Thursday, November 13, 2008

CHILIES TODAY, CHILLY TONIGHT, STILL CHILE TOMORROW




Chile has the most unusual shape in the world, right, like some string bean or something? Or maybe one of those silver straws they use with the mate’ cups in Argentina? They don’t use those on this side of the Andes. Everything’s different over here- no more gauchos, no more mate’, no more Portu-Italo-Spaniol as lingua franca, no more fancy pretentious restaurants with spotless white tablecloths, wine glasses, and waiters in penguin suits. No, Chile is more down-to-earth, with many small eateries and menu options with nice little ladies running from table to table, advertising the tastiness of their food by the inches on their waistline. They even have sopaipillas down here, street food, something I’ve never seen anywhere in Latin America, though standard fare in US Tex-Mex restaurants. How come? Did culinary DNA make that big of a leap or was it widespread in previous times only to become forgotten at the center, kind of like camels in Asia and llamas in South America, first cousins long forgotten in their North American home of birth?

There’s only one problem with those cozy little holes-in-the-wall. They’re smoking in there, cigarettes not ribs. Apparently each place has the right to choose its orientation, some choosing separate sections, most choosing the status quo, i.e. smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. In a large place it’s not so offensive, but in a smaller place the smoke can really build up in a cool climate where the doors are shut tight. As if it’s not hard enough to keep your clothes clean on the road, try fighting the fumes too. Still, for a $3 plate of salmon, I guess we can overlook some unpleasantries, right?


But back to that funny shape, it’s really worth stretching your imagination a bit to fully comprehend. Imagine grabbing California by its little Baja chicken-leg, then rip upward along San Andreas’ fault and follow the Sierras northward all the way up to say, about Juneau. Now take that sucker and flip it over southward, letting people slide toward the desert while you’ve got it upended (losing most of them in the process, may they r-i-p). Now slide the whole thing southward to the tip of the South American continent. Welcome to Chile, stretching from almost Antarctica to the Tropics. The southern part of the country is so wet you’d almost think you’re in Oregon or Washington, but without all the people. The northern part is so dry some parts have never recorded rainfall, but they’ve still got plenty of people, and have had long before the Spaniards or even the Incas. The cultures are well documented, since not even textiles rot in dry sand, not to mention the Nazca lines of Peru or the ‘tall ruling people’ observed on Easter Island at the colonizers’ first visit but gone by the second.


But if you like the US Pacific Northwest, then southern Chile is like paradise. Punta Arenas may be a bit cold and windy, but not THAT bad considering its geographical position. Give it some latitude; if you don’t like the weather now, then just wait an hour. The wind is so strong it’ll go through four or five weather changes each day. Puerto Montt is a definite improvement weather-wise, if still a bit rough around the edges from its frontier perch, a mini-Seattle servicing the outback. At least the flowers are beautiful. They say the grayest climes produce the prettiest flowers. If New York or Hanoi is any measure they produce the darkest clothes also, and some of the darkest moods, too, people looking like the Hanoi buzzard ladies dressed in black pajamas, squatting on haunches, chewing betel nut through reddened teeth and watching me with crocodile tears. It all comes back to me now, the angst and the helplessness of that longest night back then back there, frozen in panic, waiting to die and living to look back on it, creating new gods to serve so that they might save me before the night’s over. So I walk the streets of Puerto Montt in my certified 100% wool plaid ‘grunge coat’ humming Nirvana’s ‘Rape Me’, singing the chorus in three-part harmony and waiting for the rain to stop. It doesn’t.


Valdivia is the sweet spot, the pearl of coastal southern Chile, sitting on three rivers and a bay on the ocean also. Not only do you get salmon, but sea lions too. Strawberriews and cherries line the streets for sale. Sound familiar? Portland would DIE for this view in its backyard, the better to compete with Seattle. Again like Portland, the ambience is friendlier and less threatening than its edgy neighbor farther pole-ward. Crafts are for sale in the markets, lots of articulated lizards, but no rain sticks, not yet at least. I wonder if they buy their lizards from China now? The houses are all made of wood, ship-lap and shakes, and architecture that lends itself to the use of wood, very ‘un-Latino’. Is that because of the pronounced German influence into the bloodlines here? It’s probably more because of an abundance of trees, chain saws proudly offered for sale, certainly not illegal like in Thailand. I even got to see and hear some good music on the way through. A ‘fusion’ group called Entrama (Andean jazz?) just happened to be on tour and was there at the university the same night as me. Chile seems more sentimentally attached to Andean culture than its eastern neighbors, even though Argentina probably has more of it within its borders. I like it, flutes and quenas and cuatros with cellos and organ and clean jazz guitar.


There are some problems in paradise of course, the rain not the least of it. There’s also the cold, not so cold really until you try it without heaters and a chill set into the bones. Then there’s the coffee, much harder to find in espresso form than neighboring Argentina and just as expensive or even more if you do. You know you’re in trouble when the espresso machine has a Nescafe logo on the side. Pretentiousness has its perks I suppose, but can’t you be unpretentious and still prefer good coffee? I’m confused. And how do you explain cheaper prices at Starbucks in the US? Coffee is an international commodity, meaning the same price the world over. Wages are four or five times higher in the US and a cup of coffee is mostly just that, labor. You can get a lot of cups out of a ten dollar bag of coffee, and that’s retail! Go figure. And that doesn’t mean you can even find a place open before mid-morning. This is when you need that breakfast with your bed, just to have something warm for your belly first thing on a chilly Chile morning. Screw it. I’m tired of the wet and cold. I’m going to Santiago.


