The Boy from Ipanema

Gávea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
27-29 December 2008

Outside the main gate of Rio’s Jardim Botanico is a large one-way multi-lane road (the Rua Jardim Botanico.) I’m standing here, waiting for my bus after spending a relaxing couple of hours in the botanical garden located near the city center, just a few kilometers from the famous beach of Ipanema.

…LINHA 511 - URCA…

It’s been a cloudy and rainy few days since I arrived. Sometimes hot, sometimes not, occasionally sunny, but mostly cloudy and foggy. The Jardim Botanico lies below and near the famous Cristo Redentor, the giant 1100 ton concrete statue/sculpture of an open-armed Christ at the top of Corcovado. Corcovado is the dramatic peak rising inside the city of Rio de Janeiro, though there are dramatic peaks and rocks everywhere. Redentor can be seen from almost anywhere in Rio, watching over the city, serving as a famously unmistakable symbol and landmark. But I haven’t seen him yet. Clouds, rain, fog, buildings, siestas... all have conspired to prevent any personal benediction I might receive from the Redeemer.

…LINHA 176 - CENTRAL - SAO CONRADO…
……LINHA 438 - VILA ISABEL - LEBLON……

The gardens have all kinds of Brazilian plants, but other kinds of plants too. There is a kind of palm here that has enormous spines in the branches. I didn’t know palm trees had thorns. I see some lily pads a meter across. And bamboo of a diameter as big as my thigh. It’s a European-style garden, with criss-crossing footpaths not intended to look naturalistic at all. I lunch at the café here, which requires me to get in fighting spirit to get my order in, with tourists crunching towards the overwhelmed lunch staff. No matter, once ordered, all is mellow – Brazilian style again.

I came to the botanical garden because I had abandoned the attempt to take the little “cog” train up to the top of Corcovado. I had thought coming today, Monday, would avoid the crowds. Getting off the first bus I rode today, I saw tourists everywhere and two long snaking lines, and overheard angry complaints in English even before I join the queue. The 30 minute ride up the mountain in the antique rail cars is supposed to be charming, but after people tell me they had been waiting in line for more than two hours with no progress, I go with my gut and abandon ship. Good thing I’d figured ahead with a Plan B and I already knew what bus to take to get to my second choice destination.

…LINHA 524 - BOTAFOGO…

Why a good thing? Because the bus system here is bewildering. As far as I can figure, there are several private companies that run city-managed routes. There are literally hundreds of bus lines in Rio - so many that the route numbers run into the high 3-digits.

…LINHA 179 - MARE…

I had not been taking buses until today. Taxi cabs are my preferred way to get around Rio. They’re comfortable, clean and air-conditioned. The buses are uncomfortable, fairly clean and definitely not air-conditioned. Yesterday I took a cab to a district not far from my hotel in Copacabana called Centro/Cinelandia. I tried to get the taxi driver to explain why the financial district is called Cinelandia. I think he was telling me that there used to be a movie house there by that name. He dropped me at the end of a long and well-known park, Parque do Flamengo, that fronts the Baía de Guanabara. There is a museum there - the Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM) - that I wanted to visit.

…LINHA 573 - SAO SALVADOR…
………LINHA 176 - CENTRAL - SAO CONRADO………
……LINHA 511 – URCA……

I liked the collection there. It’s a bit eclectic. There doesn’t seem to be as strong a Catholic influence on the modern art compared to what I’ve seen in the Catholic countries of Central America, southern Europe or Argentina. There was a section there devoted to something MAM alternately called the Brasilia movement or Tropicália. It comes from the revolutionary days of the 60’s and 70’s, and also the musical forms of bossa nova and related Brazilian music and other arts. The paintings held a mix of sex and blood and revolution. I liked an artist who had a sense of whimsy and absurdity, and seemed connected to earlier days of surrealism and Dadaism. One piece in particular grabbed me. It has now been appropriated many times over, in other places. “Zero Cruzeiros,” by Cildo Meireles is a semi-realistic Brazilian currency of denomination zero. Here’s a reproduction of it.

…LINHA 521 - VIDIGAL…

After MAM, I decided to try the subway, which is supposed to be a good transport option here. I hiked over to Cinelandia proper and found a subway entrance. Walking down the stairs to the underground entrance, I was puzzled to see the steel doors rolled down and the station apparently closed. Halfway down the stairs, a motion sensor activated a very loud siren-type alarm. No wonder the stairs were empty. I walked back up the stairs, all eyes of the people on the street on me. I’m now marked as a tourist. It’s Sunday, and there aren’t that many people in this part of town, since it’s a financial center. It feels a little unsafe, and I decide it would be best to take a taxi cab back to Copa.

……LINHA 438 - VILA ISABEL - LEBLON……
…LINHA 179 - CENTRAL - ALVORADA…

Standing in the present moment, here on busy Rua Jardim Botanico, the buses roll by continuously. And I mean continuously. Bus after bus, often seconds apart. It’s mesmerizing to stand and watch them. I keep looking at the route number written on a scrap of paper from the tourist office, then peering at the destination banners on the buses careening towards me.

…LINHA 569 - LARGO DO MACHADO…

It’s been a little hard to explore this city with the rain since life here is all about being outside. I started out my first full day by walking around Copacabana, then Ipanema. Ipanema. Copacabana. It’s very fun to listen to Cariocas pronouce those names. They roll them out in an exaggerated way: “a-Iapa-nahae-mah” and “Copa..CAH…bahnnah” Something like that.

The beaches are long, but not that clean. Many people are overweight and smoking. I think Brazil has the same disease as the rest of the world: too much food. Where are the legendarily beautiful women? Not on the beaches of Ipa and copa. For that matter, where are the beautiful men? There were many men wearing tiny sungas. It’s nice that people seem perfectly happy with their bodies, though. As for how I looked, I sported my anti-UV gringo look: big brimmed hat, plastered sunscreen (even in the rain), baggy shorts (the anti-sunga), loose shirt. I looked like an albino wannabe.

