Pasta...penguins?

We went back to Albertos for pasta last night where I ate most of Julies four cheeses without realizing it. Between the small bottle of red wine, tired muscles and the waiters, I felt a bit like I was in a different world. One of the waiters, a married man, really rubs me the wrong way. Julie and I spoke about how you can often tell, at least in part, how and who people are from first encounters. The other waiter, however, the owners son, is a nice man with big brown eyes and a softer persona. Tonight we are going with him to have drinks at a place that we thought was called Weekend, but is someting indecipherably similar or to a dance club oddly called Cerebro (brain). Tomorrow we are planning to head to Chile but we still need to plan out the details of the trip: Chiloe, an archipelago, if there are penguins, and directly to Pucon, with its sleepy volcano, if they have already migrated.

If I were a gaucho...

If I were a guacho I would want to be just like Alicia, with her long side braid and maroon scarf, her wild eyes and even wilder wonder. Yesterday, Julie and I went horsebackriding. There are no words to descibe the beauty that we encountered, from the pristine horses, speckled or white-hooved, to the startling mountains, awash with dust. If I were a guacho, I would spend all of my days startling back these mountains...chasing sheep, developing calluses on my thighs, barbecueing soft slabs of meat and sucking water from the streams.

Julie is a lovely friend. A friend who stands by you when you cry, who stands up for you with more than fists, who will wash the dust out of your clothes and offer you chocolate bears. She is the kind of friend who believes, in both the best, the bad and the worst of moments, in the people that she loves. The best kind of friend.

The pampas grass is the most beautiful golden-brown. It seems so much more alive than the grass in New York City parks, than the Argentine flowers even, the lone buds that sometimes speckle this landscape but fail to impress.

They rounded up our horses yesterday and gave me the biggest of them all. I was evaluating them on the distance I would potentially fall. Luckily, my horse (though large) was quite sturdy and sweet and while I was a bit terrified on the mountain sides covered in stones, I was elated. The hundreds of sheep sprinting through the dust, the sun hot on my back and Alicia, more filled with life than any woman I have ever met. The combination of her spirit and the landscape made me question whether I am really a city girl at heart.

In fact, my heart seems to fall everywhere. In each city, town that I visit, I fall in love. Maybe it is the diversity of the world, or maybe it is how similar each place is to another one I have loved. Whatever it is, Bariloche has found a place in my heart. Some of the most beautiful moments-simply walking through the mountain town, seeing school children in uniforms, entering local eateries, gazing at hill after hill in the near distance, failing to perceive past the lakes, tasting media lunas, large cups of espresso and chocolates formed in the shape of giraffes...

Today we went kayaking, which was also beautiful, though our guide failed to impress in the way that Alicia had. There is something so serene to sitting within the water, though my body craved to dive deep beneath the pale, clear surface, to touch the earth below. Maybe what I need right now is to be much closer to the earth, to the natural places, perfections and imperfections that pervade.

I think one of our best meals was that which we made in our room: cheese, avocados, french bread, wine, chocolates, fresh cookies, raspberry yogurt. The fruit seller is a beautiful man, with those beautiful Argentine eyes that startle as much as the landscape, that are deeper even than the seven lakes of this south. I love food. I also love mountains: I used to think I loved the snow-capped the most, but now it is the dusty red that captures my heart. I could live here, I think. I could have so many lives in so many different places, with so many different beginnings. I love speaking Spanish again, feel it coming back to me in the smallest ways, remembering words, rolling my rs...returning to the first tongue that enchanted me.

I am trying to find peace with myself, within myself. There are so many things that I regret and yet I know now that I can move past them. I know that I will live many wonderful moments, those moments we all know as giving us the most life (like lying in the rain, cuddling a baby, sipping a perfect cup of coffee, crying a happy tear, pushing yourself only slightly beyond your limits). I am glad, these days, that I feel so hard, that I love so hard. Instead of battling the senstivity inside of me, I am trying to allow it to touch every experience, every hour, every taste, movement, part of me.

I don´t know what will happen in the weeks, months, years to come. But for now, maybe, it is enough to know that I will eat ravioli tonight, we will be offered midnight dancing by our waiters and return to Mamushka to build up our chocolate supply-and I will fall asleep in the mountain silence, a friend by my side, if only temporarily at peace with it all.

Elflein

We arrived in Bariloche to a pink, gingerbread house. I ate the best lasanga I have had in years, sipped a glass (couple of glasses) of red wine and wandered the pebbley streets in search of chocolate. After buying a bag of chocolate covered cherries, mint chocolate, marzipan, almond, chocolate squares, circles, dots, branches etc. I bit excitedly into a chocolate covered cherry...little did I pay attention to Julie´s warning of a pit...and broke my molar. Ouch.

