"I shall stay until the wind changes"

Great line from Mary Poppins.

Well it was time to leave Buenos Aires. I could feel it in my bones....

The skies turned the cold steely grey they get in the winter, we ran completely out of natural peanut butter and my bar of soap receded to a paper-thin soap shaving.

So I opened my umbrella and took to the skies with the first Westerly wind.

Or I just walked my self and big ass backpack to the train station and received approximately 42 dirty looks while I took up the place of three people on the morning rush hour train downtown. From there I grabbed a bus.  The good news is, I saved 65 pesos doing it. About $15 dollars. Man I'm my father's daughter....

Had a beautiful flight into La Paz, Bolivia. I woke up to the tips of the Andes breaking though the hazy afternoon clouds. They are so majestic... sacred spires and gaping canyons with seemingly endless bottoms, smooth and sanded-down curves and sharp serrated cliffs.They seemed so unknowable and vast until upon further inspection, I realized there were footpaths and small buildings spaced out between what might be tens or hundreds of kilometers.

I had a happy cry at the sight. Then again when we passed this beautiful, hanging marshmallow cloud that seemed to contain all the dreams and unicorns and everything perfect inside of it.

I think the Andes are the laugh lines of the world. Deep and telling, aged and wise but content.

From La Paz it was onto Santa Cruz in the south. But not before taking out the local currency, Bolivianos, and buying chocolate. I just need to describe this:

77% dark organic chocolate with cocao nibs and salt from Salar de Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia
60%  chocolate with organic high Andean coffee beans

Both from an organic, ethical co-op run by Bolivians. If the perfect life was a chocolate bar it would be this. And I would eat it. I would eat life. Then I would melt it and bathe in life and then eat the bathwater.

For anyone who appreciates chocolate, you see where I'm coming from. So without even knowing what the exchange rate was I handed over 70 Bolivianos. Could have been 400 Canadian dollars and it would have been worth it. From La Paz it was onto Santa Cruz.

This sweet guy named Carlos picked me up at the airport. Luckily it was easy to spot him with a sign saying ALISON VERCAKE. I'm so used to improper spelling of my last name, I don't know if I'd recognize the real thing. When we got to the hostal this lovely elderly man came stumbling out of the darkness explaining that he was sorry but he didn't feel well...

We had quite a long chat about his health until I realized he was the owner and was apologizing that he couldn't come to the airport to get me because he had intense muscle cramping in his leg that has caused him to fall several times. We decided it might be stress. So that's Tom, the German man who fell in love with Bolivia and never left. He's a doll. He say's things like this:

"OK... a little bit about Santa Cruz..... Well now, let's see.... there really isn't much to do here."
"Well of course you can walk around at night, this isn't Pakistan"
"It's a lovely little willage"  - I love how Germans use W's unstead of V's.

He also presses ENTER with great enthusiasm after every click on his ancient computer. Browsing internet, clicks on the link and giant-arm-raising-button-striking ENTER. SO very satisfying. I couldn't bring myself to explain the futility of this action, he just enjoyed it so very much.

No interesting pictures of the above events so I'm doing a final Buenos Aires wrap up here. One picture, one story.

No story here.I  just like this picture. 

Lost in Translation: We THOUGHT we ordered one glass each of Sangria. We ACTUALLY ordered  one pitcher each of it. Love that 3PM buzz. 

Just teaching this nice young man how to do the tango. He was a quick learner. 

Finally found bubble tea! First time in years. Reminds me of when the boys blew the tapioca balls through their straws at innocent bystanders as we cruised by in downtown Hamilton. Man I miss those days sometimes. This picture is honour of Dorothy, queen of the peace sign and lover of bubble tea. 

Double dog poop day. This is a DIY shoe cleaning with a stick, post-dog poop step. The walk TO the train, and the walk HOME from the train resulted in Brooke stepping in dog poop. Same day, I couldn't help but laugh mercilessly without sympathy at her cries of disgust "aww maannn! AWWW MAN! ..... aw... ah MAANNN!"

Glorious glorious ice cream and intestinal chaos. Not only does BA offer the best ice cream I have ever tried in my life, but they also deliver it to your house, at ANY time of the day or night. Thank goodness this service is not offered in Canada. It would be like the night I snuck away from our neighbour's party to eat a whole tub of ice cream, watching television in the dark, alone. This is what my life would become if we had ice cream delivery. 