Nighttime in Copa is really interesting. A certain kind of boteca – really just a “hole in the wall” kind of bar - spills people out onto the street, with beers and caipirinhas and meat on skewers. Usually there are a few tables and chairs on the sidewalk. But when these dives get crowded, people sit on curbs or stand in the street, place their drinks on the cars of strangers, and sometimes beat out samba rhythms on the curb. I go one night to a more orderly place, Bar Pedrinho, which is like a local karaoke bar for samba and Brazilian old standards. It’s really wonderful to see how uninhibited people are. A group at a table will be in conversation or eating, and whoever is on stage sings a group favorite or the samba combo will beat out a familiar tune, and the group will naturally slide from conversation into song and back again.

……LINHA 511 – URCA……
…LINHA 573 - SAO SALVADOR…
…LINHA 176 - CENTRAL - SAO CONRADO …

Rio was supposed to be a bookend of sorts. Friend DC had planned to have his 50th bday here, mirroring the 50th birthday party of Bader (see United Nations of Bader). Unfortunately, family events caused DC to have to cancel. That’s kind of what it means for most people to be fifty, I guess. Family, career, life entanglements are both fully enveloping you, but also engaging you. I’m a little outside of the normal track in that sense. I’m free to roam the world, unencumbered, unworried about the future, no serious obligations. Freedom. Probably most men pushing fifty dream of freedom. So why do I dream of not being free? Why not be happy with freedom now, and if something comes worth trading freedom for someday, I’ll do that.

Intrepid co-travelers C&H (and friends of DC) don’t cancel, but do postpone. They were due 27 December, but are now arriving 30 December. I’m looking forward to seeing them. They’re also bookends, since I started the icelollysforall blog on my way out on the previous big trip, traveling through their (now left behind) Boston South End flat.

But I’m fine on my own. I’ve been thinking and sorting through much on this trip. A few days on by myself in Rio are welcome.

…LINHA 583 - COSME VELHO - LEBLON…

583! I step into the street, waving. If you don’t flag the buses down, they don’t pull over, even if you’re at an official stop. You have to be alert to catch the numbers early enough. The result is funny, because neither the passengers waiting on the street nor the bus drivers know if a particular bus is going to suddenly zip over to the side and stop. The whole street of Rua Jardim Botanico is filled with buses weaving back and forth, zooming forward and stopping suddenly.

I’m successful. I pay and settle into a window seat on the Linha 583, sucking fresh air through the small opening in the window. We bounce through Leblon (the roads are fine, but the buses all seem to have suspensions that are shot.) Turning slowly east and north, we pass through the center of Ipanema and finally down the long stretch of Av. Nuestra Senora de Copacabana.

Blocks from the Acapulco Copacabana, I look out the window. The fog on Corcovado has lifted. Redentor, finally visible with concrete arms outstretched, silently gives me a pre-siesta benediction.

Her name was Lola! She was a showgirl!

Praia do Copacabana
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
27 December 2008

Sing it, Barry!

Rio de Dezembro

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
26 December 2008

Crime.

I’d been hearing more and more about it since I landed in Argentina more than three weeks ago. Almost every tourist I met in Buenos Aires had a crime story. Phil the kayaker on board the Prof. Molchanov told me how he threw his camera bag in the back of a taxi and when he got to his destination, the bag was gone. Bill told me that he had his camera and laptop stolen from his hostel, and that three out of eight students in his B.A. language course were eventually burglarized. When strangers on the street noticed that my purse or suitcase was open they scolded me. And everyone warned me about Brazil and especially Rio de Janeiro.

Getting off the plane at the international airport, I am little fearful. Reunited with my big awkward bag o’ polar gear, I am no longer light on my feet. It’s after midnight, and I am beat. I decide to go with the most secure, but most expensive way to my hotel: a “radio taxi”, priced at 80 reias, or about US$40.

It’s a cool and rainy night. I just cannot predict the weather on this continent, and have been continually surprised. Our taxi hydroplanes through the expressways of Rio. I cannot really make out the outlines of the city. It’s as grey and foggy as San Francisco. At stoplights, I see the occasional lone figure on street corners, rain slickers covering their faces. We park directly in front of my hotel, the Acapulco Copacabana, located in, yes, Copacabana.

The lights have been dimmed in the lobby. I check in, twisting my Spanish to make it Portuguese-y. Do Not Lose The Key To The Lockbox In Your Room. This message from the clerk gets across the language barrier.

Bouncing to a stop in the elevator, I roll out into the hall. It’s even darker here. The lights are off. I find my room in the half-light.

The ceilings are high, the room wider than any I’ve stayed in so far. A big bathroom, separate storage closet and large wardrobe. The lockbox fits my laptop + electronics, and the door seems secure.. Rain taps on the window to the airshaft. I don’t let it in.

I relax, realizing that this place will be safe enough and that I can manage the crime danger here. I can explore Copacabana and Rio tomorrow with confidence, rested and my gear safe.

Tired and punchy from a full day of travel from Bariloche to Buenos Aires to Rio, I slide between the rough sheets, making a comfortable me sandwich.

Travel trunk

Bariloche, Argentina
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
26 December 2008

A big travel day.

See the map I found in a tree trunk on the trail back from Refugio Frey. I had to annotate it, but it shows all the legs so far of my trip. The most recent arrow leads from Bariloche to Rio de Janeiro…

Refugio Frey, Laguna Toncek and my second Christmas present

Laguna Toncek, Argentina
25 December 2008

We’re standing in the middle of a large bowl, just a few hundred meters from the rustic Refugio Frey, 1750 meters above seal level. This bowl at the beginning of the Patagonian Andes is formed by a ring of spiny peaks reaching skyward like bony fingers. The snow melt from the mountains nearly completely ringing us fills the large lagoon in front of us: Laguna Toncek. At the east end, behind us, is the refuge. And behind that that is a view of the ridge leading to the peak of Catedral Norte that we left behind an hour ago, and which we can now spy through the narrow opening in the bowl.

