.
To the music they played a troupe of children danced. I guessed they ranged in age from 10 to 15 years old. The girls all wore the same white dress with a purple floral print and purple accents. The boys wore gaucho outfits, with wide black hats with neck cords and red tassels hanging from their waists. The boys wore spurs. The dancing was wonderful in its childish uncertainty and what a way, I thought, that some societies have for channeling the feelings that arrive at that age.
But in Chile despite a perhaps more wholesome upbringing kids still grow up weird. The music came to a close and the dancing children and their parents who'd been watching from the bleachers cleared out and who gets up there next but a young drag queen. The room went dark. He began (or should I say 'she'?) by lighting a cigarette and smoking it, or pretending to smoke it, way too fast, like she was out of breath and the smoke was air, to the point where she looked like she was about to vomit coughing. There then followed a monologue in Spanish that I couldn't understand but which got some good laughs and then a striptease dance.
After he/she finished a salsa band got up there and played for hours. We danced the night away. The two Swiss guys both pulled girls. I didn't feel like working. I'd be working the next night when I was supposed to meet up with a girl from Santiago who I'd met in Buenos Aires. Around this time I was feeling very lonely for a woman. I saw a cute hipster girl at the party, a local girl, who wore glasses. I watched her dance and finally I thought of something to say to her. She had a boyfriend, an American. "I guess I'm late," I said. She smiled honestly and sweetly and said, "but we can still talk!"
I had bad weather the rest of my time in Santiago and the girl I'd met in Buenos Aires cancelled on me. In one redemption I stumbled onto a dusty antiquarian bookstore where I found an old hardcover of T.S. Eliot's essays on poets. I sat down on the floor and read the one on Goethe.
I'd heard from everyone who had an opinion on Chile not to miss Valparaiso, a seaside city full of street art and a cultural hotbed. The poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda had a house there you could tour. That was my next stop.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Money Problems: Buenos Aires
Given that we were engaged in a feverish debauch my friend and I did a reasonable job of seeing Buenos Aires. We checked out most of the notable districts, attended some cultural events, and even made an expedition to the childhood home of famed Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, which we thought was a museum but turned out to be a regular home only featuring a commemorative plaque on the outside wall.
But we also spent a hell of alot of time drinking and recovering from that drinking, and that was time spent not seeing the city. As both a literary mecca, full of bookstores, and the most architecturally distinct city in South America Buenos Aires held a special allure for me, and I wasn't done with the place. So when Kyle left I moved to a quiet hostel away from the city center and set out to have another look. I toured the renown Recoleta cemetery, saw a tango show, had lunch with a Wall Street Journal correspondent. With just a day left in my stay it looked like I was going to have my cake in Buenos Aires and eat it too: an epic party and a quality tour. Then I got involved in something.
Though not known as a party hostel, the place I'd moved to in the tony Palermo neighborhood still offered the obligatory pub crawl a few times a week. I was on one of these, drinking in some bar when I started talking to a girl from Barcelona who lived in BA. Or rather, in hindsight, she started talking to me. She brought up some kind of currency exchange transaction she wanted me to do. Something about changing pesos into dollars and then back into pesos. Though I was half-drunk it still sounded fishy but she assured me it was perfectly safe, she did it all the time, etc. She said she'd pay me but what I wanted was the story.
"Ok, I'll do it," I said to her.
"Good! Tomorrow you call me and we go to the centro and do it."
"It's a plan. Just out of curiosity, how much money do you want me to change?"
"I don't know, like five thousand dollars?"
About three months before my arrival the government in Argentina forbid its citizens from purchasing US dollars. The dollar has long acted as a second currency in Argentina, due to historic instability in the value of the peso caused by government mismanagement. Thus people here covet the dollar, which they trust will hold its value. The new restriction, imposed in an effort to control the exchange rate, has only allowed the black market for dollars to further flourish. The official rate of exchange is something like 4.25 pesos for one dollar. On the street you can get over 6.
Foreigners, however, are not fully subject to the prohibition. Foreign tourists when arriving in Argentina can exchange their dollars for pesos at an official change-house. They then have the right to reverse that transaction and get their dollars back. That is, they have a way to obtain dollars that regular Argentines do not. In this loophole lie the scheme I would be accessory to. I would change pesos into dollars at the official rate and then give the dollars to the girl, who would change them back into pesos at the more favorable black market rate. They would make around 50% on their money.