Fingers are crossed. Santiago has a rep for smog, but maybe Saturday will be better. Maybe all that rain will have washed it away, future perfect tense. The bus pulls in at day break and the outlook (i.e. sky) looks grim, grimy and gray. But that’s typical of the morning on the Pacific coast of America almost everywhere, isn’t it? It finally lifts to reveal blue sky, something I haven’t seen in days, if not weeks, temps mild even warm, and sidewalk cafes busy. I’m groggy from an all-night bus ride and things happen to make me wonder if maybe I’m hallucinating. First I pass a Christian Science reading room. Huh? In Santiago? Mom, are you following me? Then I’m sitting in the park looking for a wi-fi signal, when an entire family of three sits on the bench beside me, seemingly interested in my Cambodian baseball cap. The man asks me in English, “Where you from?” I answer in Spanish, “Soy Americano.” Then they start talking to each other in Thai. Huh? In Santiago? Tang, are you following me? Turns out they’re with the embassy here, three of the couple dozen Thais in town. The teen-ager's nickname is Anwar, in homage to the Thai pop star. I inform him that's an Arab name, something he was oblivious to. We chat for a half hour in Thai, trading notes and addresses.


Too bad there are no good hostels downtown. In the rush to convert to condominiums, hostales don’t bother to renovate. The only cheap hotels are for short-term use, renting by the hour. Anyway I’m home, for a day at least.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

OBAMA SWEEPS PATAGONIA ON WAY TO WIN; CONSPIRACY LOSES BIG

Arizona voter Earl Hardie Karges, also known by his pen name 'Hardie K', faxed in his vote for US President last week from Punta Arenas in Chile, on the Strait of Magellan next to Tierra del Fuego. Though his travels have and will continue to take him all over the world, that doesn't mean that he doesn't keep up with or maintain an interest in American politics. How could he in a world increasingly global both politically and economically?

"To say that this could be the transformation of American politics would be an understatement. One vote could make the difference between war and peace, proper health care or none, the past and the future. It's been difficult being a traveler the last eight years with America's increasingly belligerent and indefensible position in the world, not just from the locals, but from the Europeans who expect better from their close cousins. The Statue of Liberty and the Statue of Lincoln have inspired millions of people for hundreds of years and now we've become a pathetic caricature of ourselves, maintaining one system for ourselves and another for everybody else. America was born in the struggle for freedom and human rights. We want our revolution back."


So this means another vote for Obama?


"Is there any other choice? If he was short on experience before, he's certainly gained it in this campaign. That's the good aspect of these long grueling elections; it makes you tough. I didn't support Obama originally simply because others had more experience and their policies are similar. His value increased every day that he didn't stumble or lose his cool. McCain's value decreased for the same reasons, with his silly campaign stunts and reckless posturing. If Obama's execution of his job matches his vision, then the entire world could have a peerless leader for decades to come. Of course he'll need Congress's support long before he'll ever get Ahmadinejad's or Chavez's. The potential is tremendous and exciting. That's why I'm making the extra effort to cast my vote."


Why Punta Arenas in southernmost Chile to vote?


"Why not? I plan to visit every country before I’m finished. This is where I happen to be as Nov. 4 rolls around in a country that I’m visiting for the first time. Considering that I'm registered to vote in Flagstaff, Arizona, where I've lived on and off for the last twenty years, it's appropriate, considering their mutual and sometimes surprising Arctic-like conditions; make that ‘Antarctic’. It snowed here this morning in the middle of spring. That sounds like Flagstaff to me."


Is this just a cheap ploy for that fifteen minutes of fame we were all promised by Andy Warhol?


"Absolutely not; it’s not cheap at all to get here. Have you seen airline prices recently? Seriously though, I'd like to publicize the fact that voting is not limited to a little booth in your little hometown in some little corner of the world. We've come a long way since Biblical times. I wish I could do it all by Internet, but we're not quite there yet, maybe next time. As it is, the forms can be received by e-mail scan, but then I have to fax them in. That's not bad. The people in Coconino County, Arizona, have been very helpful. There's no excuse not to vote. I'd like to inspire others to do likewise, wherever you happen to be."


Where next?


"I'll go up the coast to central and maybe northern Chile. I've been in and around Argentina for a few weeks and just crossed over to Chile here in Patagonia. So far I like it a lot. Since I'm not much of a steak eater, the food seems better than Argentina, and costs are reasonable. I plan to be back in the US the day before Thanksgiving, then pick up my wife and head to Thailand, where she's from and which is my true second home. Then I'll travel some more while the dollar's strong against the Euro, which hasn't been the case in years. This is the real deal. It’s a way of life."


So Obama won and some people are declaring the death of racism. I doubt that but I would say it’s about time to bury conspiracy theory. I take this personally. I’ve lost friends to conspiracy theory. It’s worse than any conspiracy itself could ever be. I hope they’re OK. Yeah, you know the rap. “The candidates are all the same… They were all members of the same secret society… The game is rigged… If you don’t have money, then you can’t go anywhere in this society…” This rap reached fever pitch after 9-11 of course with claims that our secret government attacked its own people as a pretense for starting a war, something a lot of very intelligent people have no problem believing. The story probably peaked around the 2004 elections with claims that the two candidates were somehow ‘the same’ or that the ‘secret government’ might decide to ‘install Kerry’ just to mess with us. That’s also the time I dropped out, when one of my conspiracy friends asserted that ‘we need four more years of George Bush.’ Huh? I couldn’t get any of them to refute that. Obviously their game was little better than that of the devil himself, or the devil’s patsy rather, ‘W’. They need him to make their case. Without him, or someone like him, they’re forced to gather evidence. There is none.


