Hello everyone! I am safe here in Buenos Aires. I thought I thought I have been in many international cities, but not quite like Buenos Aires. Looking around as I walk down the street and I see people who look just like any person walking down any street in any big city in the U.S. Probably the most European city in South America. They have light and dark complexion, hair styles and colors similar to ours, as well as the variation in eye color. And yes, they do know how to party and have a good time.
The first night in town I met up with a contact Kevin Gomez gave me. Kevin has worked off and on in Glacier since my first year in the park. His name is Daniel Aliaga and he use to work with Kevin in Chile, where they both taught English as a second language. I rode the subway (subte, short for subterranean) after dark for half hour from city center of San Telmo out to meet him and got lost numerous times. We met at around 9 p.m. We had a cerveza (beer) on the street and then met up with three local girls. One was named Nancy, Loreña and Fermanda and then we went to my first giant club in Buenos Aires.
Hundreds upon hundreds of people, packed like sardines in a windowless building, with smoke, fog and disco lights fabricating the effect of hallucinating. They danced the Samba, Salsa and Tengo all night while I attempted multiple times and we danced to the wee hours of dawn, which is expected in the city that never sleeps. I think I could get use to this schedule of staying up all night, then go to work or sleep in and get up for breakfast and then siesta, then sight-see and lunch followed by sight-seeing, then siesta and go out for dinner around nine p.m. then dance and celebrate the night away. This lifestyle reminds me of a cat, except cats don´t party, but if they did it would be quite similar.
Yes, as many of you heard there is many beautiful women here. In fact, it is a far cry from Mantana (which don´t get me wrong does have many gorgeous women, as well), but in Buenos Aires it is hard pressed to find an ugly one. It is nice to be in a big city where the ratio is evenly played out. Coming from Mendota, via Kishenehn cabin in the north fork of Glacier National Park and the nearest city is 45 miles from any town which is just small potatoes to a city of over 4 million and the surrounding area is 12 million. The ratio is incredible, like an oasis in a vast and sparse country, which is enormous. Argentina is the length of the southern tip of Mexico all the way north to almost the Yukon Territories in Canada.
I will definitely be taking spanish lessons in Mendoza in the next few days for two weeks. It is extremely frustrating and quite pathetic of how retarded I feel trying to carry on a conversation with people my age when I speak like a two year old. It is a shame that in America we are not forced to learn numerous languages like the rest of the world. I am nearly 34 years old and speak like a baby. If I was in another country I would know 3-4 or more. Luckily, people here have been kind, honest, generous and patient with me. I do not know what I was thinking coming down here without being fluent, but now it is either sink or swim and I choose to swim.
It is very crazy to be walking around as a nameless person in a sea of faces. It is very humbling, even humiliating at times, but amazing at the same time. It is extremely hot and humid like the Mid-west and New Orleans. I chose to move to Montana years ago to escape that clammy sensation of getting out of the shower and having your shirt stick to your back while drenched in sweat, but that is also due to the sweat gene my father´s side.
I am staying at a youth hostel called, "THE ART FACTORY", and yes it is a scene like most hostels are. There are over 35 rooms with 4-6 bunkbeds in each room with several languages being spoken with people from all over the world. Yes, the hostel is designed by artists with murals painted everywhere on every wall.
Buenos Aires is very much like the west coast of America where nobody gets married until they are in their late thirties and early forties, if at all, unless kids come into the picture. I do not know if I could live like this forever, meaning up all night dancing and celebrating life, but definitely for awhile. Celebration of life makes one want to move their dancing feet and lively up yourself as the late-great muscial prophet Bob Marley sung. I thought my nick name is "Jammin" and it is, but these people know how to shake their hips and tip-toe across the dance floor no matter how crowded it gets. I heard someone once describe tengo as a vertical expression of a horizontal intention. And oh, how true! It is quite lovely to watch people who know how to tego, tengo.
I wish the keyboards were not so wornout and difficult to use. The symbols on the buttons are quite different and some do not even work at all.
Instead of Heinz ketchup being the main Ketchup brand, it is called Danica. Argentine beef is world famous and quite delectable I must say. Argentine women and some men do not like to speak English, even if they know how and I sympathize, because english has been the language of conquest and death to the so called other for quite some time. I understand I came down here and I should learn to speak their language and not expect them to speak and know mine.
The first settlers to Buenos Aires settled in an area called, La Boca. It is a very poor section of town that I was instructed not to travel in alone. Normally, I challenge and warrant danger because of an adventurous soul but I choose to abide at least for today. Tomorrow I will go if I find companions. It is known for its vibrant colors. If rainbows were liquid and captured in buckets and then the buckets were used to paint the walls of the region it is there. I want to see the expression of their souls.
Fashion is very important here, but luckily they accept ´dirtbags´ like myself. According to the current counter-cultural definition of a dirtbag, it is someone who is willing to be an international vagabond and live out of rucksack or backpack, living simply to see the world with all its colorful and beautiful people, languages, art and the landscapes that influenced all of them. As my good friend Nate Schwab said last year during the wolverine study as we were skiing up the Nyack drainage, "Freedom is not free." Nor should it be. It comes with a price for those willing to leap in the arms of the universe or be placed like baby Moses in a bull rush basket and let the river of life and fate choose its direction.
Eucalyptus trees abound here in the city parks and Acacia trees with giant bouquets of lilac-like flowers. Earlier in my blog posting I placed a link to a famous composer playing a song to the famous movie "THE MISSION", which was about the Gurani Indians of this area along the river where Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay meet. Today I had the fortunate opportunity to be sitting in the city plaza where a Gurani Indian was playing the Oboe to that very song. Tears started to form in my eyes as I listened to the serendipitous ways of the universe. Muy Bien!
I will be posting pictures at a later time to all of this when I figure out these archaic computers and not limited to fifteen minute alotments.
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