2 New Posts

I've put up two new posts in the last few days. I hope you enjoy them.

El Chalten Sunset

Somebody threw a match into a field of violet wild flowers. The flames burned pink and slowly moved across the petals, kissing and tickling them. As they moved over the field, the flames left ochre ashes glowing with heat. Ever so slowly, naturally, the fire spread, dancing atop the field of violet.

The fire soon found an aspen grove caught in the radiant metamorphosis of autumn. Clutching the aspens, the fire exploded into rolling columns of flame, tossing the changing leaves into the sky, blanketing the earth in illuminant, lively light. Each burning aspen leaf, of which there were billions, was sent tumbling, turning and glittering among the others. The acrobatics were stunning. The mass of surging and ebbing leaves, burning red, orange, pink and yellow looked like a colossal school of brightly colored fish darting through the deep blue sea; like someone breathed life into a collection of shattered, stained glass and then lifted it in front of an evening sun.

South, in the distance, the sea overflowed. But rather than spill out over the earth, it grew vertically, swelling over the tops of snow capped peaks. It did not advance, nor retreat. It held its firm position, towering in the distance, swallowing the light emitted by the fire in the foreground. The light was lost in a blue that grew steadily darker, deeper and ultimately abysmal.

With the spread of the wind and the inevitable fatalism of time, the fire began to dissipate. It became brush strokes inspired by Van Gogh. The color did not loose its intensity but did become cooler. Apparently the artist who brushed these strokes into the blue canvas had not decided whether he preferred oils or acrylic. At first the paint held the form of the violent strokes, where the bristles carved the paint into intertwining lines that ended in independent, fading color. But then, as if operating with a mind of their own, the firm lines would begin to bleed through the canvas. The colors would drip and mix into themselves always maintaining their independence among the other colors, yet wanting to blend and share their luminance at the same time. The burning colors fervently explored one another in tumultuous curiosity.

The strokes were nonsensical, erratic. They randomly cut at the canvas like the artist painted with a handful of shattered glass rather than with a brush. The cuts bled like flesh does. Then the artist added strange form among the macabre, bloody background. It wasn't quite an addition, because it had been there the whole time. Rather, he brought attention to the forms, a Dali-esque profile in the center, a cold grey clump of cauliflower left in the distance. The artist was psychotic, a serial killer perhaps. He loved massacre, medieval war, slaughterhouses.

It was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen. And it scared me to death. It was true madness. I laughed out loud at it. Then, I was completely silent, like a frightened child in a pitch black room. I was too frightened to breath and hoped to wake up from the nightmare that was that sunset. It foretold of terror, of irreversible change, of heartbreak. It portended doom, apocalypse even. I tried to laugh at it again, but no noise escaped from my throat. I couldn't look at it any longer. I curled up beneath it and hid my head.

Hours later, a lifetime maybe, or seconds, I lifted my head and the colors were gone. I stood up, looked at the blue black sky and walked out of the mountains. I couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible had happened.