I got in touch with the girl and gave her my name, passport number and date of entry into Argentina. We met up at my hostel and took the metro to the city center where the exchange houses are all located. We ducked into an alley and she produced a forged receipt stating I had received 20,000 pesos in exchange for dollars at a certain house. Then she handed me three wads of cash bound by rubber-bands that totaled that amount.
I walked into the office which looked like a small bank, with tellers at their windows. At first the woman I dealt with refused my document because it was dated differently than my entry into Argentina. Finally I got across to her that I had arrived one day but not changed money until three days later. She started the process. The period of time she had both my passport and the forged receipt behind the counter was a long five minutes. If she called me out then I was in serious trouble. I did my best fake space-out, trying to make it all look boring and routine and most importantly legitimate. On the inside I was sweating. At last she produced receipts for me to sign and when that was done she gave me my passport back and a ticket. I took the ticket to the next counter and was given fifty hundred-dollar bills and change. I counted the money and with it all there I walked out of the store.
I caught sight of my handler. She was watching me from the far street-corner. She hadn't taken her eyes off me for a moment. What if I had just stolen the money? Dived into a cab or run off. I thought about it. I crossed the street and walked up to her.
"Todo bien," I said and smiled a big smile I'd been hiding behind a stern face to make her nervous, for fun. She smiled back nervously and led me down the street. After we'd walked a little ways we stopped and I gave her the cash. She made a quick count and then peeled off one of the hundreds and handed it to me. My fee.
We went for a beer and while sitting there I asked her, "So you just hang around bars and look for foreigners like me to do this with?"
"Beats working in a restaurant," she said.
That afternoon I was on a bus west to Mendoza, the Andes, and Chile beyond.
But we also spent a hell of alot of time drinking and recovering from that drinking, and that was time spent not seeing the city. As both a literary mecca, full of bookstores, and the most architecturally distinct city in South America Buenos Aires held a special allure for me, and I wasn't done with the place. So when Kyle left I moved to a quiet hostel away from the city center and set out to have another look. I toured the renown Recoleta cemetery, saw a tango show, had lunch with a Wall Street Journal correspondent. With just a day left in my stay it looked like I was going to have my cake in Buenos Aires and eat it too: an epic party and a quality tour. Then I got involved in something.
Though not known as a party hostel, the place I'd moved to in the tony Palermo neighborhood still offered the obligatory pub crawl a few times a week. I was on one of these, drinking in some bar when I started talking to a girl from Barcelona who lived in BA. Or rather, in hindsight, she started talking to me. She brought up some kind of currency exchange transaction she wanted me to do. Something about changing pesos into dollars and then back into pesos. Though I was half-drunk it still sounded fishy but she assured me it was perfectly safe, she did it all the time, etc. She said she'd pay me but what I wanted was the story.
"Ok, I'll do it," I said to her.
"Good! Tomorrow you call me and we go to the centro and do it."
"It's a plan. Just out of curiosity, how much money do you want me to change?"
"I don't know, like five thousand dollars?"
About three months before my arrival the government in Argentina forbid its citizens from purchasing US dollars. The dollar has long acted as a second currency in Argentina, due to historic instability in the value of the peso caused by government mismanagement. Thus people here covet the dollar, which they trust will hold its value. The new restriction, imposed in an effort to control the exchange rate, has only allowed the black market for dollars to further flourish. The official rate of exchange is something like 4.25 pesos for one dollar. On the street you can get over 6.
Foreigners, however, are not fully subject to the prohibition. Foreign tourists when arriving in Argentina can exchange their dollars for pesos at an official change-house. They then have the right to reverse that transaction and get their dollars back. That is, they have a way to obtain dollars that regular Argentines do not. In this loophole lie the scheme I would be accessory to. I would change pesos into dollars at the official rate and then give the dollars to the girl, who would change them back into pesos at the more favorable black market rate. They would make around 50% on their money.
I got in touch with the girl and gave her my name, passport number and date of entry into Argentina. We met up at my hostel and took the metro to the city center where the exchange houses are all located. We ducked into an alley and she produced a forged receipt stating I had received 20,000 pesos in exchange for dollars at a certain house. Then she handed me three wads of cash bound by rubber-bands that totaled that amount.
