I am On The Road. Have been for the past 10 days, accompanied by my dear friend-from-undergraduate-university, Sabrina. Currently I am in a warm café in rainy Pucon, Chile, a town nestled between a gorgeous lake and an active volcano, about 800 kilometers southeast of my home-that-could-have-been, Valparaiso.
Words are pouring out of me these days, so I’ll recap the past month and move onto a more detailed narration of ‘me these days.’ Brief recap: finished cuatrimestre numero 1 (of 2) at la UBA facu de derecho; continued preying on Buenos Aires’ cultural cuisine; formed friendships, solidified existing amistades and bid adieu to a good number of buena gente that briefly called BAires home; and, of course, participated in a lot of wholesome Rotary fun.
And onto the gift of the present, precious reader-friend:
Eleven days ago, Sabrina and I packed up my belongings, deposited it in my ridiculously-awesome friend Melissa’s sweet Palermo digs and set off On The Road. Ah, delicious Freedom!
‘Me these Days’:
Day 1—
The Sab and I arrived in Bariloche – in the famed Patagonia region of Argentina – surprisingly refreshed after a 20-hour bus ride, greeted by a terrifically grey sky, 'twas a blustery day. And, given that blustery weather rarely, if ever, graces south Florida, I was quite eager to have it out… which turned out to be a very bad idea given the violent wind (think hurricane force, Floridian reader-friends) thrashing Sabrina and me through Bariloche’s streets.
Our very first friends in the hostel were a group of Irish guys. We decided to join the lads for an afternoon of locally brewed cervezas, hearty soups, World Cup futbol and good times at an (incidentally) Irish-run pub around the corner from the hostel. Eight hours, 1 German victory, several rounds of cards and cervezas later, the violent wind and blustery weather continued, as did the good times.
Evidently the weather in Ireland can be (and often is) as grey and blustery as Day 1 Bariloche’s. Lucky for the Sab and me, the Irish blokes (who tell me ‘bloke’ is more of an English word than an Irish one…) generously shared their savvy knowledge of how to make a blustery day of grey burst with shades of fun.
Days 2-3—
Epic skiing on Cerro Catedral, the mountain just outside of Bari. Epic skiing, I tell you, my reader-friend! The ski conditions, especially at the top of the Cerro, were awesome – fresh powder, minimal crowds, pure fun. There’s nothing that quite compares (particularly in Miami!) to the feeling of gliding over packed snow, surrounded by trees and snow and mountains and brooks and streams and everything that is beautiful and magical about winter.
Days 4-7—
S and I hopped a bus from Bariloche to El Bolson on a brilliant – nearly blinding – sunny day.
Bariloche, the city itself, is… interesting. I don’t really have a good sense of the city after a week spent there because staying at hostels can be numbing in the commercial, contrived, path-has-been-dug-worn-and-beaten-by-travelers-before sense.
The city is a pop of development and commercialization, entirely enveloped by sweeping Andean terrain – set on the edge of a vast, mirrored lake and framed by rolling, jagged, rhythmic mountains. The Patagonian sky, the same Argentine azure that makes my heart melt every time I see it, is enormous. The sun looks small – like a tennis ball – in the infinite azure. But, the lake – a mirror – and the snow-capped peaks, produce a remarkable effect when playing with the light bursting from the tennis ball in the sky: the light is reflected, refracted, scattered in every which way.
Bariloche shines, shimmers and glitters in the cacophony of light bouncing from snowy peak to reflective lake to open, heart-melting, azure sky. Every which way goes the light – blinding. Bari’s numbing cacophony of commercialization also glitters under the golden tennis ball. I find commercialization to be sort of vile and kind of offensive, but, alas, my repulsion is softened by the hope that commerce brings resources to a humble native population of weathered Patagonian people.
Back to the bus from Bari to Bolson: I left Bari a bit numb (blame it on the morning spent in town rather than on the Cerro). Twenty-five minutes later, however, there we were – Sabrina and me – contained within a roaring rectangular prism of metal and glass, unapologetically cutting through the thick serenity of the Patagonian wilderness. We were careening on the edge of a mountain in a box of metal, with jagged rocks threatening us from above and an icey lake beckoning from below – my numbness melted into mild terror. Terror has a funny way of making us come alive.
