FEW MORE CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

First of all, I want to relate a story of what I said the other day while I was sitting in the bus station and was  ordering  food at a restuarant.  I was getting ready to get on the bus and after I ordered some food I decided I should get some more for the long bus ride to Mendoza.  Well, I was practicing my spanish or the lack thereof and I wanted to order a super hotdog (Chicago-style or Argentinian-style) and  instead of saying I want one, I said, Ï have a super big Hot Dog!¨   The waiter just looked at me and smiled and said ´no´ we do not have that (in spanish).

Another cultural difference is when in public places and want to use the bathroom, you have to grab the toilet paper before going into the stall, rather than reaching over and grabbing it while sitting there.  I learned this the difficutlt way.  This is only in very busy public places like the supermarket.  Hostels, cafe´s and restuarants it is the ¨normal¨ way.  Also, like in Mexico you don´t flush the paper down the toilet, but place in a bin.

Another interesting thing is that not only do people take siestas in the afternoon, but it seems so do computers and the inernet providers.  They become super slow and chill.

I am taking spanish classes through the ¨Fumdacion de Brasilia¨.   My teacher is older Argentine woman in her early forties to mid forties.  Her name is Luara and she lived and taught spanish in Italy for eight years.  Her english is not that great, but neither is my spanish, but we work well together somehow.  I took two hours yesterday, two and half today, two and half tomorrow and three hours on Friday.  I took two years of spanish back in high school, which was seventeen years ago and grew up in town that is 40% spanish speaking.  I am not a beginner and am not quite an intermediate.  Luckily, the professora is working with my skill level and starting somewhere in between.   My mental rolodex is flipping quickly back through mental pages of the past to bring back what I learned so long ago.  It is going quite well.   She says I am quite smart and sharp.  She must not know me too well.  Hah!

Speaking French or Francais would come in quite handy in this hostel.  I would say 80% of the clientele and a few of the staff  are either from France or fluent in Francais.  Some of the guests are my age and younger, while others are quite older like in their sixties or even seventies.  I met  a couple from Paris yesterday, Alex and Sara and Alex looks like a spitting image of my good friend Kevin Gomez.  They could almost pass for twins, but definitely brothers.

I noticed while visiting Mendota and Chicago that many of the Latinos have mohawk hairstyles currently.  This is also true down here in Argentina.  Young kids and men my age both have mohawks and lots of tattoos.  Let´s just say I fit in quite well here.   Also, it seems to me that I could say the majority of Europeans and Argentinans smoke cigarettes.  It is a way of bonding with people.  Luckily, throughout my adult life starting in high school  I would smoke for a month or two and then be able to stop.  I have had a few down here, but have always been able to quit cold turkey everytime.  I guess I am fortunate because I know many people who cannot.  The saying goes, ¨When in Rome.¨

Tango is not as popular here as Buenos Aires, which I am surprised about.  I thought it would be prevalent throughout the entire country, but is not.  You can still find it, though.

I was sitting at an Irish Pub last night (yes, the Irish have been everywhere!) and noticed all the different words for beer from throughout the whole world; bere, cerveja, OL, bier, alus, IIIB(upside down V), olut, birra, beer, cerveza, bjor, cervexa, beam, bia, cwrw and biero.  Can´t tell you where they are all from, but could probably figure out a good majority of them.

Mendoza has a very temperate climate, not quite mediterraen, but very similar and great for growing olives and wine.  Another breakfast or all day drink that one must experience while in Argentina is yerba mate.  This is where it comes from and  if it is offered to you, one must accept and even feel honored.  Yeah, you have to grow accustomed to it.  Sometimes it can give off  the aroma of cat piss. I have been drinking it for years in the states.  It is kind of combination between green tea and coffee.  It has no caffeine, but has a cousin to it called mateine.  Coffee makes one jittery and mate is smooth sailing all day.  You typically drink  mate out of wooden gourd with a metal straw (bombilla).  You fill up the gourd with crushed mate leaves and pour hot water (not scalding) over the leaves.  It is a ritual that people pass around in a group like Native Americans do with a peace pipe or hippies do with joints.  It is not a drug, though.  In fact, it is very healthy for you.  It  is high in antioxidants, vitamin C, fights gengivitis (bad breath), and good for your heart and helps with mental clarity.  I love it.  The coffee is not so good here, because it is instant coffee.