I walked into the office which looked like a small bank, with tellers at their windows. At first the woman I dealt with refused my document because it was dated differently than my entry into Argentina. Finally I got across to her that I had arrived one day but not changed money until three days later. She started the process. The period of time she had both my passport and the forged receipt behind the counter was a long five minutes. If she called me out then I was in serious trouble. I did my best fake space-out, trying to make it all look boring and routine and most importantly legitimate. On the inside I was sweating. At last she produced receipts for me to sign and when that was done she gave me my passport back and a ticket. I took the ticket to the next counter and was given fifty hundred-dollar bills and change. I counted the money and with it all there I walked out of the store.
I caught sight of my handler. She was watching me from the far street-corner. She hadn't taken her eyes off me for a moment. What if I had just stolen the money? Dived into a cab or run off. I thought about it. I crossed the street and walked up to her.
"Todo bien," I said and smiled a big smile I'd been hiding behind a stern face to make her nervous, for fun. She smiled back nervously and led me down the street. After we'd walked a little ways we stopped and I gave her the cash. She made a quick count and then peeled off one of the hundreds and handed it to me. My fee.
We went for a beer and while sitting there I asked her, "So you just hang around bars and look for foreigners like me to do this with?"
"Beats working in a restaurant," she said.
That afternoon I was on a bus west to Mendoza, the Andes, and Chile beyond.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
A New Continent & An Old Friend
In college Kyle Weber was co-conspirator number one. If they put people in jail for consuming vast quantities of alcohol they'd have to separate us in prison or we'd just spend all day hatching new drinking crimes. Looking online I saw that Milhouse Avenue hostel, located in the center of Buenos Aires, seemed to be the main party spot and the best place to pick up where we always left off. We booked it.
The day I left Spain I saw the sun rise over the plains of Andalucia on a bus from Seville to Madrid and saw it rise again as my plane descended into Buenos Aires Argentina. The first thing I noticed was the change of season. Before this trip I'd only traveled abroad to Europe, which obviously has the same season as back home, and to the tropics, which have no season. Buenos Aires though, deep in the Southern Hemisphere, was the opposite of where I'd been. The oppressive heat of southern Spain was replaced by the cold air of early Spring. Pale winter sunlight on the august edifices, the monuments to faded glory.
I decided to walk the mile or two from where the airport shuttle dropped me off to the hostel. I already liked this town. It had a New York City vibe to it. Passing mile after mile of apartment buildings on the way from the airport I saw its massiveness and here in the center I could feel its density. There were people everywhere, many fashionable, absorbed in their appointments, errands, tasks. Their lives.
I was at the hostel maybe an hour when my friend walked in. We actually began with restraint - just two beers apiece over lunch in a literary cafe in the San Telmo neighborhood. We walked around, crashed a civic choir's concert, witnessed a youth street protest. Good, we agreed, to experience some culture before the debauch began in earnest.
By this point in my journey I'd stayed in quite a few hostels and met a lot of great people, but I never had a crew like the one we put together at Milhouse. Drunken lunatics with hearts of gold - there could have been no better accomplices. Later on I met other travelers who stayed there and didn't like it. They said the place felt sterile, the people distant. Guess we just lucked out.
Every night Milhouse or its sister hostel has a party and then everyone goes out to a club. That first night Kyle made it home before I did but when I walked in our dorm room he popped his head up.
"Hey bmac."
"Hey."
"How was the rest of your night?"
"Great. Yours?"
"Great."
"Going to bed?"
"I'm not ready to but i might."
"I want to keep drinking."
"Let's steal something from the hostel."
"You serious?"
"Yeah."
"Let's go."
Fortunately we revised our plans and decided to obtain booze legally. Perhaps our somewhat deranged, desperate state was more apparent than I imagined because we were refused entry to several establishments and sale at several stores. Perhaps it was just morning. It was getting light now and the night's last revelers were trickling out of the closing bars. Finally we found a store whose owner discreetly pulled four 16 oz. cans of Quilmes beer from behind rows of soda-pop in the refrigerated case and sold them to us. We left the store and made our way back to the Avenida 9 de Julio, the widest street in the world. We found some park benches on a grassy median and sat down and with each of us having arrived twenty-four hours earlier from different quadrants of the world we cracked our beers and watched Buenos Aires come to life. Ladies walking small dogs, old men shambling along their secret predawn routes. It was warm out and the sky was blue. It was going to be a beautiful day.
