Against my better judgment today, I signed up for a mass catamaran trip called ¨Todos Los Glacieres.¨ According to my guidebook (a Moon Guide -- usually very adverse to mass tourism), this was the ONLY way to see certain glaciers.
The Bad: Absolutely regimented, canned commentary; a huge group of loud, contentious Israelis and an even louder shriekingly excited Japanese group (why must we all live up to our stereotypes abroad?). When something beautiful appears, everyone rushes to one side of the boat, brandishing digital cameras. My memories of some of the most striking moments are mostly of heads and frantically waving arms clutching cameras raised above the crowd.
The Good: If this was the only way to see these glaciers, it was worth it. (Although later I see a 12 person boat, with a rather posh look to it, maybe I had too much of the dirty hippy about me yesterday when I was shopping for glacier travel -- no one offered me the deluxe option). The glaciers are astonishing. Endless spiky rivers of gray-green ice, streaked with dirt like an over-used carpet, pouring down black mountain sides into the minty milky green sea. We only glance the edges of them, one (Glacier Upsala) is four times the size of Buenos Aires.
Perhaps my favorite are the icebergs. They are an astounding variety of blues - some, mottled, look like nothing so much as that blue and white styrofoam they make cheap coolers out of, others are a brighter, more consistent aqua, and look like those reusable ice packs you put IN the cooler. All are in fanciful, carved looking improbable shapes, strewn hither and thither on the improbable mouthwash colored water. I hate to keep using analogies to late 20th century chemically engineered products, but they look like so much packing material. As if an impatient energetic giant child tore through his presents and shredded all the styrofoam inserts on Christmas day.
A highlight: The iceberg vagina. You´ll believe me when I can post the pictures. Georgia O´Keefe couldn´t have done a better job of it. I was staring at it wondering if all the beef and red wine was affecting my imagination when I heard the huge band of Israelis exclaiming. ¨Cli-TOR-is! Vuulva! VAH -gin-a.¨ Well, now I know how to see say those words in Hebrew.
Another highlight: feral cows. One group of them in an apparently impossible spot -- a tiny spit of land surrounded by sheer-looking rock faces. But they seemed content and ehalthy, grazing the scrub vegetation. Startlingly hairy and muscular. How did they get there? Do feral cows swim? I know that feral cows sounds like something from South Park, or a Gary Larsen cartoon, but seeing cows (and bulls) wild and free... They became another animal. Dignified. More like how you´d see a buffalo or a moose.
So we sail the channels of Lago Argentino, stopping dutifully at each glacier hemmed in by forested cliff scapes. After about 4 hours, we disembark for a ¨hike¨. I´ve never hiked in a group of 250 before, and I hope never to do so again. The trail is flat and wide -- a good thing -- as much of the Israeli contingent probably have first hand memories of fighting with the Irgun, pre-48. The Japanese are clapping, and the Argentinians are singing, and every animal south of the Equator is in hiding long before we get there. We are put into language groups and marched off, albeit at a very stately pace.
I think of some sort of Eastern Bloc mass holiday recreation exercise. Or North Korea. ¨Happy Comrades Enjoying Dear Leader´s Natural Bounty.¨ The Communist image intensifies wehn we arrive at the ¨restaurant¨ for ¨lunch.¨ We are seated at long bare refectory tables, perhaps 30 or 40 to a side, and vigorous men in uniform start dishing up mystery green soup. The Israeli contigent, still remembering those early days at the kibbutz, fall to, while the Japanese pose for photos, still clapping, with their soup. I on the other hand, foolishly wave the soup man off, telling myself that the plato del dia will have to better. When it comes, it is a thin grey breaded cutlet topped with boiled ham, an inch of foul smelling congealed cheese and the barest hint of tomato sauce. To make matters worse, it, and the fries on the side, are ice cold. Dear Leader would be proud.