The beauty with conspiracy theory of course is that it can’t be disproved. The problem is that by itself it proves nor predicts nothing either, merely backfilling logic with the pinpoint accuracy of a Monday morning quarterback. They even refused to believe Osama’s own confession on 9-11, a racial slight in my opinion, that a bunch of Arabs couldn’t possibly have done it. That’s an insult. Fast forward four years and conspiracy people are in as much trouble philosophically as Republicans. Their underpinnings have been seriously hobbled. Does this mean that David Icke will have to go ‘beyond the cutting edge’ and get a real job? I doubt it. As Dan Brown knows, these are first and foremost good stories. But no one could say that Barack Obama and John McCain were the same nor deny that Obama had no innate advantage and overcame tremendous odds on the path to victory. As Freud said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” and sometimes the good guy wins. Like Michelle, for the first time in a long time, “I’m proud to be an American.” Let’s drop the defeatist nay-saying and make the world a better place. There are too many reasons for success. Why bother with failure?

Monday, November 03, 2008

WHEN YOU’RE FEELIN’ TOO PAMPA’D, THEN GO TO PATAGONIA




Patagonia = n X ½(500X1000)m, where n is nothingness and m is miles, all measurements approximate. Nothingness for me does not imply lack; nothingness implies infinity, and so does Patagonia with its many wonders, albeit most of them crinkled up against that stone massif called the Andes. Unfortunately it’s a long ride to get there. I don’t remember what year Paul Theroux came here, but I don’t think the ‘Old Patagonia Express’ exists any more. The train stations in Bs. As. seem pretty decrepit with trains going to no places I’ve ever heard of, local and regional only I think. The big problem now is a lack of coins to pay with, queues stretching around corners with people waiting patiently in line. It was all over the news down here; I’m sure it must’ve made CNN. The long distance trains I imagine have long since been replaced by buses, double deck affairs with meals and entertainment included (sometimes even cute hostesses). The food sucks of course. If you think airline food is bad, then you should try some bus food. Remember ‘chicken-fried’ steak (or did we only rate that privilege in Mississippi)? Milanesa is an Argentine favorite and usually makes it into the little foil-wrap containers that conceal what will eventually go into your mouth. It’s better that way. The breading on the ‘steak’ works to hide what’s really inside.

So what’s a health-food person to do down south? As always, smile and say ‘cheese’. I’m getting really tired of cheese but I haven’t eaten much for the last ten years in Asia so I can endure I suppose. The real demon is ham-and-cheese. It’s evil. I’m starting to think of these as ham-and-cheese republics it’s so ubiquitous. It’s a plot I’m sure, and a bad one, characters wanted, a conspiracy of some sort, kill our souls with ham and clog our intestines with cheese, round us up into colonoscopy camps. I’m not joking, not much anyway. For lunch on the bus we had two sandwiches, one on square loaf bread with the edges neatly trimmed and one on a hamburger bun, both- you guessed it- with ham and cheese in the center. It’s enough to make you go on a fast, or go on a slow, conserving energy to conserve calories so as not to bore yourself with eating. At least the 36-hour bus ride to Rio Gallegos is actually on schedule, not like a certain train running between Bamako and Dakar that arrives a day late, and then dumps you on the side of the tracks at 5am, that smell of compost your own, but fortunately there’s always a hotel-cum-whorehouse still open working the night shift as long as you don’t mind paying for a night that’s already gone and best forgotten.


It’s probably better that way, that the food’s no good, since the bus has no crappers anyway, recycling bathrooms advised for use with ‘liquids only’. So what if you’ve got the runs? Interpret liberally. The coffee is no better of course, though sometimes instant is preferable to a bad brew. Don’t waste time looking for a bus with latte’. Then there’s the ubiquitous orange drink. As Seinfeld might say, “what’s the deal with a fizzy orange drink? Does it taste orange? Do they put in any real orange flavor? If you closed your eyes could you tell the difference between an orange drink and a green drink? Does a green drink taste like something green?” I’ve had the red drink in Thailand and I couldn’t tell you what it tastes like. What’s the taste of red?


As our time capsule continues into the night, God only knows what changes are occurring while we feign sleep and wish for dreams to come. A few stops occur with people shuffling in and out, but nothing very notable. When the morning comes we’re heading due west toward Bariloche before heading south again. By now we’re heading into the heart of Patagonia and the population is thinning rapidly, only to almost peter out totally long before the 50th parallel where Rio Gallegos lies. Comodoro Rivadavia is the only town of note for almost a thousand miles. The land is so flat and the vistas so broad that Nevada would fit right in, literally lost in the vastness. Then below the 50th parallel things change again, Patagonia morphing into Tierra del Fuego. The terrain becomes a little more broken up, but the main characteristic is the wind. Winds blow at gale force it seems like all the time, so there’s no need to give them names as if they’re special or something. The emptiness otherwise makes a blank slate for tourism; you don’t have to be bothered with the detritus of culture impinging on your package tour. I’m being facetious, trying to chisel the rough edges of my personality into multiple smooth faces and facets.


After checking in at Rio Gallegos and buying an onward ticket to Chile in advance, I go up to El Calafate for a couple days to watch a glacier make babies. The glacier is nice and the town not so bad, but the most fun was the skewered English on the bus up there. Thought Chinese had a monopoly on that? Listen to this: “Prohibited the gown to be extracted,” meaning “don’t take off your clothes on the bus” (Europeans, remember?). Anyway the wind’s not so bad there and if the sun’s out, then it’s downright nice. Rio Gallegos is another story. Perched along the coast the wind blows with a vengeance that stops buses in their tracks and makes me think twice before using the pedestrian overpasses. Otherwise it’s like a time warp, inspired from Fifties’ America it seems, certainly not typically Latino, though quite a few northern Quechua-types make it down for the work. What’s a little cold to them? South from there it only gets worse. That’s the bad thing about my obsession with geographical extremes and Arctic circles- the weather sucks bad. Why can’t I just put on a fake Hawaiian shirt and content myself with the tropics instead like normal people?