We had just left Frey, after I finished up a home-made refugio ham sandwich and a Quilmes beer. The sandwich wasn’t as necessary I as had thought it would be, because while I carried very little food and water, Bill had packed a couple of days worth of supplies in his rucksack. Still, I wanted that sandwich. Frey was similar to Lopez in style, but full of rock climbers and their gear. We talked at the hut with a chatty German family who were originally Barilochenses. They were drawn back here to these mountains and trails from Germany. I understand, because I want to return here myself.

Bill and I walk around the lagoon towards the opposite side of the bowl. Water, pooling, diverging, converging, running everywhere. Many different loops and ponds lead to the lagoon. It all flows down from the big bowl we’re in. Friend SJ would love this water, in all its forms here. I listen to the little streams and recall the language she once sent to me about the feeling of water flowing over skin. These myriad waterways make one think of how it would feel to be in it. I dip a hand in – it’s cold and clear. The shallow stream bed is sandy and a bit reddish.

Turning from south to north you can see the major peaks of Torre Principal, Torre Piramidal, and Roca Inclinada. Between the big peaks are a continuum of incredible shards of vertical rock peaks – many dozens - that all look they could be climbed only using equipment. Later, I will discover that this bowl is one of the most popular rock climbing areas in Argentina, with hundreds of well-known vertical routes.

One large, isolated rock finger is right next to Frey, just on the other side of the stream that flows from the lagoon and past the refuge. A group of climbers are scaling it, with one standing atop the several hundred foot tall and nearly vertical cylinder of granite. A prickle of fear make my fingertips sweat to look at this lead climber, waving casually down at us. “Acrophobia by proxy”, I call this familiar sensation.

We decide to walk past Torcek and to hike up the mountainside a little ways to the Laguna Schmoll on the way to Catredal Norte and the ski area. Bill and I are quiet as we pick through the clumps of grass, mud puddles and rocks around the lagoon. We had been fairly garrulous on the long walk up, in which we first passed through a burned out forest, then an intermediate forest of bamboo, a mature forest of cascading streams and the occasional strange flower, and finally up to Refugio Frey and Laguna Torcek.

Tiny frogs live in Torcek, according to some discreet wooden signs along the lagoon’s perimeter. We’re not to bathe in the water if we have sunscreen on, so as not to disturb their delicate metabolisms. Some strange birds rest on a small knoll in the middle of the waterways. They look half duck and half pheasant. South American geese? I don’t know…

A huge boulder sits near the center of the bowl, unique in size and position. T would probably say that it is mystical stone, and I would too, if I believed in the kind of mysticism she does. I do feel the power and special nature of this place. I feel the hum and the harmony, and something akin to the awe that religious people must feel. All the myriad forms of life and geology here, interacting in uncountable ways, somehow arising from the ten billion year old stardust that slowly intermingled all across our galaxy from the ashes of ten million long dead suns. This is the kind of miracle that has amazed me all my life, but that often bores the conventionally religious or spiritual. An improbable speck of beauty arising from a vast and empty Universe. I am luckier than I can imagine as I stand here, in this place and at this moment, a flash of consciousness awake for an instant, existing just long enough to experience this beauty and be aware of it, and also of my place in it.

Ascending the rockpile towards the north side of the bowl, on the way to the ridge leading to Catredal Norte, we reach a shelf. There we find some snow edging a small Alpine lake. It’s the beginning of summer here, so the mountains are almost snow-free. Much more barren than the system a few hundred meters below us, but this place is also beautiful. I can imagine how much snow must be here in winter. I want to see it someday.

We consider pressing onwards, upwards and around Catredal Norte, but my experience at Lopez suggests that things will get very hard, and that it will take much more time than the map suggests. Bill wants to go on, but finally we agree to return. As it is, it will take us many hours to find the town with an operating bus and a ride back to Bariloche.

We gather in the look of the place for a few silent moments. I think – not the first time on this trip – this is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

The tiniest possible Christmas miracle

Bariloche, Argentina
25 December 2008

Waking up late on Christmas morning I realize that I haven’t prepared for the big hike I have planned for today. I have no food or water, and everything will be closed.

My original plan was to relax, have breakfast and see what’s in the miniature Christmas stocking from my mother that I’ve been carrying for a month. Instead, I scramble to get ready because I’m supposed to meet Bill at the bus stop. I have no way to contact him if I’m delayed.

Down in the lobby I choke down a quick breakfast. It’s always the same at the Tyrol: a croissant, some toast with butter and two kinds of preserves in tiny metal saucers, a glass of orange juice, café con leche. I eat the croissant and drink everything (I’m dehydrated from drinking and staying out late), and stuff some of the bread in my pocket. I talk the staff into giving me a bottle of water on my way back to the room.

After returning from kayaking yesterday, I found in my room a little plate with homemade chocolates, a holly leaf and a nice note from the couple who own the Tyrol. I’d eaten most of the chocolate last night, but I wrap the remaining half-chewed piece of gingerbread in a tissue and pack it in my cargo pocket with the toast.

Not quite enough food and water, but almost enough to get me to Refugio Frey (located on the trail to Cerro Catredal), where I hope I will find open doors, a ham sandwich as good as the one I had at Refugio Lopez, and something to drink.

I have a few minutes before I have to meet Bill. It’s Christmas morning, so I decide to open my present. I cut the dental floss that I had used to hang the little woolen stocking from the curtain rod and tip its contents into my hand. Three hard candies spill out: two peppermint and one colored orange. Sugar. Exactly what I need to make it to the Refugio. I add the candies to my stash of crushed carbohydrates stowed in my shorts, and head out for the bus stop and Bill.

How did Santy know?

Noche Buena

Bariloche, Argentina
24 December 2008

The American couple standing in front of Bill and I are complaining loudly to the restaurant manager. I don’t think the manager speaks English, but that doesn’t stop the Americans. They are upset because another group of tourists sat down at the table they thought was theirs. Heated words, and they storm off in search of another place to eat.