In An Effort to Convey the Effects of Too Much Mate

I’m trying to write about Cochamó, (something that happened months ago now and I still feel a clinging responsibility to get something on the page about it), and I’m not motivated. I prepare a mate to help get my motivation started. But the problem is is that I’ve had too much mate already. And when you’ve had too much mate, the last thing you need is more mate. What you need is to go do something, something productive, something that provides an outlet for all that excess energy produced when you’ve had too much of the tea. And like I said, I’ve had too much. So the last thing I need is more. But I pour hot water into the mate and sip from the bombilla. Bitter. Delicious. I tap my pen on my notebook. I have no idea how to sum up the Cochamó writing and I get so frustrated that I close the notebook completely. I take another sip of mate. I think: maybe you should draw something instead. I try to draw. I start off with a convex line. Or is it concave? It doesn’t matter. I draw a curved line, maybe it’ll become the bottom of an eyelid later, but right now I can’t decide. I shade it. Where the shade comes from doesn’t matter because the piece has yet to have a light source. I’m just fed up with trying to draw a solid line and shading is easier to do. It feels more natural. It feels like I’m painting the drawing. I’d rather be painting anyway, but I have no paint. So I scribble wild strokes that go any which way. In Spanish, scribbling is called garabatear, and I think that garabatear is a much better word for scribble because my pen seems to be making that noise more than it is “scribbling”. I garabatear angrily on the page. I’m getting frustrated again. This drawing is going to be terrible. If it can’t be genius, why even try? Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect is only a mix of luck and perspective. And I have had no luck at drawing and my perspective says that the garabatear that’s on my page is terrible. I shut my notebook in disgust. I shouldn’t have had so much mate. I’m in such a fragile state. Maybe reading would be better. I go to my hostel room and it has to be at least one thousand degrees Fahrenheit in there. I don’t have a thermometer, so I don’t know for sure but it has to be at least that much. I sit on the rock hard mattress and open my book. There is no way that I’ll be able to read. My frustration grows. I’m so angry that nothing is working out and I know it’s the mate talking because I’m not an angry person and my life is easier than ninety nine point nine percent of the world right now so I can’t really be angry. Just frustrated. No more mate. A shower. That’s what I need. A shower. I haven’t showered in two days and my feet smell sour. So I’ll take a shower. I gather my shower things and go up the hostal stairs and remember that when I tried to take a shower the day before I ended up with a lukewarm dribble coming out of the showerhead and I didn’t even try to go in. So I’m not psyched on a shower. But I give it a shot anyway. I turn the knob and suddenly a deluge of water pours out of the showerhead at at least one hundred miles per hour. Actually it could be a thousand miles per hour, I’m not sure because I don’t have a speedometer, but it’s fast. And it’s hot. Steamingly hot. There is no actual shower head to stream the water into even, mini streams and so I am left with the insane, uncontrolled, cascade of burning water that is blasting against the shower wall and filling up the floor because that amount of water can’t drain fast enough. And I’m thinking: This shower feels exactly how I feel right now. This is my only kindred spirit in the world. And I’m elated, utterly elated. I jump in and my skin burns, but I’m psyched that I’ve found an environment that models perfectly how I feel about the world. The water crashes down on me like a ton of bricks but I take it like a solid boulder. It won’t smash me to pieces. And it’s at least a thousand degrees. And I’m loving every minute of it. I pop open the shampoo, spray more than I need into the palm of my hand and go to work lathering my hair while the water hits my back so hard that it sprays over the shower curtain and all over the bathroom. I’m sure my clothes are getting soaked outside of the shower because of the ricochet of water I’m sending over the shower curtain, but I don’t care because that shower and I have joined in some sort of holy bond because we feel the same way about the world and nothing else matters. I'm too crammed into the damn thing to avoid the water anyway, so I might as well enjoy it. I put my shampoo lathered head into the high velocity stream and all the suds are instantly gone. Instantly! I go for another. I lather up my head, get it really foamy, even so that a bit of foam drips down into my eye and stings it red, and place my lathery head under the stream. Gone. Instantly. I love this shower. We are on the same page. My skin is burning red at this point and I know it’s best to probably get out of the shower. I turn off the knob and think: Yeah! Awesome shower. It’s the first really clear thought I’ve had for an hour. The heat must’ve induced some sort of normalcy because I feel a bit calmer. I can focus my energy enough to decide on what to do next. I’ll go to the computer and write about mate.

The Gaucho

Often I see things while traveling that are amazingly beautiful but only last a second. What is written below is one of those flashes of beauty, as best as I can capture it.



THE GAUCHO

It's that time of evening I like, when the earth remembers the heat of mid day but begins to breath the coolness of evening. The sun still holds a position high in the sky but is beginning to retire, packing up his things before the walk home where he'll rest for the night. The Patagonian pampa is dry, unfriendly perhaps, but more likely lost in introspection. It unfolds past the limits of the horizon, to the end of the world. In one of its small pockets, land forgotten, dust is kicked up. A faint deep sound is heard, growing. Thunder? No. The sky is clear save a few giant cotton balls pouring through blue. The sound grows louder. It's the sound of boulders rolling down mountain sides, of racing heartbeats screamed through loudspeakers. Galloping hooves.

"Hep!"

Flashing out of the dust comes a man on his horse, flying. The thunder rolls under the horse's hooves. Its muscles are taut. Its head is forward. The wind is whipping across its face. Bound to the beast a gaucho rides. His muscles are taut. His head is forward. The wind is whipping across his face. They seem to be chasing after the sun rays that are breaking through clouds and settling on the pampa impossibly far away.

"Hep!"