Finally I crossed the border. What difference can a line drawn on the map make? It surprises me sometimes. They’re not always as startling as the border at TJ, but that’s to be expected. Still the one here delineates more than the one up by Vancouver. There are no more ubiquitous meat grills or cups of mate’ with the silver straw extruding into almost everyone’s mouth. Chile seems more down-to-earth and less pretentious. There are small little restaurants and bars that seem like interesting cheap places. At least the Chilean border guards didn’t charge me the $131 visa ‘reciprocity’ charge that I’ve been dreading and scheming against for months. Even though it’s on and in all the books, apparently they only hit you up for it at Santiago International Airpost upon direct entry to the country. If you slime your way through the land border, then apparently you avoid the charge. That’s cool, almost making up for the humiliation of spacing out my entry card in Uruguay and having to buy my way past the immigration point.


The weather’s cool too, as you might expect this far south, cool and rainy, but I eventually find the hotel I’ve reserved and exchange some money at the same rate I passed on at the border, but what the hey… all’s well that ends well, right? So now I sit in my room in Punta Arenas with the wind howling outside my window, rain falling intermittently, and temperatures on their way down to freezing tonight if not already there yet. This is the price I pay for my policy of experimentation. If it’s any consolation, weather would be very similar many places back at the same latitude in Canada if not yet Stateside. That’s because it’s mid-spring here and mid-Autumn there, pretty similar. Scary movies play on every channel. Finally I realize why. It’s Halloween. Boo!


The next morning dawns clear and bright. An hour later it’s snowing; so much for my summer vacation. Life at the extremes can be unpredictable. It could affect your way of life I suppose. It gives new appreciation for the accomplishments of Magellan and his crew who traversed these straits some five hundred years ago while circumcising the globe. They had some problems here if I remember correctly. They found more booty in the Philippines I imagine until Ferdinand met his match and his maker. So the search is on to not only seek out Chile but to figure out my next move. There’s no road north except back through Argentina, so this could be tricky. If I can’t find a cheap flight north to Puerto Montt, then I continue (even further) south to Ushuaia where I can get a flight back to Buenos Aires for not too expensive, then go catch the film festival at Mar del Plata, leaving Chile with hardly a penetration. Unfortunately it’s Saturday, so the city’s pretty quiet. It’s a holiday, too, All Saints Day (Halloween, remember?) so everybody’s out at the cemeteries and flowers are selling briskly at impromptu markets. So maybe it doesn’t freeze hard enough to kill them? They say the prettiest flowers grow in the nastiest weather.


“I can’t believe this,” the travel agent says. “It’s like a miracle. I’ve never seen a price so low to Puerto Montt. Usually they’re more than twice this. It must be a special promotion.”


It’s a holiday of course, so she can’t write out the $50 ticket till Monday, but things are looking up. I was hoping for a $100 ticket, still far better than the expensive LAN flight or the even more expensive ferry through the fjords, which doubled from last year. Then the ATM spits out the equivalent of $300 without even coaxing, far better than the paltry $100-200 you’re limited to in Argentina, all with per-use charges. Is my luck changing? I could use it after the Uruguay exit snafu and the ATM snafu and others that not only threaten my street-cred as a master traveler, but my own sense of self-esteem. But mostly I’m hungry. I haven’t had a decent meal in a week, surviving on bread and cheese. It’s time to check out the supermarkets. Other tourists go to museums and spectacles. I go to supermarkets.


There’s lots of salsa picante on display, the local aji, so that’s good, none of that in Argentina. There’s even roast chicken, so I can get off the cheese diet. The breads and pastries look OK, some even called kuchen, so that’s exotic, given my heritage. There are even avocadoes, black Hass, at a good price. I’m getting really hungry now. Then my eye catches something that looks almost like a gaeng khieow wan (sweet green curry) from Thailand, full of things red and green swimming in it. They call it chap suey de pollo. If nothing else this adds a new paragraph to my chapter on culinary DNA that refers to the dissemination and evolution of the sweet-and-sour-like ‘cap cai’ of Indonesia to the meat-and-gravy-like ‘chop suey’ of America, all propagated by pragmatic Chinese eager to please and willing to adapt. Turns out it’s the best ‘chop suey’ I’ve ever had, cheap too. It even tastes green. Chile’s looking better all the time. It feels good to be back on the Pacific Rim. Could this be love? We’ll see; the night’s still young. But first I’ve got more important things to do, like vote. I’ll fax it in from here.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

EVEN BETTER AIRS IN MONTEVIDEO; BUT PERCUSSION FESTIVALS?





Uruguay is pretty sweet, like Argentina without (much) attitude. You get off the ferry in Colonia from Bs. As. and the first thing you notice is how quiet it is. The second thing you notice is how nice everyone is. When you go to Montevideo the comparison with Buenos Aires is even starker- there are no maniac drivers and no maniac pedestrians. Drivers wait to let pedestrians cross, the pedestrians themselves wait to cross, and there are still a few horses pulling carts, just like in the old days. The quarterback would probably still marry the head cheerleader, just like life’s supposed to be, except they don’t play American football here (only Thailand has cheerleading as a standalone art form). Okay, so maybe it’s not Boston to Buenos Aires’s New York, but it’s at least Philadelphia.

