Thursday, February 15, 2007

Under the Watchful Gaze of the Diginied Sheep

Futaleufú, Chile
This is the first update that I have written whose length will be determined not by available time or how long I can tolerate sitting in an uncomfortable chair. It is rather dictated by the winds of finance, currently blowing over my shoulder to the tune of one dollar and sixty cents. It´s not that I don´t have more money available; I just can´t get at it. Futaleufú is a town of approximately 500 people, so certainly they have no need for more than one bank, but as luck would have it the ATM at said bank accepts all cards (including, I suspect, Diner´s Club) except Visa. The list includes Mastercard and Cirrus, both of which are owned by the same company that issues Visa, but that fact grants me little solace, nor does it change the fact that all I could afford to eat today were a couple of flaky pastries and an empanada. There is also a little ramshackle building nearby with a cardboard sign out front informing me that its proprietor buys Argentinian pesos (in which I am flush), but the door has been locked since the first of ten or so times I have checked on it beginning at 9AM. The running computer and half-consumed bottle of Fanta on the table I can see through the window have not moved, and no one in town knows where the lady is. The bank changes dollars (not pesos...despite the fact that the border is about 5 miles from here), but by the time that I remembered that I had emergency dollars duct taped to the gas tank of the KLR, the bank had closed. Even here, in the most modern and industrious of all countries in Latin America, ¨banker´s hours¨ don´t mean 9-5. They mean 9-2 - with a break for lunch.
Obviously the inconveniences of Latin America are many. But once you get used to the fact that nothing is efficient or predictable, you start to derive a sort of casual amusement from witnessing the laughable idiosyncrasies that comprise its societal workings. In this sense, it´s not hard to have a good time and spend little or no money. This is especially fortuitous for me this week, as cold, incessant rain has kept me here in Futaleufú long enough to dry out my coffers. So I´d be lying to say that I have wanted for entertainment or stimulation while I have been here, even on limited funds.
First off, the only cheap accommodation I could dig up was at a place called Residencial Coyhaique. It is not so much a hotel as it is some sort of halfway house or dormitory for a motley bunch of itinerant grunts brought in to help with the busy work of putting a cellular tower on a nearby mountain. Presently my motorcycle is leaned against a pile of wood in a sad, leaky excuse for a shed in back of the house. I was given a large room on the top floor with three beds and five wool blankets, all of which are necessary since it gets quite brisk at night, my window does not close, and there is no heat in the house. The door does not lock, but it does close if you give it the mustard. How, then, I came home yesterday to find two cats sleeping on my bed and the door still closed is a matter still unresolved, though I am not certain that I can write off the possibility of Patagonian cats possessing the necessary motor skills and guile to shimmy the handle on my door open and then close it with due force behind them. Perhaps a better explanation is the presence of the little girl down the hall. One of the workers brought his daughter, who is about six, and she apparently just hangs out with the stout, elderly cook downstairs all day (as an aside, that lady is always cooking enormous amounts of food, but seems confused and insulted when I ask if I can buy some, me being the only tennant not partaking). And puts stuff in the toilet. Each day when I get up to take a leak, I find something new in the shared toilet. First, pieces of bread and some gumdrops or something. The next day, a little plastic boat. And this morning, a stick of lipstick. Maybe it´s not her, but then the theories get even stranger.
Walking around town today, I made eye contact with a sheep grazing on a front lawn next to one of those colorful pedal cars for kids. From that point on, the sheep kept a watchful eye on me. Six blocks later he was still behind me on the sidewalk, although he would stop and bow his head every time I looked over my shoulder. Eventually he tired of the surveillance, or we simply reached his place. He went up a short set of stairs and went through the open door to a house. Odd, but classic rural Latin America.
Futaleufú is currently celebrating its anniversary, so the town is awash with a number of activities, the majority being competitions of some kind or another. So far they have included soccer matches in the corrugated metal covered gymnasium between teams comprised of people of all ages and hailing from the northern and southern halves of town, each side with its own mascot and cheer squads. There was also the contest today to see who could stay balanced on a bicycle for the longest period of time without pedaling out of a small area denoted by cracks in the pavement in front of the police station. Typical anniversary fare, really.
