The White Trousers

     The first time I met Uyuriy was at the Milhouse Hostel in the city center of Buenos Aries.  It was after midnight and I wanted to sleep.  I occupied the bottom bunk near a small patio.  We left the doors open to let the breeze in.  Across from me was a man who appeared to be sleeping.  I had a smoke, brushed my teeth and got into bed.  Uyuriy waited until my eyes were shut to begin speaking.
     "You from America, yes?"  He asked in a loud whisper.  I responded yes.  "Good.  America is King.  No one fucks with America."  He had what sounded like a thick Soviet accent.
     I said something to the effect that he was right; we were the last true super power.  Then I turned my back to him so he might understand that I didn't want to talk.  There was a brief silence where I could hear the curtains moving in the wind.  The traffic from below reminded me of the busy city.  I was almost asleep.
     "No true!"  He exclaimed and sat up in bed.  He turned his body and placed his feet on the dark tile floor.  "History shows us there is always waiting someone to take over.  U.S. is not last super power.  They could be but will not be."  When I didn't answer he continued.  "We could not defeat China, no one can.  Their army is to big.  They have standing army of one billion people.  And now they buy up everything American.  Total shame."
     Out of politeness I turned back around but kept my head on the pillow.  Uyuriy took this as his cue to go on. "I tell you this.  President Bush Jr. never should have entered Baghdad.  Most sucessful war ever fought.  In six days U.S. defeated all Sadam's army without one casualty.  Six days!"  He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees now.  "But why he enter?  Now 4000 casualties.  Lots of Arabs love U.S.  We could have got them to enter and fight.  U.S. cannot win a civilian war.  Doesn't have the guts for it.  To much humanitarism.  They should learn from Isrealis.  They are killers of women and children.  Butchers of innocent men.  The have no right to be in Hezbollah!"  The last he shouted rather loudly.
    He had changed the subject three times now and I was oddly curious as to what his point would be.  "Uyuriy,"  I said in an almost pleading voice.  "It's really late.  Can we talk about this tomorrow?"
     "Yes, yes, yes.  I am old man.  Tell me to stop talking and I do it.  Goodnight Ryan of U.S."

