One step closer to something or other

I first heard about San Salvador de Jujuy when I was lying on the Ipanema beach. The Argentinean guy I met there, Flaco, lives in Jujuy. As we were parting ways he told me I should come to Jujuy when I´m in Argentina and get a hold of him.

Well after a 12 hour bus ride from Cordoba I did make it to Jujuy. Unfortunately I had long since lost the little piece of paper that had Flaco´s e-mail address and phone number. That wasn´t too suprising seeing as I have lost my fair share of things while I´ve been travelling. My wallet, my ATM card, my camera (I bet you were wondering why you haven´t seen any pictures lately, huh?) and most recently my comb.

I also ran out of shaving creme and have kinda just decided to let that be. I won´t worry about shaving or combing my hair for a while. I think it gives me a crazed look that I kinda like. Plus I´m hoping my new beard keeps me warm as I meander through the unforgiving mountain ranges passing autumn by.

After spending 25 hours in busses of one form or another and another 15 hours hiking in the last 3 days my body was letting me know it was not a fan of this itinerary. So when I got to Jujuy and heard about the thermal springs only an hour away I was sold. The one-hour turned to almost 2 when factoring in how long it took to figure out directions and waiting for the collectivo to come.

But I´ve been promising myself to not press and just let things happen in their own good time. And soon enough I was at the Termas de Reyes overlooking a beautiful valley. The termas turned out to be water piped from a thermal spring high up in the mountains into a couple of swimming pools by the city. But it was amazingly relaxing nonetheless.

My body had began complaining a few days ago and I could pinpoint every sore spot to a root cause. The side of my knee where I bit it on my mountain bike a couple years ago. My right shoulder from where I wiped out swimming on the Ipanema. My back where I hurt myself playing basketball countless ages past.

But as I soaked in those mineral waters everything started feeling like new again. I even got a chance to swim again for the first time in since I was in Brazil. It was nice to know that I hadn´t forgotten everything I´d learned, and giving it all a couple months to sink in seemed to work fairly well.

Tomorrow I was planning on figuring out how to get to Bolivia and what to do once I got there. There was this poster in the common area of the hostel I was staying at that caught my attention too, La Quebrada de Pucamarca and I was going to work on checking that out. I keep finding myself awe struck at the scenery I pass. The world we inhabit it truly a remarkable place, there´s no place I´d rather live.

Don´t worry, I´ll figure out how to slay this dragon

When the couple I had rented my apartment in Buenos Aires from came to check me out they told me if I´d like I could stay the rest of the day without any problem. But I was ready to go. I didn´t know exactly where but I was heading to the bus terminal and buying a ticket out of town.

After being stationary for about two months I have a difficult time comprehending how badly I am aching to get moving again. I had in my hand a certificate of completion from my Spanish classes earned with a solid 85% on our final exam and was ready to move on. The cabbie taking me to the bus terminal struck up a conversation. ¨Where are you going?¨ he asked. ¨To Cordoba¨ I replied. ¨Cordoba is great, which part are you going to?¨ Hmmm...I didn´t think I would be stumped quite so easily.

I just kinda had just a vision in my head of walking in to the bus station and asking for a ticket to Cordoba and that being that. In all my obsessing about which routes to take to get where I was going, I forgot one important thing. The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, and I didn´t really know where that first step was towards. Well the cabbie told me I should check out Villa Carlos Paz and with that it was settled.

The bus ride was a short 10 hours and I managed to sleep through most of it. Carlos Paz is a small resort town about an hour outside of the Ciudad de Cordoba and a popular spot for trekking and adventure tourism. But as Argentina was currently in the middle of Autumn and winter was coming on swiftly the city was mostly empty.

I headed to the only hostel in town which turned out to be absolutely deserted except for the couple who ran the place. But they had a few good suggestions on day hikes to take so I spent the first day exploring a beautiful river which ran beneath the rolling hills.

As I awoke the next day I already knew where my next step was towards. La Parque Nacional de Condoritos. It involved taking a collectivo about an hour outside of town, walking another 1/2 hour to the park entrance and about a 7 hour round-trip hike to a gorge where condors are frequently spotted and figuring how to get back to Carlos Paz somehow. Time was a bit of an issue because I was planning taking another all night Omnibus to Jujuy that night, which left from Ciudad de Cordoba, another hour away. After being stationary in Buenos Aires I was going to rush through northern Argentina and get to Bolivia fairly quickly.

As I sat and waited at the terminal for the collectivo to show up and start this journey I felt myself tensing up. The collectivo was already 10 minutes late and I strained my neck trying to making out the writing whenever another bus pulled into the station and noticed my fists balling up in my jacket pockets. Finally my bus showed up and within an hour the driver pulled off at the side of the ride and told me to head down the dirt road to the left. I´d see the entrance to the park pretty soon he told me.