Our bus driver, aggressive and confident, maneuvered the treacherous terrain and we soon broke into a valley, with not a sign of human activity as far as my eyes could see. For as long as I can recall I have been struck by a deep sense of appreciation for reaching places apparently untouched by modern ‘civilization.’ This familiar sense of appreciation invaded me as I stared out the window, iPod in my ears, pouring Iron & Wine’s ‘The Shepard’s Dog’ into my mind (aside: if you have heard and don’t like this album it’s because you’ve never basked in the unending glory of untouched Patagonian beauty). This place, somewhere between Bariloche and El Bolson, is everything I never knew I had imagined when I dreamt of magic. I could feel myself opening up, things inside me stirring – feelings and thoughts I never knew lived within me. (Writing these words now, even, my body aches for this place that I only briefly met, a place I have known for eternity.)
We pulled into El Bolson, a town with no traffic lights that you can only enter and exit via one street, set in a valley with protective mountains smiling from above. ‘Aqui’ where ‘lo magico es natural.’ El Bolson is a town known for its hippie community, Feria de Artesania, cervezas artesanales, homemade jams and homemade ice creams.
On Day 5, S and I went for a ridiculously long hike – nearly 7 hours of curious exploration. Given the season (winter!), so far as I could tell, we were the only USAmericans in the town (really, it was that small that I feel relatively confident with this bold proclamation), and we were practically the only people that set out for a hike on that grey, mid-week day (in the whole 7 hours, we crossed paths, only briefly, with 9 people). Sabbie and I hiked so far that we ended up beyond the limits of the town and had to re-enter through the police checkpoint, relying on our charm to convince the official that we weren’t gypsy wanderers trying to slip into the oasis of peace in the middle of magic wilderness.
There is something about walking 10 kilometers (this is how far we deviated outside the town! We lost our map in between the mountain lookout over the Rio Azul, ‘Cabeza del Indio’ and the ‘Cascada Escondida’ and rather than retrace our steps through the trail decided to follow a dirt road home…) down unpaved roads and past estancias ('ranches'), observing a life so simple and pure, a life that boldly challenges conventional notions (Western notions, really) of how life is meant to be lived. Attribute it to the crisp, clean mountain air (more oxygen, more thoughts!) – or to the chickens, or the sheep, or the horses, or the pigs – or more likely, to the overwhelming, invading sense of peace and tranquility that I gleaned walking past estancia after estancia, fatigue slowly washing over me, curiosity quietly stirring, exploding with a profound sense of appreciation for the apparent simplicity of life in El Bolson.
Wandering down este sendero ('this path'), I reflected on the fact that despite differences in caminos ('walks') through life – among people and cultures all around the world – we all ultimately seek the same ends: love and relationships, connection and significance, purpose and contribution.
Beyond the wandering, our time was spent pow-wowing in an adorable coffee shop adorned with bursting flowering arrangements – generating Energies, excitedly brewing ideas for the future, laughing over memories past, losing ourselves in those moments. There we were, in the middle of this magical place, where the people – like the food, like the terrain – were natural, wholesome and refreshing.
The peace, magic and beauty of El Bolson was cleansing and therapeutic. I returned to Bariloche feeling alive and clean. El Bolson took a piece of my heart and replaced it with magic.
There was a moment – barely into our epic, 7-hour adventure, as we approached the first lookout over the slivering Rio Azul – that I was struck with a deep sense of gratitude for the amount of beauty my eyes have seen in this life. This is absolutely attributable to the abundant privilege I have been afforded, by virtue of my parents, my USAmerican citizenship, my education, and now, by the generosity of Rotary. I have seen in my life so many beautiful things that I now recognize beauty not with my eyes, but with my heart: beauty is a feeling, deep and profound (appreciation, a little bit of love, and a lot of magic).
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