Day 5: 6/9/11...Catchin' A Break from Vulcan

         A volcano, you say? It turns out there was an eruption in Chile days before, and I was clueless about it until this afternoon. If it had blown a few days earlier, this blog would be about me going to the mall in Wellington, FL. All the flights in and out are canceled and there are some Yankees here at the hotel who can't go home. If it had blown next week, I wouldn't have been able to go down to Patagonia. (assuming it's a one-blower). It's so nice when the planets align on my behalf! I owe that volcano a virgin.

       Pretty much today was the second act of my bus ride. This featured a flat tire (more than one, I think), more peeing from the neighbor lady, a "hmph" breakfast, and a much less disorienting arrival. Now that I've ridden each bus company's bus one time each, I feel I can offer the informed opinion that you should take Bariloche and not Crucero del Norte. Unless you prefer bus whiskey to bus wine.
  
        I felt pretty confident about the Retiro station layout, and made for the taxis right away. There was this guy near the taxi who did the following: met me at the headlight of the taxi, took the handle of my suitcase, opened the taxi door, and threw the suitcase into the taxi. Then he started trying to converse with me. "No comprende?" "Perdon?", "No habla", until finally I understood that he wanted a tip for his literal 4 seconds of labor. I gave him the equivalent of a quarter just to avoid making the ol' USA look bad.

           Fortunately I had written down all the hotel info along with a sketch of a map, so the taxi driver and I got along great. This weird thing happened: at one point where we didn't move for a series of red lights, I noticed another cab driver right alongside us. He looked EXACTLY like my driver! They even scratched their bald heads the same - with their middle fingers. If I knew Spanish I would have pointed it out and probably offended him somehow.

           We got to the hotel. Tipping has become very anxiety-producing for me. You never know what's normal in a foreign country. I thought I remembered reading that you don't tip taxi drivers in Argentina, but I only ever remember to look that up after I get out of a cab. Then I panic about the exchange rate and doing all the math about how to give exactly the right amount. Come to think of it, I don't even know how much to tip an American driver. Or a barber. In the end it never feels right. By the time you read this, I will have forgotten to look it up again.

           The hotel I'm at is great! I got one of those polite hug/kiss-on-cheek greetings from the (thank god) lady who let me in the front gate. She was extremely friendly and spoke great English. This is called the Lola House. It was a last minute choice after the hotel I originally booked decided to shut down a few days before I left the US. I think it may have been for the best since that hotel was only $30 a night, and might have been worth the money.

             I took a walk around the block and, well, I had 2 first impressions: dog crap and graffiti. They are in alarming abundance here - at least the immediate area I'm in. Is there some correlation? I can't read it, so maybe all the graffiti is complaining about the dog crap. Or the dogs are objecting to the opinions expressed in the graffiti. I'll need to learn Spanish or Dog to find out the whole story.

            I decided to try an empanada, since I think it has something specifically to do with Argentina or even just Buenos Aires. I'm not sure. They were good, but based on this one experience it seems like an empanada is basically a Hot Pocket. Freshly made and good, but pretty much a Hot Pocket. Mine came with a special prize: leaking all over the pair of pants that I had just put on for the first time not half an hour before! Ole!

          After that I went to the Valhalla of all traveling cheap bastards: the supermarket! I am my mother's son, and I eat primarily from establishments with at least 8 cash registers. I actually think it's very important to visit a grocery store when traveling. It's a huge clue into a country's culture. Think about it: what could be more indicative of your daily life besides what you put in your shopping cart? Case in point: in this store, the wine section was four times the size of the cereal aisle. As a cereal connoisseur and a wine dilettante, I found this highly significant.

           As I write this, I am digesting the results of that excursion. My first two - THAT'S RIGHT TWO - bananas since arriving here. You read that right! Was this not a banana republic at one point? I expected the streets of South America to be paved with bananas! But - another surprise - there were hardly any bananas at all in the store! They were outnumbered by friggin' KIWIS, by Jove!

         One last culture shock for the evening: I was expected to have weighed my bananas before putting them in my cart. I wanted to say: "SORRY. In AMERICA we have cash registers that weigh your bananas FOR you." But thankfully I couldn't say it in Spanish and also I'm a wuss.

Day 4: 6/8/11... If the Bus is a-Rockin', Don't Sit on the Top Level of the Bus

     Not a whole heck of a lot to talk about this day. Mostly I had breakfast, packed, and started this blog. I stayed in the hotel's lobby and messed around on the interweb.

    Soon after it was time to catch the bus back to Buenos Aires. I had intended to go ultra-fancy, so I chose the company Crucero del Norte. Unfortunately, the schedule was wrong, so I had to go the same level I had on the way up.