Good luck to them.

It’s Christmas Eve. Most of the restaurants in town are closed. The few that are open all have the same deal: a fixed price multi-course feast, at three or more times the price of a normal meal. Completely ordinary cafes or parillas have this kind of deal. Some are as much as $200 per person.

Bill and I decide to move on as well. We didn’t plan anything in advance. Like the rest of the hapless tourists in the center of Bariloche, we are nomads, wandering in the Christmas desert in search of our holiday meal.

Who’s Bill, anyway? We met earlier in the day at an organized kayak tour. The tour was just a short paddle on Lago Gutierrez, to the south of Nahuel Huapi. Bill and I, the most experienced of the group that signed up for the tour, paddled together in a fiberglass double kayak (my first fiberglass boat experience – I resolve to buy one.) Middle-aged and world-traveled, Bill lives in Glacier Bay, Alaska. He works for the National Park Service up there. Some kind of GIS analyst, I gather. His life is an interesting duality: near hermit-like isolation in tiny Glacier Bay, off-set each year by three or more months of globe-trotting. He’s been everywhere in the developing world, including some years in Africa in the Peace Corps.

The paddle almost doesn’t happen. That’s because while we’re getting basic instructions on the shore, a 40 knot wind blows up, making kayaking too dangerous for beginners. For that matter, it looks dangerous to intermediate paddlers like Bill and I. We wait a bit, standing around in our spray skirts and life jackets. Eventually the tour group leader, Florencia, decides to try transporting the kayaks to the other side of the lake. In the van, Florencia tries to lead us in some Anglo Christmas songs. No one joins the caroling, but I enjoy watching her sing for a few bars. She’s so carefree and unembarrassed.

A pleasant paddle. Not all that strenuous, though the wind kicks up occasionally and makes it a little perilous. Like all of this part of Patagonia, it’s very beautiful: blue water, peaky mountains close by the shores, forests, the occasional pretty chalet on a hillside.

At the turn-around point in our paddle, we take a break. The guides pull out various items stowed in each of our kayaks (we didn’t know anything was in them.) They quickly assemble a simple table and serve tea, coffee and medialunas. We talk and take pictures. I ask Florencia about all the growth in Bariloche. Turns out she’s a native “Barilochense.” The people here are not thrilled at the explosive growth in population (something like 3x in the last decade), but it has brought prosperity.

After the paddle, we’re driven back to our lodgings. We rode in the van with friends we had made on the water: a group of three younger women (S from the UK, Joy & Hope from Holland) and one Italian man (A.) They seem like interesting folks, esp S., a Ph.D. candidate who is reinventing her career. They’re all staying at the same large hostel in Bariloche. Bill is staying at a smaller one, and I’m at the Hotel Tyrol, which turns out to directly face the large hostel. It’s at the top of the tallest and ugliest building in the center of Bariloche.

As we part, I invite the Anglophones kayakers to meet me for a drink. They counter by inviting Bill and I to meet them at their place later that night. Their hostel, with 50+ guests, is having a big Christmas Eve party.

Nomads. Bill and I wander the streets, interviewing hostesses about the relative outrageousness of their menu fijo deals. We finally decide on a large Irish-themed pub. It’s only $70 per person. We settle in for a Festival of Meat. Really, every meal in Argentina is a Festival of Meat. But this particular pile of grilled flesh is for Jesus El Niño , so, you know. Eat up.

A nice visit, a long dinner. Sure that the town will be even quieter tomorrow, we make plans to hike together Christmas Day. As Noche Buena closes in around us, we’re both grateful to have someone to spend part of it with.

It’s going on 1AM when we wrap up the feast. I’m stuffed and drowsy, but still want to check out the party. Bill warns me he will probably just accompany me long enough to say hello to our new friends.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the inside of a hostel. It’s just what I expect. Scratched doors and walls, random furniture. A kitchen that looks like it is constantly in use. It’s late in the party. There are still of lot of people around, though - at least 30. Music, dancing, and a fair amount of drunk, young-ish travelers. In fact, one of our friends – Joy – has already vomited and gone to bed. Hope tells her that we’re here. Joy miraculously arises to greet us. Lazarus-like. That is, if Lazarus was a young Dutch woman passed out from too much Mendoza Malbec instead of being a three-days-dead friend of Jesus Christ mouldering in a cave two thousand years ago.

Scanning around, I see that Bill has made good on his promise and backed out the hostel door. Joy is now dancing. I carry a glass of wine around the place and encounter an even drunker S. S is weaving through the room, grabbing men, pulling them one by one onto the dance floor. To each man she complains loudly that no one will dance with her. My turn. It’s no use telling someone that you’re dancing with that there is no reason to complain about how no one will dance with them. Even trying to say it uses so many reflexive verb tenses and pronouns that I stop mid-sentence.

Disengaging from that, I head back to the kitchen. I run into A. A nice fellow, and we chat a bit. I meet another interesting young man from Italy, who lives in Japan. He tells me of his passion to somehow go to law school in New York. I look at the only sober person in the hostel, and I think: he’ll probably make it. Good for America.

It’s a bit of a forlorn scene. It looks to me like a lot of people running from something, finding themselves alone at Christmas, and forcing some gaiety into their night. A guy a little older than me is moving through the room, talking up the drunkest women. Obviously a sort of middle-aged Bohemian predator.

With a jolt, it occurs to me that the names Joy and Hope aren’t the names of the Dutch women, but rather some traveling pseudonyms they hand to men they meet on the road.

I don’t want or need to be part of this, I decide, and suddenly feel better.

I walk across the street to the Tyrol. Back in my cozy room I look out, around my little woolen Christmas stocking hanging from the curtain rod, onto the beautiful starlit lake.

Haupi holidays.

Llazy Llao Llao

Barilloche, Argentina
23 December 2008

I decide to rellax today after the big wallk of yesterday. I make pllans for what to with my time during the days of Christmas, when businesses around here willll surelly fallll into a llullll.