So much for the cheeryness of chocolate, or cherries. We walked up into the hilly streets today, in search of an orthodontist-dentist, and then realized that the offices would clearly be closed for the afternoon siesta. I was given directions by a woman working in another chocolate shop, where we feasted on media lunas and other pastries (actually I had a great dulce de leche filled crossoint with hazelnuts, I am taking back my dislike of dulce de leche), a beautiful, fiery woman whose house I am determined to visit while I am here.

Dancing tonight, perhaps, since our waiters last night invited us out to a local dance club. I think we should go, since we have not had that experience yet.

The air is so cool here, but it is quite refreshing. I cant wait for a horseback ride and a parilla on an estancia outside of town. I am re-falling in love with the Spanish language. Ok, off to plan some lake adventures/take photographs/wander.

My favorite street name so far in all of Argentina is here: Elflein.

Family Home in San Telmo

This is where we stayed last week...I wrote a bit about the experience in this wild home.

Everyone is born a sinner. Not everyone is saved. That’s what makes life interesting.

His first words are spoken with a fiercity never to repeat itself. His eyes, leopard-like, detached from the doom of modernity, ascend to the tango music, life’s background music stained with shards of silence. His house speaks to both his history and his heirs.

It is not the orange home on Carlos Calvo, awash in tang-paper and wisps of white, but the next home where the music leaks through the walls and bites strangers who saunter down the street. It is the home with the metal gate of animal tails and proud tortoises, sharp noises awakened only by the daylight. There are tables for Mate or marmelade tostadas, tables for grandchildren with still-stout legs and children with spouses they cannot stand.

He is a musician and he wraps his guitar in gold, piecing it together as the years age him and break him apart. He cannot play, today, for his finger has been split by his passion, slightly tapered by the years of strumming through the silence. His collections are most outstanding for an urbanite, walls veiled in tinmen and antique soda cans, a menagerie of slight disappointments, the almost-beautiful, almost-beguiled.

The patio, set in a sprig of sunlight, is the most impressive point of recollection. A lair not of exit or entry, but shadowed in this linear home and home to a hearty Pomeranian that cannot belong in such disarray. It barks a fifth-avenue bark and nestles among the miniature, unkempt garden. The bathroom, linked to the patio, is painted goblin-green, feathering at the passageways between ceiling and wall, worn off by the bullets of water that slip from the faucet, soft-water tears that cannot be shed within the confines of the house. The enchantment of the garden—a patch of un-pruned plants—is magnified by a single red rose set among dirt and rocks and unfinished, fickle emerald archways.

The flower, cries his grandson and points to the single clot of blood of this living lair. He itches to pull its wet head from its stem, as he does the flowers in the plaza that please with the plenitude of the impure. He pinches where its neck would be, were it mammal and while it wilts, releases within a moment so its fiery color will not be drained.

On mornings with his grandparents, the grandson releases the stout Pomeranian from its makeshift lair, linking his fingers around its muddled gray leash, sauntering down the street with such pride for his own, small lion. With his shoe-laces tied just right, his pants folded at the ankle seem, his auburn curls awash his face, he is but miniature in his manliness. His performance stage in the street of Carlos Calvo, the women washing the sidewalks swept in water, boys with burnt sugar lollipops, tourists with too-short shorts, men with newspapers and small cafes, media luna pastries and goblin green olives that remind him of home.

It is a wilderness that both lies without and lies within. A wilderness that flowers the walls, that livens the dark, shaded passageways where little girls curl their lips around their lovers, where red brick passageways outlive the owners of this home, where a stern guard dog is the pomeranian’s utter paradox. Where everyone, born sinners, can die not saved but lie in the silence, while the Mate water speaks its first boil, the baby boy retires his tamed tiger, the music sparks then softens, the man rearranges his antiques with artist hands, and but for a moment be blessed.

BA High

There is a group of high schoolers staying at our hostel: a traveling high school! This is perhaps the most fascinating phenomenon that I have encountered in ages. Of course they are from California.

After ice cream, packing and Mate I am ready to walk again. I am fully a wanderer here, weaving in and out of streets, shops, coffee shops particularly...avoiding only slightly the buzzing cars and terrifying motorscooters. I hate motorscooters, motor-helmets, motor-glasses.

I am excited to go south to Bariloche, to feel the wind, to see the sunset over the mountains, to shoot words from my fingers in another setting, somehow more settled, somehow more serene. I am looking forward to the breeze on horseback and bikeback, to wandering another small city, to finding coffee shops where I can sit in the shade or the sun, write my heart out and sleep in peace.