I went  to the Museo de Arte Moderno the other day here in Mendoza and these are some of the pictures I took there.

The artist´s name who carved all these stautues from wood.

My amigos I met at the hostel, Phillipe and Vera from Switzerland.  They have been traveling for 4.5 months and have 4.5 months to go.

The mentality of the  wine tour.

I  have been invited to a couple of asados (BBQs).  They really put ours to a shame.  So much food!  It was rediculously amazing and good. Two friends from Germany and the Chef, Martin in the back.

Soon,  I won´t be writing in this everyday, I just happen to be staying in a hostel this week while I am taking spanish classes. Soon I will  be exploring the mountains, glaciers (that are not melting, but one of the few places  in the world where they still are growing) and alpine lakes down in Patagonia (the area both in southern Argentina and Chile.

KNOWING THE VINO (wine) and climbing the Mountains

The province of Mendoza is home to over 1200 wineries, which is all  mainly Malbec.  Malbec is the most important wine center in all of South America and is also part of the Great Wine Capitals of the World of next to Melbourne (Australia), Bordeaux (France), San Francisco -Napa Valley (USA), Porto (Portugal), Bilbao-Rioja (Spain), Cape Town (South Africa) and Florence Italy.  Mendoza has16,983,160,704 hectares of vineyards (75% of the country).  Mendoza is not only a city, but is the capital of the province of Mendoza.

This Saturday I am going to rent a bike and tour wineries and am looking forward to this event.  I believe one could do this any day of the week.

I was in the big grocery store (like a Wal  Mart, but thanks goodness that beast is not here, yet) the other day and I noticed you can buy a motorcycle for roughly 550 pesos.  That is like 125 US dollars.  I could buy a motorcyle that looks  like an old classic Indian, the only problem with all of this, is gas is over 4.00/gal. and getting a license, insurance, regeristration and a title is what costs so much and very time consuming.  One other small hurdle is that I have only driven a motorcycle once and that was Jason Bradner´s YZ 80 back  in high school around his yard.  The bike I am looking at is a 250cc Patagonia Eagle, which is a pretty sharp looking bike.

The other thing I really want to do while in the Mendoza area is climb Mt. (cerro) Aconcagua, which translates ´roof of the Andes´ or ´stone setinel´.  It is the highest peak in the western hemisphere, which is also the highest peak outside of the Himalayas. It is around 23,536 feet tall.  It is considered one of the seven summits to climb on seven different continents.  Of the seven it is the highest outside of Mt Everest.  I have already climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro (the highest on the African continent), which is 19,340 feet above sea level.  The only problem with this is it costs from 4-5,000 US dollars to go with a group or if I can find an unguided group it would cost a lot less, but takes up to 15 days or more to do cause of access  to the mountain and Kilimanjaro only took four days up and two days down cause of easier access.   I could afford it, but that would mean ending my trip early and not coming home with much dinero.  I never plan on doing Mt.  Everest cause it can cost from 60,000 to 100,000 U.S. dollars and frankly I have nothing to prove.

Everest use to be a spiritual pilgrimage for the climber who did it because of the grueling physical, mental, emotional challenges this feat causes, but now sherpas carry rich arrogant people practically to the top.  It use to be transformational experience, but now the rich go into the experience an a--hole and come back still an arrogant pig.  That is unfortunate!  In 1985 a climbing group found an Inca mummy on the South Face at 5300km up proving once to be an ancient pre-Columbian funerary site.  The Andes are really hard to access.  There is a highway that goes upfrom Mendoza through and over the Andes to the capital of of Chile, Santiago.  Elevation sickness or Altitude sickness is a serious thing that can kill one due to lower oxygen in the air.  There are several ways up the mountain.  One is a technical route which one needs ropes, crampons, ice axes and the other route is not technical.

