Toss Me That Smallpox Blanket Over There

Before coming on this adventure I was forced by my lovely and loving mother to go to the travel doctor for a chat and some needle time. I humor her because to her the thought of me lying on a Brasilian beach sipping caipirinhas or roughing my way through Bolivia is an instant invitation for yellow fever, typhoid, and any other collection of diseases that her nursing background forgets aren't actually contracted just by looking at someone. 

At that appointment my doctor, also a very worried older individual, warned me again and again of the rampant bug varieties itching to make their way into a poor blonde girl from Maine. I again humored the poor old guy and heard off-hand his suggestion to get a tuberculosis test when I got back, wondering why I would need that if I'm not traveling to Russia or Middle Ages Europe.

I have to say, I've woken up on more buses than I'd like to admit to the old man behind me hacking up a likely-bloody lung or finding my lunch table snuggled rather close to the table of a thickly-coughing individual. 

I'm no doctor, but while there are many diseases I know I haven't contracted, I wouldn't be surprised to find bloody lungs upon my return to the USA or that those bus blankets I grab frantically in the middle of the night have way more in common with the biological warfare strategy the British so kindly introduced to the Native Americans than my own fuzzy blankies back home do. 

At least I'm not suffering from the combination of altitude problems and stomach bugs plaguing my parents and sister. I'd rather grab some TB to share on my flight home with whatever cute undergrad I'm seated with, he likely making his return from a one-month backpacking tour of South America, thinking his pre-college meningitis vaccine must cover all manner of possibilities. TB! Everyone's doing it!

Between a Rock and a Riverbed

Of all the wonderful people I've met on my travels anywhere in the world, the ones I find myself reminiscing on and wishing I had nearby later on tend to have a few characteristics: resilient, hilarious, flexible, and willing to do anything. My recent exploits with a Tasmanian reminded me how lovely disasters can be. 

On a Saturday night, the night I arrived in Salta in the north of Argentina, the Brits I'd spent the day eating meat with suggested the best way to see the area was to rent a car and get to the small towns south and west of Salta. I started jumping into conversations around the hostel, trying to find anyone that wasn't leaving the next day. A bright-eyed, eager-looking Aussie chirped up, saying he'd be interested, but that he had already booked a tour with the hostel to the same area. We tried to cancel his reservation or get his money back, with no luck, causing me to think he'd rescind his offer, but he said "that's OK! Renting a car will be way cooler anyway!" We found two Israeli girls who expressed general smiles and enthusiasm for the idea and said we would figure out the details when they returned from the grocery. Tasmanian and I realized it was 8:00 on a Saturday evening and if we were going to get a car at all we'd need to do it before 9:00 and especially before Sunday when most things are closed in any country sharing a history with Spain. 

Tas and I RAN into the center, hitting every rental place we could find in the 15 minutes before most closed. As we arrived on car rental street we realized we didn't know each other's name or where we hailed from, a common occurrence among travelers. The first was out of cars, the second wouldn't rent for fewer than three days, numbers three through six weren't open Saturday evenings, and the seventh was open and had several lovely Chevrolet Classic's available for our pleasure. 

We rented, handing over all his personal information and hopping into the ride, at which point my companion mentions "Wow! This will be fun on the wrong side!" A minor oversight on my part before trusting my life to this guy, but he seemed like fun, so why not!

Back at the hostel we couldn't find our Israeli compatriots, but we told the front desk to let them know we would leave at 8am (so it would be more like 9) and went out for dinner. In the morning Tas informed me that the Israelis had bailed. Before taking that for what it was and just eating twice as much money as we had planned, I decided to fight a former Israeli soldier (verbally) and then hit the road. I lived, at least!

Only once in the two days did I realize we were driving on the left side, and not as a joke, as we pulled out of a turnoff back onto the road. I kindly pointed out that while this place may be dreadfully dusty and look an awful lot like parts of Australia, we were not in fact in his country, to which he responded "Oh of course not! If we were there would be a lot more damn 'Roos around!"

It was a beautiful first day, we spent a solid part of the afternoon eating goat barbecue, enjoying the regional "viagra"-flavor of ice cream (comes from a plant, we're really not sure and it didn't seem to have the expected effects), and pretending we cared about the 2000 year old Incan ruins when really we just wanted to look at the incredible succulents selection - Cacti are really neat. I even cut into one just to see how succulent they are. Things were beautiful. So beautiful that I got a standard-driving lesson, which I passed with flying colors, and we coasted right into a nice family-run hostel where we had our own kitchen. Imagine what happens when two people this silly end up together on the road before they actually know each other...

Day two started out beautifully: we were on the road early, into the beautiful Argentine desert sun, weaving between rock formations I've only dreamed of on long, winding dirt roads where I got to drive again so the GoPro could be held out the window. I pretty much nailed it again, other than trying to go from stopped to third... Sleep apparently took my edge off. What should have been a 4 hour trip took us 2.5 and we were ecstatic with the good time we were making. We took a turn off towards a remote lake on a dead-end road, driving along a beautiful river...

...until it dawned upon my driver that we might have a little bit of a problem...

