From April 19th...

So,

two months into my adventure around South America... What have I learned?  Seen?  Experienced, felt, tasted, loved?  What did I not like?  Any of it?  What have I to say?

Better to start small probably.  I'm in Buenos Aires at the apartment of my now even dearer friend, Allie Gates.  She's at work, crafting people's hair, deciphering their desires (and their Spanish) and carving the best fit she can make with her scissors.  Kate's taking a cat nap on the red leather clad trundle-futon we just helped move from the bedroom to the living room; there's a house warming later tonight.

Labour for a place to rest has been the theme of the last week.  We just got back to our beloved barrio of San Telmo after a week excursion to an Argentinian tourist destination, Tigre, although our time was as far from fanny-packs and pocket maps as we've yet been (to set things straight, I do not own, or ever wear bumbags!).  Through the organization WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) Kate and I connected with a Dutch-Argentinian couple setting up a bed and breakfast by the river.  Only a month in their hands, the newly renamed 'Casona del Rio' seems a long way from operational just yet - despite the proprieter's optimistic assertion that "It's two weeks till we open" - and so Stef and Carolina gave us bed and board for a week in exchange for, well, fairly tedious labour that has be done before any paying guests turn up.

That is not to say we didn't enjoy ourselves, but one week was definitely enough, in part because Kate and I's natural hard work ethic (see also: over enthusiasm) began to feel somewhat exploited by the particularly lazy nature of our host Stef.  However, that discrepancy and the lack of meat in our diet, really was the only hiccup in what could be called a strange social experiment it didn't already have an official acronym: WWOOF.

See: get picked up by a complete stranger at unknown train station, get past the awkward introduction phase and walk to his little boat, discover this is the only way to reach his home-business-on-an-island-in-the-middle-of-a-delta, arrive at idyllic looking dock curious about the maritime inability of your new host, spens a week at island B & B to be, leave this property just twice in a week, and work hard enough to feel comfortable eating your fill... oh and throw in a mildly boozing brother in law who speaks no English as a fifth wheel!  And this is our vacation?

I guess thats the point: this isn't really a vacation.  Shit, if you're doing anything for 5 months its more like a vocation, no?  MOst people go on vacation to relax, to splurge, tan, drink, eat, shop... to take a break.  I can honestly say that in the last two months I have relaxed very little.  There is always some niggling worry about the next bus/meal/hostel/group activity/strange looking dude/ missing money in my pocket ( that I maybe should or shouldn't have spent on steak instead of lentils).

To those who haven't traveled like this before, or even to those who have, it may not read like there's much pleasant to write about, but, see results of said strange social experiment:

First and foremost, Easter Sunday (or Pascua) with Carolina's family who live in a far from fancy suburb of Buenos Aires, but whom, little though they materially had compared to how I have lived, gave bags, literally bags of food to someone needy that stopped at their door, who shared their home, their food, their maté and their holiday with two Español infants from California, and who couldn't have made us feel more welcome at their family asado from across the language barrier. Second: moving from Español infancy to toddler-dom due to the Pascua munchie marathon and the countless interactions with handy man Mariano, the boozy brother in law witha cheeky heart of gold, who simply cannot speak any slower than rapid and barely opens his mouth when he does.  Third: the re-appreciation that work puts food on the table and this is the way of the world; it's easy to get detached from the work you did over 2 months ago, and which you've been eating ever since!)  Further: the ability to breathe, because as much as I am enamoured with the San Telmo tuck-away of Buenos Aires, it is also tucked in torrents of bus fumes, car horns, corner crowds and dog turd - being able to settle for a week in one room of a house, a real house, and to have cockrels and river boats as the only 'fanfare'... well, it's settling.  And finally, see also the new friendships with three peculiar people starting a B & B on a river, the two dogs Kate and I tried our best to tame for those new friends (Nelson and Mandela!), an intimate heart to heart with a teearful Mariano mourning for his mother, and my new deadly ability to turn trees into fire-fodder armed only with a machete and a handsaw!

Now, if I were on 'vacation', there is no way I would want to sweat like I have this week unless I was dancing until dawn or chasing a ball on a beach (granted, I have also worked up a sweat those ways in the last couple months... and I never really want to sweat the ridiculous amount that I do).  But it was still my choice to work that hard, or to be there at all; to challange myself.  And thats what makes this travelling thing more like a voaction, or at least some strange limbo between work and play.  In theory, it may seem odd to some people to go kick your own ass in someone else's backyard while visiting another country... and it is, a bit, but no less odd than the idea of kicking your own ass at a single job for years that has lost all it's fresh lessons and experiences.

I don't want to start coming off all high and mighty after a mere two months of travelling - what I am doing is not so universally unique; evidence of this is the so-called 'Gringo Trail' which we have inadvertently been channeled along.  For me personally, however, this is a unique experience, even if at 26 I'm a little Johnny-come-lately compared to the average back-pack addict.  And thats why, two months in, I'm trying my best to record some of the things I'm learning - I suppose clarifying what the hell I'm doing is the first thing I want to get figured out!

As for figuring this particular question out - "What am I doing?" - I guess the best answer right now is: challenging myself.

Why not?