Purgatory

Have you ever had that feeling that you just kind of don´t exist? That you´re lost in the mix, a place no one knows where to find you? When you´re in your in-between, do you also find that you´re freezing your buns off and might be dying of carbon monoxide poisoning while also wondering what will happen if the unsanitary food stands happen to run out of sausage or steak? No? Well I guess all hells look different, so purgatories must as well.

I had a lovely time in Chile, especially when the rains stopped and I could see the mountains around Santiago, a rare sight due to constant smog. I heard the border had been closed due to snow, but by Friday when I was ready to head back to Argentina I was told that it was "now open", so I grabbed a small, normal-size-seat bus and headed East. 

I met a very nice, but not Spanish-speaking whatsoever Brit on the bus who I promised to help get through the border crossing with all the stamps he´d need, joking that he shouldn´t mention he´s British when crossing into Argentina (Falkland Islands/Islas Maldivas - you can research that on your own). Little did I know that this meant I would also be helping him order steak sandwiches, talking to the bus driver about how we might be dying/sleeping on this bus tonight, and getting his bags searched over the course of the next 12.5 hours.

We arrived at the border with hundreds of cars and dozens of buses. At first we were only told that we would need to be back on the bus when we saw the bus pull up to the building, at which point I went and froze in a line for the dirtiest governmental ladies room I´ve ever experienced. Poor Brit waited for me through all this, and when I got to the toilet I had stage fright anyway, but I did manage to kill a half hour in the wait.

Next we got food, which took a bit of time for his lomito, but since I´d already eaten half a package of crackers and two yogurts on the bus to quench my writhing bus-sick stomach, I wanted something "lighter" and opted for the neighboring restaurant instead to have the classic choripan. The woman was decidedly gruff with me, but sold me my choripan and gave me a slip with "chori" on it to take to the window and wait. I waited a good half hour until finally she came over to organize the process and help her husband who was cooking the orders. This meant asking "how many people have milanesas?!" and then making all nine, including the woman who had just paid. Then for all the "lomitos" then the hot dogs and then the ham and cheese sandwiches. I was the only one with a choripan, so I waited another fifteen minutes until a man came up with his small children behind me and added two more to the choripan order. I´ve never thanked anyone so profusely or from the bottom of my heart. He brought the glory of the chori to me!

Luckily that process had taken up over an hour and I´d thoroughly frozen my new British friend through to the bone. He is straight from six months in Australia where apparently it´s actually never cold... Remind me why I am in South America in their autumn??

Back on the bus we warmed up and eventually went to the windows to have our passports stamped out of Chile and into Argentina. Then came the waiting game for the bag searches and the full entrance into Argentina. Our bus moved into the building, joining the dozens of cars and a few buses ahead of us, all with motors running off and on and therefore emitting their beauty and refuse into the air. I started to get sleepy and my good Brit said, "Yep, you´re definitely dying of carbon monoxide poisoning" while I watched him freeze in his light "jumper" (sweater in those parts of the world).

We waited at that border for 6.5 hours, arriving to Mendoza at 11:30 at night, me wondering if I was actually still alive or if my shivering and breathing of fumes might have actually killed me.

In short, the border closes to all nightly crossings on May 31, but May seems to be an off-and-on month for the beautiful mountain pass. It´s worth the crossing, any time you can do it, but this was a week ago and a friend tried to cross this morning with his father and returned home when they found it closed. Always an adventure around here!

I Know You Wouldn´t Guess It

But this guy does speak Spanish. Fluently. I´ve called myself a blonde, a ginger, a "blinger" and it´s true, I don´t look South American or Spanish. Please, though, think about how stupid you look when you´re speaking to me in one word, forceful tones when I respond to you with a fluid sentence and explanation of what it is I need. Here´s the case:

Valparaíso, Chile, hole-in-the-wall restaurant with an English girl I´ve run into in a couple cities. We´re looking to try the chorrillana, this beauty I showed you earlier.

Here goes the conversation, as translated by moi:

Me: We´d like the chorrillana for two. I´d like a beer and she´d like a wine and a water.
Angry Lady: Wine isn´t part of the deal.
Me: Right, I know, but she´ll pay additionally for the wine and have a bottle of water as part of the deal.
AL: We have Coca Cola, Canada Dry, Fanta, and a lemon soda.
Me: OK, but can she have a bottle of water and the wine?
AL storms off and returns about 15 minutes later with my beer, a little bottle of wine, and a glass of water. 
AL: Here´s water. Is this OK? 
Me: Ok, I thought maybe she could have a bottle of water and it would count as the drink that comes with the meal?
AL: BE-BI-DA (demonstrating the universal sign of drinking with her hand). Not water. BE-BI-DA (once again with the hand sign). 
Me: I understand what a drink is, I just thought maybe a water that comes in a bottle could be that drink you speak of...
AL: BE-BI-DA (hand sign). Not water. Water costs more in a bottle. 
Me: OK, no problem, but I do speak Spanish.
AL: HARRUUMPH.