My heart hurts today. I am so in love with being in love. But so incredibly sad with the disappointments of love: realizing that when things go astray, people change, the hardest of hopes are incementable. There is nothing I hate more than hurting someone that I love. It breaks my peace with myself. I cant help but wonder, whether the demise of both of these relationships was internal or external: whether it was simply me.

I want to run. I cant help but hope real hard that Bariloche will be the place, with its certain circuits and turquoise lakes, to finally start again. I cant help but hope that here I will open back up, find time for dancing, find new ways to know the world without words.

Rivers and Riders

We went to the river yesterday, in El Tigre, outside of Buenos Aires. It was not a river for swimming, but Julie and I took a long boatride and I drunk lots of Mate. On the way home, there was someone smoking pot on the train. Something about this made me smile. Between the singing futbol teams and selling of alfajores, the train rides are definitely unique.

When we returned the protest/celebration on the Plaza de Mayo was taking place. There were tons of people and such an incredible energy in the air. There was an old man pushing a blue and white cart, wearing a blue and white flag, holding a sign of his disappeared son. There was also a man who came up to me to inform me that I looked just like his first love. The streets were covered in papers and colored tin foil. The air was filled with the sound of drums, dancing, marching, song.

I like the street where we are staying, Hipolito Yrigogen. The streets are slender and shadowy, the buildings recollections of another era. It is usually empty and most of the stores are usually closed. I like this too. We had pastries for breakfast today and some of the best espresso I have had since I arrived. Yum. Considering one of those ridiculous cones for an afternoon snack...

Tomorrow we are going to Bariloche, where the mountains are peaked in snow.

Cones

I ended up in the best ice cream parlor in the world (in my world, at the very least). The creamy strawberry that was placed on top of my vanilla and toffee cone was absurdly attractive, shaped into a point that mimicked wizard hats, obalesques. My sister had a ice pop yesterday that tasted like the jello pops we ate as children: that may even be able to compete with my fancy cone.

After a few days off of steak, I am craving it terribly. The meat here is as good as it gets. Julie and I got makeovers at the local department store, as we were wandering around town, and now seems like a good time for a barbecue. Dinner isn´t until at least 10.

I saw some protestors on the Avenida de Mayo--so many men and women with empty eyes.

I also bought such smooth Mate that I have officially cemented my addiction.

I love this city because I love the trees

My childhood best friend is the one who has always loved pink. But here, in this place of flamingos and peachy facades, the color comes alive. This city is one of two continents--the stones of South America but a language that blurs with Italian (ciao), twisted handmade pastas that compliment traditional parillas and flan. I love the mate. I love the balconies. I love the men's eyes.

No matter which way I walk, I end up in the same place, defeated by the circle that does not mirror my own city, my legs tired, my hair matted and my body so much more alive than it was before I left. I end up either on the Plaza de Mayo or on Florida Street, which reminds me of a summery Times Square with beautiful bras. Yes, beautiful bras. The underwear here are outstanding, almost as outstanding as the squash ravioli or the overhung gardens or the idea of seeing a penguin colony.

I want a penguin. Not a live animal but the cool ceramic jars that are used to pour wine in the middle of the country. The wine is a whole other beauty. The taste. The price. The normalcy of sitting outside not with a glass but a bottle, at street level or on balconies with pathetic views but perfect breezes. No bottle is ever re-corked.

I am looking forward to the beach, although the highrises are terrifying. I am looking forward to a wine tour by bike and turquoise lakes and other natural wonders that remind me of little more than jurassic park. I am looking forward to a bathtub in Bariloche. Horsebackriding with my hair braided. Infamous patigonian chocolates.

My tongue hurts. I burn it on the mate and the metal bombilla because I have no patience. I can't say this has helped me kick my coffee addiction, just added another exciting prospect to my palate. The family we stayed with put their hot water in a thermos that reminded me of play kitchens. They had a little yapping dog and an odd collection of antiques, like an extra iron door that they employed as decor. I know from their 1800 home--chorizo (sausage) style, I was informed--where Gabriel Garcia Marquez gathered his magic. There was a single red rose, right out of Beauty and the Beast. Religious emblems made from plastic. High necked wooden beds and a bathroom that spoke freedom in its very form: no confinement for the shower, a perfect, pool-blue wooden chair. Who wouldn't see ghosts in these homes that they wanted to spill onto paper? Or angels? Or fragile, magical men?

In a way I am finished with worrying. I cannot say the last year has not taken its toll on me but I have a desire to live from day to day, letting certain things not work out. I am tired of worrying and tired of worriers. What I live for, really, are the moments of each day when I am alive in the second, the minute, the hour and not the past. When I can look beyond the memories that haunt me and smile. When I forget how far I have walked or where I have walked and am glad to be lost.

I love this city because I love the music in the streets, because I love the lackadaisical lateness, I love the light.

I love this city because I love the trees.