But most people, including me, do not come to Futaleufú for hot bicycle balancing action. They come to raft the Futaleufú River, considered in the rafting community to be one of the three best in the world. My rafting resumé is thin, but I decided to hit the river anyway. As expected, I was the only guy in the raft that wasn´t a fanatic that customizes his vacations around the sport. But I fared well enough. It was as intense as the guide painted it out to be, and we whistled through about four hours worth of rapids with scary names that translated into ¨The Terminator¨, ¨Moondaka¨, ¨Rock House¨, and...¨Meat and Potato Stew¨. I loved every minute, aside from the presence of a New Zealander seated on the ridge of the raft in front of me. Mind you, he wasn´t affiliated with the company, but he still felt it his duty to scream commands at the other six of us, like he was leading us into an attack on Guadalcanal. I had the misfortune of sitting behind him, and moreover, being the only other English speaker in the boat. When things got wild (and they often do on a Class V river, Class VI meaning unnavigable), he would get tossed into me as he took the brunt of the force of the water. I regret not having the wherewithal to move away from him at these times so that he´d be thrown from the raft, but I was usually otherwise engaged drinking deeply from the wall of water that came over on my own side.
So that´s Futaleufú.
The other two weeks were spent in Argentina. Having been summarily discouraged that I could not learn how to fly fish in a couple of days (Brad Pitt made it look so easy in ¨A River Runs Through It¨), I resigned myself to using spinner bait in the rich rivers around Junin de los Andes. Not wanting to pay the exorbitant $150/day that the fishing outfits around town were charging for a guide and gear, I asked some people I met if they knew a local fisherman, who then made a call to someone, who in turn called someone else. The next morning a 25 year-old chap named Guillermo showed up at the house I was renting a room in, and we fished all day. How did we do? I hit more fish on the head with the spinner than I caught. This is probably why everybody else was fly fishing. Still, it only cost me a few beers, and it was a relaxing day. Guillermo was a funny guy, and his current employment was just another jolting reminder of how good we have it back home. He essentially works 12 hours a day six days on/three days off at an oil refinery of some sort, where he is constantly in contact with harsh chemicals because the protective gear is lacking. The skin on his arms showed it. Salary: $2.50/hour. Nevertheless, he was upbeat and positive, and he claimed that if he worked for three more years that he and his brother would have enough cashed socked away to build a couple of modest cabins to rent out to fishermen. He wouldn´t let me contribute to the fund, instead only letting me buy him a cheap dinner of empanadas (dough around beef, chicken, cheese, etc.). On the whole, I´d venture to say that empanadas constitute somewhere in the vicinity of 40% of my total caloric intake in Argentina because of their tastiness/cost quotient - perhaps 60% in more expensive Chile.
The other time was spent in and around Bariloche, the Argentinian Patagonia tourist haven. Is it touristy? Yes. But is it as beautiful as a pirate´s breath is offensive? That, too. I hung out with Pete (motorcyclist from New Zealand) and his hilarious London wingman for a few days before meeting a couple of inseperable brothers (Matt and Keegan) from Michigan and staying at their place they had just built outside town for about a week. The friendship with the latter was forged in the manner of all good comradeship among men: over a fart. Thinking that no one was around while he was brushing his teeth one morning while camping, Matt let out a solid toot. I happened to be walking by, and simply commented, ¨Nice gasser¨, and kept walking. They turned out to be great guys, and we spent a lot of time hanging out around town at its many brew pubs before I did some hiking up into the mountains on my own. Both have degrees from Michigan State, but have made a living starting their own company as kiteboarding instructors ( www.broneah.com) in Michigan, Puerto Rico, and Argentina - spreading their time around their houses they built in each place while in pursuit of good weather. I could write a book about these guys and their comical mannerisms, their success in avoiding the corporate world, and their commendable and fresh philosophies on life, but this E-mail is getting long. Besides, I´m not sure I have enough money to pay for the time I´ve used thus far.
I remain...
Yours in the Brotherhood of the Travelling Pants,
- Tom
Note: The Chileans have been the first to begin to ask with any sort of frequency if I had a name for the bike. As neither ¨Aqua Sips¨ nor ¨Kentucky Gentleman¨ translate very well, I went with a Spanish name. ¨Che¨ Guevara and Alberto Granado called their bike ¨El Poderoso¨, or ¨The Powerful One¨. I have thus dubbed mine ¨El Jugoso¨, or ¨The Juicy One¨. I do not explain that it is related to all the juicy ripplers I´ve buried in the seat in the past seven months.
Quote: ¨Now...where is Mr. Takagi? Joseph Yashinobo Takagi...born Kyoto, 1937. Family emigrated to San Pedro, California, 1939...interned at Manzanar, 1942 to '43...scholarship student, University of California...1955. Law degree, Stanford, 1962. MBA, Harvard, 1970. President, Nakatomi Trading. Vice Chairman, Nakatomi Investment Group...and father...of five.¨

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