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.