8 Steps

When the clanging of the Subte (subway) cars roll to a stop and the breeze from the moving train settles into the humid dank air you can hear Tango music from a hand organ rise above the din. An old man in a gray wool suit, v-neck sweater and fidora fingers the keys of the instrument. The train lurches ahead for the next stop. The music falls back below the din.

The staions look like the Metro in Paris. Rounded low slung walls coverred with tile. The concrete platforms are worn and stained black by the shoe tread of the millions of people who've waited on a train here. Walking out of the station's pungent air and up the stairs to the street the French theme continues on the edifaces of many buildings looking over the street. The Subte and many of these buildings were contructed in the boom days of the 20's and 30's when the Tango was one of the most popular dances in the world and Argentina boasted one of the worlds most sofisticated and popular cultures. The portenoes (locals) sought to build the Paris of the Americas; a name that still clings to Buenos Aires today.

The Parisian theme however is quickly lost in the modern square buildings and high rise towers. As opposed to french quisine it is Italian pizzerias and spanish cafes that populate the store fronts of every block. Craft stores sell panchos and hats of gauchos and mate gourds, local artifacts found in none of the European cultures that built this place. Monuments and lavish statues commerorating the spanish conquests, those that liberated the country from the crown and modern poltical struggles dot the plazas and boulevards. All these shades of life neatly wrap back together in the keys of the old man's acordian, in the 8 steps of the Tango.

I arrived two days ago from Cordoba. I was quite happy to be on the move from there. A month had worn it's way into routine. The days punctuated by how many hours of reading I may get in, what cafe I would take lunch in, how many glasses of wine to embibe that night. It was well past the time to move on. I finally completed the repair of the last of my twelve cavaties with my friend and dentist Silvina and was ready to move on.

I sound jaded though. What a wonderfull city to spend a month in. Though my house was populated by ex-pats our social life and friends outside the home were entirely local. A deeper cultural experience for me than I've found in my past travels. Such a ernest city too, not a haunt of tourist attractions. In the country side I stood within a body length of a soaring condor and ate lunch on the dusty plazas of small Argentine pueblos. I learned the basics of asado (local BBQing) from a old family patriarch. I spent late nights with local characters and sufferred the following days from them. I got twelve new teeth. Most of all though I learned the 8 steps of the Tango and how dificult they are to master.

The train station in Cordoba is modest and run down, but is a monument to the powerfull history of the locomotive here. It's sturdy and sensible design speak to the Brithish money that built it. They plan to replaces the 50's vintage train currently in use with a modern European bullet train. The 16 hr journey will be cut to six, less for direct lines. I am quite glad to get to ride the old train. For days before I asked people about the train, but most seemed to think it no longer ran. Some hippy kids in the park informed me they bought tickets and it left every Thursday and Sunday. I knew then that my teeth would be done and I would be on Thursday's train.

For as many people told me the train did not still run, I am surprised to find it nearly sold out when we arrive at the station. The train lumbered slowly out of town through outlying neighborhoods. Some look wealthy and some look poor. Further out there are districts of new small homes all matching. These are built by the government to house the poor. There are virtually no street homeless visible in any of Argentina. The program was started in the 50's by Juan Peron, the seminal power of modern political history here and the husband of iconic Eva Peron.

Dead scince 1974 Peron still commands intense local passion. He is either the villian or savior of the modern Argentine state. In the early eighties his hands were cut off his corpse by opponants. The thieves were never found. His remains wer moved last month and the protesters and supporters arived at blows even firing several gunshots.

For now though I sit aboard the train looking at the passing landscape. Will and I have a sleeping car and I feel like I am living on the set of North By Northwest, just waiting for the Hitchcock thriller to commence. We rock back and forth waiting for the bar car to open.

Outside Cordoba the countryside is increadibly flat and goes on froever, without even subtle rolling like the midwestern plains back home. This is the Argintine Pampa, or great plain. All of it looks to be devoted to ranching and grain production. Estancias dot the landscape, shelterred from the vast openness by clusturs of trees. I feel very much in Argentina.

There are many older folks riding the train. The pasage, though longer, is half the cost of the bus, and while this is the motovation of many on the train, I think for the viejos it is the accustomed method of travell to Buenos Aires. Most of them sport sharp clothes, almost formal dress for dinner. I am still caught in my mind that this is some scene from the forties or fifties, just waiting for Boney and Clyde to come through and collect wallets.

Will and I order the menu and two beers. The menu is chicken pate and pork chops. It sounded good but upon arrival I realize the canned meats were likely stalked when the old train began it's service. We order two more beers to help it all go down. We kept our table into the night and continued orderring beers. We are both very blonde and caught regular gigles from neighboring tables. All seem to be good hearted in nature. By 11:30 I am ready to turn in.

The next morning we are awoken by the porter pounding at the door and requesting our sheets. We have just enough time for a coffee before arriving at the station. I have definately awoken in a new place. The city goes on for miles of high rise condos. The station in Buenos Aires is a bit tired looking, but is every bit as grand as any I have seen in Europe. Out it's front door is a sturdy and unornate clock tower. It again harkens to the British money that built it.

The street is a huge boulevard. We jump in a cab waiting in cue outside the main enterance and give him the adress of our hostel. The ride is a solid fifteen minutes. The concrete canyons go on enlessly and the Grand boulevards cut the city into sections. I wonder if I am in New York or Paris, but realize that this is niether. This is Buenos Aires.

Still early in the day still when we get to the hostel, we drop our bags and I make some coffe in the kitchen. There is a beautiful Italian woman jellying her bread. She arrived in BA just under a month ago and plans to stay here for a year. When I ask her why she replies...