Altitude can affect anyone no matter on their physical shape or endurance.  In fact, when climbing Kilimajaro from the Machame route, one starts at 3,000ft then goes up to10,000 then up to 12,500.  That next day, day three the day we acclimated, we started at 12,500 that day and we went up 2,000 feet, then back down 1800, so only went up 200 ft allowing our minds and bodies to adapt.  My head felt like it was in a vice and someone else was cranking away at it.  It made me stumble around and  fall.  I went to bed early that night and told myself I had nothing to prove and would give up if I did not feel better the next day.  Later I woke up for  dinner and still did not feel good.  Normally, I have a huge appetite and ate barely a third of my meal.  Luckily, the next day I felt great and continued up to base camp at 15,000ft.  Then we began climbing at 11 p.m that same night and arrived at the summit at sunrise and again my head starting hurting and I stumbled and fell multiple times coming down.  Luckily, one would have to hurl themselves off the mountain to get hurt.  It is not steep or technical just high.

Yesterday, I walked around in town and walked out to the largest city park in all of Argentina called Pargue de General San Martin.  Huge park with giant Sycamores lining  the streets, with Palm Trees, century plants (which is a giant cactus that blooms every so many decades shooting a shoot up 20 feet in the sky and blooming a flower, which is an agave plant that tequila comes from).  Also saw prickly pear plants, tons of flowers in rose gardens and carnation bushes in bloom.

Mendoza Monkey Hostel

Mendoza is not like Montana, but is more like far southwestern Texas (Big Bend National Park), Arizona or New Mexico combined with California´s lushness.  It is very dry here here and desert-like with lots of palm trees, monkey puzzle trees (aruacarias) and Sycamore trees.  Many flowers abound in the city parks.  I went walking for several hours throughout parque de San Martin, which is Argentina´s largest city park.  It resides on the western side of Menodoza´s outskirts and looks into the face of the cordillera (or foothills) of the Andes. I climbed up to a high spot trying to get a look at some snow capped peaks,  but they were too deep in there and I could not see past the foothills.  The citizens of Argentina take much  pride in their city parks as you could tell in  number of  people out hiking, walking, jogging, rollerblading, biking,  motorcycling through the roads that run through the heart of the park. I am sure it is comparable in size to Central  Park in New York City.  Pigeons, parakeets abound in the treetops with geckos (lizards) scurrying across the ground in front of you.  Century Plants (which are Agave plants that tequila is made from) are giant cactus plants that shoot a stalk up the middle of them like 20 ft tall and bloom a flower every couple of decades to a century hence the name also abound throughout the park.  Prickly Pears also abound near the century plants in the drier sections.  There is a giant concrete-lined lake in the middle of the park along with giant fountains and statues every so many blocks.

Mendoza is the fourth biggest city in the country of Argentina (which is little over 130,000).  I signed up for espanol classes today and will be taking classes for 2-3 hours a day for the next week.  The price of this was 810 Argentine pesos equaling 200.25 American dollars roughly.  I don´t think I can take classes the week after that with Holiday or Christmas and everything.  So I will probably head down into Patagonia and go hotspringing in San Martin De Los Andes (which is suppose to be like Chamonix of France or Jackson Hole, WY) then head to El Bolson (the hippie headquarters of Argentina), which falls along an energy line or meridian hotspot where being in that area causes one to feel groovy because of the power of the mountains and the different energy meridian lines that transect there.  Then I will be heading deep into the mountains to get  a dose of nature and the Andes and then head to El Chalten which is like OZ (if you think Glacier National Park is surreal then google this).  You just walk out of town and start hiking in the face of giant granite spires towering to the sky.  It is where many of the pictures are taken for the Patagonia clothes catalog of people flocking to this climbing mecca.  I am going to try to get in touch with the head wildlife biologist of all of Argentina, which I have his info and we have been in correspondance to see if he could line me up volunteering with wildlife somewhere for a month or so before I volunteer on an organic farm/estancia.  We shall see.  The trickster of the  universe likes to monkey wrench with  people´s plans and my original plans of studying giant anteaters fell through in parque de Ibera.  Everything works out for the better if one believes it.

