As Far As You Can Go Without Falling Off The Earth

Hola!

I am off again. Most of you know I can´t sit still for more than a few months at a time, but I decided to trek a little further than Europe this time. I am currently in Bariloche, Argentina. Over the next few weeks, I will be backpacking through the Patagoia region in Argentina (pretty much as far south as you can go in the world, with the exception of the South Pole).

I won´t be sending lots of long detailed messages every 4 days like I was in Europe, as I won´t have e-mail access for most of this trip. But, I figured I would send an e-mail or two to the people I love anyway!

So briefly, here´s what´s happened on my first 2 days. I spent the first 30 hours traveling. 5 flights, 4 airports, 3 large cappucinos, and 2.5 restless hours of sleep later, I arrived in Buenos Aires! And I thought NYC was big....sheesh! I was SHOCKED by the size of that city.

Although I´ve traveled a lot in the past few years, I can´t help that semi-scared, semi-thrilled feeling I get whenever I land in a new place. Some people get stage butterflies...I get travel butterflies. And I wouldn´t have it any other way. It can be nervewrecking when you know you are about to step foot in a country where most of the people won´t understand you and you might completely embarass yourself by doing something culturally inappropriate. This time around, I was a little more nervous becuase I didn´t plan any accomodation...I just kind of figured I would wing it when I got here.

But, I didn´t have to wing it. When I was waiting for my bag, a girl came up to me and said, ¨I don´t mean to be weird, but are you by any chance flying to Bariloche?¨Ummm, yesss...¨Are you by any chance going on the Patagonia Outward Boud trip in a few days?¨...

AHHHH!!!! She was going to be on the trip with me! When I asked her how she knew, she said it was the hiking boots hanging off of my backpack. The funny thing is, I was planning on putting them back on 20 minutes before she came up to me. Had I done that, she probably wouldn´t have come up to me. It was one of those ¨wow¨ moments where you realize that something as simple as keeping your flip flops on would change the entire trajectory of your trip.

Kristin is AWESOME. Such a great, friendly girl from the midwest. We winded up hanging out all day to and at the small town of Bariloche, Argentina. I decided to go with her to her hostel to see if they had space for one more, and I got the last bed! SA-WEEEEET. Love it when that happens! We saw the sights, went to the beautiful Iglesias de San Carlos de Bariloche, took a stroll along the scenic Lago Nahuel Huapi (a HUGE but amazing, prestine lake), and had cervezas at 2 in the afternoon on a small sidestreet.

The highlight of the day had to be when Kristin told me within 5 minutes of me meeting her, ¨Crap, I left my jacket on the airplane.¨ I was horrified for her, because I get cold really easily and took the packing list quite seriously (I think I have enough Under Armour and Gore Tex for the entire group going on this trip (none of whom I know at this point other than Kristin). But seriously, how could she not be more upset about losing her coat? She simply said, ¨If that´s the worst thing I lose on this trip, I´ll consider myself lucky. I lose everything. As long as I don´t lose my passport or camera, I´m fine.¨

...But you know what comes next right? ...Yep, she lost her passport. After about 5 minutes of us both freaking out, an American woman (probably the only other American in Bariloche) came up to us and said she found it. PHEW! Possible disaster number 1: dodged =)

Needless to say, it´s been a great trip so far. So here are some random occurances that have made it worth the VERY long travel time:

1.) The flight attendant asked me what I wanted to drink in Spanish, and after about 4 words, it became clear I wasn´t exactly, uhhhh, fluent. She turned to the guy next to me and, in very good English, asked the blonde-haired , blue-eyed dude what he wanted. What really tripped me up was that even after learning that I was not hispanic, she kept talking to me in VERY fast Spanish!¨: ¨Quieres tocar? Quieres comer?,¨listing off all the food choices she had and me not understanding a lick of it. And THEN, as I stumbled over my Spanglish, she turned to my little neighbor and politely said, ¨Now sir, what can I get you for dinner this evening?¨

So my question is, do I have a stamp on my forehead that says, Ïf you are a flight attendant, please make me feel like a fool for being an incompetent, uni-lingual American?¨ No, no I do not. It was kind of hilarious...but I'll be purchasing Rosetta Stone when I get back to the states.


2.) After having spent the first 6 years of my life with a Puerto-Rican babysitter, grown up with a Colombian best childhood friend (love you, Vivi), and spent time in a few Spanish speaking countries, I came to the conclusion in Argentina that even though Spanish is one language, it can sound drastically different depending on who you are talking to. When I was telling this to Kristin as I attempted to read a Spanish newspaper, I was like, ¨See? look at this headline. I´ve never, ever seen the word TECHNIT in the Spanish vocabulary before.¨

...A few moments later, I of course came to the realization that TECHNIT was a proper last name, not an actual word. hahaha...Nice going, Melis, nice going.


3.) And my last thought- When I was on the plane flying into Bariloche, I looked out the window and saw the Patagonian mountains from 10,000 feet up and about 50 miles away. To be honest, my first initial thought was, ¨They look like every other set of mountains I´ve seen.¨ But as I got closer and closer to them, I began to notice more of the landscape and it became increasingly breathtaking.

What I realized was that sometimes, we can really sense the beauty and purpose of something when we can see the big picture. But other times, we only come to know how beautiful something is when we look more closely...that the beauty of something lies in it´s details, which you may not come to notice if you are just glancing it over.

So if you have any resolutions for the year, I hope one of them will be to take more time to get to know things, ideologies, and people beyond a first impression- you might be astounded by the beauty and understanding you find.


WISHING YOU ALL A WODERFUL, BLESSED NEW YEAR!


Lots of Love,

Melissa