2 to the zero

Buenos Aires and I have arrived at a point in our relationship where we can openly opine about one another without fear of tearing at the fabric of our friendship. I love her enough to hate her. In fact, the things I love most about her, when untempered, are the very things I hate her for.

Take, for example, her energy: On Friday night I opted against a night out with friends and fun in favor of a night in with myself and movies. I drifted to sleep just after watching the final scenes of Jodorowsky's 'El Topo' (gracias for the indirect rec, Arturito!) only to be startled awake just before 6 am – alarmed by an explosive uproar that jumped into my bedroom from the street 4 floors below. I peeked over my balcony and saw, illuminated by dawn's glow, a frenzied mass of gentlemen enthusiastically engaging in body-to-body combat. (I assume the boys had been thrown out of one of the bars that line the block around the corner from my departamento.) Unsettled by the zealous display of savagery, I retreated from the damp morning air and back into bed. The barks from the bodies below continued for – I kid you not, friend reader – 30 minutes more.

Boys will be chicos. I have seen many a fight in my day; this fight was not particularly remarkable save for the ostensible fervor demonstrated by the chicos. What struck me was the herd's manic energy – that I gleaned despite the separating 4 floors of humid air. Obvio, the quarrel was testosterone-fueled, and, set afire by a flame of passion – that unfettered Argentine energy.

This energy I saw manifest in a more friendly form 2 weeks ago, at the Dave Matthews Band concert at Luna Park. I had already seen Dave and co. perform several times in South Florida, so I was curious to see how the Argentine DMB experience would compare. In the Sur de la Florida, his concerts tend to look and feel like a weekend-long pseudo reunion for anyone who attended high school in Palm Beach County between 1990 and 2005: a few hours sprawled out on the lawn of Cruzan amphitheater accompanied by old friends, Dave et al's expert jam sessions, always preceded by hours of the unique-to-USAmerica-cultural-phenomenon, the tailgate. The vibe – siempre chill.

I was blown away by the DMB experience in Argentina – the vibe was pure energy, raw and fanatical. Buenos Aires worships rock music almost as much as she worships fútbol. And, man oh man, did Buenos Aires show up at Luna Park prepared to exalt. The porteño crowd's electric veneration converted DMB from a South Floridian relax-fest to an all-out-Argentine-jump-around-dance-party-ROCK-OUT. It was unexpected and epic. Check it, I found this clip on YouTube, filmed by someone sitting in the bleachers behind us (my friends and I were about 3 feet in front of the stage, directly in front of Tim Reynolds – the guitarist in the red t-shirt – frolicking with the best and rest of 'em... if you've got 14:59 minutos to spare you should watch it all, reader-friend!! I want you to experience the magic too!!):



The same apasionado energy that overtook us in the sea of sincere rock aficionados at the DMB show is, I believe, the same energy I observed from above, fueling the swarm of savages on Saturday morning. The difference, however – the former is a constructive display of BA's energy. The latter is nothing short of destructive – and stirs in me a toxic sense of disgust, a hate that hurts.

Buenos Aires, your energy is infectious in the best and worst ways possible.

I once read the following quote (paraphrased): 'A country is great when it has more dreams of its future than of its past.' This idea has stuck with me over the years and I've applied it in a variety of contexts. As I explore my friendship with Buenos Aires, the literal meaning of the quote once again resonates with me; I notice that Buenos Aires tends to glorify her past, revere her raices and curse her present circumstances. Yet rarely do I find evidence of her hope for an improved future.

Buenos Aires, don't you see? – your energy, if correctly channeled, could guide you to a future of prosperity. Instead, your energy – in the true form of a tragic flaw – locks you in the throes of greatness, leaves you paralyzed in the amber of the present (KV allusion!) looking only to the distant past to nourish your pride.

Buenos Aires, please don't be insulted by my weighty criticism. I tell you because I love you. I love you enough to hate you sometimes, love you enough to expect you to be your best – which is nothing short of great.

‘I would rather be ashes

than dust!