A bit later, once we´re almost done with the meal and have tried for 20 minutes to hail the Angry Lady who seems to be ignoring us...
Me: If another drink comes with the meal, can we have another beer? I´ll have the beer and she´ll have another glass of wine. 
AL: Wine doesn´t come with the meal.
Me: I know, so I am going to have the beer that comes with her part of the meal.
AL: OK, beer, yes, I´ll bring it.
Me: Wait! And a wine! If I´m having a beer she´ll have another glass of wine!
AL: ANOTHER!? (Looking at poor Ishbel with the judgiest of judgy eyes)
Me and Ishbel: Yes, another (GLARING BACK).

Not sure what I did to deserve such treatment, but the poor lady... Maybe SHE doesn´t speak Spanish? Must be hard living in Chile, I´d imagine.

Learning About Avitaminosis

I know, I know. I may not be THE smartest, but I know some things. This is the first time in my life I've googled "vitamin deficiency" to learn what the technical term might be. What I mean to say is: this is my first post about Argentine and Chilean cuisine. 

My traveling style has changed since I first started traveling. Some of that has to do with maturity, with whom I travel, where I am, and general disenchantment with some of the more "regular" tourist activities. 

I used to want to see everything. I'd draw out a route and hit every church, plaza, museum, and the most famous places to eat. I still want to see a place, I'm not saying I want to be at home sitting on my couch watching documentaries about the Maine woods. I mean that I just want to travel the world to eat. 

I'm going to summarize Argentina and Chile's food and then I'll hit you with the mouthwatering evidence (no, not a picture of how my gut is growing, but I can privately send you that if you don't believe me or the pictures don't explain what the results could be).

I've been in Argentina just under three weeks. I've had salad once, fruit I bought myself at the grocery six times, and roasted vegetables in any form four times. 

I refer to all the meals I've eaten in those three weeks. Argentine cuisine is as follows: meat, hamburger, fried steak, ribs, sausages, steak, bread, alfajor cookies, dulce de leche, and maté (tea-ish) with a spoonful of sugar per three sips. Sometimes we've also eaten French fries, with bread on the side. 

This here is a brunch in a very US-ish place. 

Empanadas... The best snack invented. 

Homemade "locro", a special occasion food as made by my "abuela"

Pastry filled with dulce de leche

Ice cream, duh. 

Pizza and beer... Easy to forget how great this combination is after walking all day. 

The healthiest thing I've eaten and I think the spinach medallions are pan-fried. 

Now I'll hit you with the meat gallery. Keep in mind I didn't even get a picture at the meat BUFFET I went to on Saturday (I had just jumped out of an airplane and hadn't eaten but a bag of ham-flavored potato chips since breakfast):

The milanesa, like a chicken-fried steak but eaten always. 

There's some salad with this all-inclusive horseback riding BBQ!

Choripan #1, chorizo with tomatoes and chimichurri spicy sauce

Half of choripan #2 at the fútbol match. Mustard-covered, yes. 

Grilling! Too bad I didn't get a picture of the baby pig I ate at a college party in Córdoba!

Lomito sandwich. All steak and ham. 

Chilean food on the other hand has significantly more variety. The must-eats I've been told about are chorrillanas and hot dogs. Chorrillanas are a plate of French fries with an oniony gravy sauce, hot dogs, and bits of steak and green herbs over it. That was also served with bread. 

The hot dogs however are very special: they come with several sauces, avocado, and occasionally a bit of lettuce or tomato. 

A Chilean alfajor with their version of dulce de leche, called "manjar", made by a certain Don Sergio, an old man with a doorbell to ring for treats!

Tonight I ate at a typical Chilean restaurant with my Couchsurf host and her boyfriend and had a lovely shepherd's pie-like concoction with steak, chicken, boiled egg, corn and potatoes. And a pisco sour in the corner there, if you can't tell. 

