AUTUMN’S ADVENTURES

I woke up this morning and stumbled half asleep to the bathroom.  When I went to plop down on the toilet I saw that SOMEONE or SOMETHING had left a smudge of wet sloppy poop on the toilet seat.  This didn’t look like cat poop and it didn’t look like the cat jumped on the toilet seat with a poopy paw.  This looked like HUMAN shit.  I saw that the bathroom did not have any toilet paper in it.  I wonder if someone decided to wipe their ass on the toilet seat…fucking disgusting.

I admit. I have an addiction. This addiction is just as unhealthy as smoking or chewing tobacco.  Maybe it is even as bad as crack cocaine, and they look similar too!  This addiction I speak of is refined sugar.  I just can’t get enough.

When I decided to try out the paleo lifestyle I couldn’t believe how easy it was to give up salty bread products, potatoes, pasta and rice.  But when it came time to say goodbye to the cookies, chocolates, cakes, pies, muffins and other flour-powered, sugar-packed sweet treats, I couldn’t say goodbye.

If I couldn’t kick it straight away at least I would try and manage it at a semi-healthy level.  For the most part I have it under some sort of control (portion control, that is) but I hit rock bottom today and I can’t look myself in the mirror and be proud to call myself a primal blueprinter, paleo queen, cavewoman of the 21st century…nothing.  I’m just an addict, a weakling, a sugar whore.   At this moment of sinning I realized that my brain had control of me and not the other way around.

What horrible thing did I eat containing sugar that could make me have such a mental paleo breakdown?  A. Fucking. Donut.  And not those light and fluffy feels-like-your-eating-a-cloud Krispy Kreme type doughnuts.  NO!  This doughnut was like a 10 pound mass of densely fried dough that had at least an inch thick of sugar coating it on the outside.  It was a sugar monster for sure and every bite made me think I was one step closer to death.  But it was damn delicious.

Why did I do it?  Well, hmm…other than my non-rational part of the brain kicking in, the only semi-rational explanation I could come up with at the time was “holy shit a DONUT in JUJUY! I haven’t seen or had one of these since I lived in the States!”  I was feeling nostalgic. I was feeling homesick.  I was making excuses, basically.  If I were actually in the US I wouldn’t even blink at a donut.  Ok, I would…I do find a good glazed, powdered or cream filled with chocolate covered donut to be quite delicious, but if I were paleo in the States I would not be running to find the closest Krispy Kreme.

I know it is just food.  I know that I know that it is bad for me and that I made the choice to eat it anyway.  Knowing these things doesn’t make the guilt go away and for someone like me who likes to be in control, feel good about myself and be more or less healthy, this fucking donut was more than just a delicious ring of sugar.  This donut showed me that there is one thing that has control over me, and that is sugar.

If I don’t eat a piece of chocolate or have some sort of sugary treat every day I at least have to have a piece of fruit to get my fix.  I cannot go a day without some type of sugar, natural or super-refined.  I’m trying to gain more control by finding healthier sweets recipes out there like almond butter and 100% dark chocolate cups but it’s like a needle in a haystack trying to find the healthy baking ingredients I need to make healthier sweet alternatives in Jujuy.

Being paleo in Argentina is great for the delicious (and cheap) steak, vegetables and fresh eggs but when it comes to sweets, Argentine’s LOVE their refined sugar…and so do I.

There are 3 simple things that can ruin a shared living situation (excluding living with your family, where the brunt of these responsibilities lies on the shoulders of the parents and therefore creates less conflict): dirty dishes, food and utilities.  If handled properly and maturely, those sharing a living space with a stranger, a friend or even a boyfriend can avoid petty fighting and stress and can live relatively relaxed and enjoyable lives under the same roof together.  But sadly, the majority of people don’t set up clear boundaries or “rules of respect and expectations” when entering into a housing contract with someone else.  They simple rely on good faith and assume that people will clean up after themselves, eat their own food and pay their half of the utilities.

I’ve lived in 7 different shared living situations since moving from my family home in NY at age 18.  I first lived with my college roommate on campus for 2 years and then with her and her 2 friends off-campus 2 years later.  They liked to share everything (clothes, food, drugs, responsibility…etc) and that ultimately lead to a giant fight over food, drugs, clothes, and responsibility.  Dishes were thrown, voices were raised, fingers were pointed and food was labeled.  It was hell and I was out less than a month after shit (or literally, plates) hit the fan.