I am staying at a hostel in downtown Mendoza called ¨Mendoza Monkey Hostel¨.  There is  a picture of three chimpanzees driving a truck with one monkey covering his ears (monkey see), the other one covering his eyes (monkey hear) and the other one covering his mouth  (monkey do, just like the movie in the eighties).  It is total different vibe then the last hostel I stayed in called The Art Factory.  It is very nice but unfortunately it is filled with nothing but couples who seem to be uptight and not to outgoing.  I did meet a few single people.  One girl named Brita from MN, (who left today), A guy named Julien from Quebec and then two beautiful girls from Britain or Australia, but unfortunately did not get to hangout with them because they were too tired and then left this morning.

I guess the couple thing has to do with the time of the year and is not always like this.  GOOD!  The place does have a pool and a bar with free breakfasts of bread, cereal, juice and coffee or tea in the mornings like most hostels.  It is 60 ARG pesos or 15 American dollars a night with a bed and shower, bar, kitchen, pool.  Also went to do my laundry today but had to take it to a walmart like grocery store and  they do it for you for about five dollars.  Soccor is huge here.  Tango is not as big as in B.A  but did learn of a place with free tango lessons which I will totally hit up since living on a budget and trying to be smart with my money, but it still vanishes rapidly.  I went grocery shopping yesterday so I don´t eat out once a day.  One can  use the kitchen for free in a hostel with almost everything one needs.

MENDOTA TO MENDOZA via Chicago and Buenos Aires (edited version)

It was nice to leave the heat and humidity of Buenos Aires.  I arrived safely in Mendoza this morning.   It is nice to have my snot locker breathe purely and freely once again and not be so stuffy.  One thing I did  not like about the city is that it will not be winning a blue ribbon prize for being the cleanliest city in the world, but it will find a special drawer in my heart where it will  be placed too live forever.

There are different alcohols brewed, grown and developed from particular regions of the world like vodka from Poland and Russia, tequila from Mexico, whiskey and burbon from Kentucky and Tennessee, Carribean Rum, Scotch from Scotland,  fine French wines or Malbecs  from Argentina´s Mendoza country.   The night before last had Fernet, which is Argentina´s liquor.  It is mixed with coka-cola and tastes like medicine.  It is similar to Yeagermeister, but is different. It  does taste like  DayQuil or NyQuil and will cause adverse affects if  taken in large doses  or even two glasses followed by beer and produces the feeling of  your heart pumping  in your brain just like any sugary alcoholic drink will  do.  I  don´t want to  sound  like an alcoholic becuase I am not, but I do like to try new things.  Any type of medicine is good for you up to certain point, but is lethal if taken to excess.  Moderation is key, but even moderation needs to be kept in check.  The  greek gods of Apollo (purity) and Dionysius (revelry) need to be awarded the ring in our lives to battle it out and but not allowing either one to rule too much or it will throw one out of balance.  Quielmes is one of the local beers both found in stout and lager\pilsner form.   Quielmes is named after a historic region found in the Tucuman province of northern Argentina. It is pre-hispanic settlement dating back to 800  B.C. and by the mid- 17th century had over 10,000 inhabitants.  It is cool to have a beer named after something historical rather than Budweiser (But wiper).  Another one is cerveza of the Andes and Isenbeck.