So things could have been better, but we laughed about it and his mechanic/oil-drilling background made it smooth and easy to fix. We decided to head back towards town now that we had no spare for another incident. Coming out of town we failed to notice the following hidden trick of the road

and found ourselves going up, up, UP what ultimately was nothing more than the riverbed it appeared to be. The man of our duo explored up the river to find that it only got worse until it finally linked up with a bigger road, one that would undoubtedly give us another flat, so we started to turn the car around in the riverbed. What seemed like a great idea and an easy fix put us quite literally with a large rock under the back left (just-replaced) tire and the low front bumper wedged into the rocky riverbed. I couldn't tell you how we got out of it, but I think I'll always believe in the intelligence and ability of the Australian people.

It was an incredible adventure, with all the beauty of cactus country and new friendship. I hope all my adventures continue to find someone so carefree, humorous, and light-hearted and I hope that in the face of companions that lack that fun I might be able to whip my Ginger Charms into being more of a Fun-Creator. Something to strive for, at least.

Four Blocks Down, Take a Left, It's 113 Meters Down on Your Right, Just Past the Tiny, Artesanal Bakery

If we are to generalize, which is more fun and effective than most other bigoted pursuits I've tried, there are peoples in the world that just are better at certain things. 

We all know Vikings were exceptional at raping and pillaging and spreading their seed. How else would my family have received the gift of red hair in the British Isles? 

Italians just make better coffee, it's a fact based not only on flavor, but also on price and the joy of watching Italians march up to a bar, order a coffee, shoot it back, throw down 80 cents, and leave all in the matter of two minutes.

United States-ers have a perfected sense of entitlement and empowered idealism paired with general cynicism and self-centeredness that isn't rivaled anywhere in the world.

Argentines I've met, though, have their own very unique quality that I haven't found to have exceptions. All Argentines I've met are first and foremost very proud to be Argentine, whether they agree with the current or recent politics or think the country is headed in the right direction. Politics in Argentina polarize, whether in agreement with current leadership or not, or if the economy right now with the state of inflation is a problem or not. 

And what's not to be proud of? Their national food is based on at least four cuts/forms of meat being consumed with a nice hunk of bread at any given meal. When snack time rolls around they not only do Italian-style coffee, but slather baked goods up with dulce de leche and/or chocolate. It's a beautiful, patriotic country, but the best side of Argentina doesn't become clear until an Argentine is asked for directions.

"Where is the bus terminal?" we asked a hunched-over, elderly woman taking her dog out to the bathroom in a no-name town outside Córdoba. 

"It's behind you, you'll take a right at this intersection, go one street over to the one-way street, go down that in the opposite direction you're facing three blocks until you come to a roundabout with a big cross in the middle. It's just past the cross in the next block, you'll see the buses."

Wow. Not bad for the senility that inevitably comes with that ripe old age. 

"Do you know where I can get a nice parrilla barbecue meal?"

"Sure, the best place I know is back on ___ Street. Go down this street 9 blocks until you get to ___ Street. Take a left. Keep going until you go past the police station on the corner of ___ and ___. Turn right and go down about 100 meters, it's called ___."

And my personal favorite! When an Argentine for some unforeseen and terrible life circumstance can't tell you how to get somewhere:

"How do I get to the post office?"

"[looking deep into my eyes, showing the cloudy, pre-tear eyes of utter panic and disappointment] I... I don't know. I'm incredibly sorry. I do not know where that is. I'm sorry, very sorry. Good luck."

I love you, Argentina, I just love you to pieces. My arteries are happy to be away from all that red meat and sugar, but I don't know what I'll do without your people.

If It's Not Adam Sandler, It's Vin Diesel

Consistency is something I've always enjoyed. It goes hand-in-hand with efficiency and I enjoy knowing what to expect. When I travel, I tend to find that expectations either make the reality disappointing or are just so irrelevant that expecting anything is a waste of energy. I let most things happen to me, meaning I eat strange plates of meat parts, including feet, or stay in shared houses with a whole bunch of working expats, surprising them when I leave after two days. Going with the flow is the motto, and if you aren't, I like to believe you aren't traveling right. 

South America is a continent where it is especially impractical to have expectations. Buses will not arrive on time, though in countries like Argentina they do at least leave on time. I meet people and change travel plans on an hourly basis, and at any moment the street food I love to enjoy might just come back to haunt me. 

There are exceptions. There are set meal times and set types of food you eat for certain meals. Do not expect to find ice cream that comes close to the caliber of ice cream in the USA. In Peru, you will likely enjoy another of the best sauces of your life with whatever the meal may be. And more than anything, when you board a bus, of any price range or any company (as you get up into less-southern regions; Argentina had some great surprise blockbusters on board), you WILL be watching Adam Sandler or Vin Diesel in all their glory. Don't worry about which film, just know all Adam's humor will be lost by the double whammy of dubbing AND subtitles in Spanish and Vin will kill a lot of people or drive really fast. 

And that's just the kind of consistency one sometimes needs after six weeks on the road. 

Ice cream that almost cut it, "queso helado".