My next shared living was with all boys.  I decided this would be less dramatic, less socialist and stress free.  Boys weren’t fueled by emotions, unless it was rage, and the little artist colony of boys I had stumbled upon was only releasing their suppressed rage out on their canvases, not on their roommates.  I was safe.

My third living situation was in the basement of my sister’s house in DC.  That was relatively stress free and I enjoyed my sister’s company.  It didn’t feel like my space though and I respected my sister and her house rules so I left to gain more freedom with a bigger apartment closer to my job.

My fourth living situation was in a broken-down cape cod style cottage in Arlington.  I was living with my good friend Lauren and my coworker Morgan and his big dog, Buck.  The conditions of the house were a bit iffy but we painted it and loved it all the same.  After only a short month there our landlord told us that we had to find a new place because he was renovating and selling.  Due to a shady contract that we thought was year long but was actually monthly, we scrambled to find a new place to live.

My fifth living situation was with Lauren again.  It was harmonious. We were level-headed. We had lived with people before. We knew what to expect and what we expected of each other.  We had respect for each other and we treated our house as our sanctuary.  It was the best and most stress free shared living situation to date.  This was because we talked about things before moving in and left nothing, not even the subject of dirty dishes, untouched.

My sixth living situation was in Jujuy.  I stayed with my little sister’s host family while I got accustomed to my new city, language and culture.  I was there for 3 months and even though it was comfortable and a loving, family environment, I felt like a squatter, a drifter, a true vagabond.  Since I knew the stay was temporary, it took me a while to get unpacked and settled in.  Also, they wouldn’t accept rent from me or any form of compensation for their extreme generosity.  The fed me every day, cleaned my clothes and made my bed.  They helped me with the language, taught me how to knit and made sure I was always safe.  I am still trying to repay their generosity with my own generosity in every way that I can.

My current shared living situation is with a 50-something year old woman who owns the house.  At first, I was enamored by the house and it’s weird architecture, colors and artwork but I was also petrified of this woman and the lack of warm expressions on her stone-cold face.  I wasn’t sure I could live with her, especially since I didn’t know her at all, but I also didn’t have many options.  Now, after living with her for almost 6 months I’ve discovered that the house is a broken-down mess and this woman, while sometimes nice, is also judgmental(of my weight, diet and lifestyle) and is very weird about certain things allowed in her house.  For example, she hates the smell of matches so I can’t use them to light the gas burners unless she isn’t there.  She made a rule saying that I couldn’t cook between 4pm - 8pm because she didn’t like the house smelling like grilled meat after “lunch hours”.  The list could go on…  She calls her house a “giant tent” and every room is open, including hers, if I need or want to use it.  The only television and phone are located in her bedroom as well as the internet connection so as much as I’d like to avoid being in there, I do sometimes have to enter.  Even though she has openly invited me into her room, I don’t like accepting the invitation.  It was just like accepting an invitation to smoke weed with my first off-campus roommates.  At first I declined, telling them that I did not want to smoke something that I didn’t pay for (for the obvious reason of it coming back to bite me in the ass) they of course replied “this weed is free for us, we invite you to smoke it with us, don’t worry about it” and when the blowout happened at the end of the year with the plates flying, they threw that invitation back in my face, as I expected.  And, as I expected, my invitation into the “tent” was also thrown back in my face, just recently.  I don’t want to get into too many details, let’s just say that her invitation to share her things with me was her being generous, and not that I was, in fact, paying her an exorbitant amount of money to live there and was essentially paying for everything I was using anyway.  Her “tent” philosophy meant that everything in the house was open for everyone to use, including her friends that are frequently over at the house.  When I made a clear line in the sand as to what was mine and what was hers, she went ballistic and I was again proven right.  Her “generosity” was not genuine and the fact that I wasn’t equally as generous with certain things meant that she wanted to revoke her generosity so that I would be punished for my lack of generosity.  I never actually invited her into my “tent” but I was generous all the same, bringing her gifts from my travels and having my friends and family bring or send things from the US that I knew she needed or would enjoy.  But when people are upset they always focus on the bad, never the good in people.  They argue irrationally and with intense emotions, versus analyzing both sides and talking like adults.  Fighting with this woman who is a mother of 2 boys my age, but feeling like I was fighting with a 19 year old made me realize something: I need to live alone.  After 7 shared living situations I finally want my own house and I want to live there by myself.  The only way for me to be truly free and happy where I am living is to be in control of the situation and to be able to call it my own.  I’m working on both of these things as we speak but for now I will move onto shared living situation number 8 and hope it is painless, until I can make my dream of owning a house here (and then again, in the US) come true.