I was in bus station along the port outside of Buenos Aires and was people watching, which is a great pasttime.  I could not help but notice how short Peruvians, Bolivians and Guatemalans are. Yeah, numerous friends have told me this multiple times, but to actually witness this first hand is different.  They are seriously like pygmies.  I can see why when the Spanish Conquistadors and Portugeuse first came to this region that they would have appeared as gods and giants.  It is very fascinating, yet strange that the whole world over there is so many variations in the human genome, yet we are all the same with the drive to procreate, have dreams, hopes, desires and self-preservation.  Many more commonalities than differences, but first let´s explore the differences.  It all comes down on where one has lived, adapted  and evolved over thousands of  years.  For example, the closer one lives to the equator their skin is darker to protect the body from UV rays and people who live further away have fairer skin. When you bring climate, weather (cause they are different), elevation, food types into the equation the genome gets jumbled and out comes pygmies with short, rotund bodies, short limbs and huge rib cages due to elevation and then you have giant 7 and 8 ft tall Africans with huge nasal passages in their snot lockers from the equatorial regions to breathe in oxygen and separate the heat and moisture from the air so it does not turn to water in the lungs and who adapted so see over the tall savannah grasses.  Then you have Chinese and other Asians with squinty eyes to protect them from the sun´s rays because of elevation and nearing the equator.   Then as you go further north not only is the gradient of skin color slowly changing, but so are the eyes and nasal passageways and height shrinking the further you go.  The mountainous peoples of the world have huge lungs and rib cages to protect them, which allows them to breathe in more oxygen from the lack thereof, the higher you go up.  Sure I have studied this is anthropology classes and I guess it is finally paying off thanks college debt, but it is all different when experiencing it first hand.

Another cultural difference between Argentina and the United States is that they think it is good luck to step in dog poop which happens a lot on the city sidewalks of B.A. because it is prevalent.  But, what I don´t get is that it sucks to clean it off your shoes and I despise doing it and it stilll smells like dog shit and frankly my dear, it is.

I think every person in the world should be forced to world travel and maybe spend some time serving ones country through military or volunteering in Americorps or something because we would be less likely to send our kids off to war and get behind the war mongerers so quick to bang the war drums if our own kids were enlisted.  I find it is a lot harder to go off and kill someone from another country when you have been in that country and met those people.  That way we experience them and their cultural ways first hand and it starts to make sense.  It is easy to dehumanize a culture and people when you don´t know them.  When you get down to it, they are just like you and I.

All the friction, chaos, unpredictability that pesters life is what paints the world with all of its beauty.  Too emphasize the after life and have a place germ-free and secured  by angels is to deny life and frankly I thought Jesus was about abundance of life and living it fully here and now.  Not once does he talk about it coming later.

Yesterday before I left The Art Factory Hostel I met Sean from New Zealand who is a surfer and has been traveling for the past ten months.  He started in B.A. then went up through Bolivia, Columbia to Panama and then to Cuba and back down to Uraguay and leaving  in a few days.  Super cool dude.   We got along great.

Last night I rode a first class, bus that far exeeeds transportation system in U.S. like Greyhound or Amtrak, plenty of leg room, seats recline way back, super cushy seats, free meals , which I wish I would have realized before bringing food.  Movies and air conditioning were also included in the price.

Riding through the Argentina´s countryside it was uncanny how much it resembles the Mid-west with tree-lined, square plotted, flat field lands carved for agriculture and I could definitely see this from the plane days before.  I woke up this morning to look out the window and be greeted by the highest and longest snow-crested mountain range in the western hemisphere, The Andes.  It feels good to back closer to the mountains and feels more like home.   

Also met a guy named Brian from Indiana area who is going to volunteer just south of Buenos Aires and  in the north-eastern part of  Patagonia, in an area known as the Pampas region with the famous Guachos (the Argentine cowboys).  He will work at an estancia building a fences and herding cattle the old school way.  I told him he will  have the time of his life doing that.  If my original plans fall through I might see if I can do that, nothing like sweat and shedding a little blood with red, hot blisters bubbling forth from one´s palms helps to make friends more quickly through hard physical labor.