     That was how I came to know him.  His full name was Uyuriy Mylko.  He was born in the Ukraine in a town called Lukansk in December of 1940.  I had mistakenly placed his accent as Russian.  In the days that followed Uyuriy would explain to me that he was a war time child.  His mother did not have enough milk to nourish him so he remained small and weak.  As a youth he was forced to wear braces on his legs and left inside to read while the other boys played sports in the field.  His father had other plans for his youngest son.
     In the Ukraine world of academics the highest honour to be bestowed on a scholar is when he achieves his second doctorate.  This normally happens when a man is in his late fifties or mid-sixties and has devoted his entire life to the art of higher learning.  Uyuriy's father decided early on in his son's life that he would be the youngest man ever in the Ukraine to achieve this honour.  He would be thirty-five.  As a result the boy was forced to to rise at 5:45am everyday to to begin his studies.  History, mathematics, literature.  While the other kids played he poured over his books and gradually developed a resentment for the life his father had chosen.  A destiny that he was powerless over.
     At the age of fifteen in 1955 Uyuriy had had enough.  He left his family and ventured into the city to live with the gypsies.  The braces had long since been taken off his legs.  He was not strong like the other men but had strength of character and wit.  Despite the fact that he remained slender with almost no muscle, he had grown quite tall.  He was picked up by the policia and returned to his father four months later.
     When he was nineteen he attempted and succeeded at crossing into France and assuring his freedom from a tyrannical political regime full of corruption and violence.  He was on French soil for less than six hours and began to worry about the fate of his older brother and father.  Begrudgingly he enlisted the aid of some French merchants who helped cause a distraction while he crossed back into his country.  His best friend, (whose name he would not give), escaped into Finland and made the mistake of asking a local policeman for aid.  He did not know that although the Finnish people hated the Soviets with a passion, they were locked in a political agreement and anyone caught crossing the border would be detained and returned into the custody of the Soviet Army.  His friend was never heard from again
      This was the life that Uyuriy had led; so unlike anything we fourth and fifth generation Americans know today.  My financial troubles or car problems pale in comparison.  Having friends assassinated by Soviets, secretly crossing borders for freedom and worrying about the massacre of your family are out of my conception of reality.  This made Uyuriy all the more fascinating to talk to.  The other boys in the hostel viewed him as an old annoyance who didn't belong there and talked to much.  His stories of political war and and pre World War II tyrants didn't fit in with there desire to get drunk and fuck a woman for the night.  He could talk above the pounding Spanish Techno music that played twenty-four hours a day.  But I was the only one who listened.
     For two days we walked the Plazas of Buenos Aries.  Up to Casa Roja where Eva Bron gave her famous speeches to raise money for the poor.  Down to the Congress building which is the political heart of Argentina.  We walked along the old port which has been transformed into a massive tourism hotspot, lined with restaurants and bars.  Over to La Boca and the art district then across town to Palermo where the wealthiest patrons have their colonial mansions.  Even though Uyuriy was one year away from turning seventy, I could barely keep up with him.  He walked with a purpose as if we actually had somewhere to go.  Once while we were heading down a small residential boulevard we passed a graffiti painting of Che Guevara.  Uyuriy looked around frantically until he found a small stone on the ground.  He threw it wildly at the wall.  This infuriated some local men standing outside a corner fruit market and they started to approach us.  I grabbed Uyuriy by the arm and pulled him around the corner.  "Socialist pigs!  Communist bastards!"  He shouted.  "They revere Che for his boyish good looks and charm.  He is a murderer!  A doctor of death, not medicine.  Thank God the CIA had him assissinated.  He would have been worse than Castro for this country."
     In 1976 Uyuriy escaped to the U.S. through Italy and France.  He would not elaborate which was unusual for him.  He liked to talk.  He worked two jobs, married a lady from California and within five years was able to buy some property in West Virginia.  Shortly after that the U.S. government hired him as a language specialist.  He worked with Ukrainian refugees mostly but briefly mentioned interrogation.  I pressed him for more information but he would only smile and say that that was not to be talked about.  He retired thirty years later with a full pension and a home in Washington D.C.