The hike was not too hard, not too easy, but just about right. I had plenty of time while waiting to stock up on goodies. The views were spectacular and I actually found myself turning around in a circle with a gaping mouth as I marvelled on the brightly colored canyons and the south tip of this gorge which I could already make out. Unfortunately the condors were not to be spotted today, but the hike was nonetheless spectacular and the view from the northern lookout was humbling.

I hitched a ride from the side of the road where I was dropped off to about 15 kms outside of Carlos Paz. After the 20th car passed me by my heart literally jumped when I saw a pair of brake-lights finally come on. I was still anxious about having enough time to catch the pair of busses I was planning on taking that night. But I caught the next collectivo heading to Carlos Paz without any problems, packed up at the hostel, and was on my way to the Ciudad de Cordabo with a good hour and a 1/2 to spare, plent of time to catch my night bus to Jujuy.

As I made every possible effort not to watch the terrible Meryl Streep movie they were playing on the bus I thought back to my times of anxiety. I had worried about what would happen if I missed these busses, made contingency plans in my head, worked out alternative routes and it was all for naught. And it dawned on me, that no matter what happened, everything was going to work out just fine. There was nothing that could possibly happen that I couldn´t deal with. And by allowing myself to be molested by the faceless anxiety I encountered I forgot to enjoy the unbelievable life that I was busy living.

I´m still trying to learn how to let go and relax. The obsessive analyzation of every hypothetical situation can come in handy with alarming frequency, but it keeps you from living in the moment and sometimes you find yourself busy making other plans while life is happening all around you and sometimes when you try to think back on that god-inspiring view from the tops of those rocks you climbed all you can see in your head is a bus schedule in spanish.

This is great, now let’s get outta here

Buenos Aires is fantastic, just like I remembered it. Great food, fantastic wine, cultured and relatively clean. But I’m ready to get outta here. It’s been two months. And I keep hearing that Townes van Zandt line in my mind…”there ain’t no prettier site than looking back on a town you left behind.”

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with BsAs mind you. I’m just ready to move on. I kinda got the same point in Medellin after being there for a month, but it was kinda different. The ladies at the lavenderia learned how to pronounce and spell my name, that to means that I’ve been here way to long.

The cool thing about traveling is that you are constantly forced to deal with a new and uncomfortable situation. It forces you to adapt. And every new experience changes the person you are, even by just sitting back and observing you affect change on yourself and the world around you. And yes that’s all true without traveling, but not to the same magnitude.

And Buenos Aires has just kinda become comfortable, a little more so than is desirable. Bolivia sounds like another world entirely, and that appeals to me. It sounds not at all comfortable and that kinda excites me. Plus Bolivia has this feel of being of the beaten path, which always captures my attention.

I’ve already figured out the combination of long-distance busses I could take to get to the border. And about ½ dozen different routes from there. All that’s left is start the journey and the clock is at one week and counting and I can’t wait. The regrouping is over, I’ve had enough structure, it’s time to start moving again.

After Bolivia things get thrown up in the air again, just where I like them. I’ve got two months to get to Ecuador to meet up with my sisters. And the various options are racing through my mind. and I love pondering the possibilities. Someplace new and uncharted, go visit friends I’ve met along the way, or back to somewhere I’ve been to tie up some loose ends?

There’s something about just looking at a map that fascinates me in a way few other things can. Looking at a map is like living in some fantasy world, where you can dream about what awaits you in every little dot and what lines will take you to what adventures.

I’ve had a lot of fellow traveler’s I’ve met on the road tell me the four month mark is key. It’s when the homesickness really starts to hit. And it’s true, mostly because I miss my nephews…and thai food. Not to mention the sushi I’ve had in South America has well, left me wanting. But I’m not heading home for a bit. I’ve got unfinished businesses scattered throughout Latin America.

Night before the big test

Instead of studying for my Spanish final I decided to kinda lounge around and do nothing. Well decided might be too strong a word to describe my thought process, I actually just procrastinated until I had no choice but to blow it off. I had made sure I my night would be free long in advance; I ignored the phone calls and resisted the temptation to go out and cause mischief. But I just couldn’t bring myself to study, I even worked on my resume to kill time instead.

My justification is long and doesn’t make any sense. It’s been about 7 years since I’ve actually studied for an exam. I tried to think of one I took after I graduated, but haven’t been able to come up with anything. No I didn’t even cram for the driver’s exam when I moved to Washington and somehow got 20 out of 25, the minimum required to get a license.

I’m actually fairly confident in my ability to pass this exam. The class has been worthwhile, I learned something new every day, I met some interesting folks, but I never really felt challenged to the point where it hooked my attention. So I blew off some homework and some classes and now I’ve blown off studying for this final.

