Life is hard. It´s true.
I´ve lamented before of how moving on every couple of days can be tiresome lonely difficult, yet I´m sure that if I were to return back to the U.S. (as I wished for an hour or more today) I would be back in my small Amarillo town with little more clarity on my post-college ambitions and more stress than I create for myself in Argentina.
But today has been a difficult day.
I´ve been in Bariloche, the town where I spent Christmas for almost a week, waiting, preparing, fretting.
I´ve filled the time over this week: I went to a vista on a mountain, I went to the water-worn rock beach on the lake, I made a hommos dinner accompanied by fresh baked pita bread. I took a 2 day trek to a lake surrounded by jagged granite spires that´s popular with rock climbers, I´ve eaten disgusting amounts (around 2 pounds) of red meat in one sitting, I took 2 hours of one on one spanish school, walked to what I realized was a drive in movie and met an Estonian girl who did the same thing and has hitchhiked throughout Patagonia. I´ve filled the days more or less, but daily and sometimes more than daily I become overwhelmed by deep regret.
Regret of:
1) staying in Bariloche for a week waiting for friends of a guy I met in Ushuaia (the end of the world) to go trekking when I could be seeing other parts of south America.
2) not travelling together with a sweet German girl whom I met in my hostel, who I should have taken the effort to get to know, but instead did nothing, who I should have asked if I could travel with, but then never did and never saw again
3) Not working upon my 2 main goals of travelling in Latin America, improving my Spanish, improving my Salsa dancing.
So today I told the guys I´ve been waiting for that I didn´t want to go trekking anymore, that I´ve been waiting too long, just like they say in economics
my time waiting is a sunk cost, so why should it affect my current decision? It´s logical, isn´t it?
But then I didn´t know where to go, I haven´t researched Chili, I didn´t book a bus, I had already bought food and a bus ticket for 5 days for the hike, I flipped coins and thought, weighed, decided, wavered decided again and here I am finally resigned to an amazing trek through the mountains.
Well, I said life is hard.
It´s like Teach said in psychology, there´s a set-point of happiness that you vacillate around, so maybe you´re normally at mildly amused, but can fall into despair or rush up to ecstatic depending on your environment and body chemicals.
My ethos since high school has been to ¨swallow the world¨. Do and be as much as I can, try everything take in as many experiences as possible, but it´s not working. Trying to avail myself of every opportunity, learn be and do everything leaves me wanting and sad: I always think about what I´m missing, what I should be doing, how I could be improving (and competing with everybody around me).
Today I layed in my shitty hostel bed for more than an hour without the motivation to so much as take off my shoes or get headphones to listen to music thinking that I didn´t know where I was going next, what I wanted to do, that I hated my life all I wanted to do was go back to the U.S. but then there would be nothing for me there either, feeling hopeless and angry at myself for staying in this damn city for too long, thinking that I could still wiggle my way out of the trek but then where would I go anyways - uncertain and unhappy.
And then, I fell asleep, got up, got my headphones, put on LP3 by Ratatat, went out to get the few last things I needed for my trek and bought trout for dinner. And a smile appeared upon my face, I regained a much needed spring in my step. But it´s been like this for days, hopes rise and crash depending on my mood and the people i´m around and in the end i´m left feeling confused and rather hopeless.
Not to mention full of self-pity
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
I just hiked some of the most beautiful scenery anywhere, ever.
Unfortunately I still don´t have a camera, so you´ll just have to google Torres del Paine to see the fit-for-post-card pictures. But ya, it was amazing, but I didn´t have any friends to hike with. Actually I met this guy and we were going to go together, but he had bought a bus ticket for a different time than I, so we were supposed to meet, but then I went to the wrong camp and we never met up, so then I didn´t have any friends to camp with and I didn´t really bring enough food, so I had to eat bread and dried fruit, and I tried to throw my bag across a river, but I slipped right before the third heave, so it fell in the water, but luckily my Ipod and passport stayed dry and then it was cold cause my stuff was wet and I couldn´t sleep and I was feeling sorry for myyyself, and then I met these 2 Spaniards and 2 French youths who were really friendly and nice and then everything was Okay, and now I´m going to the tip of South America, Tierres del Fuego tomorrow.