I have a llong llunch at an allllegedlly sllow food restaurant calllled Café Periclles. (no URLL. Address = Pallacios 250.) It’s not realllly a sllow food experience, but the food is dellicious.

Back on the llocall bus llines in the afternoon, I head out for a drink and a llook around at what is supposedlly the most famous hotell in Argentina: the Llao Llao. (Warning: Lloud spacy music accompanies this llink.) The hotell itself: Wellll, if you’ve ever been to a big resort in Collorado, you get the idea. But the views from the hotell llobby and grounds are great, as you can see from the website (you have to navigate around to llocate them), allthough the website doesn’t realllly capture the giant snow-covered mountains llooming in the distance.

An mellllow meall and earlly night follllow, with the Christmas holliday beginning tomorrow.

Refugio

Cerro Lopez, Bariloche, Argentina
22 December 2008

A condor. It has to be. The bird I’m looking at is absolutely the biggest animal I’ve ever seen in the air. It’s hard to tell how big, and as soon as that thought enters my head, the nearly stationary bird soars directly towards the hillside I’m standing on.

I first fumble for my binoculars, then for my camera. When the condor gets within maybe one hundred meters of me, it stops and floats on a thermal draft, motionless for the length of time it takes me to raise my simple camera. Then it soars off again, and I snap off a single blurry photo. The Andean condor looks like the dinosaur that it is, a relic of a bird, too big and vulnerable to live in the Age of Man, Machines and Pokemón.

The sun is out; the storm over. I’m overdressed now, in my new heavy fleece and old windbreaker. I’m at the beginning of a two hour trek up the side of Cerro Lopez, alone on the trail. Cerro Lopez is one of many easily accessible mountains ringing Lago Nahuel Huapi.

I had spent the previous day planning this hike. Bus routes, maps, a little food and water, and uncertain Argentinian Spanish conversations about where I’d be hiking. I relied on an organization housed in a little cabin at the center of the city called Club Andino, which is a private club advising trekkers, maintaining trails and running the refugios (mountain shelters) that anchor many of the more popular trekking routes in the area.

Armed with the info I had gathered, I had successfully navigated the right bus line, and had jumped off a bus only 20 minutes before I spotted the condor. The passenger loading and unloading of these buses happens so fast. Outside the city centers, they slow and the rear door opens long before the bus stops. But when it stops, you jump off quickly, because the instant the stops, it roars back onto the road. Many people jump off before the bus even stops. If you’re carrying a backpack or a bag, you almost have to leap off, like a skydiver, to get on the ground before the bus starts moving too fast again. And the stops aren’t marked – some are just random spots in the road it seems. It’s comical to watch other tourists try and figure out when to jump off. Until it’s my turn.

But I was successful with the bus exit, and after walking up a the steep beginning of the foothill, I’m standing on the path to Lopez, with great views of Nahuel Huapi, the surrounding mountains, and a series of islands in the lago. I can’t see Bariloche from here – too far.

Not quite believing my condor luck, I walk on.

If I squint, the dirt and trees and mountains look a little like those on a California mountain trail, but up close, every plant is different, the trees unidentifiable, the birds downright strange, and the dirt a weird red-yellow.

I steam onwards at a good clip, because the folks at Andino told me it would take 3 or 4 hours to get to my planned turn-around point, Refugio Lopez, and even though I started early, I want to be sure to get back and catch a bus since they run infrequently late in the day.

I cross a snowfield, wind around from one ridge to another, and less than two hours, I’m there. Refugio Lopez is a brightly painted pink building, sitting in isolation on the rocky side of the start of the real Cerro Lopez mountainside. The trail behind the refuge turns from worn footpath to simple paint-marks on the steeply rising rockpiles, cascades and jagged and exposed outcroppings that make up Lopez proper.

Entering the refuge, my impression is of a place that is part backpacker’s hostel, and part mountain survival hut. It’s informal, cozy, primitive. Someone from Andino is always on hand. You can ask for a sandwich or a pizza, which they make on the spot. Or pay for kitchen privledges and make your own. You can also pay for toilet privileges, a rustic experience to be sure. The simple benches and the bunks upstairs can be used to sleep on, and I think they even have sleeping bags for rent.

The view from the shelf that the refuge is built upon is fantastic. I sit and have a ham sandwich made for me on thick, homemade bread. I squeeze mayonnaise out of a mustard bottle onto the sandwich. Drinking water from a battered plastic cup and looking out the back of the refuge, I see the source of the water in my hand: a blue plastic tub lashed to the mountain side next to a melt water cascade. The water flows from that tub into a cistern next to the refuge, apparently unfiltered and untreated (This would never happen in the Lower 48 – the risk of parasites like giardia is too prevalent. Here, no one in the refuge knows what I’m talking about, even through the trail leads directly and repeatedly over the watershed that we drink from. Oh well.)

Three young Argentine men are getting a late start, having broken camp a 100 meters away a little earlier, now taking advantage of the refuge before hitting the backpacking trail. They are friends from primary school, I gather. They befriend me as I walk around the refuge, exploring it. They speak pretty good English. I’m amused to watch them wrap plastic bags over their socks before putting on tennis shoes to trek. One of them strums a little mandolin that belongs to the refuge.

At their invitation, I decide to press on with them up the mountain a bit.

Duende. Didi. Nacho. Duende is the smallest of them, and they explain that his name – a nickname – means “dwarf” in Spanish, though I later learn that a better translation is perhaps “elf” or “genie”. We have a nice conversation as we scale the rockpile and cascades, their going slowed by their backpacks, and our conversation halting as we surmount rocks and languages, a little out of breath.