I disrupt the 5 year plan by insisting on settling up for my Coke forthwith, without waiting for the flan. I flee to the beach and enjoy, finally, an unscheduled 1'2 hour alone with the crashing of the glacier, the chirping of the birds and the rich scent of the undergrowth. I spread out on a sun-soaked rock, half expecting Stasi to drag me back to the ¨restaurant¨ at any moment. But I get my 1-2 hour, and by the time we are herded back into our catamarans, I am sun dazed and sleepy.
That should be the end of the story. But back on the catamaran, the adorable German college student who is traveling with her parents and sister, but has decided she prefers me to them (perhaps an obvious choice, but still flattering my unhip old self no end), and I have settled down for a long summer´s nap. We´ve shared our opinion that the glaciers are beautiful, but that we are a bit too cool for this whole scene and then we drift off, warm, cozy and comfortable. Suddenly, a sound like the worst ringtone scrapes across my forebrain. I start awake, looking accusingly at Bette. She, half-asleep, turns to me, ¨Was ist das?¨ The noise doesn´t go away. It slowly dawns on me. One of the Israeli women, more likely to be a contemporary of my grandmother than of my mother, is playing the recorder. Badly. All her companions are minding their own business, pretending nothing is happening.
I reflect a bit. What has she probably seen in her lifetime. Where has she been where music was verboten. How much has she survived to come here, to this afternoon, beside the glaciers of Argentina to play her recorder, free and brave and, OK, not that true, but free at least.
F*ck that. The recorder is a crappy instrument, and she´s a worse player. What´s more, it´s f*cking rude to play so loudly and so badly in a cramped space like this one when we´re all trapped. It´s actually unheard of. Bette mimes hitting her on the head with a mallet -- and for once in my life, I side with the German murderous impuse against the Jew. Everyone is staring at her, and no one will say anything. The crew is cowering in the corners, laughing silently, while the recorder plays on. Like a scraping, horrifying fingernails on blackboard. Worse than the worst subway singer.
I have to do something. For my people. For what´s good for the Jews. "Excuse me, Ma´am, we´re tired and just trying to sleep. I´m really sorry, but would you mind?¨ The whole boat is hushed, holding back laughter, egging me on.
She pauses. I think maybe she´s going to quit playing, I have this sort of shit'eating grin ready, thanks but no thanks, on my face, ready to be the good girl to her, but take the rest of the boat´s thanks at the same time. But then I see her eyes, and I realize she is fixing me with a good old fashioned evil eye. She´s not stopping, she´s just breathing in. After a good deep inhale, she starts playing again, louder and scratchier than before. The whole boat settles in for a good hour of misery. And like the British Army before me, I back quietly away, hoping Advil will at least dull the edges of all those loud, tuneless Boy-Scout-sounding off notes.
N.B.: Here in Argentina they have Hellman´s Ketchup. Also Hellman´s Mayonnaise is really lemony, and nicer than the made in the U.s.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
But where in the world is Grigsby Avenue?
So, I came to Patagonia to see the scenery, but as always, it ends up being about the people you meet along the way.
First, this morning, eschewing the laid-on minibus, I walked the couple of kilometers from my hotel to the town center of El Calafate. Not a communing with nature walk -- I walked along the highway, terrified by the lack of shoulder (SUVs zooming by at breakneck pace -- gut reaction, f** SUVs, quickly followed by the realization that this was the only paved road for miles around, unlike in Soho, SUVs have a purpose here) , inhaling diesel fumes and trying to ignore the catcalls along way. [Pushing 40 thought: Will I miss them when they´re gone? I remember an older German woman telling me in Sicily, ¨It´s wonderful being old. I go wherever I want, and no one bothers me." Will I think that? I doubt it somehow.] But in the here and now, I was damning the Latin male compulsion to mark his territory so vocally. Still, the cloud cover had lifted this morning, and the southern sun burned hot through that hole in the ozone layer, and the sky was a dizzying blue that matched the glacial blue of the lake, interrupted on the far side by an impressive range of snow-topped mountains. It was good to be out.