I think I left out some stylistic flare, but that´s a summary.
Unfortunately I still don´t have a camera, so you´ll just have to google Torres del Paine to see the fit-for-post-card pictures. But ya, it was amazing, but I didn´t have any friends to hike with. Actually I met this guy and we were going to go together, but he had bought a bus ticket for a different time than I, so we were supposed to meet, but then I went to the wrong camp and we never met up, so then I didn´t have any friends to camp with and I didn´t really bring enough food, so I had to eat bread and dried fruit, and I tried to throw my bag across a river, but I slipped right before the third heave, so it fell in the water, but luckily my Ipod and passport stayed dry and then it was cold cause my stuff was wet and I couldn´t sleep and I was feeling sorry for myyyself, and then I met these 2 Spaniards and 2 French youths who were really friendly and nice and then everything was Okay, and now I´m going to the tip of South America, Tierres del Fuego tomorrow.
I think I left out some stylistic flare, but that´s a summary.
A side note of note
So my original posts were dark, heated and angry. During the majority of my travels in Eastern/Southern Africa I was taking Mefloquine. I checked on WebMD and they described some of the symptoms as follows:
In some people, mefloquine may rarely cause more serious side effects, such as depression, anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, confusion, and psychotic behavior. Mefloquine has also been associated with tremor, mood changes, and panic attacks. If you have a history of depression or other psychological conditions, mefloquine may not be right for you. If you take mefloquine and develop anxiety, depression, restlessness, or confusion, contact your doctor immediately, because you may need to stop taking mefloquine and try a different medication.
So, can I blame all the bad moods and lack of compassion and outright anger on the pills I took once a week?
I think I can.
Happy Holidays!
In some people, mefloquine may rarely cause more serious side effects, such as depression, anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, confusion, and psychotic behavior. Mefloquine has also been associated with tremor, mood changes, and panic attacks. If you have a history of depression or other psychological conditions, mefloquine may not be right for you. If you take mefloquine and develop anxiety, depression, restlessness, or confusion, contact your doctor immediately, because you may need to stop taking mefloquine and try a different medication.
So, can I blame all the bad moods and lack of compassion and outright anger on the pills I took once a week?
I think I can.
Happy Holidays!
Thursday, January 1, 2009
can´t handle the pressure
Man is blogging tough
I saw penguins, and then I made christmas dinner, and then I had 2 days on buses that started friendly and amiable, but slowly wore down my store of good will and burnt a deep blue frost into my soul. And then I saw a glacier, and drank for New Years, and drank Whiskey quickly because I started late, and now I´m going hiking.
I saw penguins, and then I made christmas dinner, and then I had 2 days on buses that started friendly and amiable, but slowly wore down my store of good will and burnt a deep blue frost into my soul. And then I saw a glacier, and drank for New Years, and drank Whiskey quickly because I started late, and now I´m going hiking.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
A tale of 2 cities.
I last left off looking for a bus to Cape Town.
Luckily, the next morning I overheard a Swedish girl frantically calling car rental companies saying she needed to go to Cape Town today, immediately, Qha. Qha is a Xhosa word pronounced with a click from the upper palate meaning done, finished, end of story. It´s one of those words like Scheisse 隨便 sui2bian4 or mañana that is always better than expressing the same thing in your own language, and once you hear it is instantly overused.
So I met Frida (the Swede) at 10 and we started off to Cape Town at 12 PM, and drove and drove until we arrived in Cape Town at 12 AM. Driving in South Africa is strange because the road rules are quite different. First of all so many people drive way faster than they should, overtake at ¨funny¨ times, like when there´s a semi in the other lane and in general exude a pompous demeanor, especially if their car is a Mercedes or something posch. The roads are predominantly 2 lane both ways with shoulders, so slower traffic pulls to the shoulder to allow faster cars to pass. Then, when you pass another car, you put on your hazards to signal thanks, to which the person passed may reply with a friendly flash of the lights.