I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze

than it should be stifled by dry rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow,

than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.’ ––Jack London

Diec i nue ve

Bueno, quite a bit of time has passed since I last paid proper homage to the reason that I am here right now:

Anoche I had the great pleasure of sharing Rotary greatness, friendship and a fine meal with the Rotary Club of Puerto Madero.

Following the meal I stood up to give my usual address – infused with some of my latest and greatest Sudamericano exploits – and, in a moment of divinely-inspired impromptu-elocution, concluded my charla with: 'Cada día me levanto y agradezco a Dios y a Rotary.' ('Everyday I wake up and thank God and Rotary.')

My life in Buenos Aires has become so familiar and real that it has paradoxically become surreal. I am awed by some of the 'plight' that, daily, I face (e.g. 'Should I go to the Phoenix concert in Sao Paulo or Buenos Aires?'). (Seriously. Thank you, Rotary.)

I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (!!!) Here I find my life; gracias a Rotary--a life that is both beautifully surreal and absolutely real.

I digress.

Because

this post isn't about me.

It's about Rotary:

Rotary is truly great. At the Rotary Club de Puerto Madero reunion I sat beside – quite possibly – the most knowledgeable Rotarian in my Rotary family--a literal fountainhead of Rotary knowledge. And as she shared with me a bounty of Rotary-related information, I was stirred by a tickle of greatness – a sense that I, by good fortune, am a part of something truly great:

Rotary Minute: What is Rotary? from Rotary International on Vimeo.

Rotary is universally great. I feel confident with said proclamation because I have observed greatness in every Rotary club I have visited, from practically Antarctica, to practically the equator, and, obviamente, the plethora of clubs I have visited in District 4890 (Buenos Aires) and District 6930 (south/central Florida).

Words and photographs are wholly inadequate when attempting to convey greatness, but alas, I continue my meek attempt:

Nahuel Huapi Rotary Club in Bariloche, Argentina ('practically Antarctica'):

Rotary Club of Cusco, Peru ('practically the equator'):

Rotaract Club of Cusco, Peru (more of that 'practically the equator'):

My host Rotary Club in District 4890, the Rotary Club of Monserrat (D. 4890):




Ambassadorial scholars at the District 4890 Annual Conference (más D. 4890):

Participating in the 10th Annual Rotary-sponsored 'ENCUENTRO DE ORIENTACION VOCACIONAL' for high school students in Buenos Aires (y un poquito más de D. 4890):


And, Rotary in Pucón, Chile:



... And, if my words and photos aren't convincing enough of Rotary's greatness... bueno, then, I challenge you to find out for yourself.

Cheers and cariños desde BsAs,
NKC

XVII

Eight months later and I've finally acquired something that looks and feels like expatriate street credibility. This declaration is based on encounters I've had of late with study-abroad-types and fresh-off-the-plane-ex-pats; they kindly offer me deference that I hardly deserve. What do I really know? I'm just Natalie, here in Buenos Aires, living my life.

Last week I submitted – after weeks of very hard work spent orchestrating – my masterpiece of a Fulbright application (and by 'masterpiece' I mean the very best I could do – I am not at all suggesting that I believe the application will be endorsed). Perchance the totality of the Fulbright circumstances err in my favor, I'll be off to Peru in late-2011 for another year of ex-pat living. And, irrespective of the unfolding of my Fulbright grant, Christina and I are planning on returning to Buenos Aires in mid-2011 to breathe some South American life into iNspired Generation/Generación iNspirada (more on iGen in a forthcoming blog entry). (No te preocupa, Mom, I'll be hanging around your house during the early-2011 interim!)

I share with you these plans (lest us not forget this year's great lesson, 'Man plans. God laughs.'), RF, because I am meta-aware of my propensity for what appears to be wanderlust...

However, I assure you, this is not wanderlust. This is my life.

I've been super into all-things-related-to-the-Internet ever since, at the impressionable age of 12 (year 1997), my friend Jaimie showcased to me her America Online account (dial-up Internet days, obvio). I've taken this affinity for virtual communication with me from Jaimie's Palm Beach County abode, to my life in the college bubble in Gainesville, Florida (Facebook entered the picture right around this time. and. I. have. never. been. the. same. since.), to law school in Miami. And, of course, I brought my love with me to Buenos Aires. Thus, durante my 8 month stint as an ex-pat, I've done a phenomenal job of maintaining wide-open my virtual connections (thankfully, nowadays, I've got a high-speed connection to maintain my global connections).