More details to come about buying a house as an expatriot. I know for some this sounds shocking, but I swear it’s a good idea.

I haven’t been updating as much lately because my brain is buzzing with a million different ideas and I haven’t been able to break myself from working on them to work on the blog. I apologize.  I probably don’t even have any followers anymore.  I’m also behind on posting pictures on my Flickr page.  I was good and did manage to get all photos from my 1.5 month travels onto Facebook so if you are friends with me you’ve probably already seen them.

To break it down in short form, this is where I was for 1.5 months and with whom:

• Cordoba, ARG - 10 days - with pal Bobby Carter
• Salta, ARG - 6 days - 4 days with Bobby, 2 days with Alexander.
• Tucuman, ARG - 3 hours - with Alex
• Rosario, ARG - 2 days - with Alex
• Buenos Aires, ARG -4 days - 2 days with Alex, 2 days with Alex and Shannon.
• Colonia, Uruguay - 1 day - with Shannon, Alex, David, Alex’s friend Abe and Abe’s friend Lee.

Of course I had to show Bobby, Alex and Shannon my new digs so they all came to visit me in Jujuy.  I took each of them to the north. I am beginning to be a really great tour guide of my home town!  I really liked seeing how they reacted to the places I took them. It was rewarding for me to show people new things.  Jujuy is a place of reflection and relaxation and I think I relayed that quite well to my friends.  They enjoyed a break from reality.

Now I am wiped out.  I’m happy to be done with traveling and back to working and a regular routine of yoga and the gym twice a week.  I’m not the type that enjoys living out of a suitcase for sure.  Since returning to Jujuy I have been a major hermit.  I stayed in my pjs and in my room for almost 2 days and 2 nights straight. I think the woman I live with thinks this behavior is a bit strange but I tried to explain it to her as best as I could that  I needed a super detox from all of that socializing and traveling — I needed to reconnect with myself!

Also, hanging out with Bobby, Alex and Shannon was really inspiring.  We talked about so many different things and I came away from those conversations with such great ideas that I couldn’t wait to get home and start working on them.  I felt that if I didn’t “download” my ideas from my head soon, it was going to explode.

Now I’m a bit more normal. I’m being social again after about a week of me time.  I’m trying to get out of the house at least once a day, whether it be for a walk around the city for exercise or for groceries, partially so the lady I live with doesn’t think I’ve gone nutballs crazy and chained myself to my bed for eternity.

I may go to Mendoza next weekend to visit Bobby again because he is there for an indetermined amount of time.  I really want to go when he is there because I like seeing my friends and it gives me a good excuse to go to Mendoza (other than the kickass wine).  We’ll see how I feel by Thursday and if I can handle another mini trip 14 hours south by bus…

When Alex and I arrived to Buenos Aires we checked into our “Bed & Breakfast”.  Alex had warned me that this B&B looked like someone’s apartment but I didn’t believe him because the website had such convincing photos that I thought we were staying in a nice place. I was wrong and was really pissed at the false marketing on the website.  This B&B looked more like some dude’s apartment, or some sort of hostel.  It was on the 3rd floor of an apartment building so we had to climb 3 flights of stairs to get up to it.  I was not happy.  The only thing that was true from the website was that the guy that ran the B&B was pretty hot.

On the road again — Alex and I make a master plan to pass through Tucuman on our way to Rosario where we would take the train to Buenos Aires.  The bus from Jujuy to Tucuman was about 5-6 hours.  When we arrived in Tucuman I tried to make plans to meet up with my faux baby sis, Emi and my friend Eze for a quick hello but we only had enough to do a quick walk around the main plaza and grab a bite to eat.  Tucuman is where I learned the word for eggplant which is berenjena and i fell in love with eggplant.

From Tucuman we caught an overnight bus to Rosario.  We rented a room in this hotel that was pretty old.  I didn’t much dig it so we only stayed there for one night and then moved on to a better hotel down the street.

Our time in Rosario was quite nice.  We spent the first day walking around the city exploring and we spent the second day by renting bikes and biking along the river.  Rosario is a really nice city and I would definitely visit it again, but only for a long weekend.  I would recommend going to a all-you-can-eat buffet here as they have asado and basically anything you can think of.  It was delicious and like $10 dollars per person.