And one of our greatest benders. After a riot of a soccer game, a weed-fogged drum party in a converted warehouse, and a giant t-shirt wearing cockroach, among other highlights, it was finally time to part ways. On his last day Kyle went out to buy some fabric his sister, who's a designer, had requested. He failed to do this and we went to a bar. Where else to say goodbye? When it was time I gave him a hug and wished him farewell and watched him walk out the bar. There were some Irish kids drinking there who had just checked into Milhouse. I pulled up a chair and got back to what I was doing before Kyle arrived: having a good time by myself. But it wasn't quite the same. When it comes to partying, I could only have so much fun without the guy.
ADDENDUM: On our second or third night at Milhouse we met a young English guy who was traveling in South America for a month and had come to BA from Bolivia straight through on an 80-hour bus ride. To alleviate the obvious hardship of riding a Bolivian bus for 80 hours he'd obtained in Bolivia, legally, a variety of pharmaceutical depressants to take on the bus. He was studying to be a doctor and had confidence that he could apply his medical knowledge toward getting him through the ride. His confidence was misplaced. Where he faltered was the dosage. Downers can cause forgetfulness and if taken to excess outright amnesia. When he first got on the bus he took too many pills, later forgot he had taken them, and took more. Soon he had taken around four times the proper dose, blacked out completely, and encountered misfortune. He lost his iphone, ipod, and other gear (South America and BA specifically seem to be a graveyard of iphones. I met 4 people, in addition to myself, who lost one). On the bus he met a Colombian guy named Fernando who, seeing his compromised state, had at one point placed his jacket in the overhead compartment for safekeeping. When they had to disembark somewhere to switch buses Fernando grabbed the jacket and tried to give it to our friend. "That's not mine," he said. Despite Fernando's pleadings he denied the jacket. Ten minutes later he asked Fernando if he had seen his jacket anywhere.
The day I left Spain I saw the sun rise over the plains of Andalucia on a bus from Seville to Madrid and saw it rise again as my plane descended into Buenos Aires Argentina. The first thing I noticed was the change of season. Before this trip I'd only traveled abroad to Europe, which obviously has the same season as back home, and to the tropics, which have no season. Buenos Aires though, deep in the Southern Hemisphere, was the opposite of where I'd been. The oppressive heat of southern Spain was replaced by the cold air of early Spring. Pale winter sunlight on the august edifices, the monuments to faded glory.
I decided to walk the mile or two from where the airport shuttle dropped me off to the hostel. I already liked this town. It had a New York City vibe to it. Passing mile after mile of apartment buildings on the way from the airport I saw its massiveness and here in the center I could feel its density. There were people everywhere, many fashionable, absorbed in their appointments, errands, tasks. Their lives.
I was at the hostel maybe an hour when my friend walked in. We actually began with restraint - just two beers apiece over lunch in a literary cafe in the San Telmo neighborhood. We walked around, crashed a civic choir's concert, witnessed a youth street protest. Good, we agreed, to experience some culture before the debauch began in earnest.
By this point in my journey I'd stayed in quite a few hostels and met a lot of great people, but I never had a crew like the one we put together at Milhouse. Drunken lunatics with hearts of gold - there could have been no better accomplices. Later on I met other travelers who stayed there and didn't like it. They said the place felt sterile, the people distant. Guess we just lucked out.
Every night Milhouse or its sister hostel has a party and then everyone goes out to a club. That first night Kyle made it home before I did but when I walked in our dorm room he popped his head up.
"Hey bmac."
"Hey."
"How was the rest of your night?"
"Great. Yours?"
"Great."
"Going to bed?"
"I'm not ready to but i might."
"I want to keep drinking."
"Let's steal something from the hostel."
"You serious?"
"Yeah."
"Let's go."
Fortunately we revised our plans and decided to obtain booze legally. Perhaps our somewhat deranged, desperate state was more apparent than I imagined because we were refused entry to several establishments and sale at several stores. Perhaps it was just morning. It was getting light now and the night's last revelers were trickling out of the closing bars. Finally we found a store whose owner discreetly pulled four 16 oz. cans of Quilmes beer from behind rows of soda-pop in the refrigerated case and sold them to us. We left the store and made our way back to the Avenida 9 de Julio, the widest street in the world. We found some park benches on a grassy median and sat down and with each of us having arrived twenty-four hours earlier from different quadrants of the world we cracked our beers and watched Buenos Aires come to life. Ladies walking small dogs, old men shambling along their secret predawn routes. It was warm out and the sky was blue. It was going to be a beautiful day.
