Haiku for South America

Though it is quite gross

holding used TP in hand

I love South ´Mer-ca

—We are in Buenos Aires – ‘the Paris of the South’ – home to the sultry tango, the odd verb conjugation of “vos” and the oddly distracted Latin man who manages to get out a comment on your looks as you pass, but only in a half-hearted way as he keeps one eye on his Backberry, because he is some sort of important negocios guy with other things to attend to on the street besides calling you a beautiful doll and asking when angels started falling from heaven.

We are fortunate enough to be staying in the apartment of an English friend of Jillian’s from her travels in Australia and have basically had the place to ourselves the entire time. Bs As is an amazing city – comfortable, beautiful and modern, complete with impressive monuments, wide, shady lanes, a Tiffany’s, pilates studios, vegetarian restaurants with fresh fruit smoothies and home delivery of even a small cup of coffee from the closest café.

 Among the coolest things that I have seen on the trip thus far are the 2 famous cemeteries of the city – Recoleta, which contains the remains of Evita Perón, and another one whose name escapes me at the moment, which has the LARGEST collection of sepulchres I have ever seen in my life. The sheer amount of money that has quite obviously been poured into these places is impressive. Apparently, Recoleta in particular is quite exclusive and you must have, in addition to an obscene amount of money with which to build a two-story family monument, a famous and impressive last name to “get in”. The carvings on these family monuments are absolutely breathtaking. Of the type of art that inspires poetry.

Bad attempts at Spanish poetry, in my case.

 We did manage to tear ourselves away from the real bathroom, air conditioning and pool at the apartment building long enough to tour around and see the usual spate of monuments, parks and cool outdoor markets (and a tango show tonight), but I won’t bore you with the details as this has mostly been a welcome respite from our transient lifestyle. Here we have a shower with water pressure and endless hot water, a kitchen and a Blockbuster membership card which lead to one super-indulgent girls’ Sex and the City marathon night, flavored only the least bit backpackerish by the fact that our Scottish friend joined us and had us doing Scottish jigs in between episodes and glasses of red wine (purchased right at Blockbuster! Who is the creative genius that started that?).

We leave for Brazil in a few hours, to be – no doubt – overwhelmed by pre-Carnaval hysteria that is gearing up over there. Then we are off to London for a short 3-day layover on our way to India which, thus far, gets the prize for prettiest visa and nicest embassy representative. Sadly, our stay in South America has nearly come to an end and, as such, I am taking a moment to reflect.

Top 5 Complaints About S. America

1. Toilets – you cannot flush the TP and must collect it in your hand if the trash can has been placed too far away. Also, there is NEVER toilet paper, even in restaurants, and you must always carry, and people seem to be really pissed when you ask to use their bathrooms if you aren’t a paying customer…. I am aware it is about to get a lot worse in Asia, however.

2. Latin men’s lack of respect for women. We have previously addressed this issue.

3. No one ever has change. EVER. It’s like pulling teeth to get someone to accept the equivalent of a 20-dollar bill, even when you are trying to spend 8 or 9 or even 11 dollars’ worth of it. EVEN IN PLACES LIKE HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS, which are, assuredly, expecting a lot of foreign clientele whom are getting their money from ATMs, which, of course, only spit out the quivalent of twenties. The maddening part: If it is constantly a problem, why does no one ever think to go to the bank for change to have on hand? VERY, VERY frustrating.

4. Airport exit tax. I get it. We use your TP – if there -, your porter services, there is wear and tear on the building and someone has to pay for the janitorial services. WHY, like in other places, IS THIS TAX NOT ADDED ONTO THE PRICE OF YOUR PLANE TICKET, so that we don’t all have to line up like jackasses, as if we didn’t have enough lines at the airport already, and so you don’t have to pay people to take our money for it?

5. No good foreign food. IMPOSSIBLE to find spicy food. Many restuarants don’t even have a salsa picante. If you feel like having Thai, or Chinese, or a burger, or a pizza that actually has a detectable amount of sauce on it or breakfast that involves anything chewable, fugghedaboutit. You will starve while you search.

Best 5 Things About S. America

1. All the female presidents – when, oh when, will we get to claim to be that progressive? (Though perhaps better that it not be this election, given the option.)

2. The people – smiley, always up for a party, usually very complimentary of your Spanish, they are easy to make friends with and among the continent’s richest assets. They often seem excited that you have come so far to see their country. (Though, in Chile, they kept asking us, “Why? Why did you come HERE?”)

3. The language – I don’t know what it is, but I love Spanish. It’s been really interesting to see the small (and sometimes not so-) ways in which Latin American Spanish varies country by country. Spanish is lyrical and easy to rhyme with – a writer’s dream come true. Jillian loves the word papelito. I’m parcial to ajustar.

4. The variety of landscapes. Deserts, rain forest, beaches with searing white sand, towering mountains, glaciers, volcanoes, the other-worldliness of the Galápagos.

5. The Incan Trail and Macchu Picchu. Absolutely not to be missed.

As we will only be in Brazil and London for short amounts of time and then will be holed up in an ashram in southern India doing yoga and meditation all day for a few weeks, it may be a bit of time before I write again.

Signing off from Buenos Aires with many besos,