A closing story told in translation (but I'm fluent as all get out, so trust me) to give a little more perspective: I was enjoying some maté with my friend and her friends in Córdoba. Maté is a very traditional and social drink. The person pouring pours water into the gourd and passes it to the first person who takes her few sips until it's gone and passes it back. It receives more water and is passed to the next person. This particular time the water-master is putting a spoonful of sugar for every person so we are essentially drinking hot sugar water laced with some dried green maté plants. My friend and I start commenting on the sugar level and that we don't need that much sugar. A friend says that US people can't handle their sugar. Her sister tells us a story about a friend she has who went to the US to nanny. The parents had a rule that the children couldn't have sugar less than two hours before bedtime. ALL four argentines sitting there start laughing uncontrollably. One says, "sugar doesn't make you crazy! Why do they think that?!" 

It's perceived so differently. I'm abstaining from making any medical statements because I'm not totally certain sugar causes cavities, diabetes, and obesity, but if someone would do a comparative study on the effect on our people and evidence in the US and Argentina, I'd love to read that. 

And I can't wait to see what Chilean treats I get shown tomorrow. Staying with locals is the best! I think we are talking vino y vino y cake for dinner but maybe I'll get to try a famous hot dog for lunch!

Pop Your Bubble

I had a realization as I wandered through Washington, D.C. with a friend a few years ago that people that have left our hometowns and the comfortable worlds in which we grew up are both fortunate and disadvantaged. When you leave your small world and see the world it becomes clearer that you might never be satisfied with what you've seen and experienced because you know there's always more. It becomes an insatiable need to expand and grow and see more. The "bug" as we call it for travel is more a never ending need to continue pushing outwards. 

I look back at who I was in high school, when I had only traveled a bit and still felt the need for home. I've always been a homebody to a certain extent, but as I've traveled, starting in Japan and Guatemala in my teenage years, my need to travel has started to overcome the need for home. I still look back and think that if I'd never left Cumberland, Maine I wouldn't have known how amazing the world is. I likely would have ended up with my "high school sweetheart" and would likely be "happy" because he was a good person and I hadn't known more. I went away to college, studied abroad, and was obsessed with seeing the world. I had broken my bubble and couldn't really go back at that point. 

The world as we perceive it becomes less expansive, seems smaller as you see just how much more there is to see. I see now that what really happens is that our circle and our reality becomes much bigger. Leaving your bubble just means you pop it. Everything that was once inside it still exists, but they've become a part of an even bigger bubble still, not contained by the original soap mixture as before. In fact, the soap may be a totally different scent, a different shade, and it spreads everyone out more. It's easier to have friends everywhere but harder to keep track of them all. The wonderful people I've met during my travels are people I'd really like to have near me, but my bubble won't keep them close because of the sheer size of the thing. There are fewer walls and different perspective. Everything becomes both more difficult and easier. 

I'm at a point in my travels, about three weeks in, that I've lost the need for home I felt at the beginning and am starting to dread the return. I regain my desperation to be out in the world and my restless travel side. I don't think it's the same travel desperation others I meet "on the road" face in that they don't ever want to go home. I find I'm meeting more and more who want to set up and "settle" as I do. I feel however, that I want to settle in the places I'm meeting people, so that I don't have to move on from them or run the risk of going somewhere again that I have no one. It's hard to keep traveling knowing I will continue to meet wonderful people that I may never see again. I want to stop and hold them all hostage and start our lives here in Argentina right now!

So as I go on and think about making decisions on where to go and with whom to go, I remind myself of the Spanish sentence I've been passing through my head on some of the long bus rides where I've had too much time to think: La vida es corta y larga a la vez. Life is short and long at the same time. 

It's time to live and love and have fun in the moment. I may miss some sights, as I did this past weekend spending time in the hostel and surrounding neighborhood with my new friends, but I'm a person who remembers not the museums but the people and those people will be still in my head and heart in five or ten years. 

La vida es corta y larga a la vez, so I hope we all learn to live right now. 

Not Bad On My Own

Now who wants in for the next phase? I'm revving up to hit all the ones I've missed, but want you there!

Create your own travel map - TravBuddy

The Silent Killer

The powers that be refer to almost everything as "The Silent Killer", which is a little frightening when you think we have all these little murderers inside us. I think it's time I told you... it's me. Yup, I am that sneaky, backhanded, lurking spy. Imagine: you are a South American or better yet any hispanic person living in your home country. You see a girl taller than most men, with blonde hair that really is kind of orange, walking like she is on a mission because in her home country everyone is on a mission. Immediately you assume Foreigner because what else could you think? 

Now imagine what this leads you to. Inevitably you make comments to your friend at your side, about foreigners or This Girl Over Here or whatever it may be, in your native language (In this case, I only refer to Spanish). Why would you think this orange-blonde girl could possibly understand?! 