So, anyway, El Calafate -- reminds me a bit of Banff -- a well-touristed main street offering stuffed animals, ¨native¨ weaving, gourmet chocolates, expensive trekking gear, a dozen travel agencies selling the same bus tour packages, Internet, and (thankfully only) local fast food. But then 2 blocks and it all peters out... first, into local housing, humble and much less so (Nestor Kirchner, the President of Argentina, has a holiday home here) and then ... into nothing. No suburbs, no exurbs, just scrub and hills and dirt.
The local tourist aesthetic tends to dirty hippy, despite the rather high (for Argentina) prices, so even in the glitzy faux-Alpine boutiques no one was selling too hard. I breezed by endless ponchos, ¨I heart Patagonia¨ t-shirts and stuffed penguins only to be entrapped by a small store selling homemade liqueurs. There were all kinds of fruits I´d never heard of, but in a fit of perversity, I settled upon a flask of limonchelo (yes, spelled that way in Spanish). It would please me to become an expert on limoncelli of the world -- a goal, Ernesto, to say nothing of George Clooney, would have to approve of.
So, there I am, having a conversation in broken Spanitalglish with the sales girl, when the little man behind the counter asks me, in almost flawless English, ¨Where in New York are you from?" (So much for my not having an accent...)
"I live in Brooklyn.¨
His joy is evident. "My aunt lives on Grigsby Avenue. Has for 50 years.¨ Proud and smiling.
¨Where?,¨ I say, straining and leaning forward in that touristy ¨non capisco¨ way.
¨Grigsby Avenue,¨ a bit affronted.
¨No comprende¨ (which is no language).
¨GRIGSBY AVENUE. Two blocks from Coney Island,¨ positively disgusted now.
Smile of relief. A point of reference. I tell him how I grew up with Coney Island, how much I love it. He has been there many times. I tell him that they are going to tear it down, rebuild hotels and shopping malls. I have the requisite disapproving look on my face.
¨That´s good. The old rollercoaster is nice. But the rest is for schmucks¨ (My eyebrows fly off my face, schmucks, I love it). ¨Terrible place. They should renew it.¨
¨Well, I grew up with it... My father went there as a boy...It will just be like everywhere else... A tourist...¨ I shut up. I´m a tourist, and my tourism is paying his bills.
We move on. He has a son in Boston, at Suffolk University. He´s a waiter at Dali in Somerville. Now there´s something we can agree on -- great place! His son wants to stay on for a couple of years after graduation, makes more money there than he would here.
Lucas, I now know his name, tells me again how horrible Coney Island is in its current state. "Dangerous¨, he emphasizes, and I can´t disagree. But I try to make him see the romance of Nathan´s, of the grubby boardwalk, families at the ocean on sweltering summer Sundays.
¨They should renew it.¨ I smile, and shrug -- I´m just happy to be having this conversation at the end of the world. I leave, promising to tell my brother to say hello to his son...
But, where the f*** is Grigsby Avenue?
Oh, dear, I have to be up early, so I´ll tell you tomorrow about my delicious dinner and the fantastic Italian family who plied me with wine and argued with me about Berlusconi, 11 September, Guiliani´s chances for president, and universal health care.
Note to Grady: All the dogs here come up to my rib cage. They are well behaved and beautiful, but leashless -- they just stand around while their owners are in stores and then run frenetically through the streets in packs of six or eight. I think that Argentinian for dachsund is ¨snack.¨
Note to Elisabetta, Jana, and Saoul: During my dinner with the Italians, I said ¨Avrei dovuto ordinarlo...¨ The mostly silent mother of the family interrupted me. I thought I´d said something inadvertently rude. ¨Che grammatica! Avrei dovuto... Complimenti!¨ I put in a plug for WRF ;)
First, this morning, eschewing the laid-on minibus, I walked the couple of kilometers from my hotel to the town center of El Calafate. Not a communing with nature walk -- I walked along the highway, terrified by the lack of shoulder (SUVs zooming by at breakneck pace -- gut reaction, f** SUVs, quickly followed by the realization that this was the only paved road for miles around, unlike in Soho, SUVs have a purpose here) , inhaling diesel fumes and trying to ignore the catcalls along way. [Pushing 40 thought: Will I miss them when they´re gone? I remember an older German woman telling me in Sicily, ¨It´s wonderful being old. I go wherever I want, and no one bothers me." Will I think that? I doubt it somehow.] But in the here and now, I was damning the Latin male compulsion to mark his territory so vocally. Still, the cloud cover had lifted this morning, and the southern sun burned hot through that hole in the ozone layer, and the sky was a dizzying blue that matched the glacial blue of the lake, interrupted on the far side by an impressive range of snow-topped mountains. It was good to be out.