One question that is ordinarily directed to me – via GMail or Facebook or Skype – from the latitudes directly to the north (the US of A, obvio) is, 'Wow! Argentina! You must be having so much fun.' And, of course, I would be lying if I did not respond in the affirmative. Sure, I have fun here, but it's no more or less fun than the fun I had in Miami and Gainesville and the PBC.

Fun is fun is diversión es diversión. Sure, there is novelty in the foreign, but as I have said, novelty wears and is replaced with the familiar. And let's not forget, cada ciudad tiene su buena y su mala. And, above all, I came to Buenos Aires with my ordinary self – my buena and my mala – to live my life.

It doesn't matter where in the world any of us are; we're still within ourselves, within our self-constructed worlds. I am Natalie, I am Natalie, soy Natalie, soy Natalie. It doesn't matter where you find me, – the PBC, Gasinesville, Miami, Buenos Aires, Peru, the Internet – I am always my ordinary and unique self, living my ordinary and unique life.

Anywho, this long ramble was inspired and precipitated by the profound brilliance of Ralph Waldo Emerson's words in his concise, must-read of an essay, 'Self-Reliance.' (Shout out to Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar Tom Mendez for the recommendation/borderline duress. Yeehaw, Tom!). I am sharing those excerpts from the essay that particularly touched me, here and now (forthcoming).

I also feel compelled to share Ralph's brilliance because it's not the first time I've come across these ideas. Mom, you were right, – as always. I don't need to travel to find myself. (But I'm still going to Peru if I win the Fulbright!!!)

I do ask, however, that you please trust me. My desire to travel the world is not misdirected wanderlust. (It is a part of the masterpiece of a life I am orchestrating for myself.)

Oh yea, and please listen to this awesome song while you read the forthcoming Emerson erudition. It's almost as brilliant as Ralph. (Almost.)

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros "Home" from Edward Sharpe on Vimeo.

Now, preparate for greatness:

'....The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet.

I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things....

Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

3. But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind? Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the Distant.

The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, and quaint expression are as near to us as to any....

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation... That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare?

Every great man is a unique.'

10 + 6

Reader-friend ! ! ! ! ! !

Hi.

¿Cómo andas?

What’s up in your world?

Here’s what’s up in world of Natalie: Classes at la UBA arrancaron de nuevo (began anew); I'm applying for a Fulbright research grant (I’m nervous! Insecure! Filled with doubt! Charging ahead nonetheless...); coaxing, with Christina, iNspired Generation, away from organizational infancy – towards awkward, uncomfortable and hopeful adolescence (please pay no mind to the content of the sitio web, as much of it is defunct… we're in the process of creating a new virtual forum where all of your wildest dreams and goals will self-actualize!); feasting on BAire’s cultural fare (my appetite never ceases – I’m ravenous!); laying foundations for new friendships; adding all sorts of opulence to existing relationships; battling bouts of hardcore Miami/familia nostalgia; attempting to stave off BAire’s usual trickery, as she woos me with her sky and art and people.

I am so full – I feel I might explode. Sometimes I enter a state of abundance-paralysis – I burst with life’s wealth and I don’t know what to do with myself!

That’s my world, reader-friend – bursting to the point of mental paralysis.

You have a world too, revered reader-friend... And I am curious, what is it like in your world??

My fabulous friend from Belo Horizonte, Brasil – Luiza – is always challenging me on various topics: i.e., of late, my strangely manic and habitual need to befriend Everyone. In. The. World. Thank you, Luiza, for directing a flashlight on this peculiar behavior! I now recognize that I do it, almost unknowingly, because I am bursting with curiosity about what it’s like to be in other people’s worlds. Curiosity to the point of intrusion, quizás...