But I’ve convinced myself that’s ok since the point of going to class was to learn Spanish not to pass an exam. And my Spanish is getting fairly decent, I’ve gotten to the point where “Bob Esponja” is quite hilarious and the fat Japanese guy cooking on canal 9 is quite captivating. The telenovelas are an entirely different story. I still have no idea what’s going on most of the time, although they can be captivating for other reasons. Reading the paper or literature isn’t too hard, just time consuming.

I get the idea of the subjunctive; I just am not fast at identifying and absorbing it. The imperative is fairly straight forward and I can almost always recognize it. Compound tenses are just annoying. The Preterite vs. Imperfect can still be somewhat confusing, but I’ve got a good feeling for it. Vocabulary is an issue, but I’m convinced that will just come with time and practice, not studying.

Languages are quite fascinating. As much as we found ourselves grateful by our ability to communicate with one another we also have to realize that language boxes in our innate creativity. Sometimes you find yourself faced with an idea that you know just can’t be explained in words. The only people who can understand the pearl of wisdom that you’re trying to get across are those that know and believe it already.

But not being understood is nothing new, in fact I find it’s far more appealing than being quite so straightforward. Maybe it’s the air of mystery, maybe it’s the accompanying sense of superiority, maybe it’s the way things come in threes. Whatever the explanation I think I’ve come to the conclusion that all knowledge intrinsically comes from faith in something. Who’s that guy with the bit about the apriori knowledge? Now if I could just remember how to conjugate those damn stem-changing verbs in the imperfect.

Time to get a move on

My classmate Amy called me the other day to let me know our Spanish class might be cancelled tomorrow. Seems there is some sort of political situation brewing in The University of Buenos Aires. Something about the elections for the new dean which are very politically charged amid the usual charges of corruption and cronyism. And like the Argentineans seem to like to do there’s a strike brewing to protest this latest action.

Work stoppages and strikes seem to be nothing new here in Argentina. In the last couple of weeks I’ve had to work around closed government offices, airlines and now schools due to a variety of complex political wranglings which I can only begin to hope to understand.

The Argentineans do of course have a lot to protest, much like the rest of this continent. But lately there´s a new brand of populism brewing in the air. Anyone who thinks that socialism is dead should take a visit to South America. It seems that in the last 5 years especially, this continent has taken a sharp turn to the left.

Bolivian President Evo Morales recently announced the nationalization of his countries oil and natural gas reserves. Bolivia actually doesn’t have much oil, but they are the home to the second largest reserves of natural gas in the continent. And Bolivia is the poorest nation in all of South America. When a charismatic leader like Morales can promise to fix everything by instituting a populist agenda it seems to resonate deeply.

One of the affects of US foreign policy in the last couple of years has been to create this backlash of populist regimes that gain legitimacy by attacking our foreign policy and arrogance. This all started with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela but really can be traced all the way back to the Cuban Revolution. But as we sit here Ecuador and Chile have elected socialists and Peru seems to be on the verge of doing so.

Amazingly enough Colombia stands as the only regime in the entire continent with relatively strong relations with the US. Probably because the current US administration recognizes the ELN and the Farc as terrorists and narco-trafficers and seems intent on helping the Colombian government do battle with them. Of course once you start working up through Central America you run into stable governments in Panama and Costa Rica before hitting the wild spots again. The upcoming elections in Mexico will really be a telling sign.

The political situation here in Argentina is either very complicated or ridiculously simple depending on how cynical you are. There are a myriad of political parties and agendas that are somehow interwoven in some incestuous relationship. And like elsewhere in the region they have made a steady slurch to the left over the last few years, mainly as a response to US foriegn policy. But everyone I’ve talked to seems to believe they all work for the same elite, the large land owners, the industrial powers and the labor unions. Kind of reminds me of Chicago about 50 years ago.

I’ve heard a number of theories that aim to explain why this whole continent seems so politically unstable. Everything from the observation that parents don’t seem to discipline their children very much here to the idea that the verb “ganar” in Spanish translates in English to both “to win” and “to earn” implying that the two are the same. Still none of this really seems very reasonable.

My contract on my rented apartment in Buenos Aires comes to an end in about 2 weeks. And I’ve been obsessively pondering where to head to next. The initial thought was to head south and visits the vast desolate land of Patagonia, or maybe to the east towards Chile and work up the coast. But I think I’ve decided to head straight north around the edge of the Andes before crossing into Bolivia. I’m curious to see what’s going on there. I hear captivating stories of beautiful lakes and mountains, indigenous cultures that somehow manage to survive in this modern world and a charismatic leader trying to put his name alongside “El Che” and Simón Bolivar.