    After an hour or so of the trip, I figured out some basic geometry. See, all the buses are double decker. I had sat on the lower level on the way up, but tried the upper this time. It turns out that a rocking bus is like an upside down pendulum. Not so much movement at the center, lots at the top. Luckily there was lots of room below. Unluckily I had a hard time asking permission from the bus boss. When I tried to ask, he gave me a terse "Don't understand" and turned away. But my ipod saved the day, and I was able to look up "abajo" for "below" and along with a lot of pointing, that was enough.

    No bus wine this time. I got bus whiskey! I'm not a whiskey drinker at all, so bus whiskey was sufficient for me.

    What else? There was a lady across the aisle that peed many many times.

Day 3: 6/7/11... I Swore I Would Not Tango

              Iguazu Falls day! All day with one of the wonders of the world. It was truly epic. The weather was not perfect, but what do you want with a rain forest? The good part was that the torrential rain the night before and in the morning made the falls as full as possible.

               Buffets are a very bad thing for me. Something in my brain has always said, “Clean your plate. People in China are starving.” Where could I have gotten such an idea? I’ll ask my Mom if she knows. With buffets, the plate can never be cleaned. So buffets kill millions of Chinese every year. Not this morning, though. I single handedly saved an entire Cantonese province. It was a great personal sacrifice, but a delicious carb saturated one.

               I got another very friendly cab driver to take me to the bus station, which looked much less frightening in the daylight. Whilst I awaited my coach, I spent some time with a street dog’s belly. He was a sweetheart – just walked up and rolled over. I went and bought him some crackers but he was like, “pssh… muchas gracias…NO”.  It took him six crackers to figure out he didn’t want them, though. Later I was told that these guys aren’t actually strays; they have owners who just let them out all day. Weird.

               The hotel dudes recommended the city bus since it was only seven pesos, and I never miss a chance to pinch a penny. It was a good choice anyway, because I got to see more of the locals and their regular life. Not a lot, but some.

               Inside the Iguazu park, there were these cool critters wandering around and coming up to people. Later I found out that they were considered raccoons, but they looked more like big brown possums to me. No burglar masks. (Big Brown Possums – store that one in the band name archive.)

               I was flattered when a park employee called me over and suggested this jungle safari dealio he was selling. He had a uniform so it was legit. He dismissed the whole Iguazu thing as Disney World and said these safari jeeps hold seven people, max. Of course he could see I was a crowd-hating misanthrope and was working that angle for the pesos, but dammit it worked. So I was to meet at the cool dude spot at four. Right on, man.

               The Iguazu experience was in fact slightly Disney World, at least until you actually get to the falls, at which point nature bitch-smacks the Mickey ears off your head and says, “How ya like me now?” There are four trails, roughly, each with a little complex of snack bar, banos, and souvenir shop. It’s not really easy to escape the fat nor old, as the way has been paved for them so they can keep up with you. There was a train to the first trail, where I hatched a devious plot.

               As someone who hates everyone I don’t know, I’ve become an expert at avoiding crowds. So I’m like, “Hey. This train has about a twenty minute round trip. So the herd jumps off the train and fall victim to the urge, however subconscious, to one-up each other and get there first. So just let the stampede trot ahead and I’ll enjoy the twenty minute lull before the next swarm is disgorged from the train.” Ya know what? BOO-YAH! Worked like a charm. Screw people, right?

               The falls are amazing. Like the Grand Canyon or a perfect night sky, it’s one of those things that simultaneously puts you in your place but also is a revelation of the power of nature that doesn’t always show itself so directly. So in that way maybe it’s an ironically intimate experience of nature where you meet eye to eye and are forced to your knees in respect.

               I did as many of the vistas that I could. There are actually quite a few excellent places to see them. At Niagara there are maybe a tenth of the angles to see, but that’s also because Iguazu is significantly larger. It’s basically like ten Niagaras lined up in a row. Not to say Niagara isn’t great, too – it is. I mean, Iguazu doesn’t have a casino and Hard Rock Café.

               So four rolls around and time for my safari. Let me say I did like it, but really it was just a really bumpy ride down a dirt road and a few stops to look at plants. To be fair, it was maybe a little too chilly for the animals to be romping and scampering. The best thing, though, was that it was just me! The guide was really good and the driver looked like he was One With The Jungle. We at least heard some monkeys – almost definitely in the same jungle we were in – but they had some other business to attend to. Monkey I say monkey business that is….

               Otherwise I saw a couple deer and a really big mouse from a distance. Again, though, I did enjoy it. I guess a big part of it was that I was further away from the Disney World crowd as possible and feeling all smug about it. All they got was pseudo-raccoons.

               Also the jeep dropped me right at the hotel, so I didn’t have to revisit the bus station at twilight. It was nap time, and then down to dinner. Another excellent dinner here at the hotel. This place is tucked away from the main town (YES!) and so it’s not convenient to eat anywhere else. It would suck if the food was blah, but it’s very good.