All of this, including driving on the left hand side of the road was new to me, but after 12 hours driving, passing about 5 wrecks outside of our destination we finally arrived in Cape Town, the city I´d heard so much about. It failed to fail my expectations. The city sits at the confluence(?) of the Indian and Atlantic currents. It´s enclosed by table mountain to the East, a flat-topped, grey mountain with intermittent mist and clouds, the so-called tabletop, falling over its precipice and ocean to the West. The Cape region is home to a unique type of vegetation called fynbos, which only occurs in small pockets on the tip of southwest South Africa. The town is large by African standards, cosmopolitan, cheap but full of panache, and covered in beaches, hot people, vineyards and a beautiful climate. In short, I arrived to late and left too early.
Alas, there´s more to tell...
...But I can´t talk anymore about that, I´m currently in Argentina.
I left one great city for another, from Cape Town to Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires is big, and European and Latin American. It´s full of Cafes, parks, dog shit, museums, pollution, hot people, clubs, salsa dancing and Young Urban Argentine Professionals, oh and a horde of tourists, and long-term ¨localists¨ living in trendy neighbourhoods looking to improve their Spanish and get a taste of authentic Argenitine culture by landing an Argentine lover.
I can´t say that I blame them.
Buenos Aires goes out and stays out later than basically any other city in the world. Cities in Spain may come close, but somehow fall short probably because their standard of living is triple BAs. People take naps here around 9 or 10 and then think about going out at 1 AM. You can be chatting with your friends, drinking wine til´ 3 AM and then decide, let´s go out and party. It´s unsurpassed.
I stayed for about 10 days, visiting sites, meeting people, but in general was stuck in a fit of indecision of wanting to do so much, see sites, go to museums, learn harmonica, practice tennis, dance salsa daily, buy books, learn Tango, learn Spanish, watch Nalbandian play, go to a soccer game, make Argentine friends, go to clubs, sleep. After being in ¨the bush¨ for so long, large cities with so much to offer are overwhelming.
About 5 days ago I was narrowing down options to secure a 2 month lease on an apartment in Buenos Aires, complete with kitchen and Spanish speaking roommates. I went to a Cafe with a British lady I´d met at my hostel. We talked of our plans, and I told her I was going to give Patagonia a miss. She said it´d be a shame and I agreed. Later that day we booked 2 bus tickets to Puerto Madryn in Western Argentina. I thought I was done with travel for a while, tired of long bus rides, daily uncertainty, constant vagrancy. I was wrong. I went south to see whales, penguins, ¨Swiss style ski towns¨ and more British (they´re everywhere).
Luckily, the next morning I overheard a Swedish girl frantically calling car rental companies saying she needed to go to Cape Town today, immediately, Qha. Qha is a Xhosa word pronounced with a click from the upper palate meaning done, finished, end of story. It´s one of those words like Scheisse 隨便 sui2bian4 or mañana that is always better than expressing the same thing in your own language, and once you hear it is instantly overused.
So I met Frida (the Swede) at 10 and we started off to Cape Town at 12 PM, and drove and drove until we arrived in Cape Town at 12 AM. Driving in South Africa is strange because the road rules are quite different. First of all so many people drive way faster than they should, overtake at ¨funny¨ times, like when there´s a semi in the other lane and in general exude a pompous demeanor, especially if their car is a Mercedes or something posch. The roads are predominantly 2 lane both ways with shoulders, so slower traffic pulls to the shoulder to allow faster cars to pass. Then, when you pass another car, you put on your hazards to signal thanks, to which the person passed may reply with a friendly flash of the lights.
All of this, including driving on the left hand side of the road was new to me, but after 12 hours driving, passing about 5 wrecks outside of our destination we finally arrived in Cape Town, the city I´d heard so much about. It failed to fail my expectations. The city sits at the confluence(?) of the Indian and Atlantic currents. It´s enclosed by table mountain to the East, a flat-topped, grey mountain with intermittent mist and clouds, the so-called tabletop, falling over its precipice and ocean to the West. The Cape region is home to a unique type of vegetation called fynbos, which only occurs in small pockets on the tip of southwest South Africa. The town is large by African standards, cosmopolitan, cheap but full of panache, and covered in beaches, hot people, vineyards and a beautiful climate. In short, I arrived to late and left too early.