Luiza also likes to challenge me to rethink my USAmerican national identity. Gracias a Luiza, nowadays when people ask where I am from, I no longer say Miami (merits Latin American street cred, obvio); I now declare – usually with apologetic pride – los Estados Unidos (reppin' mi país). USAmerica is undeniably a part of my world, much more so than I previously realized, when I constructed my identity from within my national borders. It’s a funny little paradox – I never felt quite so USAmerican until I decided to venture beyond the USAmerican frontera. Within my país, I always identified with my culture – Cuban (exilio Cuban, that is, the lingering remnants of 1950s Cuba…).

I find that my identity – who I aspire to be in my world, and how I am perceived and related to by others from within their worlds – changes with my circumstances. Here in Argentina, I am a foreigner (with USAmerican nationality), but familiar and similar given the Latin culture that created me (the Latin warmth that pulses through my body), a law student (not quite as respectable in Sudamerica as in the USA, because it’s an undergraduate ‘carrera’ here), a Rotary scholar (yeehaw Rotary!) on the cusp of graduation (thrilling! Terrifying!), standing on my tip-toes to peek beyond the horizon – towards the future that I will ostensibly create.

Identity forms only a slice of our undeniably distinct individual worlds – circumstances and beliefs and histories and cultures coalesce, too, to yield billions of unique worlds, all around this planet. And then we interact and mingle and connect and organize and aggregate. In so doing we are creating new worlds, in addition to the subjective world called Life that we as individuals fervently weave together. These additional worlds of congregated worlds exist beyond us – relationships, friendships, industries, organizations, corporations, institutions, cities, and nations... These worlds are abundant and ubiquitous.

The worlds beyond ourselves, composed of coalescing individual worlds, have identities that are just as – if not more – dynamic than the identities that we create for ourselves as individuals. And, given how individually complex we are it’s no wonder I am mentally numbed when confronted by the complexity of the aggregated worlds I encounter on the day-to-day.

You, reader-friend, may notice that I tend to fall in love with cities much as most of us tend to fall in love with people. (This is a literary technique called – as most of you recall from 8^th grade Language Arts – personification. Jaja.) I personify Buenos Aires because I genuinely believe cities are a lot like people. Cities – like people – have unique characteristics and mannerisms, distinct smells and flavors, are associated with particular sensations, emit and draw energy; cities, like people, have souls; cities, like people, are malleable and dynamic. And, cities, composed of people, relationships, organizations, corporations, industries – of many individuals’ worlds and coalescing worlds – are, thus, themselves, necessarily complex worlds.

(I guess I'm a sucker for complexity...)

With time, I have come to recognize just how dynamic the identity/world of a city can be and is. All protracted relationships (with peoples and cities alike) are like this: seasons change, light shifts, circumstances come and go. With persistent relationships we come to see familiar places and people through new perspectives.

E.g., After 7 months of porteña living, I more or less know Buenos Aires and I recognize just how dynamic she is. Her repeated behaviors have shed their novelty – her swoon-inducing azure techo, her never-ending banquet of art and cultural fare(/fairs), her baffling and disheartening social issues. These days I relate to her differently – she has a distinct feeling now, as winter recedes and the lingering effects of the season remain glaring: trees are bare, the sky is capricious, we're all bundled up, a few layers removed from the air that hasn't been warm in several moons.

As I walk the streets these days, I notice that Buenos Aires no longer surges into me and stirs me as she once did. She's no longer able to overtake me because now, I possess her – she is a part of me. Buenos Aires is now a piece of my identity, and thus, necessarily, (probably more like, obvio) forms a great part of my world.

Are you still there, reader-friend? (Big ups to Mom, Dad and Melissa – I know you guys are still with me!!) Thanks for sticking with me on this circuitous trip through my world. I did my best to weave this piece together – to make it cohesive... And if it looks to you more like a patchwork quilt than the tightly strung duvet I intended it to be, consider this me, offering you – should your curiosity permit – the opportunity to intrude on my complex and mind-numbingly beautiful world.

To ease your eyes away from the black and white of my words and back into the color of your world, check out some beautiful worlds I've intruded upon recently:

Chunka Pichqayoq

We age not according to time, but according to experience.

Sabrina and I began on the Atlantic coast of Argentina and ended on the Pacific coast of Peru. We drove practically to Antarctica and then flew practically to the equator. We started at sea level and we finished at the height of the Incan gods. At the end of it all – 4 weeks later – I was relegated down to the place where I began, forever changed by experience. My body has aged weeks. My heart, centuries.

