The power of The Mate.

I'm still blogging for Glimpse.org. Click here: The power of The Mate.

Come one, come all . . .

Above: Street art in Bariloche, Argentina

It's January! And in Argentina, that means just one thing: TOURISTS.

Ellen and I returned to Buenos Aires a few days ago to find that the city had nearly emptied of actual Argentines. Chasing cooler temperatures and wider pastures, most locals have wisely picked up their mate gourds and their thermoses and headed out, not to return until late February. (I swear, one day I will wax poetic about mate. For now, just think of it as the tea that Argentines - and apparently Uruguayans - drink like it's God's greatest creation).

In the place of actual Argentines, Buenos Aires has suddenly become home to whole new group of city dwellers, a group that favors those nifty zip-off pants, teva sandals, cameras with lenses that double as weapons, and North Face gear in all colors and varieties. The amount of English spoken in the city has doubled in the past week.

Little do they know, these tourists are really here to make us expats feel better about ourselves. Normally we're the ones getting on the subte in the wrong direction and then getting stuck in the station at the end of the line. Or the ones who get so distracted practicing Spanish with the "nice" taxi driver that we don't realize he's driving in circles so he can charge us more. We're the ones who huddle "discretely" in the corner to hide the fact that (shocker!) we still sometimes use a map to get around. We make pathetic attempts at using local street slang, have no clue how to prepare mate the "right" way, and we always have strange requests at restaurants (sin carne?!?).

So, the arrival of fresh meat in Buenos Aires (read: tourists) gives this particular expat a bit of satisfaction. Does this subte line take us to Constitution? Someone asks in broken Spanish. Si! I reply. Which way to the fair? How much does that cost? That way! Quince pesos! I'm so weathered and knowledgeable I can barely stand it. I'm particularly cruel and I've discovered that if the music is loud enough and the drinks are strong enough, I can convince Americans with poor Spanish skills that I am indeed an Argentine. This has only happened once but I'm considering it a victory.

In short, I'm finally starting to peel the "strange short foreigner girl" sticker off of my forehead. I'm pretty sure it will never go away completely (and honestly, I'm not sure I'd want it to), but finally settling into the city isn't half bad.

Above: Lago Puelo near El Bolson, Argentina.

And some updates: Ellen leaves town tomorrow to head back to the land of dollars and peanut butter. Sad! She has lots of stories to tell about Pablo the Chilean who grows suspicious-looking green leafy plants in his lakeside house, a Christmas dinner with so many different types of people that it resembled a UN meeting, and a New Years that will certainly not be forgotten.

More pictures of our trip are here: Pictures from Patagonia. You don't have to have facebook to see them.

If you want to see what we did on New Years, go to Josh's blog. Mom, please note the part near the end where your dear daughter (read: me) arrives at the disco and chugs a great big giant . . . water. Yes, water. You trained me right.

Above: Spotted while hiking Chile.

Thank you, strangers

Greetings from Bariloche, Argentina.

Amanda, Ellen and I have been on the road now for about four days, and if I could put a theme on the last few days it would be this: Strangers are nice.

If living in a monster of a city for the past three months has made me into a jaded ice queen, simply leaving Buenos Aires for less than a week has rekindled my faith in the niceness of the human race and in my ability to open my big mouth and talk to anyone about . . . pretty much anything. Naturally it has also reinforced my previous suspicion that Barack Obama is the world´s number one universal conversation topic. George Bush´s botched presidency comes in a close second.

In the past few days, we have been on the recieving end of an almost overwhelming amount of hospitality. On the first night of the trip, before we´d even arrived at our first location, Amanda and I found ourselves in the drivers´cabin of our bus (´´El Rapido Argentino´´), sipping mate at 2 am with the two drivers and helping them thumb through the radio. They shared their mate and we translated Tracy Chapman lyrics. Apparently they really like Tracy Chapman. It was beautiful, and the rest of the bus slept, unaware that there were two yanquis at the front of El Rapido.

Yesterday we took bicycles 18 km outside of El Bolson, which is itself a city quite ´´out there.´´
(Don´t worry, Ellen brought her biking flip-flops). Just when we´d arrived out our destination, Lago Puelo, I was accosted by a grandfatherly type who kept insisting that he knew me. After I tried to think of every way to remove myself from this entirely awkard and incredibly unusual situation, I realized that I did know him. He was a passenger from El Rapido. He worked on a boat on the lake. Naturally he invited us on to the boat. Another mate. More conversation.

Today we left El Bolson for the much larger and more touristy - but still overwhelming beautiful - Bariloche (pictures later). We took a chairlift up to the top of a nearby mountain (no screaming on Ellen´s part . . . she´s come so far), but realized on our way down that we weren´t really sure how we´d get back to town. Just as we were looking glum and confused while waiting at the bus stop, the chairlift operator arrived in his chariot. Err, car. No fear, he said, he´d be happy to drive us yanquis into town. No mate this time, but let´s just say I´m getting realllly good at charming older Argentine men.