At the top, we have a drink and a snack, taking in the view. They had broken their camera earlier, so we take photos, and I promise to e-mail them copies. They are on a long trek to another lake, and I’m just a day tripper and have to descend the pile of rock we just spent an hour climbing. Standing up, we part ways. As I walk down, they caution me to be careful on the descent. Suddenly I’m conscious of our age difference, which I hadn’t been thinking about. They’re a good 20 years younger than me. I turn and assure them that I hike often and that they’re not to worry. As soon as they are out of sight, I immediately lose the trail. Dang. I spent a long time trying to find it again, descending for while, reaching an impasse, then climbing back up, and repeating all that again and again. Fortunately, the refugio is always visible, so I’m not lost, but from their view point, I probably looked like I was.

After I get past the refugio, I retrace my steps until I hit a fork in the path, and decide to the long way back, on a gently zig-zagging dirt road. Once again, I’m able to think for long stretches, the silence so strong that my ears buzz, picking up noises that aren’t there. A strange bee-like insect makes me think about how flying insects first developed that ability, and that segues into my line of thinking on the evolution of human consciousness, and what will follow in the next step of that evolution, and my small, potential part in that. During this stretch I don’t see anyone for an hour and a half. It’s not meditative, exactly, but very contemplative. I want to make these kinds of spaces for myself when I get back, I realize. Everyday life makes such a hubbub, even for a part-time worker, kid-free, solitary bachelor like myself, that large swathes of one's life can pass without much time for real reflection. That’s not what should happen in a well-lived life, and so I won’t let it.

Late in the afternoon, I pop out onto the main road where the bus runs, a zipline tour company at the junction. It’s filled with bands of Argentine kids wearing uniforms from the tour company that brought this band of kids here. These large groups of boisterous, but well-haved teenagers are everywhere in Bariloche. They’re noisy as heck, but without the aggression that any band of American teenagers would have. I don’t exactly enjoy their company as I sit, sweaty, drinking a canned beer, but and it’s a nice contrast to the SF teens I’m used to riding buses with.

After a long wait, I’m bouncing on the bus ride back. I’m a Bariloche bus an expert now. I had to stand on the way out to Cerro Lopez, but now I am able to grab a seat on the left side of the bus, where I know I’ll have great views of Nahuel Huapi. In Bariloche, I swing off with confidence one stop before everyone else does, knowing the town well enough to take a short cut. Happy with all I’ve seen, and all the contemplation I’ve gotten in, I look forward to another dinner at the tourist restaurant complex in Bariloche central, the town now decorated for Xmas and full of holiday travelers…

…in which imagine that I’m a clever traveler, and get storm-lashed for it…

Bariloche, Argentina
20-21 December 2008

I look up from my book and smile on board the Aerolineas Argentina jet. We are beginning our descent towards the regional airport in San Carlos de Bariloche, Patagonia. I’m pleased with myself, because I’ve managed to navigate the airports of Buenos Aires well enough to find a place to store my big bag of polar gear. I’ve been lugging that ding-dang bag around since before I traveled to Antarctica - three weeks now - in addition to my regular roller bag of clothes and a computer bag.

Before I even started traveling, I had a first, less-clever plan to ship the big polar gear bag back home after that part of the trip was over. But when I got to Argentina the shippers here told me that I could ship my bag to the US, but that it might get hung up in US Customs in Miami or Memphis or LA, and that if it did, I’d have to fly to some damned US city to retrieve it. So, I’m stuck with three bags. I look like the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-two-huge-suitcases-American that I guess I am, rather than a carefree jetsetter that I imagine myself to be.

But now I’m a travel-light, fancy-free roamer. I’m looking forward to Christmas week in the Patagonian mountains and lakes around Bariloche.

My smile fades a little as I look out the 737 and see clouds and light rain. I forgot to check the weather before I left Buenos Aires. Oh well, it’s summer here, and it’s the mountains, so it’ll rain from time to time, I think to myself, switching off my e-book and tightening my seat belt.

The Bariloche airport is one of those little ones where there are no jetways and you walk to the terminal. People around me pull out umbrellas and zip up their parkas as the light rain starts to drive harder. It’s a good thing the terminal is small and close. I zip up my single layer of windbreaker and hustle over to the building.

Outside, I grab a remise. It’s barely big enough for me and by two bags. Leaving the airport, I catch my first view of Lago Nahuel Haupi, a huge glacier-dug Alpine lake. It is absolutely beautiful: deep blue, surrounded on all sides by big snow-capped peaks, and at the moment, featuring large, white-capped waves. Rolling in our remise towards the town center, I see that these waves are a meter high – big for a lake!

The rain spits at us. We drive right to the center, which has a spectacular view of Nahuel Haupi. The architecture here is a mix of Swiss-German chalets and polished South American hardwood log cabins (cabañas?). Kind of a Tyrolean Lake Tahoe.

In fact, the hotel we pull up to is called the Hotel Tyrol. The Tyrol is inexpensive, small and quiet. My room is simple, but everything works, and my large window looks directly out at Lago Nahuel Haupi.

I completely unpack, as I usually do in hotels. I like to put everything away if I’m staying more than one day. It helps with the disruptive feeling that goes with traveling, and I tend to stay in small places, so it helps to make the most of the space to put things in drawers and use the hangers. Of course, I haven’t been unpacking the big polar bag, which for a moment, I’m again glad I ditched in Buenos Aires.

My mother gave me a tiny Christmas stocking to take with me on my trip, knowing I’d be by myself on the holidays. Through Antarctica and Buenos Aires I’ve taken care not too look inside or even feel the stocking when I handle it, so as not to spoil whatever tiny surprise may be inside of it. Since I’ll be here through Xmas, I hang the little stocking – maybe 10 cm long – from the center of the curtain rod with a length of dental floss. Now I’m ready for the holidays, with much less fuss than I usually go through.

It’s early, so I go out into the rain and wind to explore the town. I pass hotel staff cleaning women wearing outfits from the Sound of Music. Heading outside, the rain has turned into a full storm. Cold winds buffet the pedestrians, and the driving rain cuts through my jeans. I really wish I had that polar gear bag with me now.

The many backpackers drifting through town look comfortable. The holiday vacationers look less so. And I shiver, hands in pockets, and manage to walk through the small central district by taking it 15 minutes at a time, stopping in shops or cafes or travel agencies to warm up.