SO happy to find fresh squeezed orange juice at the market. First time since Peru!  This lady was frightened by my extreme enthusiasm and intense run towards her stand. 

Everything is funnier after a pitcher of Sangria. Like this man who dresses up like a red any. He calls himself "the little ant man." He walks around selling memorabilia of himself . Like magnets with his picture. I  obviously had to buy his magnet. What a guy.

Doing tree by the tree of life. The T-rex/wolly mammoth of all trees. Not only was the trunk big enough to live comfortably in, but the branches stretched out so wide and far away that they were held up by posts and other supporting structures.

Pablo Penguino

Ah yes - here we are in Buenos Aires, living the Suburban dream. Not quite my typical style - the fenced-in yards, tinted windows, local plastic surgery shops  and array of fake boobs- but undeniably enjoyable for the time being. I've switched into first gear, neutral actually, to save on gas, and I'm enjoying the ride.

First let me introduce my roommate, life coach, fitness instructor and host of the last month - the beautiful Brooke. She's from The US of A but lives here in BA. Brooke and I met in Ecuador at a salsa class. After the 60+ crowd gathered their things - namely canes and walkers - I found myself next to a gal who, like myself, was asking Francisco, the adorable instructor about trying something "slightly more advanced." In other words, moving beyond the "forward step, backward step" component we had practiced for an hour with kind older men who were, to their credit, eager to learn but looked like drunken teenage giraffes and panicked ostriches.

Next thing I knew we had arranged ourselves a private lesson at his house for the following evening. We looked at each other both quietly wondering if this was an insanely dumb move, but we felt better about it after a few caprinahs. At the bar fifteen minutes later, we quickly planned the next four days together like school children on summer vacation and at one point Brooke looked at me and said ....

"Hey wait... we don't even know if we like each other."

"Oh trust me. We do"

There are times in life when you don't need to question these things. Some things just feel right. Those are good moments.

A lovely night of dancing and dinner with Brooke and the sweetheart Francisco. 

And the rest is history. Except it isn't. Nothing ever is. Because here I am, at her place in Buenos Aires for my fourth week, playing housewife with great enthusiasm. I've picked up running again which feels great. There is an awesome trail along the train tracks right next to the river. 

I learned the aforementioned "river" was just that, a river between Uruguay and Argentina last week. After THREE weeks of running beside it. I'm VERY relieved to hear it. There was something very creepy about that brown ocean. Brown rivers are more acceptable. 

We had Brooke's extra bike fixed for some excellent rides and exploratory suburban tours. I also signed up for pilates and have been practicing my vocabulary of body parts in spanish. Never thought I'd need to know meta-tarsals,  quads, abs or "this is really hurting me, can I stop?" Now I know.

Buenos Aires rocks the night life and weekend goodness. They weekend well. "To weekend" is a verb... it means the activities you generally take part in on the weekend. 

We've frequented the weekend markets in Palermo, San Telmo, Recolleta and Tigre, all barrios or zone in the city. In Palermo, bars and clubs open their doors on the weekends for local artisans to sell their crafts. We caught an afternoon raggaeton show on hippy hill where all ages spilled across the grass with their mates and joints ablazin'. I loved the little old man who maneuvered through the crowd selling beer from his lunchbox cooler. With streetside tango shows set under the trees of European-feel suburbs, the hustle of running across the world's supposedly widest street (it took us three light-changes to make it), cafes where friends and family share espressos and an ungodly quantity of pastries, there's little NOT to like about Buenos Aires. 

Some of my highlights were an electronic music festival, a hip-hop dance club where live break dancers work their magic on the main floor and we try to not to stand out, and two of Brooke's work functions where we undoubtedly made an impression. Likely with our in-exhaustive series of dance moves. We hit up a wicked percussion show... just 12 drummers that improv the whole time based solely on the conductors movements...

While practicing "the art of my dance" I turned to see this girl staring at me. I know her. How do I know her? Too many faces and places flying through my head like a Fischer Price Picture Viewer.

"How do we know each other?"