Uruguay belongs to a kinder gentler era (remember George Bush without the ‘W’?) when the middle class worked diligently to improve their conditions little by little and poverty was a condition of circumstance, not a social class to be forgotten or exploited. Some things are the same as in Argentina of course- 10am check-out time at hotels (wake up early!), the highest rate of baldness to be found in Latin America (yes!), and the Spanish dialect mutated farthest from the original, in its vernacular form on the verge of mutual intelligibility. This wasn’t so obvious until I said ‘gracias’ to someone and they responded ‘por favor’. Huh? But whereas in Buenos Aires they might hold this up in an outsider’s face for a cheap laugh at his expense (welcome to Thailand), in Uruguay they seem to make every effort at communication. Communication, now there’s a concept! So much for psycholinguistics…


Prices seem a bit lower in Montevideo. You can still get a No-Depression room for barely two figures (don’t try that in Bs. As.), and you can even sit down (sit down!) in an eatery and fill your belly for less than three bucks, on something besides hamburgers or hot dogs if you’re lucky, like maybe spaghetti or ravioli a la bolognesa of course, no baloney. You pay for the old-fashioned prices, though, in a reduction of selection. Chinese restaurants are almost unheard of here and the ones that exist still seem to be in ‘chop suey’ mode. That’s always a bad sign, as if they haven’t yet heard of anything ‘moo goo’ or General what’s-his-name and his famous chicken. The street food seems even more limited than Buenos Aires, and just as devoid of vegetables, what vegetables there are just as devoid of vitamins.


But there are plenty of fancy places too, almost like Buenos Aires, including a traditional market entirely converted to that use (pic #4). Those places are presumably of international standard, though obviously heavily invested in the beef industry. It’s a bit tough for a semi-vegetarian like my self. I hear the wines are good, but I don’t drink alone anymore, and if you thought Argentina was ahead of the game by offering mixed drinks on overnight bus trips, Uruguay one-ups them by giving free whiskey samples in the grocery store. Now that’s service! They don’t even do that in Thailand, and that’s party central! The coffee IS good and it’s maybe even a dime or two cheaper than Bs As. People dance tango in the parks (pic #3) and life is a sentimental affair.


There’s an old central core to the city which is surrounded by water on three sides, but struggling to make the transition to the modern era. Truth be told, somebody should have thought of that at least fifty years ago, before ugly 60’s construction moved in, including the ugliest building I’ve ever seen, right on the edge of a lovely central plaza. I don’t usually revel in ugliness, but this mother’s ugly (pic #2)! Still old town has some parts worth saving and, if realtors’ ads are to be believed, prices are not cheap considering its current mostly dilapidated state, like U$100K for a flat that needs total refurb. Ouch! And this is in a country that demonstrates in the street for a raise in the minimum wage to the equivalent of U$400 per month. It’s all psychological. There’s a sizeable Jewish presence in this part of the world, too, in addition to the well-documented German one.


So by some quirk of fate there just happens to be a ‘percussion festival’ going on this weekend in Montevideo. I couldn’t plan these things out if I wanted. I can’t help but wonder what a percussion festival would be like in Uruguay. With Seattle I got a pretty good idea, but Uruguay? That’s kind of like farms in Berkeley isn’t it? So I went, even shelled out good bucks for it. It wasn’t bad either, though more of a grad student recital than a festival I reckon. It was hardly a drum fest; let’s put it that way. With songs on the program from John Cage and Toru Takemitsu, you know that you’re probably in for something a little different, neither tribal drumming nor tablas. The fact that sheet music accompanied every piece was notable. Some of the same group members rotated through different line-ups and instruments, but PERCEUM, the Ensamble de Percusion de Montevideo, was the linchpin to the entire evening, weaving bells and drums and marimbas into an elaborate tapestry of sonic distinction, complete with choreography in the lighting also. These guys are well traveled and properly lauded in art and music circles and well worth the listen. Some of the students’ pieces were comparatively little more than filler and sometimes wallowed in cutesiness (pic #1), but still worthy efforts.


If I had more time, I might hang out for a while in MV, long enough to find a favorite café and bar and maybe a cheap hotel with wi-fi too. That’s crucial. People laugh at my insistence on cheap hotels, but there’s more than money at stake here. It’s part of an ethic, my own if not of backpackers, to see life as lived by regular people, not fancy tourists with their money and their cocaine... well, okay, maybe a little. But as it is there are other wild cards still to play. If they fall through, I can always come back here. The first wild card for this trip was Paraguay, but that’s long past now, filed away in the ‘forgettable’ category. The next even wilder card is Patagonia, written up many times from Theroux to Chatwin. I can’t remember what the big deal was; it sounds pretty boring, though the name is pretty and perfect for sportswear. For me the big deal’s the Arctic Circle, or in this case, the Antarctic. Maybe I’m an extremophile; I like those extreme conditions where the world becomes otherworldly. Of course you can’t go nearly as far south as you can north. Tierra del Fuego’s it. Any further and you have to hitch a ride to Antarctica. It’s only as far south as maybe Juneau is north, but still it’s farther south than either Tasmania or South Africa, the closest contenders from other continents. Hopefully temps will be warming up a little; what’s it like in Juneau in mid-May anyway? If I’m really lucky I’ll catch the aurora australis. That’s better than the midnight sun any day. You can’t have both, not in the same trip anyway.