The town is seriously cute. The civic center buildings are made from wonderful, large stone blocks. Many of the buildings have a particular Patagonian look to them, with these yellow, treated, hardwood logs in wide use. And everywhere you can see big mountains, green hillsides and the sprawling Lago Nahuel Haupi. It’s definitely a tourist town, sort of like Ushuaia, but more upscale. This is a pretty rich place.

I’m cold and a bit tired, so I return to the Tyrol and nap. Afterwards, going out for dinner, it’s even colder and stormier. I can’t be outside for more than a few minutes.

In the morning, the storm is still going strong, and the weather forecast is for another full day of bad weather.

Defeated, I head into a ski shop to buy a heavy fleece jacket and a wool ski hat, even though I have two of each in the bag that is sitting at the Jorge Newbery Airport in B.A., at a cost of 12 pesos per day.

The air is clean, if cold. And this is what I wanted. Even though I’m still chilled, I’m glad I came here, and I’m looking forward to getting out into those mountains when the weather lifts.

San Telmo

San Telmo, Buenos Aires, Argentina
19 December 2008

On my last full day in B.A. I walk to the barrio of San Telmo, which is near the city center. San Telmo appeals to bohemian travelers b/c of the decadent and gracefully decayed look of the neighborhood, the diverse residents, the working class background, and its rough port-side history. I start out exploring earlier than recent days, hoping to walk about before the heat hammer hurts me.

I like the old three and four story buildings I find, which remind me of the neighborhoods of San Francisco. It's quieter and cleaner than the nearby richer neighborhoods I've been walking.

I decide to stop, relax, read my Kindle and have a café con leche for an hour.

I’m reading Daniel Dennett’s book “Breaking the Spell” about the natural philosophy and scientific approach to understanding the evolution of religion. All this alone time in B.A. allows me to think not just about what I’m now reading in Dennett, but what I’ve read earlier this year (Irvin Yalom’s “Staring at the Sun”, Grinspoon’s “Lonely Planets” prominently)…

Exploring again: my favorite street in San Telmo is Piedras. I stop there and stare at a used and antique bookstore for a while. Such a beautiful collection of old books in English and Spanish. It’s no longer common to see a bookstore that reflects the intellectual tastes of the owner – and this one clearly does. Down the street is what looks like a real tango classroom, “Dandi.” It obviously is also a tourist experience, but the beaten wooden floors and somwhat spare look of the place shows that it is a real performance and teaching space. It’s a lovely thing to look at, and for the first time here I think: something to come back to. I think back to a surprise earlier in the week: the subway (which functions well here) has a scattering of old, beautiful wooden cars which I suddenly encountered one day. I think B.A. may be like that: gritty, not-that-nice, but pockets of things to appreciate and surprises for the patient, and not a city easily appreciated at first.

Part of my project this last year has been to work on my own understanding of meaning, mortality and love. A big project. But these days in B.A., and especially San Telmo, have proved useful in this project. I’m alone so much of my time here, and I am not finding much diversion in this giant city. Perfect. It’s what I set out to do half a year ago.

I find myself in a big park, El Parque Lezama. Old men play chess on the concrete chess boards and drug addicts panhandle. It feels like my neighborhood back in SF. It’s tranquil here, though the heat is starting to make my head buzz. I stand under palm trees and think a bit more.

Ideas are connecting up: my need for connection, where it comes from, how to live the rest of my life, what good works I want to dedicate myself to, how to give meaning to my life, how to let go of romantic attachment and my need to merge with a partner, the future of human evolution, the nature of the universe, of consciousness… Things are pinging and popping in my head, and I set sail for a nice looking café I spot across Calle Brasil from Lezama to eat lunch and write my fleeting thoughts down.

Resto 1984 (no link – 379 Brasil) holds ex-pats from around the world, visitors and San Telmo residents. I’m scratching thoughts down in my guidebook note page, while some young Brits negotiate with a couple of older men (partners, I’m pretty sure) to rent a flat here. American English, British English, Spanish, some eastern European language drifts from the corner of the place. The food is wholesome, and I’m grateful there are vegetables. Some cool Mendoza white wine…

Afterwards I walk along the port and back to the Art Hotel for a nap. I feel good about the emotional and intellectual part of my travel project, like I’m doing the right thing here.

I don’t have the answers, but the questions are sharpening.

Salfinas

La Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina
18 December 2008

At la Quinta, I noticed the kind of table salt commonly used here. It is much more finely ground than in the US – almost like powder. It’s called salfina, or “fine salt.” I found the name pretty and the idea of fine table salt interesting, and so, playing with the word, I though of it as a nice girl’s name. Finally, Pablo and I started using as our own slang for an attractive woman.

Pablo and Nicole and I walk three abreast in La Recoleta, looking for a drink before our meal. We’ve decided to splurge and I’ve booked dinner at the best restaurant I could find. As we stroll through the city, it looks less like a San Teraphthalate to me tonight, and more like a Buenos Aires. Pablo has dedicated himself to demonstrating to me that B.A. is the capital of salfinas, and he puts his hand on my shoulder from time to time, pointing out some pretty woman or other. As the evening wears on, he shows himself a “salfinero” of sorts (salfinero being a word I just made up to describe a spotter of pretty women.)

I tell them of my day as we stroll, and how I met with Pablo’s sister for a coffee late in the afternoon, and our hour-long talk in almost 100% Spanish. I’m proud of my language efforts, though it’s clear that the main reason we were able to talk for so long is that Cecilia is a very patient conversationalist. P & N say that’s probably because her son has some hearing impairment, so she is used to listening and speaking slowly and with care. In my experience, there are many bilingual people the world over who just can’t stick to the language that the person they’re talking to isn’t fluent in, and so they simply switch (naturally enough.) But Ceci stays in Spanish with me. Whatever the reasons, I thought it was wonderful. We spoke for an hour, rarely switching to English.