Turns out she served me beer at the Grad House on Dal campus a little too regularly. And now she is here in BA, at this drum show. Dancing beside me. Obviously.

Dancing to Rhianna from inside a child's playhouse to our sheer enjoyment (not sure it was funny to anyone other than us, but that didn't matter). Yes this was at a work party. Not only did we make quite the entrance the first time, but after leaving the party, I climbed on Brooke's shoulders and danced over the high security wall to a backyard full of confused guests until we convinced ourselves to return for more dancing shananigans.

Yes there is no shortage of silliness. Last week, one evening up late, I ran with my imagination which decided there was someone lurking on the bathroom roof. As any good citizen would do, I decided to run and hide in my room. I figure it would be wise to lock my bedroom door with this ancient, metal key that looked like it belonged to a Scholastic-order fuzzy diary for a grade 6er, and not a real door.

We should listen to those moments of intuition. 

That decision led to a 8 hour bedroom arrest. All the windows have bars around these parts, so climbing out the window was not an option. Luckily the bars were wide enough to pass through some peanut butter, rice cakes and a large tupperware for urinating. 

I'd say we bring out the best, and young, in each other. We're frequently asked if we're related, which we take to kindly. That is - until our taxi driver inquired, quite genuinely, if we we're mother-daughter. That's like the equivalent of asking someone if they are pregnant, experiencing hair loss and have been recently dumped ... all at once. That didn't go well.

Even the palm-reader said we had the same palms. 

For a creative/love-inspired/inside joke project that will not be explained here, Brooke rented a large mascot costume to dress up in and take pictures. I would be the perfect accomplice/agent. Turns out the large "blue bird" was actually "Pablo Penguino" an extremely famous Argentine cartoon for kids.

He's like Woody the Woodpecker. Let's just say, kids and old people alike were delighted when we wandered through the market, went grocery shopping (and then got escorted out) waited at the bus stop and RODE the bus. Children attacked, cars honked and I laughed until I cried. One family pulled over to ask us "if we do birthday parties?" Why didn't I say yes? I could use a little coin. 

Most memorable - Brooke couldn't get off the bus in the mascot suit, because she was unable to see the pole in the middle of the stairs to go down. After repeatedly head butting the pole in complete penguino-confusion, (and I was too weak with laughing to assist her), the bus driver was fed up and then closed the door on us, but we finally made it home. 

So all in all, I think we gave Buenos Aires a run for its money.

Life is Gourd

Sitting on a picnic bench here in El Bolson, Argentina, I'm being watched by a dirty little cat who slept in my bed last night. He has taken a liking to me but seems to be bi-polar, either bites me or purrs with delight. I'm staying in a bunkie in the woods, one of the buildings this campground also offers to weary travellers. Here, the golden leaves fall, the chickens rule the roads, the homebrew is 4 dollars a litre and mate gourds and their owners are abundant. What are mate gourds you ask? Excellent question. Here's some trivial knowledge you can impress your employer with.

The Yerba Mate plant belongs to the holly family and grows in Northern Argentina and parts of Paraguay, Uraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. The infusion, called Mate, is made by steeping the dried leaves in hot, but not boiling water. From this is made a type of tea, with an herby, grassy and to some people, bitter flavour.

Mate is a social event. It is shared between friends and family, and as I've learned, with complete strangers as well. The tea is made in a hollow grourd with a metal straw called a bombilla, or pronounced BOM-BI-SHA in Argentina. Unlike regular tea, the leaves are not strained or removed from the rest of the drink. For this reason, the bombilla acts like a filter and doesn't allow the leaves to get sucked up with the rest of the tea. Some like it with sugar to cut the bitterness a bit, others take it plain. You can purchase yerba mate flavoured naturally with things like orange rind or dried peppermint for a different flavour.

A little sunset mate. What a gourd-day it was... 

Here-ye, here-ye, the amateurs try their hand at a mate circle. I think we fooled them. 

Rules of Sharing Mate:

1. NEVER. EVER. Touch the bombilla (the straw). It is illegal and you will likely be fined by the police. Or just viewed with great suspicion and alarm by those whose company you have now ruined.

2. Don't pass the mate to the person next to you. Pass it back to the person who prepared it and is serving it. Finish all the water in the ground before you pass it back.