"I want to become a great tango dancer!"

The Revolutionary Path

Alta Gracia is an old Jesuit estancia (estate) founded in 1580. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Americas in 1773 by both the Spanish and Portuguese empires the massive estate passed through private hands until the early 20^th century when the owner platted the estate to build a town.

The town grew quickly and many wealthy Cordobeses built their homes here. The estancia buildings and church were expatriated by the Argentine government in 1966 and are now a National Monument and UNESCO World Heritage Site. The museum is filled with artifacts of Spanish colonial life.

Many famous Argentines and Spanish expatriates have spent at least part of their lives here, but by far the most well known is Ernesto ‘che’ Guevera. Ernesto suffered from asthma and at 12 years old his family left their Buenos Aries home and took up a second residence here for Ernesto’s health.

The home sits on a beautiful tree lined street with early 20^th century homes. Though of modest size relative to some of the mansions in the neighborhood it does have a separate kitchen, maids quarters, and a large yard. Now a musuem it houses many family photos from the period and letters from Che whil fighting in Cuba, The Congo and Bolivia.

While the prize piece of the collection is doubtlessly Che’s motorcycle he road across South America, my favorite piece is a small picture on the wall across the room from his bike. He is in his revolutionary period and sporting army fatigues while putting for par on a golf course. Looking on is Fidel Castro who seems to be tense, possibly behind in the score.

Che got his name from the local tick in Argentine Spanish. It is similar to dude at home, but far more pervasive and completely asexual. People will always introduce the familiar with “che” and he was no different. In fact it is said that he called everyone che and since this is a part of speech particular to Argentina in the Spanish world outsiders began to refer to him as Che and the name is now an icon of the last century and still a constant of Argentine dialog.

Castro visited the museum not more than two months ago with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a summit of Latin American leaders in Cordoba. I laughed wondering what must have crossed his mind while gazing at the Golf picture in the gallery and if he still plays. After Castro’s visit to Argentina he fell quite ill. There was great speculation in the Western press of his impending death; he seems to be doing fine now.

There is a popular late night sandwich here, the chorrizopan. It is essentially a sausage on a roll with all sorts of goop on top. it has a notorious reputation for giving belly aches. During Castro’s illness a local satirical paper ran a photo of Castro chomping down on one of the tasty, if dangerous, sandwiches.

The headline read, “Cordobeses succeed in what the CIA couldn’t do for 50 years!”

Alta Gracia has kept up it’s exclusive image. New homes are many and large. They sport three car garages and large fenced yards with security systems. It reminds me of being in an exclusive suburb in the north bay of San Francisco. A stroll through the neighborhoods is a strong reminder into the high standard of living that Argentineans expect for their future regardless of the recent economic collapse.

The Nightlife Ain’t No Good Life, But It’s My Life


Note: I am short on pictures from here on out - sorry. No one is more frustrated by loosing my camera than me.