     While I passed the humid days on the balcony smoking my cigarettes, Uyuriy would wash his clothes in the sink and hang them to dry four stories above Av. de Mayo.  One day he was working frantically at the dirt and sweat that was consuming the white trousers he wore every day.  They were beyond repair and needed to be thrown away.  "Hey Uyuriy, why don´t you get yourself some new pants, those are filthy?"  I said.
    "Why," he replied.  "So I look then like a rich tourist?"  He didn´t look up from his scrubbing.  "I´m fearing they will not let me on the plane.  I look like terrorist in these pants.  I get them clean soldier."
     He called me soldier because of my name and its connection with the movie Saving Private Ryan.  He thought is was a funny joke and I admit it amused me to be of service to his poor humor.  The truth though, was that I had been called this many times before in Argentina when I told people my name.  I was constanly being called Bryan.  When I tried to correct people they would say, "Oh, like the soldier!"  That took a while to figure out.
     "Suit yourself."  I said.  "But those pants couldn´t even be used as a surrender flag.  They´re ruined.  Get yourself a nice pair of beige trousers for the plane.  At least you´ll be a well dressed terrorist."
     Uyuriy ignored my sarcasm.  "They call this country dangerous.  That everyone will rob you.  Hold on to your bag and don't take your money out on the street.  So foolish.  I say to you if men are watching you, walk over to a trash can and rummage through it.  Ha!  That will make them think you have no money or you are crazy.  Trust Uyuriy, they will leave you alone."  He sat on his bed and took out a white grocery bag. From it he produced a small bottle of red wine, some fresh bread, a tomato, cheese and salami.  "Today I eat like the Mediterranean.  You want?"  He cut a slice of salami and handed it to me.
     The sun was dipping down and streamed into the room.  I kept my bandanna close so I could dab my forehead when needed.  We ate his food and he let me ask him questions so I could get the names and dates correct.  My feet, bare and dirty, stuck to the floor.  Despite a soft breeze, the air in the room was stagnant.  It hung on our clothes like a peasant begging for his life.  It drug me down and made me want to drink.  Hanging from the ceiling was an air conditioner unit.  For five pesos ($1.25 U.S.) we could have had it turned on but we both agreed that there was something pleasant in our condition.  Why ruin it with cold air.
     Uyuriy finished his wine, wiped the bread crumbs from his sheets and stood up to leave.  I took a paperback novel from by pack and laid it down on my bed.  He left the room and said nothing.  In the absence of company I thought of lonliness and starred at the cheap wooden boards that held the matress above me from falling.  I couldn´t figure out if I was happy or not.
     The door opened and Uyuriy walked back in.  He didn´t bother to close it behind him.  He stepped close to my bed and looked down at me.  Perhaps down on me, I don´t know.  Still thinking of the matress boards, I didn´t sit up.  "Are you married?  How old are you?"  He said.
     "No I´m not.  And I am thirty-six."  I replied.  I could hear his laundry falling off the rail from the balcony.  "You need to be married.  I tell you this.  Go to Romania.  Or to Prague.  Make no difference which one.  Go to these place and find a wife.  A good wife, twenty years old.  Is ok for you, no?  Take her to U.S., have babies.  No black woman, No Mexicans!"  He sat down on the edge of my bed.  "I love America.  I love my country.  Is my country, I am citizen now.  I love America.  In one hundred years I am scared.  Not now but then.  Go to east of Europe and find a wife.  Preserve our genes."  Uyuriy stood up and walked towards the door.  He stopped and turned back towards me.  "Besides they are quiet.  Know how to treat man.  I say to my wife, when I am at work I am king.  When I come home you are queen.  This house," he shouted, "is your Kingdom!  But why when I come home why you have to talk so much?  Blah, blah, blah.  I love you!  I want sex and food and children and clean.  I love you but why you have to talk so much about nothing?"  His hands appeared to be conducting the symphony coming from his mouth.  I raised in my bed a little and set my book down.  "This is what an American wife will get you.  Listen to Uyuriy.  A Romanian wife?  She will give you silence."  Then he left the room.