And one of our greatest benders. After a riot of a soccer game, a weed-fogged drum party in a converted warehouse, and a giant t-shirt wearing cockroach, among other highlights, it was finally time to part ways. On his last day Kyle went out to buy some fabric his sister, who's a designer, had requested. He failed to do this and we went to a bar. Where else to say goodbye? When it was time I gave him a hug and wished him farewell and watched him walk out the bar. There were some Irish kids drinking there who had just checked into Milhouse. I pulled up a chair and got back to what I was doing before Kyle arrived: having a good time by myself. But it wasn't quite the same. When it comes to partying, I could only have so much fun without the guy.
ADDENDUM: On our second or third night at Milhouse we met a young English guy who was traveling in South America for a month and had come to BA from Bolivia straight through on an 80-hour bus ride. To alleviate the obvious hardship of riding a Bolivian bus for 80 hours he'd obtained in Bolivia, legally, a variety of pharmaceutical depressants to take on the bus. He was studying to be a doctor and had confidence that he could apply his medical knowledge toward getting him through the ride. His confidence was misplaced. Where he faltered was the dosage. Downers can cause forgetfulness and if taken to excess outright amnesia. When he first got on the bus he took too many pills, later forgot he had taken them, and took more. Soon he had taken around four times the proper dose, blacked out completely, and encountered misfortune. He lost his iphone, ipod, and other gear (South America and BA specifically seem to be a graveyard of iphones. I met 4 people, in addition to myself, who lost one). On the bus he met a Colombian guy named Fernando who, seeing his compromised state, had at one point placed his jacket in the overhead compartment for safekeeping. When they had to disembark somewhere to switch buses Fernando grabbed the jacket and tried to give it to our friend. "That's not mine," he said. Despite Fernando's pleadings he denied the jacket. Ten minutes later he asked Fernando if he had seen his jacket anywhere.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
The Sisters Visit
You can't beat the first foray. For me there's no rush that compared to arriving in a foreign land for the first time as an unsupervised adult. I was lucky enough to have experienced this feeling twice before; the trips I'd taken prior to my current odyssey had been so short that the novelty never wore off. That feeling was sure gone now. After traveling for more than two months I'd long grown used to being away. The initial intoxication is replaced by subtler satisfactions: becoming a better traveler through the practice; a new view of your life back home; primary knowledge of a people, a nation, a continent. But you'll never get back that first high.
The next best thing is to see someone else get it. And when it's someone you love, it's a wonderful thing to witness. Neither of my sisters had been to Europe and this trip was their college graduation present. My dad had agreed to send them before I left home but less than a month before we were supposed to meet the plane tickets still had not been bought. But he did come through and the plan was set: rendezvous in Barcelona, travel down the coast to Valencia, then head to Madrid from where they'd fly back home. I took a train from Segovia to Madrid and then another to Barcelona. We had a very happy reunion at the hostel and then went out exploring.
Barcelona has all the basic requirements to be counted among the great cities of the world: beautiful streets and buildings; a rich cultural and arts scene; cool stores, bars, museums, et cetera et cetera. But they come for the party, for that uniquely Spanish brand of languid hedonism. And no place in Spain does it like Barcelona.
A little adventure wasn't long in coming. After some drinks and dancing I suggested we round out the night with a stroll up La Rambla, the main tourist drag in Barcelona. By day it makes for a family-friendly paseo full of flower merchants, souvenir hawkers, and street artists who'll do your portrait in five minutes. At night you leave the kids at home. African prostitutes solicit johns in the pale, lurid wash of the streetlights. Drug dealers softly call their wares as they walk past. Thieves lurk in the shadows. But one cool thing about Barcelona and Europe in general is that people can hang out on the streets doing whatever they want and the police don't hassle them like they would in the states. The locals take full advantage of this and so despite all the sketchy characters on La Rambla there's hundreds of people around, so it feels safe.
It was on our way there that we fell into it. Our guide was to be a drunken young Scot saying something about a "Sherlock Holmes" bar. I was a little skeptical but my sister Anne seemed to have no doubts and so I followed on. He led us to some random apartment building and up the back stairwell. "Here's where we get Taken!" I joked. But instead of getting kidnapped we found ourselves in a space that looked more like an apartment than a bar. But a bar it was - and one of the coolest I've drank at in my life, let alone in Spain. Soft light from worn, gold sconces; silhouettes in oval frames; good tunes, good crowd. My youngest sister, just out of college, conversed with a chic Mexicana expat who maybe gave her a glimpse of just how cool adult life can be. We couldn't have asked for a better first night or a better town to start in.