So, anyway, El Calafate -- reminds me a bit of Banff -- a well-touristed main street offering stuffed animals, ¨native¨ weaving, gourmet chocolates, expensive trekking gear, a dozen travel agencies selling the same bus tour packages, Internet, and (thankfully only) local fast food. But then 2 blocks and it all peters out... first, into local housing, humble and much less so (Nestor Kirchner, the President of Argentina, has a holiday home here) and then ... into nothing. No suburbs, no exurbs, just scrub and hills and dirt.
The local tourist aesthetic tends to dirty hippy, despite the rather high (for Argentina) prices, so even in the glitzy faux-Alpine boutiques no one was selling too hard. I breezed by endless ponchos, ¨I heart Patagonia¨ t-shirts and stuffed penguins only to be entrapped by a small store selling homemade liqueurs. There were all kinds of fruits I´d never heard of, but in a fit of perversity, I settled upon a flask of limonchelo (yes, spelled that way in Spanish). It would please me to become an expert on limoncelli of the world -- a goal, Ernesto, to say nothing of George Clooney, would have to approve of.
So, there I am, having a conversation in broken Spanitalglish with the sales girl, when the little man behind the counter asks me, in almost flawless English, ¨Where in New York are you from?" (So much for my not having an accent...)
"I live in Brooklyn.¨
His joy is evident. "My aunt lives on Grigsby Avenue. Has for 50 years.¨ Proud and smiling.
¨Where?,¨ I say, straining and leaning forward in that touristy ¨non capisco¨ way.
¨Grigsby Avenue,¨ a bit affronted.
¨No comprende¨ (which is no language).
¨GRIGSBY AVENUE. Two blocks from Coney Island,¨ positively disgusted now.
Smile of relief. A point of reference. I tell him how I grew up with Coney Island, how much I love it. He has been there many times. I tell him that they are going to tear it down, rebuild hotels and shopping malls. I have the requisite disapproving look on my face.
¨That´s good. The old rollercoaster is nice. But the rest is for schmucks¨ (My eyebrows fly off my face, schmucks, I love it). ¨Terrible place. They should renew it.¨
¨Well, I grew up with it... My father went there as a boy...It will just be like everywhere else... A tourist...¨ I shut up. I´m a tourist, and my tourism is paying his bills.
We move on. He has a son in Boston, at Suffolk University. He´s a waiter at Dali in Somerville. Now there´s something we can agree on -- great place! His son wants to stay on for a couple of years after graduation, makes more money there than he would here.
Lucas, I now know his name, tells me again how horrible Coney Island is in its current state. "Dangerous¨, he emphasizes, and I can´t disagree. But I try to make him see the romance of Nathan´s, of the grubby boardwalk, families at the ocean on sweltering summer Sundays.
¨They should renew it.¨ I smile, and shrug -- I´m just happy to be having this conversation at the end of the world. I leave, promising to tell my brother to say hello to his son...
But, where the f*** is Grigsby Avenue?
Oh, dear, I have to be up early, so I´ll tell you tomorrow about my delicious dinner and the fantastic Italian family who plied me with wine and argued with me about Berlusconi, 11 September, Guiliani´s chances for president, and universal health care.