I woke up with a blistering hangover. Argentines are all night people and I am getting to old to be an all night guy. I stirred in my bed sweaty and wondering did I need to come all the way to the other side of the world to realize those out of control instincts within myself. My head is filled with thoughts of returning home and doing something productive with my time, but isn’t there productivity even in this experience.
We left the house early by Argentine standards, 9 o’clock. Tim and I headed for the condos and clubs of Nuevo Cordoba some 20 blocks away. The walk helps me to get my bearings in this large compact city. During my first few days here I had no sense if the streets are safe. New towns, even in the states, but especially if foreign countries, always carry a certain degree of intimidation for me.
“Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they are not after you,” Curt Cobain. As the days have passed though I have gotten a sense of how mellow, warm and inviting this big college town is.
We meet up with our housemate Will at a small bar catering to the local hip and foreign tourist. Foreigners are not very common here. Cordoba is a big city, but like Detroit or Atlanta in the states, it is not a place that draws tourists. It’s razon de ser (reason to be) is human utility; commerce, management, production, governance. There is a Lockheed airplane manufacturing facility. The large global concrete conglomerate Minetti
operates a large facility. Intel is setting up it’s South American headquarters here. The tourists go to Buenos Aries, Mendoza, Salta, Barioloche and Patagonia. Business comes here.
Cordoba was founded in 1573 as the cross roads between the precious metals coming out of Peru and the agricultural goods coming from central Chile both en-route to Buenos Aries. It quickly became a hub of commerce and one of the first colonial capitols of what is now Argentina. In the late 1800’s the British built railroad used it as the main hub north south and west for trains headed to Buenos Aires. It’s grip as a central center of commerce and power has been part of this city since the beginning.
In 1610 the Jesuits founded the second university in Latin America here, the Universidad San Carlos, now known as Universidad Nacionál de Cordoba. The city sports four large universities today and several smaller universities and colleges. There are more than 300,000 students living in Cordoba.
In 1918 student protests led to the ousting of Church control of the University and the opening of learning materials including Darwin and the growing field of physics. The protest so dramatically changed the institution that it spread across Argentina and over the next several years throughout Latin America liberating universities fro Mexico to Patagonia from church control. It was a radical transformation of education in Latin America and earned Cordoba it’s nickname, “La Docta (the doctor).”
I light up a cigarette while being introduced to Will’s girlfriend Emmy, an Argentine law student here. I meet a few of the local characters I will spend much of my time hanging out with here. There is Marcell, a sports writer for the local paper, charismatic talker and regular pot head. Silvina is a dentist who use’s puppets to calm the nerves of children patients at her practice here in Cordoba and an aspiring raiki therapist who’s boyfriend is my other housemate Chris. Chris is an Ausie just getting to the end of a two year walk about South America. He can communicate amizingly well through his gregarious gesturing, but I am shocked at how poor his Spanish remains after two years here. Will is a young college grad who is writing articles for his local paper back home in Charleston South Carolina and teaching philosophy at a local English language high school.
As I take in a few drags of my smoke the barkeep courteously let’s me know there is a smoking patio in the back of the little bar. The patio is new because the province recently passed legislation banning smoking indoors. I’d later find that this is weekly if at all enforced. It is, however, a statement about civic social awareness here. A country with a well established social system of medicine must surely be aware of the economic costs of the habit.
After a few beers Tim and I tip our way to a punk bar around the corner where the Ramons are loudly calling for sedation. Within this obvious cultural appropriation (or subjection) of the music of north America we run into a stater-hater. He accolades, or tortures rather, Tim fortunately more than I, with his contempt for our government, while sporting a Metallica t-shirt. His friends are open and warm, but as when the family farmer who lost his land meets the banker who took it at the town fair, his bitterness is inescapable.
Fortunately, to reduces the irony of the moment the music has shifted to an Argentine speed metal band. They sound remarkably like home towners of Seattle, Queensryche. The trade in the language of the lyrics softens it, but the irony remains. We move away from the angry fella and his diatribe for a more accepting crowd towards the front. Tim flirts with the young bartender as we settle our tab and hit the street.
We swagger on towards home stopping at the café bars on the beautiful cañada (canal) that splits downtown off from the west-side suburbs where we live. The canal once split Cordoba from the indigenous village that grew up next to the colonial post. The first bridge across was completed in the late 19th century and less for trade as much as the settlers intent on developing the other side. Now it is a wide boulevard that is one of the cities main arteries and most beautiful streets.
The canal runs in a stone tree lined culvert with bridges spanning it at every block. Stacked with mid rise condos up it’s banks, cafes spill onto the large sidewalks. One of which would become my favorite watering hole in this city. Horribly named, Bar X is one of the only places I found with an actual bar to sit at and meet the other drinkers of this town, most often everyone is given their own table. I will end up getting to know the bartenders by name here before I leave Crodoba.
I order a rum and coke and Tim calls for a fernet, o local liquor that tastes initially much like Listerine and then settles into a southing pallet once the mouth is sufficiently numb. The local patrons are laughing at us as much as with us as we stumble through our drunken second language greetings. As in most parts of the world many folks all around us speak English and here is no exception. We, for better or worse, keep things in Castellano (the local Spanish dialect).
As I order my first fernet and coke upon prodding from the other patrons and my barkeep, Mattio, I ask the time. It is 5:30 am. Shocked I take a good look around. Things are winding down, but there are still people sitting and being served at the cafes. The bar is still half to two thirds full. No one is acting like it is very late.
Now with my head splitting in two and the heat of the day drawing the alcohol through my skin I bemoan my ways and reflect on the wonders of the place I am living in and ask, "when do they sleep?"

Our Fair Lady of Consumption

My new room at Tim’s where I’ll stay the bulk of this month is sans furnishing and while I don’t need much I do need at least a bed. I guess I had to come all the way to Argentina to go to my first Wal-Mart. It is located about 10 Kilometers form downtown on Calle Colon, which becomes a long strip mall as it leaves town.

En route I had my first dose of futball mania. Pick-up trucks loaded with fans in que for the police check before entering the stadium parking lot. The fans all wore uniforms of their team, waved their club flag and roared at the road their accolades of superiority. All just words to be proved valid or not on the grass this afternoon. We decided then and there to buy tickets for the game next Sunday.

“Wal-Mart is the only place in town you can buy a can of beans and everyone says they have the best meat in town, but I don’t know about that one,” Tim notes excitedly at the prospect of making some tacos at home this evening.

When I came to South America ten years ago my mom had a big send off dinner that was a Mexican feast. Little did I know that it would be my last Mexican feast for the next six months. The cuisine has grown here, but for now a taco is a luxury food served at a small handful of restaurants at very high prices and not resembling anything really authentic. More regularly people eat pizzas, empenadas (a sort of savory turn-over that comes with a variety of fillings), lomos (a grinder), steak and potatoes.

Wal-Mart is a testament to the tenacious hold the global market has in this country that the those same international bureaucrats of finance all but sank five years ago with the economic collapse. The collapse was, at least in part, caused by the financing requirements imposed on the domestic economy by foreign investors. Eventually, those requirements led to a false currency value that when it fell destroyed individual savings by greater than 50% to the typical Argentine. The result for the foreign traveler today is that Argentina is a very high culture low cost destination in Latin America.

Shoppers mill about and one woman stops to ask where I found the inflatable mattress and how much it was. There is that certain frenzy I always feel when I am in a big and full box store. It is the frenzy of consumption. “Did I find the best deal? Did I get all I want? Could I buy more? – and the big one – Will I be satisfied?”

Still fresh in my trip I can’t help but note that I am not somewhere so different from home here. The sidewalks are often broken and development is rampant. So many things are reversed but the same as home; there are big mountains to the east and an ocean to the west, it gets hotter as one travels north and colder to the south, you can’t buy beer after 10pm but the bars stay open all night. Amongst these flip-flopped but practically same realities the favorite food is pizza and the place to get a cheap bed is Wal-Mart.

I decided after getting our beans and a few other supplies to buy my bed from one of the small retailers downtown.