               Tonight we got a surprise “treat” – a Tango show. In my never-ending eagerness to zig away from the zaggers, I was going to make it a point to stick my nose too far in the air to see any dancing whenever I heard an accordion. But this was actually great. They couldn’t get me to the Tango so they brought the Tango to me.

               I’d never witnessed it first hand. It’s pretty intense. To me it looks like a hyper-exaggerated display of gender roles. It almost looked more like a fight than a dance. The guy had this really intense expression like he was staring down a lion. The woman looked like every move was an affront. At times all the stops and starts and jabbing motions made me wonder if it might possibly be an ancestor of the Robot.

               They did a whole series of dances, and then – shudder – it was audience participation time. The man and the woman started pulling diners kicking and screaming away from their meat and onto the dance floor for some public humiliation to cap off the evening. OF COURSE the woman came for me. Have you seen the Bugs Bunny cartoon with the dopey vulture going “NOPE nope nope nope noooope”? That was me. I tried to shrivel into a tiny ball of Catholic shame, but she apparently wanted revenge for being pushed and pulled and dropped in all the previous dances and sought out the best opportunity to make a guy look like a chump.

               But I liked it! She was pretty cool about it and pretended to compliment me just enough to keep me from crying. We didn’t do the rose-in-the-teeth-cheek-to-cheek thing, but dammit I tangoed! (In my own way.) So that’s done. I don’t feel obliged to have any more tango experiences. Unless another soft, squishy woman offers to teach me. Nicely.

Day 2: 6/6/11... Downloading Apps in the Amazon

               Am I actually in the Amazon? Being a geography buff I’m ashamed to say I’m not sure. But I’ll pretend I am because it sounds impressive to me.

               Who would have thought a seventeen hour bus ride to get here would be enjoyable? I’ve been on one hour flights that were much worse.  This was no ordinary bus. This was fancy. I was only in the middle of three levels of bus comfort, and I was more than satisfied with my bussing experience. The food was really good! Two good meals with wine (!) and also a cookie! One of those fancy wedding cookies. Mine was a half black, half white heart shaped cookie, which I thought was very progressive. If you’re wondering, I can recommend the Bus Wine. By my standards, anyway.

               The only thing bad about the bus journey was the end. Not exactly the fact that it had to end, though. It was this: shake shake / wake up senor / final stop / blink blink / mysterious pre-dawn people and buildings / yawn / stuff too much crap into backpack / blink / yawn / go to get suitcase / ticket? / rummage rummage / examine / no, senor / huh? / ticket. / blink / huh? / ticket. / panic / rummage rummage / eh? / no, senor / huh? / ticket. / more panic / rummage rummage / eh? / ah, si! / gooood morning!

               The good news was that I wasn’t the only confused and half awake foreigner. The bad news was they also didn’t speak English. I noticed they stood with their backs to walls and I followed suit. Gradually my eyes cleared enough to see a “radio taxi” office. They say you should never get a taxi off the street. So I talked to the guy in the office (who was the first person I’ve seen drinking real-deal-mate-with-plant-hanging-out-of-official-container-thingy) and he just went out to a guy on the street for me. I guess the buffer zone of the mate guy made it legit.

               I didn’t see more than a mile of the town of Puerto Iguazu, but I hope what I saw was the bad part. It was pretty typical jungle decay motif. I knew ahead of time that the hotel was on a dirt road (pictures on web site) otherwise I would have been flipping out internally. Taxi guy was cool through and through, though.

               I was about 6 hours early for check-in, so I did some business on the internet until my room was available. A very colorful character led me to my room with all sorts of wacky banter. He was cool. The place (La Cantera Jungle Lodge) is really really nice. Better than most places I usually stay. I like places where there are few enough guests that you could fit them all on a bus. Not a fancy bus, just a school one.

               Not a whole lot happened after getting to the room. A first-in-two-days-so-obviously-awesome shower, and a very long nap. I had some work to wrap up on the computadora, and finally got around to a pre-trip task that I never could: downloading apps for my ipod. In a jungle. As “Angry Birds” flew down from their satellite above, it just struck me as surreal. The accordion version of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” playing probably was a factor. As well as the loud kids watching the Simpsons in Spanish nearby.

               A very excellent dinner wrapped up the evening. Did you know that “Diet Coke” is called “Light Coke” down here? I’m assuming that Argentines don’t have enough of a wide-ass epidemic as we do, so “diet” might not translate as clearly. Although why aren’t “light beers” called “diet beers”? Diet Bud. Is there an app to explain that?

Day 1: 6/5/11 ....Stray Dogs in the Goodwill Dumpster

Here I am in Buenos Aires. I only vaguely remember my decision making process in planning this trip, but I know that it started with not wanting to be sweaty.  I’m very glad to be here, though. And I’m not at all sweaty.