In the wee hours of the morning, approximately 4am, we woke up to catch a train from Rosario to Buenos Aires.  I didn’t think there was a train system in Argentina so I was surprised and excited to find out that there was one.  The train was something straight out of the 70’s.  Although it was a bumpy ride and it was cold as balls for most of the trip, I did enjoy it a great deal.

As a good host should, I brought Alex up to the north and we spent a night in Tilcara.  We rented a really nice room and had a nice dinner that included a live folklore show.  We drank 2.5 bottles of wine and I was d-r-u-n-k.  We left the dinner place and stumbled into another restuarant with live music.  There we ran into some chicks from the hostel that we stayed in when we were in Salta.  They were probably not as drunk as we were but you can never tell when you are already super drunk how drunk others are.  Alex ordered a beer and I drank some but wished I hadn’t.  I guess I was in the habit of drinking so I didn’t see the stop sign my stomach had so boldly put in front of my fuzz-drunk face.  Let’s just say I spent a good part of that night hovered over the toilet, stomach teasing me but never actually puking.

Somehow, Alex convinced me that going Llama trekking at 10am the next day would be a good idea.  My hungover mind and body did not wholly agree but as a good host I put on my “good sport” attitude and signed up for the trek.  Seeing Alex’s broken little spirit was something I could not bear.  After all, he’s such a good travel buddy that I figured just being around him would make it fun.

This trek was going to be 5 hours of walking with/leading llamas up a mountain in the middle of the day in blazing sun.  I prepared myself with sunblock and brought it with me for re-application.  I didn’t have a hat so I prayed that my head would not burn.

The trek started out pretty easy.  Llamas walk pretty slow so it was a nice stroll until we reached the bottom of the mountain.  Our guide, Santos, had a bag of coca leaves that he had us throw into a hole at the bottom of the mountain wishing for a good day ahead.  He then told us to chew on coca so we wouldn’t get altitude sickness.  I’ve had coca leaves before and the taste is gross but I did it anyway.  Going up the mountain was pretty intense because it was a steep incline.  I couldn’t believe how agile the llamas were and how swiftly they climbed the mountain.

When we reached the top of the mountain we found a nice spot and set up a picnic there.  The guide had prepared a pretty awesome picnic for us, complete with wine, fresh fruit and goat cheese.  I was impressed.  We chilled there for a while and Alex realized that he was severely burned on his left arm. He was as red as a tomato.  I gave him some more sunblock but by this point the damage was done.

The trek down the mountain was the scariest part as he had us going down some pretty steep cliffs, still leading our llamas.  I let my llama go at one point and told him to find his own way down while i slowly baby-stepped my way down the slippery slope.

Overall I had a good time but I can’t say that I would do it again.  It was cool but I don’t dig climbing mountains, especially guiding a stubborn llama behind me.

For my travels with Bobby, I decided to rough it with a ruck sac.  I have only used them once before when I went hiking and camping in the Shenandoah with my good friends.  I didn’t so much enjoy the pack back then but it’s necessary when hiking.  Pulling a wheeled suitcase up a mountain doesn’t seem too practical.

I don’t have a ruck sac so I rummaged through my landlady’s backpacks to see what she had.  2 of the 3 had holes in them or were generally of bad quality so I went with the 3rd choice.

It worked out quite well for about 30 minutes but when I arrived at the bus station with Bobby on my way to Salta, one of my straps broke off.  We ended up tying it to another part of the bag so it was fixed for a hot second but midway through my Salta trip it ripped off again.  Let’s just say carrying a 1980’s ruck sac with one strap is not the most comfortable thing in the world.

When I got back to Jujuy with Alex I was so ready to ditch that stupid backpack. I didn’t care if it made me more authentic to graze the country like a true mochilera.  As I’ve said before, I’m a sucker for comfort and there is a reason they made suitcases with wheels.

It was still siesta time in Jujuy so no one was out and about when I walked him around the city to show him my stomping grounds.  We ended up running into a guy I had met at this hostel I recommend in Yok Wahi.  I hadn’t been there in about 3 or 4 months so he invited us over there for dinner.  We agreed and headed over there around 10pm for the asado they were preparing.

I had a really good time catching up with them and getting to know them better.  About 90% of our conversation was in castellano so that was cool.  Alex was a talk-a-holic in spanish so I got used to talking a lot in Spanish with him and whoever we came across.  We drank boxed red wine with tonic water because that was what some of the guys were drinking.  It was ok but I much prefer beer over boxed wine diluted by fizzy water.  The asado was delicious and the cozy hostel and great company made the night one to remember.