This particular going to extremes should be especially significant, because that’s where I plan to vote in the US elections. I’ve already got the materials scanned to me and intend to fax them in from Punta Arenas. The people in Coconino County have been very nice and helpful. It’s ironic that that’s in John McCain’s home state. Till then I’ll spend my remaining day in Uruguay roaming the neighborhoods I’ve yet to see. Unfortunately it’s Saturday, so things shut down early. How many of us can remember when the US did that? If you closed all shops on Saturday retail sales would plummet in the US. You should see it here on Sunday. I finally found a warm jacket today so I’m ready for Patagonia. Now with the Uruguayan equivalent of two dollars left in my pocket to last me the next twenty-four hours, my options are pretty limited. Leaving a country with no extra currency to spare is an art. Of course having currency to spare is not the main problem. Having no currency at all is a REAL problem. This can happen even when you’ve got plenty of money in the bank and credit cards to boot. So I sit in the park ruminating, chewing the cud, where I’ve got a rogue wi-fi signal and I can plot trajectories on crystal balls, globes of the world every one, another country’s notch on my belt.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

JAZZ BANJO? WELCOME TO BUENOS AIRES





I certainly can’t consider myself any kind of jazz expert, so the Buenos Aires Jazz Fest was as much of an educational experience as anything. The banjo was the first lesson. I was never really sure of how it was used before Earl Scruggs turned it into a picking machine. I assumed it was used in old-time pre-bluegrass ‘string bands’, but that’s about all. Being too lazy to Wiki the mother, I really had no idea that it was a jazz instrument. But sure enough there it was, live and in the flesh, in Buenos Aires’ Antigua Jazz Band a few nights ago. It seems back in the old days guitarists would frequently switch between guitar and banjo, playing both similarly, until Django Reinhardt began to change that, long before blues musicians and Earl Scruggs re-defined both completely. This became clear with my second lesson, a film retrospective on the career of Oscar Aleman, the genius Argentine indio moreno who was a contemporary of Reinhardt and in many ways his equal, some ways his superior. He was surely more of a showman, playing guitar behind his back long before Jimi and Stevie Ray. What do I know? I thought Emmett Ray of Sweet Lowdown was a real person until yesterday. That’s what I get for buying bootleg DVD’s in Thailand and not bothering to read reviews.

But I was afraid this festival was going to be too elementary even for me, as it was front heavy with swing and big bands, what we used to play in the high school ‘stage band.’ Of course I wasn’t paying or queuing for the big international acts like jazz stalwarts Randy Weston and Billy Harper, so had to be content with the local acts I could get for free. That’s why you travel anyway, right? to get the local stuff. Things finally kicked into a more modern gear Saturday afternoon with Escalandrum, a local band influenced by Monk and Miles, but with an unusual twist. I thought it seemed strange to see a drum trap set up on the front line with the other lead instruments, but chalked it up to the drummer’s primacy in the group’s creation. Then I saw drummer Daniel Pipi Piazzola take a solo. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard, an exclusively rhythm instrument totally transformed into something else, cut loose from its usual chores as the band’s internal time clock and given wings to fly. I can’t say it’s the best drum solo of its kind I’ve ever heard, simply because I’ve never heard anything like it. I’ve heard guitars reduced to percussion in some African bands, but never the opposite.


Roxana Amed played some good Joni Mitchell-style folk/jazz, covering ‘Amelia’ thoroughly in Spanish, and Ricardo Cavalli played some real nice saxy jazz, but the next real highlight was with the aptly named PWR3. While beloved Argentine classic rock bassist Machi Rufino may be the spiritual heart of this jazz/rock power trio, it serves mainly as a showcase for the speed-guitar work of Lito Epumer, of equally long renown in Argentine musical circles. He does not disappoint either, inviting comparisons to some of the great lead guitarists of the US/UK-based world of rock & roll. Drummer Christian Judurcha played drums with equal intensity, reminding one of the golden era of Cream/Hendrix-style power trios, albeit without the lyrics, all grown up and gone to jazz. Does that make it jazz? Surely many if not most of these musicians got their start in R & R, and I’m reminded of one of the reasons I like jazz in the first place. I get tired of hearing about who’s doing whom. I’m grown up now and this is an art-music alternative to classical, which leaves my butt without a twitch. It’ll keep you awake.


So the festival finally moved beyond its sleepy beginnings as one lost in its history. I was afraid the DNA of music had taken a turn somewhere and re-speciated, but not so. Interestingly, what there was not much of was Latin jazz, surprising coming from a Latin country, no? That means percussion, congas and the like. The next day rectified that a bit. I’m not sure exactly what they were fusing, but Buenos Aires Jazz Fusion featured percussion more prominently, though the real standout was the multi-instrumental pyrotechnics of Bernardo Baraj on saxes and flute. This band was slick, with Bucky Arcella adding smooth bass grooves while lip-synching like a ventriloquist, and Alejandro Kolinoski wailing on the piano. Next up, Daniel Maza continued the Latin edge to his jazz while converting it to his own style of ‘Uru-funk.’ An excellent big-guy bassist who’s played with some of the world’s great artists, he uses that bass line to ground his thumping funk in something solid, while adding some nice Spanish-language vocals as the dessert’s topping. Walter Malosetti finished the show with the guitarist’s old-master’s touch.


As nice as it is to get any authentic display of the local culture while traveling, it’s also interesting to see how culture is created and evolves, across decades and across continents. It’s interesting to see artists with Italian surnames playing American jazz in Argentina. It’s nice to sit in my room in South America and listen to Thailand’s Carabao. I like crossing borders; I just don’t like the paperwork. Sometimes these trails get lost and re-surface as something entirely different and original, the primal influences as long lost as the grunts and groans that eventually became language. I like making discoveries like this. That’s what brings me here. That’s what keeps me going, that and the desire to fly one of Virgin’s new almost-orbital flights once they get the price down.