Getting To Know You

On the recommendation of the front desk of my hotel I’ve come to La Mora (the blackberry) to have dinner. It is 9:30 and I am the only person in the restaurant. It will be imprinted in my head during this trip that Argentine diner time is 10 or later, especially if eating at a restaurant. It is a small place seating around thirty. The walls are off white stucco, but mostly covered in wood trim and wine racks stained a dark almost black finish that still lets the grain of the wood through to warm the room. I order a bottle, the local grape of fame Malbec, and chicken in an alfreado sauce. This expensive meal won’t top twenty dollars.

The waiter, Leonardo, and I chat in the otherwise empty restaurant about building, earthquakes, good places to go in Argentina, what Santiago is like, he has a brother at university there, and rock’n’roll. I wonder if the whole world knows my home town just because of Grunge and then remember a conversation with an ice cream stand owner earlier whose first comment on my home town was “Bill Gates.”

He puts on some local rock. I think it is great. I love modern media and how it can bring us together, but it homogenizes us as well. It is stuffed into our lives relentlessly. I recall two days earlier waiting on the platform for the subway in Santiago and helplessly staring at the dam televisores (tv’s) mounted every 10m. down the platform. They subjected me and the other commuters to Phil Collins’ “Susudeo.” Watching the blank stares of the Chilenos waiting for the train I realized that I needed to get out of the city, national holiday coming or not.

Mendoza is tree lined on every street and the bright green leaves of early spring cast a emerald hue on the streets of the town. In mid summer the broad leaves must make a canopy shading the city from the intense summer heat. It is Thursday September 21^st Dia De Los Estudiantes (Day of the Students) and the first day of spring. It is warm out. The schools are closed and the parks are full of kids purveying and testing their footing, leaving their mark by building memories within this town some of them will one day run.

The following night I return to La Mora, a little later this time. It is a slow night and Leonardo, the owner Rosanna and I sit at a back table for three hours chatting about the world. Rosanna has traveled through Europe and Leonardo’s best friend is living in Miami. I feel among peers. Rosanna gives me a bottle of wine to take to my friend Tim’s in Cordoba where I am headed the next day.

“Tramping Through Holiday in Argentina”

Jump: verb: 1, to spring free from the ground or other base by the muscular action of feet and legs: 2, to undergo a sudden sharp change in value. noun: 1, a sharp sudden increase: 2, an abrupt change or transition a quick short journey: 3, one in a series of moves from one place to another.

Many travellers have a place they are headed to and others have something the are headed away from, but what of those who are not so intended on what they are doing. Those who only know that they want to extract themselves form what is the day to day. Open to whatever they may find if anything at all. I suppose it would be impossible to find nothing. Is it the same as asking, “why climb a mountain?” “Why ski off that cliff?” “Why ride that motorcyle through the air?” “Why surf that 50 foot wave?”

“Ah might as well jump, JUMP!” David Lee Roth.

First Impressions – Getting to know you

When my friends Erin and Greg asked if I wanted to go on a ski trip to Chile I was in the midst of selling a house I’d built and, at least temporarily, shuttering a construction business I ran with a partner for the previous six years. My romantic life was a mess. I had a friend, Tim, who six months earlier moved to Cordoba Argentina to go to graduate school and teach english. With Cordoba a day and a half buss ride from Santiago Chile and nothing but freedom, like it or not, on the plate I of course said, “YOU BET! I’d love to go.” I, however, had no intent of returning with them after the week of skiing in the Andes.

It is September 17^th when I say my good byes to Erin and Greg after a week of resort living excess and skiing. I am back on the South American continent for the first time in a decade and much like last time I am headed out alone on the road here with some contacts and not many plans. The following morning I catch a buss for Mendoza Argentina. September 18^th is the national day of independence for Chile and while I am excited to be headed for a country I have never seen I enjoy watching the Chileans spanned out all over the land enjoying the holiday with family and friends.

From my window seat on the afternoon buss we pass through wine country in Valle de Aconcagua toward the 3000m/9850ft Portillo Pass that connects Central Argentina and Chile. Every house flaunts their national flag and the fields are full of picknikers and children flying kites. I spent a good bit of time in Chile in the past and know the intense pride Chileans take in their country, but their current affluence allows them the luxery of travell over this holiday and when I arrive in Mendoza Argentina the town is full of Chilleans.

In Mendoza, as in most all latin american cities and towns, there is the central plaza. Like most every town in Argentina it is a monument for their liberator General San Martin, who between 1813 and 1818 routed the Spanish from Argentina and Chile. His crossing of the Andes to take the war of independence from what is now Argentina to Chile is a military legend. From Chile he fought his way north into Peru where after successfully wresting Lima from Spain declaring the country’s independence on July 12, 1821. He met up with the other famous South American liberator Simon Bolivar in a secret meeting a year later on July 22, 1822. After the mysterious meeting he abdicated his post as Protestor of Peru and resigned his command of the army. Shunning politics and military service he retired to France in 1824 never to return to South America.

The Plaza de Independecia in Mendoza is a large one square block park surrounded by four smaller plazas arranged like the five face side of a die. The other four plazas are San Martin, España, Italia and Chile. On the night of my arrival Plaza de Chile is overflowing with jubliation. Beer flows and folks sing their national amthem with drunken gusto while tripping down the streets of a foreign country. I wonder if many of us estadounidenses, folks from the US, do the same thing in Canada every year. It just strikes me as odd to celebrate one’s nationalism on foreign soil. It seems to me leaving home would be about getting away from nationalistic fervor.