Each beat of hoof to earth reverberates deep, bass like vibration into the dirt. Brush disintegrates into powder. A trail is left scribbled behind the darting horse. A few seconds pass and a quarter mile is covered. This is haste as only Patagonian wind can teach. The gaucho and horse move like a gust that bends trees. The thunder rolls. Black eyes squint keenly into the distance. His features are dark, his nose sharp. The gaucho wears a red scarf around his neck, a black, wool beret on his head. The rest of him is a blur.

"Hep!"

Up ahead a fleet of horses gallop, pounding down the pampa. Twelve of them, all colored hues of the desert. They run with fury, wild, crazed. The gaucho is in hot pursuit.

Theresa's Curanto

I'm working on this year's Cochamó post. In the meantime, I offer this as an (hopefully) entertaining read:

THERESA'S CURANTO
Puerto Montt, Chile

The sea wenches call to us. Filthy port restaurant whores.

Where you boys going? You lookin' for something good to eat? I got all that you need right here.

Frigid winds brought from coastal squals break over the land and send horizontal rain to the marrow of our bones. We just want a warm meal. The sea hardened women that see us coming from miles away start their calls. One walks with a limp, her gut pouring out from her tattered apron. Another winks one eye under a long and thick unibrow. Another calls from the second floor of the red laquered wooden skeleton of a building known as Anglemo, you can see the blackness of her teeth from where we stand.

I give you free soup boys. I give you free Pisco Sour. Why don't you come and sit down at my place. We'll warm you up real good.

We already have a place where we go to eat. We walk up stairs. Thick mucus spat from the sea whores sticks on the bottom of our shoes, pulling long yellow green strands as we lift our feet and approach the walkway that leads us to our destination.

More hags.

Hey boys. I got fresh seafood for you. I got a nice warm place for you to you sit down out of this rain. C'mon boys. Come to my place.

We look straight ahead avoiding eye contact with the women. Overflowing buckets of clams and mussels caught that day border our path. The floor boards creak sharply beneath us. We're afraid. But a quick glance up and we see Theresa, arms crossed, stoic, a Hercules of a woman, her short grey hair standing straight up from her head.

Hey boys. Welcome back.

Oh Theresa. Far from the cold, inhospitable streets outside of Anglemo. Her small eatery is a refuge of warmth and comfort reminiscent of blankets fresh out of the dryer, campfires and jaccuzzis in the winter. Sweet, sweet Theresa.

We slide into the benches, peel off our soaked jackets and fleeces and bread is set before us with thick butter and pebre. Theresa knows us now. She knows that we only come to eat one thing. Curanto. We bring our appetites as curanto is meant as a dish for two. But with the wind beating on the outside windows, and our bodies withered from weeks in the mountains, we settle in for a long haul, a full portion of curanto each is set before us.

The heap of mussels steams like a geyser. Those mussels alone would be meal enough for a small family, but curanto is more still than a mountain of mussels. Piled on top of the mass lay an entire longaniza sausage, two kinds of wheat dumplings, a chicken thigh, clams, and the equivalent of a dozen bacon slices, unsliced, together in one thick chunk. On the side, a consommé of the stewed flavors rests in a mug to be sipped between swallows of the other elements of the meal. The rules of gravity bend to the will of curanto as the mound seems like it cannot be physically possible. How can so many things come on one plate? How could such a large portion of food possibly fit into me? We grab the mussels, crack them open and watch the grease slide down our fingers. We pull out a knife and fork to cut the sausage bite size and throw the hot meat down our gullet. I lift the chicken thigh to my teeth and pull gingerly at the flesh. It falls easily off the bone. I slurp it up. I take a sip of the consommé. One bite of the bacon chunk, it's salty fat filling my pores and I look at Theresa and say,

Una CocaCola por favor.

The others order CocaCola too. The sugary liquid takes the heaviness out of the grease, fills our stomachs with gas and...

Buuurrrppp!

... more room for curanto now. Each mollusk holds a bit of sea grit in it. The seafood's that fresh. The dumplings absorb all of the fat and oil from all of the other items as they are stewed together in a pot. We still dip them into the greasy sauce that sits at the bottom of the plate. With every bite, the dumplings release a gush of hot, heavy flavor that makes us instantly blissful. More bites of chicken, bacon, clams.