I find it interesting that I normally sleep 8-10 hours a day and that ends up being a third of ons life.  I notice sleeping a lot less that my mind is more clear and  remember my dreams so much more and that I have so much more time in the day to follow my bliss through adventure and writing about it.

First of all,to travel  is to leave the comfort zone of  family, friends, work and a sense of  place,´locality of origin, and especially to  know one deeply like I think I do  in Montana, like knowing many of the plants and some of their uses, some birds by sight and call, animals by tracks, scat, dens, techniques of killing prey species, but to leave all of that behind to see and experience a different side of the world, learn a  new language, make more friends, share a laugh and smile, food or a beer is a very fortunate thing indeed.

At the same time it is easy to fall into comfort zones even while traveling, the comfort and security of a hostel (the vibes, the people, the location, the connections, knowledge of the plants and birds.  At the same time to even step out of that shell of comfort and shed that skin is also a kind of metamorphosis.  It takes a certain willingness and drive with a level of deep faith, trust, hope, and drive to want to grow and shed and build new ideas and meet new people.  It is a perfectly normal human condition to want security, but to take a step out into the unknown and face the deep abyss within ourselves makes one face the demons of fear and conquer them and then realize they are actually angels releasing us from those unforeseen fears.  It is a really powerful feeling of ecstasy to realize you, me or one can do it.  One can land on their feet if they just take a leap not seeing the landing in the dark.  The level of faith and trust one must take when traveling internationally gives one a level of self-confidence in oneself that you might  not normally get.  In a sense it is like a Zelda game and you have to find different things to advance to the next level.

The very essence of travel is to move from one physical location to another, but it is just as much an internal journey through the layers of our own hearts and peeling back the layers of our minds that keep them opening up to the full range of what is possible and severing the cords and breaking down the walls that separate us from each other.  Trusting the quiet voice of intuition found in our hearts or guts and listening to our instincts and allowing the little mustard seed in our souls to grow and see the light, allowing it to guide us deeper into ourselves and deeper into the world.  This mustard seed is a kind of compass allowing the universal lovers or brothers and sisters of Fate and Destiny to do what they may with our life.

A Bev Dolittle rendition that I drew reflecting the natural spirits all around us. There are ten faces coming out of the landscape.

All the powers of super heroes, gods and goddesses are not outside ourselves, but are the very things inside of ourselves that reveal our humantiy and teach us to feel deeper and laugh louder and more often.  We  don´t need more gods or goddesses or idols to put on an invisible shelf in the sky, but we need each other like sister and brother.  We created this mess that the world now faces and by god we are going to be the  ones to find resolutions to fix it.  Some super hero is not going to come save us.  As the great singer\songwriter Greg Brown sings, ¨It is a messed up world and love it anyway.¨  In another line he sings, ¨Life is thump-ripe mellon, so sweet,  yet such a mess.¨ Life with all its twists and turns, ups and downs is the only one we will ever have and we are to live it and live it abundantly.  The whole idea of life and humanity as fallen and cursed is an archaic form of pure and silly rediculousness and unnecessary Christian guilt is something to be shooken off like fleas from a dog.  It is not healthy to live like we got to win gods love. I have sat plenty of times in the waiting room of life just sitting patiently for LIFE to come knocking upon the door.  Well, it never came.  I just sat and sat until my bum grew tired and my skin grew hard as iron and my breath smelled like kerosene like Townes Van Zandt wrote and sung first and Willie Nelson made popular.

Another drawing of mine that is a Bev Dolittle rendition representing the circle of life that is not yet completed and won´t be for quite sometime.

Sorry about the rant, but then again I am not.  An artist job is nudge, push, provoke and transcend the everyday common  knowledge and mis-information the media fills us with.  I am not trying to preach because the moment I do I become my worst enemy.  This is more of a public testimony of a recorded memoir and journey of self-discovery and the realizations that come along the way.