     Uyuriy was a war time child.  He had a war mentality that years of peace could not soften.  He drew his line in the sand as a young man and then walked away; opinions formed.  He loved America and everything American because of the opportunities it had provided him.  America, like Uyuriy, hated the Soviet Union.  This made us allies and he was a man of honor.  For that reason alone I found myself on his side of the sand.
     I checked out of the Milhouse Hostel the next afternoon and moved my meager belongings to a quieter side of town.  Uyuriy had already left for his morning walk; I never got to say good-bye.  I wish I could have said sorry for the hardships he´d been through but I never did.  I wish I could have thanked him for his thirty years of service to the U.S. government.  We did not exchange emails.  He was not on Facebook.  I never told him the name of my blog.  I stood in the quiet of my dormroom, both packs strapped to my body and wanted to hear the voice that never stopped talking.  He was the man I turned my back on the first night we met so I could get some sleep.  Uyuriy, I hope one day you get your white trousers clean.

Wrong Again

     Imagine arriving at LAX alone, with no real idea of the city layout, being turned away from your accomodations at 1:30 am and not able to understand the language.  That´s how I found myself in Buenos Aries on January 3rd.  This is a town of endless night-clubs, tango, restaurants and cafes.  In the city center (which was where I was) nothing closes until 4am.  I was not alone on the streets.  This is not necessarily a good thing.  With one backpack on my back and one strapped accross my stomach I was an easy mark for a quick robbery.  I may be a forgeiner but that much I already new about Buenos Aries, the most romantic city in the world.
     And there was the humidity.  I had just flown from El Calafate deep in the south of Patagonia where temperatures dippoed below freezing even in the day.  My dress was more accomodating to hiking and keeping warm than strolling the boulevards a buzz with well dressed tourists and prostitutes.  The magnitude of heat and humidity filled my body with salt water until I overflowed and it escaped through every pore.  I took out my blue bandana and dabbe my face and forehead.  Within minutes I was wringing it out in the gutter and potter plants which lined the streets.  By now I had been turned away by every hostel and hotel within a three block radius and the concern on my face was only amplified by my sweat and the late hour.  I needed to find a place to sleep.  I needed rest and a chance to look at city maps.  I wanted a glass of wine but for once reason won the battle over desire.  Not even I was stupid enough to make that mistake.
     By 2:30am I was entering the Four Star Hotels that lined the streets of Ave 9 de Julio and Av de Mayo.  I was willing to pay the $400 pesos just for some peace of mind.  Again I was turned away everywhere.  I refuse to believe they were all at capacity but in my present dress with boots and sandals strapped to the outside of my worn and beaten pack, I think I was refused a room for fear I may make it smell.  And I guarantee I would have.
     After walking the same bit of stree for the third time, afraid I would get lost (from where I didn´t know), I came accross a small sign that simply said Hostel.  I rang the bell and waited.  My pack was growing heavier with the passing of night.  Blisters on my feet, ripened by Patagonia, stung and I prayed the skin just hold on a little longer.  I rang again.  A fat matronly señora camed to the edge of the stairwell and staired down at me.  She wore a filthy cotton skirt that went to her knees and a blue tank top that barely held on at the seams under the weight of her massive fallen breasts.  Her sandals were a cheap plastic variety and one had been duct-taped back together.  She looked more like a sweaty madam at a back-alley brothel than the owner of a hostel.  But she was my last hope.  I smiled warmly and waved.  When she was done inspecting me and perhaps somewhat assured of her own safety she buzzed me in.  I climbed the two stories worth of stairs and entered the common area.  The walls were no less than eighteen feet high but the ornate molding that once lined the ceiling had long since decayed from water damage.  Where holes had developed in the walls she hung sheets to cover it up.  The tile was cracked in many places and a few boards had been put down so her high paying guests wouldn´t trip and kill themselves.  Her hostel was no cleaner than she was.  It was also no cleaner than myself.  The smell of roasting sweat and stale cigarettes pushed down from the hot air above.  For the moment it was the most beautiful hostel I had ever seen.
     She had a bed for me.  I shared a room with seven other Israelis whos combined perspiration outweighed my own.  The word for bed sheets in Spanish is hojas or ropa de cama.  She had none.  And no pillow.  This would be one of the worst best-night sleeps I would ever have.  Under her harsh appearance and untrusting gaze she was quite motherly.  I had woken either from sleep or late night TV but she fumbled around in a damp utility closet until she found a thick blanket.  She draped it over the mattress, spotted and stained from years of neglect and apologized in a way that said ´What do you expect?´more than ´sorry.´ I paid her the thirty eight pesos and dreampt in Israeli.  The following morning I drank her instant coffee and ate two mezalunas that were surprisingly fresh and soft.  I thanked her and headed up the street.

     Buenos Aries is a literal maze of Plazas, Museums, Cathedrals and stone work.  It boasts a four to one girl/guy ratio which is all to evident.  The wealthier areas of Palermo and Relocata are a short subway ride away.  Here you can watch professional dog walkers stoll by with as many as fifteen dogs and sip quality coffee on a sidewalk cafe.  I have been traveling for two and a half months on what was supposed to be a seven month journey but looking at my bank statements I knew I would never make it to Colombia, Equador or Venezuala.  I had long ago given up on Brazil due to my lack of VISA and the high prices during carnival.  My vagabonding was going to be cut in half and there was nothing I could do about it.  With a cauldren full of sorrow, anger regret and love I reluctantly purchased my ticket back to the United States.  This trip of a lifetime has been more like a lifetime worth of lessons learned the hard way.  I must remember to shelve them for future days.

During a difficult portion of my trip I recieved an email from a rather wise person.  He said two things which are quotes:

1)  Even death is not an escape from your current dilemma.

2)  If you have no path, any path will get you somewhere.

He has this tendency to piss me off and send me powerful thoughts just when I don´t want them but most need them.  The rest of the time I believe he listens to me ramble and quietly laughs at the riddle of life.  Thank you person.