Alas, there´s more to tell...
...But I can´t talk anymore about that, I´m currently in Argentina.
I left one great city for another, from Cape Town to Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires is big, and European and Latin American. It´s full of Cafes, parks, dog shit, museums, pollution, hot people, clubs, salsa dancing and Young Urban Argentine Professionals, oh and a horde of tourists, and long-term ¨localists¨ living in trendy neighbourhoods looking to improve their Spanish and get a taste of authentic Argenitine culture by landing an Argentine lover.
I can´t say that I blame them.
Buenos Aires goes out and stays out later than basically any other city in the world. Cities in Spain may come close, but somehow fall short probably because their standard of living is triple BAs. People take naps here around 9 or 10 and then think about going out at 1 AM. You can be chatting with your friends, drinking wine til´ 3 AM and then decide, let´s go out and party. It´s unsurpassed.
I stayed for about 10 days, visiting sites, meeting people, but in general was stuck in a fit of indecision of wanting to do so much, see sites, go to museums, learn harmonica, practice tennis, dance salsa daily, buy books, learn Tango, learn Spanish, watch Nalbandian play, go to a soccer game, make Argentine friends, go to clubs, sleep. After being in ¨the bush¨ for so long, large cities with so much to offer are overwhelming.
About 5 days ago I was narrowing down options to secure a 2 month lease on an apartment in Buenos Aires, complete with kitchen and Spanish speaking roommates. I went to a Cafe with a British lady I´d met at my hostel. We talked of our plans, and I told her I was going to give Patagonia a miss. She said it´d be a shame and I agreed. Later that day we booked 2 bus tickets to Puerto Madryn in Western Argentina. I thought I was done with travel for a while, tired of long bus rides, daily uncertainty, constant vagrancy. I was wrong. I went south to see whales, penguins, ¨Swiss style ski towns¨ and more British (they´re everywhere).
Friday, November 28, 2008
oh golly
So i left hogsback - it was beautiful, and I found this absolutely amazing unpasteurezed milk that still had the creme on the top of each litre of milk and I made spaghetti carbonara from scratch, which lacked salt but was good and unhealthy.
But I decided to go the wrong way, not towards cape town and south america but backwards, where i'd already been.
I backtracked because i wanted to go to this place bulungula. I heard loads about this backpakcers, it was supposed to be chill and beautiful and less developed and I got a ride with a very fit, very aryan, German girl and her friend.
She has a boyfriend.
I only learned this after I arrived at my destination.
Rash decisions.
Well, I got to Bulungula the day after,
Man it was nice.
But without internet
So i'm posting now.
So bulungula is co-owned by the villagers in the area. It's a group of Xhosa people that live in the area and is located on a smallll hill overlooking the sea. You can hear the waves from your bed and wake up to cows outside your room.
I was going to talk about the vibe etc. but don't know how to compose my thoughts, so I'll just jump to the fish.
On the 2nd day at Bulungula I went on a fishing trip with a local fisherman.
His name was Kesha,
what a nice man.
Well, Kesha had a fishing pole about 10 feet high (lenghts, amounts, distances always increase with fishing stories i've learned), and a hand-made metal trident.
And we walked to some rocks out on the ocean. He cast his rod out and then let me hold it.
I wanted to cast, but spoke no Xhosa except for water, fish when I remembered the word, thank you and sorry, so I gestured etc. but, he didn't want me to cast onto rocks. Fair enough.
So he cast and I waited and reeled in a number of times.
I wasn't sure If i was doing it right, and I could only point and gesture pulling up a fish or reeeling in, but he just told me (with his hands) to keep holding the line betwixt my 2 fingers 2 wait for the catch.
After about an hour I thought I'd let him fish so I could observe the finer parts of sea fishing and hopefully watch how to cast so I could get a chance to cast.
Well he stood well away from me to cast so I couldn't see what he was doing with his hands, he gave me the rod and I gave it back to him. Then, after about 1 minute the rod bows over, and he let's the line out and reels in back and forth.
I'm all smiles and laughs.