In a book I read last year by the travel writer for National Geographic and various others, Doug Chadwick wrote a book called, ¨The Wolverine Way¨,  he describes the way of the wolverine as, ¨To go high and hard and not back down from anything and not to deal in half-truths.¨ I have in the last decade of my life or so tried to live by this.  Wolverines are constantly on the move, running thirty miles a day and climb mountains like it is noone´s business.

Last winter, I volunteered on a wolverine project in Glacier National Park  and we cross-countried skiied into  the backcountry carrying deer front quarters on our backs  and then cut down ten foot posts to bolt the deer leg too. We also screwed 10-12 gun cleaning wire-mesh brushes up at the top of  the post and to snag hair  from  the world´s largest weasel as it would climb to the top to get to the leg.  We captured a lot of hair for sending into to a DNA lab for testing, but did not see any.

Needless to say, back in 2004, summer in the high country in Glacier, Lyndsay Lomair and I had the fortunate opporunity of watching the sunset and we heard a deep ´woof´, followed by an eerie screaming screech that  left the hair on the back  of my neck standing straight up and then another woof´´.  This was going on right in front of us as the last moments of dusk was changing to night.   We decided to  head back  down to the cabin.  The next day I  told my crew about it and my friend Vin  and I climbed up to this spot to watch the sunset and look to see if we could see anything.  We sat for awhile and then were about  to give up when a wolverine came loping around the corner  down the trail right towards us.  I was sitting closer to the wolverine and Vin was on my left, and I knew that he had never seen one.  For some odd  reason instincts took over and I took  off sprinting after it and he followed.  Luckily, it turned around  and slid in its tracks and ran off the other direction.  I knew if it ran it would allow a great viewing  area around the corner, which it did.  It could have easily torn our faces right off and ate both of  us for dinner.   The next day I heard from someone who worked in that area that they found a dead mountain goat and dragged it off trail.   Well, a wolverine is only a 35 lb animal and is completely fearless and can scare a 1000 lb. griz off of kills.  So I put two and two together and realized the woofing sound was a griz  and the screaming, blood curtling call was a wolverine and they were discussing whose meal  it was going to be.

I don´t mean  to go off on a tangent, but I do, I want to leave the reader with two quotes.  The  first one I wrote this fall, ¨Fearlessly follow your dreams because  if you reveal  the slightest doubt or fear, your dreams will forever run from you because they will see you are not worthy of attaining them.¨ The other one comes from High Country News article called Author Faux  Files about Cody Cortez, ¨The way of the artist is incredibly hard,  but you have to cowboy up.¨


(Also would appreciate if people would sign in to the right.  You don´t have to change your email address, use the one you have.  It is quite simple.)

THE BIG APPLE

They say New York City is the city that never sleeps, but you can throw that apple out with the bath water.  I have never been to NYC, but just being here I bet this apple has more flavor, character, spice and a sweeter crunch.  I am sad to leave Buenos Aires, but I will be back in about two months and then again in three, hopefully speaking spanish more like a local. It will be nice to have a rest.

Today I hop an omnibus and ride to Mendoza, Argentina.  It is the home of the famous Malbec wines.  I hear it is in the rain shadow of the Andes and is actually a sort of desert and they irrigated the vineyards to grow their famous grapes.  I am going there to escape the humidity, but probably not the heat.  It should be a dry heat and not moist, which will be more like Montana.  It is in the west of the country.  I leave at around 5:45 p.m. and arrive there in the morning around 7:55.  Their bus systems are suppose to be luxurious.

I am going there to take spanish lessons at an institute, stay in a hostel, unless arrange to stay with a host family.  Also I keep hearing you can rent a bike and do a wine tour via bicycle.  Can´t wait.

