I To Go To The Good Airs!

I'm going to Buenos Aires tomorrow!

So, this is a slight (last minute) change of plans.  As I noted in my last entry, my dear faithful traveling companion, Jennifer, left me a few days ago for a farm in Samaipata, a city further north in Bolivia. I stayed here in Tarija, intrigued by locals' propensity towards the three hour daily nap, the rich wine-producing valley, and the similarities its culture shares with that of Argentina, as it is the largest city before the border.  My heart melted upon arrival here with the immediate linguistic inundations of ''¿vos cómo andas?'' and ¿qué se SHO?'' Ahh, they have the accents of Argentines but their woman don't have eating disorders! An eating culture! Yes! Yes! Jenn, you go on ahead, I'll be so fine here alone. True, I don't start work at the next farm for a week, but still...I can handle this alone time! I can catch up on my journal and maybe finally finish my Gárcia Márquez book! I can spend my birthday and New Years in solitude--yes, One Hundred Years of it, maybe! Now I'm getting into character!

So, my first night alone was spent reading in bed, completely naked, listening to my music. Ya know, the things you can't really do when you're sharing a room with someone (or some two, three, or ten, as the case had been in the past, as we typically opted for dormitory-style lodging when we were traveling through the continent). I even had my own room--such hedonistic luxury! I rocked out to my mp3 player, I danced a little, I felt the freedom of the open road ahead of me--no real plans for a week!

The next day I went to the market, bought some fruits and veggies, went for a walk, and made plans to meet up with a friend who I had met on a bus, who seemed interesting and worth a potential short term friendship. Maybe he could be my ''in'' to a social scene here. I'd have friends in no time! And if not, it would be fine, cause I could handle being alone!

He suggested I take a taxi to get to him, but oh no, not Ali, the ever locally-comporting traveling queen--I hopped on a local bus and forty minutes later, I was in what appeared to be a very, very residential neighborhood. Just houses and ladies with baby carriages. I climbed the steps of the main square, stood next to the giant granite head of some old European conquistador (or some Latin liberator, same diff, who knows) and looked around, right leg resting one step higher, shading my eyes with the palm of my left hand, perched like a conquistadora in my own right. Where was my friend? Nowhere to be seen. Which was strange, since he had told me he was already there, waiting.  The voice of my father, High Security Greg, popped into my head, ''Ali, it´s a trap. He brought you here to rob you, in fact, he's not even going to show up. Any minute now a band of twenty-something punks is going to accost you and rob you of all the pesos you have with you.''  My inner voice responded with, ''Ah, but yes, this is why I brought no more than a few coins with me. I am my father's daughter.'' Before H.S.G. could respond, a text message appeared on my phone. Well, really, my sister's old Bolivian phone that she gave me before she flew back home.

The text read:
''Se me presentó un problema, me vas a disculpar, ok, besos.''
Translation:
''A problem was just presented to me. You're going to forgive me, ok? Kisses!''

Uh, no. I'm not going to forgive you. Could you have even just waited for like, um, five minutes until I arrived to tell me this? And you're doing it via TEXT message? I'm sorry, no--this is unforgiveable. Get some social skills. I'm done. I called him to say what the hell, he mumbled something about his mother needing him, and that was that. Welp. I crossed the street, fuming, and got on what was probably the very same bus I took there, and headed back into town. Loooove wasting my time (and I had just so many things to do that afternoon!). Good thing I didn't pay for a friggin' taxi.

This unfortunate event did, however, yield one rather positive result. Upon returning back to the city center, I took a different route to walk home, since the bus left me on a different street than the one I had taken to hail it. Just one block ahead, a little happy oasis, a big flourescent sign with a picture of an ice cream cone. Heladería! Yes! I'm treating myself to an ice cream. Don't even care if it's the typical, soap-flavored, ice-chunk variety that is the standard in every other country down here except Argentina. I'm going for it--this is my reward for taking the bus and not a taxi.

I ordered the biggest one my seven pesos would buy me. Unfortunately, seven doesn't buy you much when you're two blocks from the center of town. Essentially, what I received was a bowl for Barbies. ''This little bottlecap of ice cream needs a little garnish of sorts,'' I thought. Thinking myself cuter and flirtier than I probably am, I batted my eyelashes and asked the girl at the counter if she could put a little bit of whipped cream on the top, just for me. She smiled and said of course.''Score!'' I thought, ''free whipped cream!''