Otra CocaCola por favor.

Theresa nods understanding. She knows that her curanto is an extension of herself, an embrace into her voluptuous bosom. She serves us the CocoCola.

Our hands are lathered thick now, making things slippery. The chicken's almost all gone, so I gnaw at the bone a bit to make sure I get everything. A small cube of bacon is left, mostly fat, but enticing nonetheless. The mussels are a graveyard of meatless shells, the clams the same. One bite of dumpling. One of sausage. I can feel my stomach stretch.

At the end of the meal our arties don't work like they used to. Our heartbeats slow to a murmer. Sweat sits like dew on our foreheads. Our eyelids droop but the pupils and irisis show satiation. We drink in the remains of our last CocaCola.

Buuuurrrrpp.

Theresa gives a wise, sympathetic smile. She has rolled up her sleeves, revealing forearms as big as a child's thigh. She clears our table.

Outside the whores of Angelmo are sitting. They won't bother us now. They know the face of a happy customer leaving. They wouldn't dare harass one of Theresa's boys anyway. She's the matriarch of that cold, dark place. The only warm heart in the whole damned structure. We zip up our rain jackets and go back into the cold squal.

Good Excuse

It's been awhile since I've posted. I was back in Cochamó for two months, away from internet contact for most of that time and couldn't get around to posting. Now I have finally posted a story about New Year's for you to enjoy (below). I'll be posting about the Cochamó trip soon. Good reading.

-Josh

A New Year's in Valparaiso

Everyone should celebrate New Year's in Valparaiso. No one should remember all of it.

My memory is black, foggy. Valparaiso is known to be vibrantly colored and yet my only recollection of the events on New Year's pertain to the colorless, light absent void of a drunken stupor. Rum and Coke are to blame. Two vicious culprits when paired togther. They become even more mischevious on a stomach nourished only by a bag of potato chips, corte americano, that we called dinner.

Here's what I remember: We took an ancient ascensor to a plaza that overlooked the ocean. There weren't many others there, though the prime firework viewing locations were taken. Those that were there were from various parts of Chile, Argentina, Gringolandia. There were wealthy families, destitute teens, young lovers and barbecuing macho males. Everybody brought la buena onda, good vibes ushering in a night promising revelry.

We drank too much and after an hour of slap happy joking in the plaza my mind closed up, like the iris at the end of a black and white film that shrinks to a pinhole and disappears. The sceen of my mind holds on that black image and only randomely allows for a brief recollection to emerge, dreamlike, confusing. A Peruvian girl. A tree with the strong odor of urine. A japanese tourist fleeing. Vishal fell down. Sausages. Fireworks. A kiss.

That was it. That was my memory of the beginning of 2010. That and a feeling that despite not remembering anything in it's entirety, I had an amazing time. But why? The morning after, I asked Vishal what he remembered.

"Not much man...You remember that Peruvian girl? She was beautiful."

My mind was jarred a bit. Was she the same as the kiss? What happened with her. I wished I could remember.

"Oye. What a great night!" Yael was awake too. She's the epitome of kindness and hospitality, a Chilean friend who I met in Spain and who guided us through the maze of events the night before. "Did you guys have fun?"

Vishal and I looked at each other each clueless as to what had happened.

"I think so".

"Oh that poor Japanese guy."

My memory was jarred again. He kept running away from us, the Japanese guy. Why?

Vishal and I had to go. We had to get a friend at the airport and we didn't have time to piece together the night's events. Before we knew it we were out of Valparaiso, New Year's Eve even further behind us, and hope for a complete memory dashed.

Wait.

My camera! I had my camera with me! The secret link! Vishal and I sat together on a bus Santiago bound and went into our investigation. We recalled the night via the order the photos appeared on the LCD screen.

PHOTO 1: Drinks in the Plaza

This I remembered still. This was our spot in the plaza where we sat waiting until midnight in order to see the fireworks. We began as vigilant protectors of our spot, but as we passed through the hours of the night, our space became less fixed and more fluid with the movement of the crowd. We talked about life in increasingly slurred Spanish, about how we were meant to be wanderers, vagabonds and seekers of real happiness. It wasn't even dark yet and we were already getting lost in the night.