When Pablo first told me about his sister Ceci some years back, I became interested in meeting her. She’s an unreconstructed, but young, hippie who lives outside El Bolsón, a small town a couple of hours south of Bariloche. El Bolsón and Bariloche are described as beautiful mountains regions at the start of the eastern Andes Mountains, in the northwest corner of Patagonia, with glaciers, forests, high peaks, and many lakes. In fact, the guide books refer to it as the “Lakes District,” a term that Pablo dismisses as invented for tourists.

I met with her because in these last few sweltering days in B.A., I’ve hit on the idea of flying off to the general area of Bariloche, and Ceci lives there. I needed some advice on where to go, how to get there, etc. Ceci tells me about Bariloche, El Bolsón, and she gives me a little practical travel advice on flying to the region. It turns out that flights to some towns in the area are temporarily suspended because of recent volcanic activity in Chile (!)

Ceci ekes out a living by making handicrafts for tourists visiting the El Bolsón area, which I learn is a hippie-redoubt. I’m fascinated by her plan to end up with her own land and home. She’s is squatting on federal land, where she has built a tiny shack. Argentine law says that squatters can claim ownership of land they squat upon after twenty years. She’s now eight years into that twenty. My language muscles tire, though, and I don’t think I can find enough Spanish to ask her about how she can invest so many years of her life, not knowing if she will be evicted from the land at any moment, or indeed in Year 19 of her 20 Year Plan.

P & N & I turn into Oviedo, a place whose name comes from an old town in Spain. The restaurant is a mix of Argentine and Spanish cuisine, with large, round tables and a small wooden bar near the entry. Lots of glass front windows on this corner building. They have quite a lot of Argentine fine wine (nice rhyme.) We’re smartly dressed and cleaned up - a world away from La Matanza. We are seated near the front, somewhat on display, and settle in for a fine extended meal. It’s easily the best meal I’ve had in 3 weeks.

I think P & N are happy to get out from the Green Zone of la Quinta, and to have some adult time. Pablo enjoys being able to interview the Argentine wait staff to get the best choices on offer. He’s told me earlier in the week that the thing he really misses about no longer living in Argentina is the ease with which he can socialize, and can navigate sophisticated social intercourse, so he relishes the interactions now.

I have to admit to Pablo when he points out that there are salfinas Porteñas here to be seen in B.A., and in particular, here in Oviedo.

We talk a lot. My next travel leg in Argentina (which today I’ve decided will be the town of Bariloche itself after my conversation with Ceci and a little homework), and life in Vancouver where they now live, and a little about our past social life when I was married. Of course, since they’re anthropologists, and I have a keen interest in evolutionary biology and culture, we talk about their work a little, and some of the reading I’ve been doing.

All too soon it is pumpkin time for P & N, and they have to return to relieve their babysitter (Ana, I think.)

I’ve visited P & N and their children in Ann Arbor, North Carolina, the Gulf Islands of Puget Sound, and now Buenos Aires. As we kiss our goodbyes, Argentine-style, I pledge to travel and meet them again in Vancouver. We all feel good about that future, knowing that it will happen.

San Terephthalate

Buenos Aires, Argentina
17-18 December 2008

Buenos Aires is misnamed. The heat here in summer hangs heavy, and the aires are humid and not very bueno. I’m not very good in the heat, and this is my second summer this year (I traveled in Europe, Israel and Iceland in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2008.) It feels like it wants to rain, but it never does while I’m here. I hear stories from other travelers about how the streets in the central part of B.A. run deep with water during heavy rainfalls. Individual shops have concrete thresholds at their doors to stem the water that rises to their steps. I wish that was happening now.

My usual travel style in a big city is to walk, walk. In spite of the heat and air, I walk a lot in B.A. I walk the central neighborhoods of Recoleta, Microcentro, the federal government district, La Boca, Puerto Madero and San Telmo. I learn to use the subway, but not the buses. It just looks too hot on those buses.

I follow some day time guide-book tours. Famous public buildings like the Casa Rosada (presidential “residence”) and the Teatro Colon are closed for renovations. A local tourist pamphlet tells me that B.A. is trying to get ready for a big anniversary celebration in 2010. I walk the famous Calle Florida shopping district. It is tacky, tacky.

I see that even rich parts of B.A. are filled with trash, trash. But the trash collectors are a wonder to behold, and so welcome. They drive your typical trash trucks, but they don’t have standard containers. Bags and boxes are piled on the sidewalks and curbs. The athletic-looking trash collectors grab them however they can and fling them into the trucks with relish. It reminds me of the Seattle Pike Place Market, but instead of large fishes, it’s big piles of garbage. The shout out to each other, carrying on conversations on the street, while they muscle the refuse around. It’s over in a flash, and everyone on the street smiles a little with relief.

Between the misnaming of Buenos Aires, and the trash problem the city has, I saw the need to rename the city. During one walk, I settled on “San Terephthalate.” You see, San Terephthalate is the patron saint of discarded green PET plastic soda bottles. It is possible to see the offerings that the proud citizens of San Terephthalate leave for their city’s spiritual guardian at curbsides, street corners, subways, really almost anywhere.

As I run out of good tourist districtions, my thoughts in these quiet times by myself tend to the philosophical, and I realize that this is really what I came here for: to get myself in a frame of mind, and to devote time to figuring things out in my life, and to work on revising how I think about love, and loss, and meaning. Slowly, I welcome being in a town I don’t like very much, seeing the value in the time that I’m here by myself.

Lacunae

After a breakup, I can’t listen to music.

Podcasts are OK. News programs, radio talk.

I know some songs will be permanently altered, bent in some way.

I’m looking forward to listening to music again.

Day X

XXXXX, XX
XX xxxxxxxx XXXX

Wake up in hotel room.
Find breakfast.
Obtain transport.
Engage in tourist activity.
Find lunch.
Locate restroom.
Obtain transport.
Engage in tourist activity.
Talk to strangers.
Find dinner.
Plan next day.
Negotiate next lodgings.
Have drink.
Hit hay.