      If you get the chance to travel do it.  If it doesn´t always go your way expect it.  In the theater there is a saying: Íf your going to fall, fall big.  Make it fantastic, entertaining and large.  Then get back up and keep going.´ The applications are large I think.  Didn´t someone say that art immitates life? 


This dog is my hero!

People

     I fear El Calafate will go unwritten about.  Other than Moreno Glacier there is not much to do in this small town.  It was the hostel i Keu Ken that caused me to stay for Christmas and it was the hostel that caused me to go back for New Years.  There is nothing like the wonder of people to make you fall in love with a place.  Ruins, glaciers, spires and salt flats are wonderous and they deserve to be seen but people are where the magic is.  People are why we wander.  Friendship is to be coveted like our National Parks.  Spend a few months without it and you´ll appreciate it all the more.  I think even the lonely would agree.  Those who long to be lost in solitude for long periods of time still want their story told.  A story unto itself is a summer solstace without a harvest.  We want to be heard.  Alexander Supertramp died next to this realization.  What a chaotic and mystic journey he must have had to reach that conclusion.  Right now words are pouring from me but a Rottweiler has taken to my side and I feel more compelled to pet him than right about my experiences.

My steak is ready and the owner hustles me inside.  I´ve asked for jugoso (rare) and it comes out raw.  The Argentinians cook their meet all the way through and have little sense of temperature.  The old man that owns this place is so sincere I dare not ask for it to be put back on the grill.  With a look of honest pride for his food he asks me how it is.  I smile back with a resounding ´Muy Beuno!´  He has put some Irish music on just for me, mistaking my heritage.  The meat, almost completely raw and cold, will be one the best steaks I have in Argentina.

So goes my final night in El Calafate.

Thanks

i Keu Ken

Down South

Patagonia is where the wind strips you raw and lonliness is the only thing worth thinking about.  Away from the picturesque Fitz Roy and the glacier it is still a vast uninhabitale stretch of bare tundra.  Copella is the native plant and it grows everywhere.  Even when the wind takes an occasional pause to draw more breath they remain bent over as if trying to protect themselves.  Frozen in fear and wonder from a power for which they have little defense.  But yet they prosper.  That is obvious by the fact that they cover thousands of square kilometers where other flora has failed.

     I am finding that this corner of the earth to be my favorite so far in my travels.  It is calm in its hostility.  You know what to expect here in the south.  Wind and cold.  Clouds tumble by overhead, migrating to warmer weather.  I think often they get caught in the Andes and stay for generations.  Not to unlike the Germans and Welsh that have been here for years.  They have acclimated both to the climate and culture.  Many Welsh residents only know their homeland through pictures on the internet.  This is their home.  Next to their traditional foods sit empanadas and chorizo.  They are wonderful to talk to.

       Put Patagonia today is much changed from from when Bruce Chatin first wrote about it in the 1970`s.  His book In Patagonia would change the way the world say this place.  Not that people really even thought of Patagonia before that; not on a global scale anyway.  Today the Gaucho Trail is a well worn path that is not easy to get off of.  Hostels, restaurants and tour guides have sprung up everywhere grabbing for the pesos brought by tourism.

       I am sitting at a wine and cheese bar in El Chaten.  It is called Rincon del Sur.  Fifty years ago El Chaten didn`t exist but today it hosts a the Los Glaciares National Park with over ten buses arriving daily.  It is the smallest town I have been in and I cringe to think what it will look like in five years.  It is fast becoming a haven for rock and ice climbing, trekking and glacier viewing.  Cerro Solo, Egger Torre, Poincenot and Fitz Roy peaks all keep El Chaten safely nestled under a blanket of shadow and mystisism but still the buses come.  In any other setting the Techado Negro peak would be a main attraction but next to Fitz Roy it plays a faint and distant fiddle.  Beautiful nonetheless.