Friday, October 17, 2008

THE OTHER GOLDEN TRIANGLE





So the guy at the Paraguayan consulate in Corrientes says only the consulate in Clorinda, directly across the border from Asuncion, can give visas for a land entry, so it’ll have to wait another day, which is Friday, last day before a 3-day weekend. The only bus is at 8am and I’ve already booked a room anyway, so there is no choice really. The city bus I’m on runs over a motorcyclist caught on the inside track on a right turn, but other than that, there’s no real excitement, just the usual starchy food. Corrientes has nothing much to commend it so that’s when my laptop ol’ Betsy comes in handy for diversion. Only problem is there’s no wi-fi here and this is new Betsy, barely a month old, so I don’t have the encyclopedia nor much of the music yet. But I do have some. This is when that old 60’s Khmer stuff comes in handy. God only knows what they’re thinking in the next room.

Well the quickie two-hour jaunt up to Clorinda becomes a six-hour jaunt, so by the time we pull in, I’m stressing. One quick look around probably leads me to think I wouldn’t really care to overnight in Clorinda either. If that’s not bad enough, the skies are getting pretty uncooperative, the rain’s light hot licks quickly turning into determined drenching sheets. At least the Consulate is cooperative and soon I’m marching off with a proud new visa in my passport. Thorough that I am, I even looked at it before leaving. I should have looked harder. When I got to the Paraguayan side of the border, I wonder why they’re passing my passport around. “Typical Latino bullshit,” I figure. Well, yes, that’s right and wrong. Typical bullshit, but not on the immigration officer’s part. It seems the consul hand-wrote a typographical error, validating my visa today and expiring it yesterday. Huh? Do they want me to time travel?


Well sometimes a five-spot and a telephone call can back-fill the logic that was lacking in the first place, so soon I’m on my way again. If they’d made me go back to correct the visa, of course the logic may have worked out differently and I might have continued on back to Argentina instead. I DID stand on Paraguayan soil after all, so that counts for the country count. Everything counts. Of course if they hassle me on the way out or back in to Argentina, then I may wish I had re-booted. Welcome to Mexico. It would have been just as well, since Asuncion seems to have little of import. Mall culture hasn’t really caught on here yet, about like Phnom Penh. Supermarkets take your small items for purchase and lock them in a bag which can only be opened by the cashier. It kept me from even considering stealing a roll of toothpaste. Wages are higher than Asia, though, almost $350 per month minimum, according to the sign posted on the wall. That’s higher than the AVERAGE wage in Thailand, far above the minimum. So why do they have labor protests here and Thailand has none?

The big thrill is looking at all the chickens roasting on spits, that and people tossing coins down slot machines, hmmm…. Beef takes a back seat here I guess. Maybe P.J. O’Rourke was right the first time. Maybe there is nothing here. Some fine wining and dining always helps, I guess. We’ll see. There’s still time, so on to Ciudad del Este and the falls of Iguazu’. It’s a bit hot already here anyway, barely getting down to 20c at night if at all (that’s high for a low, Homes; trust me). Where’s my spare suitcase full of logic anyway, the old-fashioned Aristotelian kind? The Boolean stuff won’t work here. This world ain’t digital. The coffee sucks real bad, too. Maybe that’s why everybody drinks yerba mate, through a silver filtered straw. It’s not bad, seemingly with some laxative properties. You need it after all that starch and grease… there, I’m relaxed now.


Of course Ciudad del Este is no great shakes either, weird in kind of an Asian border-town sort of way, Chinese-inspired modern construction backing right up to the line that separates nations. But it’s Sunday, so no coolies trudging across the bridge with bundles strapped to backs. So I catch a cab in Paraguay to go through Brazil and on to Argentina. How many places can you do that? For those of you counting countries and too cheap to spring for a Brazil visa, this is a cheap way to cut corners, literally, without the formalities. In retrospect $50 for Paraguay visa and tip seems like a waste, but at least the hotel was cheap, so balanced out. Of course the hotel lady short-changed me while warning me about street thieves, oldest trick in the book. Last time that happened a Peruvian street artist replaced my good note with his counterfeit one while showing me how it’s done. Ouch!


Paraguay’s cheap like Peru and Bolivia, which means poor, and really Argentina’s not so dear outside B.A. Is there anything there worth hanging for? There is. Puerto Iguazu’ is a surrealistic little dream town where the three countries meet, maybe the other Golden Triangle in the Bizarro world of opposites. Something like a cross between Ensenada and Panajachel, it’s calm and beautiful and cheap by B.A. standards, but hardly overrun by backpackers or anything like that, though there are a few scraggly stragglers. The falls of course are to die for, certainly one of the ten great falls in the world if not all natural wonders included. The view of the cataracts themselves from garganta del Diablo is unbelievable, frothy and turbulent, aptly named for those suicidal among us, the walking wounded, future zombies, for whom the mid-air roulette wheels where water sublimes to vapor must represent some kind of witches’ brew of Kabbalistic digital speed dialing 01110100101010100101010 your bar code all or nothing millions of times per second to see whether you live or die, whether today or tomorrow. The Golden Gate is for wimps and wannabes.


For the rest of us it’s a view of God at work as light passes through a prism and light breaks up into an infinite number of possibilities, including life liberty and the pursuit of happy meals. This is the kind of place where you could meet your little brown-skinned third-world soul mate doppelganger, settle down, and pump out some little pot-bellied poopers till your pumper poops out… zzzzz Huh? Did I say something? How long have I been dreaming? I gotta’ get outta’ here. Somewhere back there I found out there’s a jazz festival in B.A. in a few days. I’ve got work to do. Now where’s my suitcase full of spare logic?