Uh, wrong. Al, you're not that cute. The bill came--the whipped cream was two pesos extra. TWO pesos! For like, a fart of whipped cream. A mere suggestion of whipped cream! I should have asked if it was free, but I was half just hoping it would be free, since I had just one peso of leeway. Sometimes I think magically like that--that if I hope for something, it will just happen. Good, responsible method of decision-making for a 23 (almost 24) year old traveling alone through foreign lands, don't you think?

A cold sweat immediately rushed over me. This has never happened to me before! I had to sheepishly tell the poor girl that this white girl in a dress standing in front of her, who undoubtedly comes from a nation far more prosperous than hers, could not afford the ice cream she had already HOOVERED--alá Lay off me, I'm Starving style (rest in peace, Mister Farley. We miss ya, big guy). It was actually really good ice cream, at least, super surprisingly.

I apologized profusely, promising her on my firstborn child's life that I would return to cancel my debt. She just kind of smiled and said, ''está bien.'' No, it's not bien with me, I have travel karma to take care of.

I returned today to the ice cream parlor, which was jam-packed with clients, as it was a hot afternoon, and I think I caused the server more of an annoyance than anything else, as she was zipping around grabbing empty ice cream bowls off one table and running back to the kitchen to grab full trays of colorful soft rainbow mountains of frozen creamy treats. She clearly had no time to talk, and she proceeded to avoid my attempts to grab her attention.

I chased her around the parlor, pushing through the line of would-be patrons as they waited outside the door for a table to open up. The pressure was on, and I only had about 3.5 seconds to explain myself. She appeared to not even recognize me. I nipped at her heels and she finally paused, tray in right hand, three empty bowls in left, and it was my time to shine, to explain. I choked.

(Rough translation):
Good day! I to please cancel the debt that I to carried from the yesterday! I buy a ice cream that I not pay for all together! Not enough money yesterday! I to still owe the ONE peso! You to have it! You to have it! Take!

I pushed the coin into her hand, turned, and ran out the door, horrified at how my years of latin american travel and work experience and spanish language classes have culminated into one very awkward, nervous, high pressure exchange. Señora Nocera would not have been proud. If only the server had asked me to recite the vowel song! I can do that! Las vocales en español, las vocales en español, A E I O U!

So, anyway, my karmic energy is in balance. Hopefully, my bus will not fall off a mountain tomorrow.

My bus to Buenos Aires! So, to bring it back to where this entry started, I had a revelation on day two of solitude, after spending the day meandering around a sleepy city, being stood up by a flakey Bolivian man, and then laying in my bed writing what must be about 50 pages of introspective journal pages and then laying in the dark, wide awake, listening to my weirdest music. What was I trying to prove, waiting around this city without a social circle or any firm plans for the rest of the week, especially when it included my birthday and new years? And to whom? Is it just a societally-ascribed notion that we want to spend special events with those who we love? Or is it a desire we all share as naturally social human beings, regardless of culture? And who really cares where the desire comes from, anyway--did I need to be a stone-cold emotionless monk during this week, drinking a solitary glass of wine in my tiny room as I entered my twenty fourth year?

No. Don't need to prove anything. I had my alone time. Now, I want to be with people. I don't want to rot away in my little room. I don't need to wander the streets, looking for the next café, hoping to bump into someone who would invite me to a New Years party. I don't want to get groped by some desperate single in a bar on the night of the 31st. I am going to stay with Rosana and Enrique, my old host family from when I studied in Buenos Aires in 2005. They're thrilled I'm coming, and I'm psyched and also relieved to be with them.

I leave early tomorrow morning, and thirty hours later (yeowch, yeah) I will arrive via bus in one of my very favorite cities in the entire world. The city of men with mullets and skinny girls in, well, skinny jeans. The city that gives you little cookies on a plate when you order a coffee or tea. The city of real dulce de leche, of desserts that often look better than they taste (the eternal south american dessert letdown) but where artists and rockers and revolutionaries and bohemian bead-makers and old men who play chess all walk the streets in one colorful, raucous wave at all hours of the night!

¡Voy a Buenos Aires!