Note to Grady: All the dogs here come up to my rib cage. They are well behaved and beautiful, but leashless -- they just stand around while their owners are in stores and then run frenetically through the streets in packs of six or eight. I think that Argentinian for dachsund is ¨snack.¨
Note to Elisabetta, Jana, and Saoul: During my dinner with the Italians, I said ¨Avrei dovuto ordinarlo...¨ The mostly silent mother of the family interrupted me. I thought I´d said something inadvertently rude. ¨Che grammatica! Avrei dovuto... Complimenti!¨ I put in a plug for WRF ;)
Alive and sleepy
Here I am after a rather long day of travel.
The flight from NY was worse than expected -- due to some cancellation elsewhere in the system, they weren´t honoring seat assignments -- and I ended up in a dreaded middle seat, with a woman from Monmouth NJ sitting next to me, who had all the egocentric volubility of my Grandmother Soph without any of her charm or intelligence. She told me in great detail about the ¨Princess boat¨ her husband and she were about to embark on, with opportuntities for ¨real old'style tango¨ as well as a chance to ¨wear jeans¨ and ¨be cowboys.¨ She had great confidence in her ability to bridge any cultural divide, as many Central Americans lived in New Jersey. ¨Real hard workers. A lot of Mexicans too. Some good people, some not so good.¨ After I ostentatiously took a sleeping pill, unfurled my travel pillow and closed my eyes, she whipped out a collection of People magazines, informed me (and everyone in a 10 row radius) that normally she only reads such magazines ¨on the pot¨ and proceeded to give a running commentary on each page. (On Britney Spears: ¨She´s not very smart. That guy knocked her up two times and was out drinking and partying and now she goes out partying not wearing any underwear and the black girl he knocked up, twice, is going to take him back and Britney´s money too.¨ On Dreamgirls: ¨They were supposed to be Diana Ross and those other girls. It was a Black picture, but so beautiful. I have two Black women neighbors, professors at Rutgers, as nice as can be.... ) Not being able to kill her, and tiring of muttering to myself ¨As god is my witness, I´ll never fly economy again,¨ I wrapped my scarf entirely around my head, burka style and made extreme yawning noises, which FINALLY got the message across...
Navigating the various Buenos Aires airports was uneventful. The city looked intimdatingly large, and its inhabitants as glamorous as rumored, but I didn´t do anything other than exchange for some pesos, and eat a suprisingly yummy made-to-order airport pizza. I met a nice young Japanese couple on the flight to El Calafate, who frightened me by putting dulce di leche on their ham and cheese sandwiches.
Landing was startling. The airport is about 10 miles outside of town, and as you fly in, there are no signs of human habitation. The landscape is vast and grayish-brown, little vegetation, except in a scrubby Scottish highlands kind of way, but then you come upon startlingly blue glacial lakes that look artificially colored. I THINK my cab driver told me that the lake outside of town, Lago Argentino, is having its 130th birthday this Sunday, though my Spanish wasn´t up to understanding how a natural lake has a birthday, especially one with only 3 figures. I DID understand perfectly though that the birthday would be celebrated with a midday fiesta in town, featuring a barbecue of cows and lambs, and special sweets. I may not speak Spanish, but I do speak food!
I managed to stay awake long enough to eat a succulent steak accompanied by beef fat flavoured yellow pan roasted potatoes at the hotel restaurant. Being a hotel restaurant, they tried to decorate the plate with an annoying swirl of overly sweet syrup (I´m beginning to see dulche de leche behind every corner!) but nothing could take away from the beauty of the meat itself, which danced on my tongue, happily proclaiming, as many others have noted, its feed-lot-free origins. I started with a delicious squash soup, squash being one of the oldest indigenous Patagonian foods. I was looking forward to reporting to Josh that vegetarianism has its rewards in these parts, but then I began to be suspicious of the startlingly rich undertones of the soup. My waitress confirmed -- caldo di carne. :( Perhaps a vegetarian here just has to adopt a don´t ask, don´t tell policy....