3. Don't take a year to finish your turn. The ansy looking guy beside you might snap at any moment if you're yammering on and not finishing your turn. Learned that one.

4. Only say GRACIAS when you're finished. This is a hard one for Canadians who are tempted to say "gracias" upon recieving the gourd, again when passing it back, and likely a "sorry" or "excuse me" somewhere in between just for good measure. Only when you are done and do not desire another turn may you say "gracias."

5. Slurp it up. Again, a social etiquette no-no in Canada is totally fine in this case. In fact, the more you slurp, one could presume, the more you like it.

6. "Unos Mates?" It's a sign of respect to offer someone some mate when you first meet them. When asked how you like it, dulce o amargo (sweetened with sugar or bitter) it is nice to respond with "como vos tomas" ... how you take it.

The tea is so common, people walk around with the gourd in one hand and the thermos of hot water tucked beneath their armpit. The people of this region may well evolve in a crooked position to better allow the holding of these items. The drink is so common here that most bus stations and public places have a hot water thermos filling station.

So the next time you drop by South America and find yourself awkwardly participating in a circle sharing of mate, you can wow the crowd with your expertise.

El Bolson is a hippy refuge and is home to a superbly Wolfville-style farmer's market with great food, funky jewelry, clothing and a lot of dreadlocked heads. It's nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains. The little bunkie has a wood fire and breakfast consists of apples that dropped to the dry earth the night before. This may be one of the most peaceful places I've been. The simplicity of life is found in a pleasant repetition and enjoyment of daily tasks, meaningful encounters with neighbours and a mescla of people from all walks of life

I rolled into town with some fun fellows from Holland, Simone and Andres. They reorganized the peppy little car they were renting to make me a nest in the back seat. I played I-pod DJ and we cruised from our Bariloche to El Bolson, about an hour and a half. Or two hours if you enjoy getting lost and cleaning every window on the car with great precision at the gas station.

We did a hike one day to the top of Cerro Something. The first part of the trails leads to a forest of statues and shapes carved into natural tree stumps. Very cool and a little eerie. The second part of the trail led to the refugio where you can lay low, buy some brew and eat pizza. We opted for petting all the animals we could find. There we learned that there was a final leg to the hike, another 2.5 hours to the very tip of the mountain to get a 360 panoramic vista. So being completely unprepared, without food or lights for if it got dark, and starting very late in the afternoon, we obviously decided to do it. 

"Vale la Pena" - Worth the pain... - as they say here. And there was pain. 2.5 hours to the tip of a mountain, that sounds like it involves a lot of climbing. My concerns were realized. We spent the last 500 meters, literally on hands and feet unable to stand without sliding down on the loose gravel slope. The scenery was incredible, rocky barren mountains with hues of smoky blue and lavender. It was like being on mars. In all directions was nothing but mountain tops and hazy clouds. We discovered that our hollers echoed for at least 12 seconds. Unreal.

A little vertigo or the wrong step would send you for a nice flight, perhaps at "terminal velocity" (yarrgh-yar) off the side of the mountain. The tiny little perch was hardly spacious. A little marker at the top was decorated with items people left, the earrings and shoe laces, pins and nick nacks. No underwear surprisingly. I left an anklet I picked up in the coast of Peru. From sea level to the highest peaks... what an incredible world we live in.

This may be a look of genuine concern. 

If anything is worse than climbing straight up, it's going down, for anyone blessed with Vervaeke knees. Two hours of trying to stop yourself from running, or rolling, the rest of the way down puts you another 3 - 4 months closer to knee surgery. Got to get back on those calcium supplements. Although the trek down we could slide meters at a time which was groovy - like being on the moon.

The rest of my time in El Bolson was spent taking walks and reading in my cozy bed with the fire on downstairs and trying to approach the skiddish pigs that roamed the muddy part of the property. Never quite got close enough to pet one. Major letdown. On the last day, a grandfather, his son and nephew arrived to stay the night in the bunkie. They were accompanying their elder to his chiropractic appointment from out of town and staying the night with him.

I love this about South American culture - the closeness of families. It is notably distinct from North American culture. While neither is better or worse, families here spend a lot of time together and really take care of one another. They usually don't stray far from home, which means Sunday afternoons, and just about every lunch break/siesta during the week, are shared together eating and letting the kids roam. It is beautiful.