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

BACK HOME IN THE LAND OF GOOD AIR

“Clear skies with unlimited visibility,” the pilot said as the plane descends for a landing in Buenos Aires. When’s the last time you heard that? I don’t think I have for, uh, most of my life, maybe since I was a child, and I’m from a rural state. So right away you know you’re in for something a little bit different here. I guess that’s how it got its name. Okay, so what B.A. gains is Santiago’s loss on the other side of that Cordillera in the smog department, so self-congratulatory pats on the back are probably not in order. But still the analogy holds. South America is the one continent that has yet to be ‘done’, or overdone that is, of those that are ‘doable’ of course, so that rules out Antarctica, and Australia is a single country no bigger than mainland US, so that doesn’t really count. But South America is big and beautiful and rich in resources and culture(s), and yet is still relatively under-populated, an empty continent, thick only around the edges, a half-baked pizza, the southern European counterpart to Uncle Sam’s predominantly northern European refugees. And so Buenos Aires patterns itself, an island of European civility in a sea of seeds and cattle, the biggest city in one of the world’s biggest countries, one of the few that could make some reasonable claim to self-sufficiency.

Of course that unlimited visibility is not without some testing by Bonairenses. The tradition of smoking is very much alive and well, thank you, with a passion and a vengeance. People don’t just smoke, they SMOKE, complete with nasty butts flicked to the floor as is the custom in the mother country of old, a world with many bars, and I don’t mean cell-phone signals. Oh sure, they put up signs and cordon off sections, but you know how that works. They put up ‘wi-fi’ signs everywhere too, in cafes especially, even when there is none. It’s just a fashion statement. All the US cafes have them, so it must be cool. The plate glass for cafes comes that way, pre-engraved, Visa and MC too, smokers’ section also. That’s a cruel hoax for us wi-fi users, all plugged in and no place to go. Where’s the consumer protection?


The food sucks; read: ‘too similar to American food’, at least pre-Chinese America. The Chinese don’t seem to have gotten here yet, not in any significant numbers at least, and the ones that have seem to run the inner-city ‘supermarkets’. If there were more, there’d be more Chinese restaurants, long established farther north and west as chifas, and long incorporated into the Peruvian national cuisine, not to mention the business culture, as common members of the Pacific Rim. That’s too bad. Looking for a Chinese restaurant is usually the first thing I do when I enter a new country or city. As it is the food, particularly fast food, is pretty boring, basically variations on starch starch and starch, with a little meat thrown in for flavor in the ubiquitous pizza, hamburgers, and ‘panchos’ (hot dogs) that line the walls of perception. At least they still have empanadas, so I can remember what continent I’m in. The more expensive meals seem to merely shift the meat: starch proportions upward. They have tango and tenors, too, singing and dancing for tips in the pedestrian malls, along with the obligatory hippies peddling their hippie accoutrements. There but for the grace of God…


But it’s a little cold this early in the October springtime, barely hitting 20C if at all (that’s pretty low for a high, Homie; trust me). People crowd the north-facing slopes (it’s the southern hemisphere, remember) at midday like turtles on logs to soak up what they can get for free. At least space heaters are not an unknown item in Argentina, so that helps. Still I’ve got four countries to see in six weeks, so maybe I should head on up to Paraguay where temps will soon be scorching souls and soles. By the time I get back B.A. will only be warmer as summer approaches (they give the running countdown on TV). Paraguay is the trip’s main wild card also, a place where the unexpected might happen. On paper of course it’s the nowhere country, nowhere nothing never no how, the only landlocked country in South America besides Bolivia. But Bolivia of course has some spectacular Andean culture. Does Paraguay have something comparable? They DO have the co-official state language of Guarani’, the only Amerindian language to have crossed over to its conquerors and survived to the present day. I better check it out. Best to play wild cards early in case they take wings. A new law is being proposed in Argentina also which would require visas for Americans. I should make tracks before that goes into effect.


So I do. Fortunately the B.A. bus station is conveniently located, so connections are easy. I like cities with central stations. I’ll just catch an overnighter north to Corrientes and get my visa there, continuing on to Asuncion or Iguazu, whichever works best, then circle back through the other. You’d think in this day and age, visa requirements would be decreasing, but that’s not necessarily so. Part of the problem is ‘reciprocity’, in which countries want to require visas of those countries which require visas of its own citizens, even to the point of charging exactly the same fee. This usually hits US travelers hardest, and then Canada and UK, as these are the strictest countries for entry and the most popular for illegal immigration, not coincidentally. I understand their point but they may be shooting themselves in the foot, as some travelers DO make decisions based on such considerations, like yours truly.


And then of course some of the consequences can be a bit bizarre. While my generally well-funded ex-pat buddies in Thailand sweat and scramble to deal with new toughened immigration requirements there, a little known fact is that citizens from several South American countries can get far more favorable terms of entry there than they, all for free, including those of Peru, one of this continent’s poorest countries. The irony of course is that there are few or no South American tourists there, nor vice versa any Thais here. Thais love to travel, and visas are a hassle, but still South America is hardly at the top of their list, not pretentious enough. In the case of Paraguay though, US citizens are almost alone in the visa requirement, but if I want to visit every country in the world, then that’s the deal. If it’s getting worse before it’s getting better, then I’ll have to hurry.

I get a front row seat on a double-decker bus and head off into the Argentine night. Any thought of missing the scenery is probably misplaced. Argentina rolls under the bus like Nebraska and her mother-in-law, just going on and on about nothing, vast plains dotted with towns and cows. It’s big and it’s beautiful, but in that subtle American way, vast and brooding. It resembles both the US and Mexico in fact, almost equally, Spanish in culture, American in agriculture. Occasionally you can even see a real live gaucho, like a European dandy compared to his US counterpart, but they look cool. I vaguely remember a river passing under us, so that must have been the Parana’ but I couldn’t swear to it. Bumps in the road become minor collisions in my semi-lucid dreams, but at least the Burmese didn’t attack. That’s only happens when I take sleeping pills.

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