The hotel computer is smart enough not to let me upload photos. I´ll try again later at an Internet cafe in town.
The flight from NY was worse than expected -- due to some cancellation elsewhere in the system, they weren´t honoring seat assignments -- and I ended up in a dreaded middle seat, with a woman from Monmouth NJ sitting next to me, who had all the egocentric volubility of my Grandmother Soph without any of her charm or intelligence. She told me in great detail about the ¨Princess boat¨ her husband and she were about to embark on, with opportuntities for ¨real old'style tango¨ as well as a chance to ¨wear jeans¨ and ¨be cowboys.¨ She had great confidence in her ability to bridge any cultural divide, as many Central Americans lived in New Jersey. ¨Real hard workers. A lot of Mexicans too. Some good people, some not so good.¨ After I ostentatiously took a sleeping pill, unfurled my travel pillow and closed my eyes, she whipped out a collection of People magazines, informed me (and everyone in a 10 row radius) that normally she only reads such magazines ¨on the pot¨ and proceeded to give a running commentary on each page. (On Britney Spears: ¨She´s not very smart. That guy knocked her up two times and was out drinking and partying and now she goes out partying not wearing any underwear and the black girl he knocked up, twice, is going to take him back and Britney´s money too.¨ On Dreamgirls: ¨They were supposed to be Diana Ross and those other girls. It was a Black picture, but so beautiful. I have two Black women neighbors, professors at Rutgers, as nice as can be.... ) Not being able to kill her, and tiring of muttering to myself ¨As god is my witness, I´ll never fly economy again,¨ I wrapped my scarf entirely around my head, burka style and made extreme yawning noises, which FINALLY got the message across...
Navigating the various Buenos Aires airports was uneventful. The city looked intimdatingly large, and its inhabitants as glamorous as rumored, but I didn´t do anything other than exchange for some pesos, and eat a suprisingly yummy made-to-order airport pizza. I met a nice young Japanese couple on the flight to El Calafate, who frightened me by putting dulce di leche on their ham and cheese sandwiches.
Landing was startling. The airport is about 10 miles outside of town, and as you fly in, there are no signs of human habitation. The landscape is vast and grayish-brown, little vegetation, except in a scrubby Scottish highlands kind of way, but then you come upon startlingly blue glacial lakes that look artificially colored. I THINK my cab driver told me that the lake outside of town, Lago Argentino, is having its 130th birthday this Sunday, though my Spanish wasn´t up to understanding how a natural lake has a birthday, especially one with only 3 figures. I DID understand perfectly though that the birthday would be celebrated with a midday fiesta in town, featuring a barbecue of cows and lambs, and special sweets. I may not speak Spanish, but I do speak food!
I managed to stay awake long enough to eat a succulent steak accompanied by beef fat flavoured yellow pan roasted potatoes at the hotel restaurant. Being a hotel restaurant, they tried to decorate the plate with an annoying swirl of overly sweet syrup (I´m beginning to see dulche de leche behind every corner!) but nothing could take away from the beauty of the meat itself, which danced on my tongue, happily proclaiming, as many others have noted, its feed-lot-free origins. I started with a delicious squash soup, squash being one of the oldest indigenous Patagonian foods. I was looking forward to reporting to Josh that vegetarianism has its rewards in these parts, but then I began to be suspicious of the startlingly rich undertones of the soup. My waitress confirmed -- caldo di carne. :( Perhaps a vegetarian here just has to adopt a don´t ask, don´t tell policy....
The hotel computer is smart enough not to let me upload photos. I´ll try again later at an Internet cafe in town.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
This is a test
This is a beautiful dog I met in Italy (note the homemade limoncello in the foreground). Really this is a test to see if I know how to load pictures.
Not that I ever wrote postcards anyway
The idea is to post pictures here as I go along eating guanacos, seeing glaciers and the like. Check back on Saturday or so, to see if I've got it all working.
Love to all.
Love to all.
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