It was late in the evening when I arrived and hearing that all the accomodations downtown would be booked with Chileans I took a room in a private house. Joe, a 65 year old firecracker of a woman, was advertising her room at the bus station. This is a common practice all through Chile and Argentina and often affords the traveller with a much more local experience, but demands a basic level of spanish to take advantage of. Joe’s house was in an outlying neighborhood near the bus station. She is committed to being the best danm host this side of the Derien Gap, the roadless piece of jungle seperating North and South America at the Cloumbian Panamanian border.

El barrio de Joe (Joe´s neighborhood) is a typical Latin American suburb. To my gringo eyes it appeared a bit run down. The houses are all built out of brick and concrete, replacements for the adobe construction of old. They are wall to wall and the sidewalks are broken, the storm sewers open and a fine layer of dirt over everything. Once any traveller adjusts to the apereance of things and gets to the street and interacts with the folks living there they realize the beauty not provided in the sharp facades of North America. Tranqi, a local shortened form of tranquillo (mellow or calm), is an apt description for the feel of the street outside Joe’s.

Hungry, I asked Joe where to eat. She through me and two other gringos she’d picked up at the bus station in her car. In the midst of telling us there was a great little local shop around the corner she drove us to the mall. To her surprise we protested noting that this was pretty much like being at home and we’d much prefer the local reatuarant. Baffled but consenting she brought us back to within two blocks of her house and made sure the folks would fill us up, which they did.

The shop is a tiny little whole in the wall serving mainly walkup folks piazza and lomos (grinders/hot subs). The food was fantastic. Served up by a blatently Italin family, at shortly before midnight they were still cutting prep foods. Argentine dinner time is ten o’clock and later. After dinner I went alone to purvey the Chilean celebrations, but nursing a cold and a broken rib I’d received skiing I soon returned to Joe’s for a welcome night’s sleep.

The morning after the party the streets are quite and the buss station full with Chileans headed home. There will be a week of marches and militarty parades back in Santiago, but I am sure most of the Chilean exodus is for work. The hotels empty out and I find a room right in the heart of town. Strolling out into town I pass workers cleaning up the remains of last night’s party. I walk past a canal flowing along downtown’s south flank and realize that most of the garbage will end up there.

All of us westerners have this out of sight out of mind mindset about garbage. The abundant ammounts we generate at home are seldom seen again once they are out of our hands. My home town, Seattle, spews it’s trash all over the desert in eastern Oregon, along with most other metropoli on the west coast. Here, in Mendoza, the streets are clean but the lovely canal passing through town is full of trash. I think of Oscar The Grouch while looking over the river and hum to myself, “I love trash.”

Regardless of the garbage I am falling quickly in love with Argentina, at least on first impression. It is new for me in Latin American to not be a stand out. I am blonde and blue eyed and often have gringo or yankee hollerred out to me while wonderring a town. Passing through Manchu Pitchu ten years ago I was such a novelty that a class of some thirty school girls one after the next kept me captive while they each took a picture with me. While it may be nice to be cherished by school girls the desire to blend in becomes overwhelming. Today I have peolple on the street asking me directions as if I lived here. I may not have the most common face in the crowd, but it is my foreign accent and poor spanish grammer that give me away.

An old Dodge pick up lumbers down the road; it reminds me of life at home. There are many ups and downs in travelling. I have travelled alone a great deal in my life and often these times afford the greatest reflection and contemplation of the world, but they are accompanied by the reality that there is no one there to share it with. It can grow into loneliness and depression if it goes on for to long. I am looking forward to my friend’s house in Cordoba.

So I sit on this bench next to the trashy river after walking a good portion of town. There is a potters shop across the street. The nighborhoods I walked through remind me of Europe with their cafes and small kiosks dotting the street. All sorts of small cars travel down the road alongside the big american models. I passed a golf course on my walk and inquired about green fees, but it was mebers only. Argentina unlike other Sauth American countries I have travelled through seems to see itself more a part of European culture than Latin American, but it is distinctly a part of the Americas and especially, even with all it’s eurocentric cultural leanings, Latin American.