PHOTO 2: The Peruvian Girl

The Peruvian girl. In all my time in Peru I had met two Peruvian girls that I found attractive. Two. Then suddenly, in that plaza in Valparaiso, there was another. I remember daydreaming of watching fireworks with her and sneaking a midnight kiss under the bursting lights; of dancing in the morning with her; of plans to see her again. While talking with her, I remember glances and flirtatious smiles, hints at daydreams becoming real. And then I remember a sharp pain in my lower abdomen and the sudden realization that my body was in need of fluid expulsion. But the conversation was going so well and I yearned for the daydreams to become reality. I tried to repress the call of nature, silent it, but it screamed in my gut and I had no other option. I excused myself from the conversation, ran to a the nearest tree that everbody had decided was the area urinal, and released. Sweet release. Upon my return, the Peruvian girl was gone.

PHOTO 3: Fireworks

We didn't know that it was midnight. We had been pushed into a mass of bodies swelling the plaza. We became indistinguishable particles of a whole that surged and ebbed on the side of the mountain. Then suddenly the mass erupted as a the fireworks began, appearing in clusters that stretched down the coastline for miles. Champagne rained down on us and we danced in the beginning of 2010 to the rhythm of shouts for joy and screams of celebration. Couples kissed on rooftops and friends embraced beneath the vivid blur of the illuminated night sky. For a minute fraction of a second, I was quiet, relfecting on what I had done right in my life to be in that plaza at that moment. That was the only lucid thought that the night offered me.

PHOTO 4: The Kiss
I looked at Vishal.

"I don't remember that." He smirks after his remark. That bastard. He got a kiss on New Year's and I didn't. Lucky son of a..That was right before the mass started to pour out into the streets, with a direction toward somewhere that seemed important. Everybody was moving in that direction. Everybody was in a mood that was celebratory, loud, amorous and free of inhibitions. Vishal snagged a kiss. Lucky Vish. I wandered with the masses.

PHOTO 5: English

As we moved through the streets our journey to this important place that everybody was going was broken up with shouts of "Hello!". They came from Chileans recognizing an opportunity to speak with gringos. Apparently alcohol stimulates Chileans to speak English and since we were not in a state to speak Spanish, we obliged their salutations. "Hello!" we would shout in response and then engage in broken English conversations about the night. Once leaving a group that stopped us, not 2 minutes would go by and we'd hear, "Hello!" again and we'd commence with a new conversation.

PHOTO 6: The Concert

The direction of the mass was soon revealed to us. We approached a stage, and Spanish rock blared through the speakers. We began dancing over broken bottles and thick confetti waste. The plaza was filthy but no one cared. The point was to dance and celebrate and begin 2010 as free spirits. The rock was fast, pounding, and our dance movements were slow, staggered, right on beat in our minds if not not in the outside reality. Outside reality didn't exist anymore at this point. The world was Spanish rock. The world was broken bottles and confetti at our feet, the smell of rum and smoke in the air. The world was the seething mass.

Amidst the mass a girl caught my eye. A beautiful girl clearly staring my way. I stared back and she made her way toward me. It was clear that we both wanted our New Year's kiss. We moved closer together, a crowd dancing and singing around us. We were inches away from each other and a hand grabbed her arm, pulling her away from me. It was a man, perhaps her boyfriend, judging by the cold look he gave me. He took her back into the chaos. I was left alone.

PHOTO 7: The Japanese Guy

At one point Yael was clutching at the jacket of a guy in a hat who obviously didn't want to talk. She wondered why he had not been infused with the buena onda of the night.

"No, no, we want to take a picture with you!" No response. Everybody else who we had run into we wanted a picture with and now this guy was running away. Yael tried her best to coax him but he avoided us virulently, disgruntled and unfriendly. We managed this picture but that was it.

"I guess he didn't like us". We all paused for a second thinking that we might actually be annoying people during their New Year's celebration. Then we looked around us, saw the fiesta that ensued around us and heard a call of "Hello!". We burst out laughing and again became part of the joy filled crowd.

PHOTO 8: The Night's End

The music was over. Vishal, Yael and I were tired. They led the way to a sausage stand to buy something that might help the inevitable hangover. I stumbled behind them. Suddenly a hand grabbed me, spun me around and lips embraced mine. The girl had returned, no boyfriend in sight now. A New Year's kiss. We parted from each other. She looked at me, smiled and disappeared. I turned to catch up with my friends.