My heart was captured by Cusco, Peru – the final destination of my 4 week (/centuries long) journey. I fell in love with Cusco. She made me come alive – painfully alive.

BAires, mi amor, te cuento: my heart is capricious.

My love for BAires was a surging sensation of bliss and admiration. It was blind and it was pure. My love for Cusco, por otra parte, is beautiful and tortured – characterized by an ache in my chest and a flutter in my heart. I see Cusco. My love for her is everything.

Cusco is beyond beautiful. Upon first encounter she left me breathless, dizzied by her splendor. She sits proudly on her throne, 3400 meters in the air, with soft mountain peaks framing her exquisite golden physique. Her yellow sun burns and blinds you. Her height leaves you dizzy, gasping for air and off-balance. Her people are golden-brown, curious, outgoing, envious, hard-working. She is extreme: hot and cold and dry and wet. When you stand in her main square, Plaza de Armas, you sense the colonial buildings engaging in a dialogue with the tops of the surrounding mountains. Cusco is in the sky. Cusco is glorious. She is everything.

Cusco was, for centuries, the capital of the Incan empire. Then, in the 16th century, Spain entered la historia and systematically endeavored to crush the Incan civilization. As history demonstrates, in the literal sense, Spain succeeded. And, the conquistadors – in their symbolic attempt to convey dominance – built their churches and buildings on top of the ruins of once impressive Incan structures. Today, as you meander through the sloping streets of Cusco, breathless and struggling to maintain balance, you find Spanish colonial edifice after edifice seated triumphantly atop of what remains of the Incan stones.



But the Spanish were equivocado in thinking that they could crush the spirit of the Inca. The spirit of the Inca was not contained in the impossibly arranged stone foundations of their buildings. The spirit of the Inca was not something tangible, suppress-able, containable, quell-able. The spirit of the Inca is an energy – permanent and infinite. Today the Inca energy hugs your skin and invades your body with every labored breath you breathe. The Inca energy lives on in the powder blue sky that hovers inches from Cusco’s rooftops and mountaintops.

Modern Cusco is a thriving gem of a city, where appreciation of the Andean-Incan culture is just pushing – but not quite overstepping – the bounds of exploitation. Locals, small-scale entrepreneurs, try to hustle you, obvious extranjero, out of money: a few Soles in exchange for a useless trinket. Cusco is also remarkable because for a South American city rife with tourists, it is uncharacteristically safe (Conversation for another day: I loathe justifying inseguridad with the ‘this is South America’ qualifier. Hit me up via e-mail, Skype, thefacebook, etc. if you care to discuss...). Cusco’s people are hustlers, not beggars and thieves. Perhaps the deep Incan heritage persevered into modernity: in the Incan kingdom there were no beggars or thieves; if you did not work, you did not eat. Here, again, another piece of the Incan identity that could not be contained by mere execution of crushing physical force.

Maybe that flutter in my chest was the Incan energy stirring me to life, stirring me to love. For me, love often manifests as tears: I shed tears for Cusco when I left her 4 days ago. My tears make no sense. Nor does my love make sense; it is simply a feeling.

Three days in Buenos Aires and already the ache in my chest is dulling. BAires’ soulful art is slowly trickling in, rekindling the flame of romance that evaporated in the burning Peruvian Andes, in the powder blue Cusqueño cielo.

BAires – in her transparent attempt to regain my admiration – has for 3 consecutive days flashed her azure cielo. Oh, how I once adored that sky, how it used to touch my heart. Now, however, it seems distant – thousands of feet away. My heart knows new love and a new sky. My heart was stirred and awakened by the eternal Incan energy. Stirred too by the powdery Cusqueño cielo that hugged me closely while I gasped at Cusco’s breathtaking beauty. My heart has aged with experience, experience that dates back centuries, when the Incans were more than an energy – when they were an empire.

f o u r teen

Ohhhheyyyyy! It’s been more than one month since I last wrote to you, reader-friend. Many days have passed sans communication on my end but I think of you often (everyday, in fact!).

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).