Valle Nevado is nestled high in the mountains that rise right out of the Santiago’s high priced condo and luxury home neighborhood, Los Condes, on the eastern flank of the valley. We drive up a hair raising windy road that while paved is so narrow that during peak season traffic is only allowed one way; up until noon and down until midnight. The road tops out on a narrow ridge dropping away from both sides thousands of feet to what we named “cactus valley” below. The road down where it leaves the city is lined by cacti which drop away to barren rock and ice as the car climbs 2430m/8000ft up the switch-backs.
“Don’t ski down that slope to far or you’ll end up in cactus valley and never be heard from again,” we would joke.
The resort is an emblem of modern ski tourism. It has a completely self contained village and stays are sold in packages ranging from $100 to $400 per night per person. Prices included accommodation, lift tickets, breakfast and diner. As in any resort night life is busy and there are a variety of bars to linger at after dinner featuring live entertainment many nights of the week.
Erin and Greg took to the room on our first night to catch up on some much missed TV viewing and I toured the village meeting an Irish couple on their honeymoon. They were on the first ski trip of their lives and had neglected the powerful rays of the sun on their first day. Needless to say their faces were still recovering a week later from the blistering they’d received.
“Everyone calls us the creamies,” Sean commented in reference to the think sun and healing creams they needed to keep in constant application since the burning. The bar band played a review of Madonna songs in the background while we chatted about our lives over rounds of Crystal, a local cervesa (beer).
The terrain at Valle Nevado is huge and the lift access to the local peaks for backcountry touring is seemingly unlimited. Inbounds most of the runs are of moderate slope but short walks to the neighboring peaks can offer any extreme adventure an abundance of steep terrain. No one could cover the available back country in a two week visit. Helicopter rides are available from the village for around $150 per ride and longer flights, at higher prices, will take you deep into the range and bring you back to soak in the 100 person slope-side hot tub before your evening meal.
The most recent storm, probably the last of the year, came through a week before our arrival, but we were still able to find light windblown and unskied powder inside the area. The area has several surface lifts because of the high winds which often blow through this giant alpine steppe. From the top of the back poma, La Inca, we traversed out to neighboring bowls and threaded figure eights for three days.
It is not unlike skiing in the states in that there is extensive ski patrol and they chase you down the mountain at closing each day. Obviously, we found ourselves being the subject of scrutiny by these officials as we consistently tried to catch the last tacks on the hill.
In one race from the authorities I found a sweet deposit of deep wind blow champagne and laid my knee down slicing a half dozen turn before cutting into the cat track only to find the tips of my skis caught under the hard pack sheet rising into the slope from the track. It grabbed me firm and through me high side onto the hard-pack. Catching my breath I heard the patroller coming behind me. I had to get up so as to not risk my ticket for the next day. Collecting myself I sped away just as she crested the ridge behind me. Later that night I learned for the first time just what a broken rib feels like. Breathing suddenly became a vary conscious act and would stay that way for the next few weeks.
Saturday was the last day of our trip and with the help of a good dose of “I-be-broken” (ibuprofen) we had a nice day taking in this beautiful place and carving our last turns down it’s slopes.
“Another beautiful day in the Andes,” I exclaimed when we arrived at the summit lift and took in the glaciated peaks to the east and the tremendous drop to the Pacific to the west on that brilliant blue bird morning
Greg closed our trip leaving me deeply jealous, but unable to join with the condition of my rib cage. Erin and I took the car down the road to snow line and Greg took a summit to road ski that must have at least doubled the vertical drop of our tour at Portitllo and was lift accessible. The folks sledding by the road where we waited for him thrilled in watching his decent as much as we did. Carving his board over a huge open field and down through an open, but intimidating cliff line he slid up to the car with an epiphanal grin.
“I’m not even sure I’m in my body!” he exclaimed.
We dumped all our gear from the car and repacked to head to the airport where we would say our goodbyes. They took my ski gear back to North America where it will wait for me to arrive for the winter snows and I took an army duffle with a few belongings and headed to the bus station to catch a lift to Cordoba Argentina, back over Portillo Pass, to visit a friend I have there. He teaches business English to concrete manufactures and other folks. Erin, Greg and I knew that when we see each other again in the snows of the Cascades outside of Seattle we will only be able to make vague comparisons to our adventure here but the experience will live in all of our hearts and minds for the rest of our lives, or at least till we get back here to do it again.
In Santiago before saying goodbye we drove past a huge wholesale market on the North end of downtown. We pulled off and Erin and I walked through the market looking for some crafts for her to take home while Greg waited with the car. The market went on for blocks and was void of crafts, but rather stuffed with the abundant food in this breadbasket of the Americas. It left me feeling how rich and beautiful this country is. How much it has it’s own culture as it embraces that of the global economy. This winter as I buy Chilean tomatoes and avocados in my local grocery I will remember the pistes of the Andes and the wine of Los Andes and the cultural paradoxes of our world.

Driving in Chile keeps the traveler in the widely known experience of road tripping anywhere in the first world. I once had an acquaintance tell me, while traveling through Bolivia ten years ago, a local saying … “if you own a car you are a capitalist!” To see Chile from a car is to note that gas stations, mini-marts and McDonald’s are the institutions of the road in all western global market countries. The freedom to turn onto any road and stop at any interest is the appeal of the car to everyone in the world. It is an intensely individualistic and wealthy expression.
The automobile as central tool of transport has been fully embraced here and the roads in Chile, unlike it’s northern neighbors Peru and Bolivia, are of a very high quality. They are equipped with emergency phones every 5km. Much like Europe or New England there are modest tolls every 100Km or so. While many Chileans do not have cars it is busses rather than trains that move everyone around and the busses are very plush. They serve food, show movies and have large reclining seats for overnight rides. It is no Greyhound experience to travel by bus here. One more thing impossible not to notice in leaving North America for almost anywhere else in the world is the impossible number of car types not available in The States, many bearing the mark of our own manufacturers. Diesels and mini cars abound are surely reflective of the cost of petrol here.
The 5.8 million person city of Santiago is coated in a thin coat of black dust. It makes the beautiful architecture of the city fade and seem dingy and run down. Like Los Angeles, Santiago sprawls over a huge valley wrung by mountains. Similar to the her North American sister city, in many more ways than just this, the air doesn’t flow and fills the valley with some of the worst smog on the South American continent much less the world. The brown haze that clings to the air, especially in winter months here, brings to wonder the value of this trade we make; of the environment for first world affluence. The car is the totem of the 1st world. “To own a car is to be a capitalist!” An extreme sentiment possibly, but it rings with a certain undeniable truth.

Skiing, Driving and Luxury: “All for a Price” - part 1

I am tired this morning and a bit hung over after to much wine. Woke up with a head full of booze and heartbreak. Depressants don’t help depression, but adventure does. Yesterday evening we made it a two hour’s drive northward to a small town, Los Andes, about half way to Portillo. The highway passes through what must be a 3K long tunnel crossing out of the Mapocho Valley, home to Santiago, and into the Aconcagua Valley. Sadly, we drove in darkness and could not take in the countryside until today.