Last night met up with Daniel again and we went out on the town at like ten p.m and we went and heard live music.  It was a jazz, folk fusion with a woman singer.  They were great.  While there met a man and his wife, she was Argentinian and he was from Eugene, OR.   They have been married for three years living both in the states and here.  They avoid the rainy season of Eugene in the winter months, which I completely understand.  He moved there in 1997, the year before I lived there.

After that we went to another bar and heard other musicians playing accousic guitars and playing a kind of flamenco music. They were older gentlemen and were awesome.  It was an extremely old bar that was small and crowded.  Supposedly at one point we were standing next to a movie star without realizing it.  Also met a gorgeous actress from Barcelona, who spoke a different variety of espanol called castellano.  Also met some local girls and one girl´s name was Daniela and we might meet again down in Patagonia and she invited me to a New Years Party in Bariloche.  I will keep my options open, but nice to have contacts.  Also rode the oldest subway line (the blue line) in all of South America.  It was all wooden on the inside with wooden seats and wooden framed windows that slide down inside the wall and have completely open air.

Tango anyone?!? (with edits)

Yesterday, I walked all over the city alone.  I probably know this city better than any other city I have ever been in.  I find myself getting lost all the time, but also finding where I need to go and most importantly be.  Last night I took my fist tango lessons.  At the hostel I am staying at, they had free lessons.  It is a dance of give and take, much like a relationship or even an argument or a fight. It is similar to skiing as well, in the fact that one must keep chest and shoulders forward and upright and direct the lady with your chest. You would switch partners every five minutes.  I danced with a girl named Alex from Paris, France and a girl named Rommel (which looked like an earlier version of my mother), from Santa Cruz, California and a girl from New Zealand and several from Buenos Aires. We learned several steps in a couple hour period.  Sorry ladies it will take many more lessons before we tango!

After tango I went out to the bar, also in the hostel and met a woman Sari who is from Vienna, Austria and she is actually Kurdish.  I also met a man named Cliff from Tuscon who was a brewer and is now finding ways to mine titanium sustainably and ecologically.  He explained it to me and it makes since.  I am glad some company is willing to do this and try new environmentally friendly techniques to a very destructive practice.  Titanium is found in anything from cell phones, computers, sports equipment and screws that hold people´s limbs together.  I also met a guy named Randall from Duluth, MN who lived in Whitefish, MT and worked as a lifty on Big Mountain Ski Resort one winter.  So that was super cool talking about the homeland.  I have also met two Brits, Don and Michael who volunteer at the hostel.  Also met a man from Portugal named Migel that plans on revolutionizing microsoft smart phones.  While at the bar a band came and played some folk, reggae and and hip hop mixes.  The singer was a woman who had a voice like Annie DeFranco\Patty Griffin.  She had a lot of soul.  There was also a Jamaican looking rasta who played the acoustic guitar and rapped in spanish after she would sing in engliish.  There were two guys playing electric guitar and drums.

There is an electricity in the air (also hot and humid) that does not allow one to sleep easily.  There is just a current of energy that makes you want to go out on the town or just stay up late.  I tried to sleep at say 2 or 3, but just could not.  Also might be due to the intellectual conversations we got into about history of countries, nation building, state of the world and religion (that all too devisive control mechanism).

Today I walked to La Boca by myself and got lost in some of the dirtiest and poverty-stricken slums I have ever been in.  I never felt threatened at all, which is a good thing.  The place was as magical and vibrant as expected.  I watched and listened to professional musicians playing music while professional tango dancers danced while I ate a fine Argentine sirloin steak, with bread and olive oil and salad.  On the way there it was very poor, but very touriste once I was there.  Vendors and artisians selling paintings and clothing.  Tons of outdoor restaurants and good vibes.  Some people did speak English.

On the way back I walked by the Boca soccer (el futbol) stadium, where the world famous Boca Juniors play.  I don´t follow soccor, but they are suppose to be phenomenal!  The Stadium was navy blue and yellow just like the teams color.  There is so much team spirit like a patriotic furor for their beloved team.

Baby steps!!

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.