The three guys invited everyone staying at the campground for a Parrilla - a typical Argentinian BBQ. A meat-lovers dream. 10 pounds of meat went on the fire, likely half a cow and other vairous parts. Spicy chorizo and big steaks seasoned only with salt. Simple is the way. All the meat was eaten with buns, handmade by a local whose little sister baked them fresh that afternoon. No condiments, nothing else. I made a big tray of roasted vegetables. We sat around, a group of 10 or 15 of us, the 4 Canadians living out back in the beer-making shed, the locals and the passerbys. Young and old, spanish and english, surrounded by bottles of homebrew and red wine, greasy fingered and translated smiles in the warmth and smell of an autumn woodfire. Thanks El Bolson.

Left for St Martin de Los Andes, another version of El Bolson and conveniently on route to Buenos Aires. Slowly making my way North these days, back home one bus ride at a time.

Chocolate Coma

I have awoken from the chocolate coma and expect to make a full recovery. My life has been a training for this past week, hiding chocolate from others, making others hide it from me and then getting angry when I find it. I recall a moment last Christmas when the crazy landlord left us a tin of Quality Street chocolates after her unsuccessful DIY attempt to fix our clogged bathtub. Good thing too because other than that, all she left was a big hairy moldy mess in the tub (which we took knee-high cold showers in for a week). But that's neither here nor there. We asked the tolerant and accepting legend: Matt Conlin/roomate for life to hide the chocolate which he willingly did. We later busted into his room and in a flurry of hysterical womanness found the tin and cleaned it out.

Bariloche, Argentina is the chocolate capital of South America. Any and all travel plans I made up to now were centered around getting there. Every fourth storefront was a chocolate shop, window fronts of truffle mountains, oozing dulce de leche, liquid chocolate fountains and weird mechanical figures rolling pastry (not sure why). The highlights included a maracuya cream truffle (passionfruit) with dulce de leche (a type of caramel) bathed... en-robed in velvety dark chocolate. The other favourite was a dark truffle with poppy seeds on top, to which I comically mis-typed as poopy seed chocolate in correspondence with Joel. The sheer amount of chocolate I have eaten has made me delusional.

The not-so-sweet effects of chocolate coma

Addiction is not beautiful

Besides that Bariloche was a fantastic place to lay low, or climb high, for several days. Although a little built up and touristy, it still had the charm of a Swiss-San Francisco. It sits right on a beautiful shimmering lake with nothing but mountains surrounding it. The lakes around Bariloche are crystal blues and emerald greens, tropical colours. I arrived with friends from the NAVIMAG ship and we set up camp in an apartment style hostel, dining on gourmet oatmeal and stolen jam-packets. Our mescla of people included a Swede, Canadian, American, Peruvian/American and Brit/Moroccan.

The first day we did a quick and dirty hike up to an awesome lookout. It was 30 minutes of steep climbing to a great panoramic point of a million lakes, hidden by green and red forests lit up by golden sunlight. The second day we did a 25km bike ride, that may have been one of the most beautiful I have ever experienced; winding roads through leafy archways, passing sparkling lakes and shady old-growth forests all surrounded by mountains. We stopped for a nap on a white stone beach. The water went out for what seemed like miles and only reached knee height. The second stop was at Lago Escondido, or Hidden Lake which was exactly that.

The others left the next morning and Anouar and I rocked out to some Cyndi Lauper blues (who knew!?), sipping Fernet (bitter herby liqueur added to Coca Cola) and Anouar destroyed me at 6 games of ping pong. Still upset about that one. The lake front hostel was beautiful with great staff who taught me how to pack my first mate gourd. The only downfall was the extremely smelly french man who required the staff to spray an ungodly amount of air freshener around the hostel and shuffle nauseated guests into other rooms. Ah the joys of hostel living.

My final day there I got out for a solo hike to a mountain lake and refugio. The colours in this forest were magical and a little hut built into a cave affirms that there ARE indeed fairies and gnomes living there. I knew it. Met two crazies with a car and we took off to El Bolson the next morning to soak in the hippy scents of patchouli and unwashed hair.