      

       To my point.  I am at Rincon del Sur sipping on a Malbec and eating olives.  I`ve asked the owner, Sebastian De Angelis if could sell me a wine opener as I lost mine in Bariloche.  He has none for sale but has many he can give me.  This sparks a heated argument between him and his wife, Marcela, all in Spanish.  She is unhappy with his gesture.  She knows I would have paid at least 30 pesos for it; it was a quality opener.  But he will have nothing to do with that and hands it to be with a warm smile.  Their daughter, an eight year old girl named Florencia has attached herself to my leg.  I pick her up and set her on the counter to play with her.  I am happy to have a new friend and happy for the gift.  I am especially happy for the olives which are salty and taste great after a days hiking.

     In total I will have spent six days in El Chaten.  Fellow travellors tell me I am crazy and will get bored but a strange thing has occured.  My hostel is completely filled with Israelis.  In a broad Picaso stroke I will paint them as a people who keep to themselves.  They are not unfriendly although I think many westerners would disagree.  They simply don`t mingle with other trekkers unless they are from their own country.  In this setting I have found myself most alone.  More prone to drink and dwell on the properties of lonliness (which are dangerously close to insecurity).  But I have not become lonely.  I have not succumed to drinking as in other towns.  The solidarity I feel is making me more resourceful and my inner thoughts are taking on a new interest for my mind.  Someone once told me that solitude is a powerful thing to overcome but if accomplished opens windows to the world that are unparalled.

     After my bus ride I checked into my hostel.  It was getting late but al Chorrillo del Salto offered a perfect two hike where I could unwind and listen to the waterfall.  The rain and wind didn`t bother me but made it impossible to light my smoke.

     The next morning I saw a break in the weather that I was told hadn`t happened in the last eight days.  I had already packed a lunch of apples, bananas, chocolate and a sandwich consisting of salami, cheese and avocado.  I quietly left the Israelis sleeping and and headed off towards Laguna de los Tres on a 13 mile hike in the hope of seeing Fitz Roy and Poincenot peaks up close and without cloud cover.  The prize is a frozen lagoon that hides deep down at the base of these stark and naked spires.  It is in the picture above. But the weather is fickle and keeps me guessing.  The trek is steep and considered the hardest day hike in the park.  Its slopes are akwardly rough at times but in reality it is the constant change in body temperature that people battle.  Within minutes I had sweat through my long underwear and had to disrobe in a fire cold wind so I could tie it to the outside of my pack to dry.  This left me pretty cold and susceptable to the thirty degree temperature and snow blowing in from the north.  I had also sweat through my Alpaca hat but dared not take it off.  Sometime after about two hours my body settled into a grumpy state of complacency and found comfort where there was none.  I was happy not to be miserable.  I passed Lago Capri and at higher altitudes saw Lago Madre and Hija with great clarity.

     On this day Fitz Roy would not give.  I sat just above the base of Lago de los Tres and waited for that perfect picture.  The wind and cold, like termites, silently ate away at my core until I sucumbed to fear and slowly made my way back down to the valley.  My long underwear had long since dried but the effort of putting it back on seemd futile.  I would not see Fitz Roy in absolute clarity and who knows if I will ever be back.  That is the magic of its allure.  A light snowfall on my back knudged me down the trail and the wind laughed in my ears.  I never heard Fitz Roy say a word.

     The next day would prove equally as long but much easier.  The trail to Laguna Torre promises breathtaking views of the Torre Peaks but they are often covered in clouds.  Today it will not bend to my will.  Six hours of trekking through the back country proved only to be a peaceful walk.  I learned something here.  Somewhere between the 4th and 5th hour I settled into the realization that it is not about the picture I wanted to get but more about the struggle and enjoyment of the journey.  This may seem a basic and much written on topic but I`m telling you, go out and try to find yourself.  You may discover it is more difficult than you think.  I returned to my hostel, bought two empenadas and fell asleep.  When I awoke I found that the Israelis had stolen my Q-Tips.

     Get here quick.  Travellors before me are laughing at my late timing in their memoirs.  Get here quick.  Tourism is a deadly pen in Patagonia that I fear will have a sad story to tell in a few years.  Come and see for yourself before the locals all speak English and the peso is prettier than the peaks.  Better yet, come in the winter.  You will be more brave than I.