Los Andes is a big wine town. To drive the valley is similar to motoring Napa Valley north of San Francisco complete with posh wine tasting rooms, country villas and motels. Although it was dark upon arrival and much of the towns hotels were booked, so we took lodging a bit outside of el centro, a short walk to the central plaza revealed a beautiful working class pueblo. Erin is on the wagon, but Greg and I had no problem getting through a couple bottles of the local juice. Tasting wonderful to my inexperienced pallet and served by at our table for $8 a bottle, complaint was hard to come by. The food was quite good as well. Our waiter Marco Antonio (Marc Anthony) kept us in stitches through the meal and closed by insisting we have a taste of a local amaretto to settle the meal.

“It’s good for the digestion,” Marco insisted.

“But what will it do to my head,” I asked. He shrugged and we sipped our short glasses into the fogginess that is my head this morning.

So I wake in La Valle de Aconcagua, but it is overcast and I cannot see the crowning jewel of the Andes. Aconcagua is the highest peak in the Americas and the southern hemisphere at 6,962m/22,841ft. During our whole stay we will be denied a vista of the mountain. Our little town Los Andes is dominated by agriculture. Semis carrying all of the goods of the valley que in endless streams up and down the town’s main drags this morning. Walking to the café down the street, the big rigs dominate the streetscape. Little commuter cars, light trucks and horse drawn buggies, some four horses wide, dart in and out of the congestion.

Thanks in part the previous nights libations we move slow and Erin takes the helm at the wheel. It is a day of getting situated. Accommodations are booked out at the ski area so we find some lodging just down the pass and make reservations via phone to return to Valle Navado in two days were we will stay the remainder of the trip. Even with the frustrations of running around, we are all glad to see a small but reasonable swath of Chile during our short week together here. Mostly though we are very excited to get our skis on the snow.

“The vertical relief here is staggering,” Greg comments as we assemble our gear in the parking lot at Portillo.

When You first arrive at Portillo the scale of the mountains make the ski-area seem small, but once out on it's slopes you realize the size of the mountains here and the huge vertical drop of this place. The ski area has an inbound vertical drop of 860m/2800ft. Additionally, the number of skiers on the slopes is so few that a snow storm a week earlier will still leave fresh powder to be found in bounds (take both meanings here). The powder here is as light or lighter than anything found in the Wasatch during a February storm.

It’s Wednesday morning and we prepare up for a tour into the Andes. We step into our skis, all styles represented; split board, rondenea and telemark, and walk past the historic lodge out onto the thick ice of Laguna del Inca (Lake of the Inca). The surface elevation of the lake is 2590m/8500ft and it slices at least a mile into a valley rung by 5000m/16500ft. and higher peaks whose shear rock walls pour down into the ice of the lake. The walls of the valley are broken by avalanche chutes and wide bowls of snow. At the end of the lake the massive valley opens to 1500m/5000ft slopes of snow pitching from subtle fifteen degree slopes at the valley floor to death-defying big mountain sixty degree headwalls high at the valley summits. The landscape is punctuated by soft ridges and open bowls that will draw the snow lust out of all back country tourers.

The dangers of the snow pack here are no small change. At the extremely high altitude the snow stays dry and cold and seldom has an opportunity to consolidate until late spring when even these high peaks loose all but the smallest traces of snow and ice from their slopes. Left only with the blue jewels of the glaciers that crown the south slopes of the highest summits here. When storms come through the white out is absolute. There are few references from witch to find direction beyond gravity. There is no vegetation and rock outcroppings become lost under a fine new layer of powder. The natural hazard, a cliff edge or avalanche chute, can come up on the backcountry traveler in these conditions with no warning.

Portillo, however, receives a tremendous amount of sun and tourists planning a trip of a week or more are likely to encounter some brilliant days. The snow pack does not consolidate and the sun and wind create ice layers in the pack, so weak bonding between the layers can create great hazards. Varying aspects or exposures can have substantially different snow composition. It is extremely important for backcountry travelers, especially downhill riders, to thoroughly examine the slopes they plan to carve.

The lake froze hard in the morning and I skated half the distance at a dizzying speed on the dead flat ice. I’ve seldom been on frozen ice and the novelty of the experience thrilled me. I poled and pushed off my toes like an Olympic biathlon racer leading the way to the next station. At half way, however, my lungs and energy collapsed from the altitude (and my lifestyle, I am no Olympic athlete). I stopped my sprint for the distant slopes and finished the crossing in a slow kick and glide.

From the far shore we dawn our skins and start ascending the seemingly endless valley. With only the exception of tracks from a few previous skiers, as far as we can see into the whole range we are alone. We chose what seemed like a modest slope up the west side of the valley and were soon to learn first hand, as I’ve all ready mentioned, the daunting scale of the Andes.

On the ascent, what looked from below like a short boot pack up to a modest ridge ascending to the valley crest (or near it; as the valley crest required mixed climbing equipment) turned into a sixty degree climb up through mixed loose and soft terrain. Just before gaining the arête the bottom of the snow pack disappeared and we broke through into the melted out, but fortunately small cavity between the snow and the rock underneath it. The daunting sensation of the massive valley was fantastic. At the top of our ascent we looked over the multiple decent routes from our perch some 800m/2600ft above the lake. I won first tracks and the open field of snow embraced the edge of my ski like lovers meeting at the hotel bar on the other end of the lake. The turns snaked past rock outcroppings, through a narrow chute and out onto the broad low angle snow fields of the valley floor. It is a top ten, hell - a top five day (it felt like number one while it was happening)!! What more can a snow rider ask for.