Somehow in one day Alex and I had managed to spend all of our cash.  On what? Who knows, probably booze.  When we arrived to the bus terminal that was taking us to Cafayate we literally only had enough for the cab and a little bit more for another cab ride.  The one bank ATM in the terminal didn’t accept foreign bank cards so Alex took the last of our cash and headed back into city center to take out money for the both of us.

I thought the trip to Cafayate was a short, 1 hour bus ride.  Where I got that number from I have no idea because the bus ride was actually 3.5 hours…whoops.  It wasn’t a boring ride as we were both surprised to find out that there was a beautiful quebrada view for 2/3 of the ride.  The mountains were gigantic and almost as brightly colored as those I could find in the north.  I felt so tiny in that bus against these mountains.

When we arrived to Cafayate we were bombarded by people trying to get us to stay in their hostel.  We went with the first one because it seemed legit.  The lady was nice and talked us all the way to her “super close” hostel that was probably about 7-10 blocks from town center.  The outside of the hostel looked legit and it was only 26 pesos per night.  When we got to the dorms we were staying in a giant room with 10 bunk beds.  I felt like I was back in camp.

We left the hostel and immediately went to the wine bodegas.  Cafayate is known for it’s wineries so we were set on getting good and toasted on some wine.  The first one we tried looked like a cool winery but the wine wasn’t very good.  The second place we went to was brand new and I discovered that a good wine that I tried in Salta was made in this winery.  We bought a bottle and drank it there and had a jolly good time getting semi-drunk at 5pm. (Ok in all honesty I got pretty drunk off of that one bottle).

We walked around city center until we settled on a place to eat.  When we arrived it was 8:30pm and the kitchen wasn’t all the way open yet.  We could only order a few things on the menu.  I am used to the custom of eating late here but I can’t say that I like it.  One thing that I miss about the States is the ability to get a decent meal pretty much anytime throughout the day and night.  In Argentina, it is sometimes impossible to find a place to eat after 3pm until 8pm and you are stuck eating bar food.  Most places, including bars, limit their menu in this time period so most of them only have 1-2 options, sometimes just 1.

When dinner was over we headed back to our hostel.  The sleeping experience for us was less than enjoyable as the mosquitos attacked us, the fan was too loud to keep on in the thick night’s heat and the pillow should more appropriately be called a thin rock.  I am a sucker for comfort and I don’t realize this until I am in these types of situations.

We left Cafayate heading to Jujuy on the morning bus and relished in the views of the mountains again.

Once Alex arrived to Salta and my friend Bobby had started making his way to Rio, I knew I’d be seeing this city in a different light.  I would adapt to Alex’s way of traveling and abandon the one I adopted with Bobby.  I was worried that Alex’s army training and general appeal for sweat-inducing activities would mean that we would be climbing mountains and probably hunting pumas or something and I’m not really the “active” traveler so-to-speak.  Hiking is not one of my hobbies nor is any type of extreme water sport.  I wouldn’t be using my computer as much as I had been these past few weeks and I prepared myself by packing my mini-leatherman, just in case I needed to pull ticks off my body or defend myself against a wild boar.

When I met him at the airport and saw him emerge from the gate all my fears fell to the back of my mind.  His giant smile and warm, social presence reminded me that he was just here to have a good time, no matter what we did.  The army didn’t harden him or make him into this super mountain expeditionist salivating for the peaks.  He was more excited to meet all the Argentine’s he could, as he was impressed by the ones he had met on the plane and in Buenos Aires in his short 24 hours in the country.  Apparently his experience as a New Yorker for one short year had left his bright and bubbly spirit jarred by all of the harsh and closed off people of the city.  Argentine’s were angels to him compared to what New York had to offer and he was overjoyed and highly impressed.

We didn’t waste much time as we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed for the Teleferico of Salta.  The Teleferico is a set of cable cars that climb up the mountain Cerro San Bernardo.  The view is spectacular and the tickets are incredibly cheap ($20 pesos there and back).  The buildings on each end of the Teleferico that load the people into the cars were extremely cool with giant cranks and metal wheels of bright reds, and oranges.  I felt like I was inside a giant clock.  We roamed around the mountain and took silly pictures of ourselves.  We saw tons of giant spiders that had taken residence just above our heads along the trail.  Alex bought a postcard and then lost it.

Since I had already been in Salta for 4 days and was pretty burned out, we didn’t stay for much longer.  We made plans to head down to Cafayate to see as much of the north as we possibly could.