Their visit wasn't without its setbacks. We all had our share of bad moods, stupid spats, and a few logistical headaches as well, the most memorable of which featured a cab driver in Valencia screaming at me at the top of his lungs as we raced to catch a bus and I nervously expressed he might be going the wrong way. But that was all nothing. The time with my sisters in Spain was the best of my trip.
Toward the end of their visit we were sitting on the sidewalk terrace of some cafe talking about the trip and they said they felt different having come. To have a great time and go back changed - that's all you can ask from a trip to Europe.
The morning of their departure from Madrid I woke up early to make sure they got off alright. These were special companions, but goodbye was the same. I was alone again. I had ten days or so left in Spain and was headed south. Andalucia, a final surfeit of loveliness from a country that offers the traveler everything. But in a way, I was looking past it. Europe, and with it the first half of my trip, was ending. I was headed to the former colonies, to my own hemisphere and the route that would take me home. I was headed to Argentina.
The next best thing is to see someone else get it. And when it's someone you love, it's a wonderful thing to witness. Neither of my sisters had been to Europe and this trip was their college graduation present. My dad had agreed to send them before I left home but less than a month before we were supposed to meet the plane tickets still had not been bought. But he did come through and the plan was set: rendezvous in Barcelona, travel down the coast to Valencia, then head to Madrid from where they'd fly back home. I took a train from Segovia to Madrid and then another to Barcelona. We had a very happy reunion at the hostel and then went out exploring.
Barcelona has all the basic requirements to be counted among the great cities of the world: beautiful streets and buildings; a rich cultural and arts scene; cool stores, bars, museums, et cetera et cetera. But they come for the party, for that uniquely Spanish brand of languid hedonism. And no place in Spain does it like Barcelona.
A little adventure wasn't long in coming. After some drinks and dancing I suggested we round out the night with a stroll up La Rambla, the main tourist drag in Barcelona. By day it makes for a family-friendly paseo full of flower merchants, souvenir hawkers, and street artists who'll do your portrait in five minutes. At night you leave the kids at home. African prostitutes solicit johns in the pale, lurid wash of the streetlights. Drug dealers softly call their wares as they walk past. Thieves lurk in the shadows. But one cool thing about Barcelona and Europe in general is that people can hang out on the streets doing whatever they want and the police don't hassle them like they would in the states. The locals take full advantage of this and so despite all the sketchy characters on La Rambla there's hundreds of people around, so it feels safe.
It was on our way there that we fell into it. Our guide was to be a drunken young Scot saying something about a "Sherlock Holmes" bar. I was a little skeptical but my sister Anne seemed to have no doubts and so I followed on. He led us to some random apartment building and up the back stairwell. "Here's where we get Taken!" I joked. But instead of getting kidnapped we found ourselves in a space that looked more like an apartment than a bar. But a bar it was - and one of the coolest I've drank at in my life, let alone in Spain. Soft light from worn, gold sconces; silhouettes in oval frames; good tunes, good crowd. My youngest sister, just out of college, conversed with a chic Mexicana expat who maybe gave her a glimpse of just how cool adult life can be. We couldn't have asked for a better first night or a better town to start in.
Their visit wasn't without its setbacks. We all had our share of bad moods, stupid spats, and a few logistical headaches as well, the most memorable of which featured a cab driver in Valencia screaming at me at the top of his lungs as we raced to catch a bus and I nervously expressed he might be going the wrong way. But that was all nothing. The time with my sisters in Spain was the best of my trip.
Toward the end of their visit we were sitting on the sidewalk terrace of some cafe talking about the trip and they said they felt different having come. To have a great time and go back changed - that's all you can ask from a trip to Europe.
The morning of their departure from Madrid I woke up early to make sure they got off alright. These were special companions, but goodbye was the same. I was alone again. I had ten days or so left in Spain and was headed south. Andalucia, a final surfeit of loveliness from a country that offers the traveler everything. But in a way, I was looking past it. Europe, and with it the first half of my trip, was ending. I was headed to the former colonies, to my own hemisphere and the route that would take me home. I was headed to Argentina.
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