After rejoicing in the elation of our decent we took out back across the now almost uncomfortably soft surface of the lake for the lodge at the other end. We spent the last few hours of the day darting around the inbound slopes of Portillo and reveling in our journey.

The lodge is a rustic old building initiated in the 1930’s but delayed by World War II until it was finished in 1949. It offers executively priced and serviced while somewhat rustic accommodation. It is like returning to the resort experience of the 40’s and 50’s, but with modern lift and ski hill infrastructure. There is a 5 person surface lift designed by Poma in 1966 specifically for Portillo to avoid the substantial local avalanche dangers, which all but destroyed the area in 1965. The lifts haul skiers at nearly a waterskiing speed up steep chutes to access many of the higher parts of the ski area. It is a bit of a comedy to watch the whole group disembark this crazy apparatus in one fell swoop. While Portillo has little of the glitz of the modern ski resort it truly maintains all of the class of skiing’s resort past.

Sept 11 - The Infamous Holiday

We arrived to Santiago, Chile on Sunday without my fellow travelers’, Erin and Greg, bags. Any plans to ski on our first day dashed. Little did we know we would run right into a history lesson before getting the opportunity to encounter the snows of the Andes and bare witness to the majestic peaks that look over a world of equally great cultural history.

After escaping the airport in our rental car with obligations to return the following morning for the luggage we drove smack into an anarchist-communist demonstration that held el centro (downtown) near gridlock. While one must recognize the obvious incongruity of these two communities. They at least share a common enemy, the modern free trade state. It is the day before the anniversary of the General Pinochet’s coup removing President Salvador Allende from power on September 11, 1973 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973. The coup, still debated as to it’s consequences, is a watershed moment in the political rivalry between the right and left in the Americas. Democracy restored itself through several elections in the late Eighties and early Nineties.

The riot police skirted the demonstrators and shuffled traffic in a continuous circle around our intended pension, Hotel Francais, situated in the heart of the city. We circled the marches catching glimpses of their red and black flags, hearing slices of their chants and seeing the prolific remains of their ideas in the graffiti covering many of the walls after their passing.

Our first day also brought an abrupt lesson in driving South American style. The frustrations of reconnoitering our position, slipping through the honking busses, taxis and private cars in this capitol city of five million built the tension in our vehicle. To make matters worse at every turn we needed to make we encountered more riot police redirecting traffic. Fortunately, at least, it was a Sunday and the number of commuters was a quarter of what it would be any other day of the week.

“We’re in South America guys,” Erin noted gleefully to break the building road rage.

“We’re in traffic!” Greg responded. It was to be a typical driving dialog between my friends, 13 year aficionados (partners in love and life), during our week together here.

Sundays here most everything is closed, but the extensive downtown pedestrian district fills with a flea market. Se vende (they sell) books, antiques, crafts, chachkis, and various artifacts of Chilean life. There is a great national pride on display in most all Chilean activities. Whether marching in the streets to condemn the government or to praise the saving of the country from becoming a member of the communist block of the Seventies everyone is above all Chilean.

“Yo soy Chileano (I am a Chilean)!” one will exclaim if asked. The churches swell with attendees, gawkers and beggars as the Sunday masses churn on through the day in this intensely Catholic country. A country that while so deeply tied to the Vatican, an estimated 70% of Chileans are Catholic, this year elected a divorced, atheist and moderate socialist woman for president, Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria.

Today, Monday, is my first morning waking here and ordered my first coffee in months. I quite drinking it for my stomach and I’ve renewed my habit here. I sip the local brew at the counter of a walk up cafe in the pedestrian district. It resides in the first floor of one of the many high rise office buildings in the financial district and swells with businessmen smoking and reading noticias (newspapers) at the long and winding marble topped bar.

They wear the classic uniform of any broker or agent of capitalism found at the gates to all the financial capitals of the world; a dark suit and shoes with only a tie and maybe a scarf to express anything more contradictory than grey in color. A fine wool winter overcoat, and hat to break the brisk morning air. The coffee servers sport tight fitting and revealingly short and low cut red dresses with short black blazers and four inch black stilettos as they pass along caffeine cocktails and conversation to the clientele. There are a smattering of the women of power in this exchange. They stand along side the men at the bar in sharp women’s business suits and flats.

Perhaps it is the time of year, the final gasp of winter confronting the cherry blossoms that are sprouting all over town, or perhaps it is my romantic memories of this place, or even just my getting adjusted to being out of North America for the first time in six years and my first time in South America in ten years nearly to the day, but este ciudad (this city) seems more gritty than I remember. The shanties surrounding the airport tell a more honest story of the deal struck for capitalist affluence than the not so clearly visible poverty of my home town, Seattle. While very western and affluent Santiago seems isolated onto itself - the center of nothing but it’s own identity, un rincon del mundo – a corner of the world. It is also a glorious place set at the foot of 20K foot snow covered Andean peaks and full of pride in the land and itself.

After tracking down the lost luggage and taking an afternoon ski at Valle Nevado, a ski area perched just outside the city, in the clouds just above the city. We decide the white out is so complete in this treeless almost vegitationless landscape of rock and snow that we should head for Portillo, the pass to Argentina, and hope for better weather. It was so difficult to make out the slopes in the flat light that when I would pull up to a stop I could not get my vertical bearing to the fall line and kept falling over. The moment of sitting, however, calmed my exasperation with the conditions and provided some exceptional comic relief. Portillo is about a four hour drive from the parking lot of Valle Navado.