He fights and tugs, gives and pulls for 20 minutes (fishing times) and then I see this fat piece of fish flopping out of the sea onto the rocks. I start yelling high pitched and giddily out of Xcitement and he has me hand him the trident. The fish is fighting and tugging and then CRACK the dull scimitar goes right through the gills and face of the fish. we pull him up to the rocks and he's about 2 1/2 feet long.
Kesha takes out his rusty, dull knife and cuts a deep V shaped incision under it's jaws and leaves the fish to suffocate. The small pools of water on the rocks surrounding the fish turn a fake, acryllic red and the fish lays still. Then, every 30 seconds it tenses its muscles and contorts his body towards me in an upward curving u-shape and then lyss still. I look into the eyes of the fish, watching it's v-shaped opening gaping and the gills gasping for oxygen, the violent shutter of life squeezing out, one useless breath at a time and I think, should I be a vegetarian?
But it's exciting getting such a big catch (well watching anyhow), and if God didn't want us to eat animals, then why'd he make them out of meat (props George)?
The fish finally died, i tried to cary it by the v-shaped hole, but it soon became too slippery and heavy for 1 arm, (it weigh maybe 25-30 pounds and my miniscule muscles have been mollified to mush)
we broought deadfish back to bulungula, took soome pictures and then took it to the rocks to clean and scale.
We divided the fish into 2 with myself taking the back fillet portion (i'd also paid $4 for the fishing trip).
Then I cooked fish fillets for dinner.
The next day I made some pasta and used up some remaining ingredients to make one of my favorite dishes in a while:
Here goes:
4 cloves garlic
2 tbs butter butter
1/4 cup Walnuts crushed
1 apple diced
1/3 cup creeme
4 oz camembert cheese
pinch of nutmeg
2 tsp mixed italian herbs
1/2 tspcinnamon
salt/pepper.
Take white fish fillets and rub with salt, pepper, italian herbs and cinnamon. fry in 1tbs butter with 2 cloves of garlic until almost cooked through, then remove.
Heat remaining butter in saucepan and add diced garlic, after 30 seconds add walnuts and apples. cook for 2-3 minutes and add creme and cheese cook until cheese is melted and flavors mesh, add a pinch of nutmeg, return fish to pan and cook for 2-4 minutes longer. toss with freshly cooked pasta and serve.
MMM
Now I just took a bus to East London, I still had a half of the fish, but there was a problem getting on the bus and I was rushed, so a Swiss lady took my bags, but didn't realize the fish (and my precious butter) was in the cooler of the car, so I've lost and wasted 1/4 of a beautiful big fish. I feel bad for it.
I'm trying to find a flight or bus to Cape Town ASAP. I have a tenative seat on a plane to Buenos Aires on the 7th of December. If I can't get the seat (i.e. no one misses or cancels their flight) then I think I have to wait until the 26th. Merry christmaS!
Thursday, November 20, 2008
south africa
howdy y'all!
so i'm in south africa.
And I've been going to backpackers (hostels) as they're called here. Actually I don't necessarily go to see a certain sight or certain city; I travel to different places because they have nice hostels. So, in terms of getting to know a country, I see a relatively small amount - but it's nice. For example, right now I'm staying in a town called hogsback, which is in the mountains along the wild coast. This is apparently where J.R.R. Tolkien lived for some time and was inspired to write the hobbit. Much of the land in the area is pine plantations, but there's still some old indigenous forest that is quite mysterious and beautiful. The area has 5 waterfalls and a really big tree and a treehouse 40 feet in the air.
so i'm in south africa.
And I've been going to backpackers (hostels) as they're called here. Actually I don't necessarily go to see a certain sight or certain city; I travel to different places because they have nice hostels. So, in terms of getting to know a country, I see a relatively small amount - but it's nice. For example, right now I'm staying in a town called hogsback, which is in the mountains along the wild coast. This is apparently where J.R.R. Tolkien lived for some time and was inspired to write the hobbit. Much of the land in the area is pine plantations, but there's still some old indigenous forest that is quite mysterious and beautiful. The area has 5 waterfalls and a really big tree and a treehouse 40 feet in the air.
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