This is my first time visiting a nation in which English is not the first language. It is a very humbling experience. Being unable to communicate verbally is incredibly difficult and actually a little bit frightening - especially being alone with no other English speaker to help solve all the riddles with you. (Also I guess having another person with you who’s having as much trouble takes some of the heat off and makes it clear that you’re not the only idiot.) It’s the first experience of the trip that has really had an impact. It sounds so obvious and banal to say “It’s hard to not speak the language” but it’s different than I imagined. I feel like a child when speaking with anyone, trying not to exhaust their patience. I find myself constantly wanting to apologize yet don’t even know how to say “I’m sorry” in Spanish. Most of the people I’ve met have been kind about it. I’m frustrated because I don’t want to be the Ugly American, expecting accommodation and bumbling about with no apparent awareness. So I say “gracias” as much as possible. If I could remember the word for “sorry” on the fly then I’d say that a lot too.

My first destination was Retiro bus station to catch a bus to Iguazu Falls. I had quite a bit of time to hang around and just watch people. The plane had landed around 5am and my bus wouldn’t leave until 2. Another sad fact, which I was somewhat expecting to find: in my experience with speaking people in America, I’ve only seen, for the most part, people in low income service capacities or maybe day laborers or farm workers. So it was new to see people of Latin descent represent all the strata of society.  I keep trying to imagine parallels of my experiences with those of a Latin person visiting The US. I doubt it’s the same. Anyway, I enjoyed watching some young woman wailing at the top of her lungs, her voice echoing in the cavernous station: “puta” over and over. Some guy was slinking away from her screams with another woman
.

After a while of people watching, I got tired of constantly being paranoid about getting robbed. So I got a rental locker and went around exploring. My eyes were caught by some really colorful buildings and I went to the end of the station for a closer look. Then I saw it. Some people were walking below with a little dog. But the dog was off leash in a busy area and they didn’t seem to care about him at all. He was just doing his own thing. Gradually I saw more and more of them and it dawned on me that they were all strays.

             Stray dogs just walking around everywhere, with no one seeming to worry about it. Que? I kept wondering how they didn’t reproduce like crazy or get rounded up for causing damage. But pretty much the people treated them just like they treated pigeons. I kept wanting to pet them and play with them but I didn’t want to call attention to myself being a tourist.  So I just watched them from out of the corner of my eye.

The dogs were hanging around because of a big market going on. I decided to check it out myself. It was one of those things that I normally wouldn’t do because this was seriously borderline third-world territory. Luckily I hadn’t shaved in a couple days so I figured I could blend. It’s weird how I was paranoid about getting robbed in the station and yet put myself in an environment where it was even more likely.

The market was not exactly what I was hoping for. Pretty much all of it looked like stuff that Goodwill would turn down. There were also a bunch of kiosks offering haircuts. Mostly it was toys, clothes, and random hardware that looked unwanted overall. The American cultural stamp was everywhere. I had been hoping for some more authentic homemade stuff. The products were phony but the people were genuine as far as I could see.

One interesting thing about Argentina so far: There is a fairly clear difference between the American Indian and mixed population and the more European one. Just like America, but not like it seems to be with Mexican-Americans. My friend Jose Luis had spoken about this and mentioned that Argentines are considered “white”. All I know is that there are a lot of very beautiful women here! They wear high heels, though, so I need to find some that dress down.

So back at the bus station. I was at the right place, right time for the bus I was supposed to catch. But when I bought the ticket, the guy showed me that the bus I’d be taking would have a different company’s name on it. “Tigre Iguazu”. All the big double decker buses had gigantic colorful logos on them, and there were bunches of them constantly arriving and departing. Plus the ticket said it might arrive in any parking space from 31 to 50. This was also another situation where Spanish would help. So of course 15 minutes after my scheduled departure I figured I had blown it.

So I went back up in a panic to the ticket office upstairs, and the guy looked over my shoulder as he watched my bus pulling away. This guy was a champ, though. He broke into James Bond mode and started throwing out directions to his action squad, jumped out of his kiosk and said “follow!” to me. We ran full speed out the back door. The bus waited, halted by my hero’s quick decisive action, and revving its engine and hissing angrily at me with its air brakes. At one point the guy grabbed my suitcase handle from me because I was slowing him down. We got there finally and I’m all “gracias gracias gracias” to the ticket guy, the bus driver, anyone making eye contact with me. I wanted to hug the guy and I think he could tell.

                 Well, my neighbors on the overnight Iguazu bus just had to wake me up as I was typing screens full of “/”’s. They explained that they are doctors and worried I might be dead. I expect to dream of being a sneaky dog vainly trying to say “sorry” for barking wrong all the time.