That is where the fun comes in. This is where I ask a question like "Where do I find the Art Museum?" or "What time is it?" or just anything that comes to mind and they look like they've been caught with their pants down in a public restroom. She speaks our language!?

Yesterday, I went on an excursion with my "uncle" from my Spanish host family who happened to be visiting his mother in Córdoba, Argentina this weekend. He started talking about fútbol with the taxi driver and I threw in a tidbit about the World Cup and then referred to baseball. The driver almost lost his cool, to which Uncle mentioned that's his favorite game to play with people who don't assume I understand. It really is fun!

The best part about it, which really isn't so different from being back in the states and playing the blonde card, is that when I don't want to pay attention, I don't have to! Obviously I wouldn't understand anyway, so if I just sit and zone out, no one thinks a thing of it! This becomes a problem when I'm at a party on a Friday night where a baby pig is roasting in the barbecue (Yes, it was as delicious as it sounds) and everyone there has already heard me speaking Spanish and asked if I'm from Spain. When I zone out everyone thinks something is wrong with me, so I just blame it on the accent and we all move on! 

That being said, I think this is the last trip I will take for a while that is so comfortable. Traveling in Spanish-speaking countries is wonderful for me... I could get a driver's license, apply for unemployment, fight with someone in the street, make telephone orders, change my name and/or marital status without a problem. I need to go somewhere where I have no idea what is going on around me. Where I really am just an innocent bystander in all senses of the word and where playing stupid when a Metro official is giving me a fine for not having a ticket is actually believable. I mean, what Madrid Metro official is going to believe that someone fluent in Spanish with a true Castillian accent didn't know what zone she was going to? Touché, dude, touché. 

(I obviously paid that fine - and it was almost two years ago, I've grown up so much since that day)

A Healthy Dose of Fear Never Hurts

I now always pride myself on the fact that I USED to not be afraid of flying. That I'd hop on any plane of any size, fall asleep or read a book or make all sorts of friends. Now I'm more like the one tapping my armrests in sheer panic, looking around at everyone in my vicinity jealous that they'll die with a loved one or at least dressing less a slob than I, so obviously less stressed and better off. No wait, I AM exactly that one, and as much as I don't love the feeling, I've learned that having a little fear is good. I also learned this fear from my most beautiful best friend, so we can't fault me too much.

I went to Iguazú Falls yesterday, absolutely beautiful, and standing over the falls I really wasn't afraid of much. The problem arose when I was surrounded by at least three dozen coatimundis. They're this creature here

And that's a cute picture. At the park they show a warning poster of coatis robbing, scratching, biting and even a picture of one strangling a fellow coati and scratching his face with the most fearsome claws I've ever seen. Let's be real, these creatures "steal" things. 

So being trapped on a tight metal walkway, surrounded on three sides soon to become four by these demon rodents, I was afraid. Not even considering that I was also surrounded by hundred foot waterfall drops and breathtaking vistas like this:

There was also a moment the other day when my friend and I realized we've never been afraid of walking around cities alone or as two girls who obviously aren't from there. We got on a city bus on this particular day in Buenos Aires and we're told by an albeit-slightly-psychotic man (I can say this because my mom is a psych nurse and she instructs us in spotting these types daily) to only go on this bus line going the opposite direction, north. We carry on, get off, walk through rundown neighborhoods, all for a concert in a beautiful concert hall. We leave the concert and are told by guards at the door that we could go to this other place because it's not quite night, but it's also not quite day so we should be careful. Finally fear took over and I decided I didn't care to see any of the sights we'd set out for. We headed home to drink wine. 

Fear has crept in as I've ridden buses for 23 hours, mostly in the form of knowing that if a bus crashes while I'm in the putrid bathroom on board, that would be the worst way to die. Or when I see a really creepy man pull into the seat next to me at 11:00pm, 65+ years old, stomach hanging out of his rotten shirt as he sleeps, smelling like a dirty smoker's mouth, and toting a briefcase from the Brazilian Conference on Mastectomies. Yuck. 

Where I really should have fear, and I will keep you updated as to whether this continues and what the results are, is in food and water. Argentines drink tap water, so I do too. That means I also eat street food and salad in restaurants. When the entire national cuisine is based on meat, meat, bread, fried meat, barbecue, and hamburgers, one has to get her nutrients somewhere. And how good does salad look next to what essentially is chicken fried steak?! 

So I'll work on finding a balance between fear and loathing (myself, that is) and keep eating and drinking and moving about as I am comfortable. But if you want an adventure, come find me, I'm always more adventurous with a sidekick. I also make a great sidekick! Think on it...