His friends call him Monte
Finding Nemo
So I wander out of the bus terminal I know so well now, up to the street where it's surprisingly cold. Cold? Oh yeah…I remember you, you're that feeling I get if it's not warm…hmmmm, it's been a while.
I walk towards…er…nothing really, I don't have a clue where the Uruguayan girls house is. I try to message her, but as usual, Latino's consider all txt messages to read: "Call Me" and she does, telling me to call her, which I do, and I try to get her address. Over the phone, this, I know, is idiocy, when I can't speak the language but it's no use arguing. She gives me the name as I struggle to understand, and gives me directions. Of course, this is useless as I just don't understand any names of places or even when one word ends and another begins etc. I don't even know what letter with which to start the name of her street, let alone if it's more than one word. Anyway, I find an internet café (through some MASSIVE fluke) and go on Google maps (how many times has that proved the backbone of my orientation?). I message The Uruguayan girl in dumd hope of a text response and for some reason she gives me the address, finally, by message. I really dont know what got into her, she actually READ the message. After trying to help me with my first scraps of information somehow plucked from the brain intestinal belch of comprehension I had, the guys at the café find it straight away and they direct me to the adjacent street. It's like, 20m away. Again, what a freaking fluke.
I walk down the road, in the now crispening (it's a word, fuck you) but still tepid air, glancing with the kind of blissful apathy you indulge it while traveling. It's the , "yeah..tisk, here i am in Montevideo, yhap…tisk…it's ouuuuu, bit mor' 'n hhhh 'haf way 'round th' world. Yeahp, I'm a-just-..ahh walking down th' street, I don't havta look at anythin', I'll 'ava glance or two, yheap, …tisk..", kinda option. This but under it all the time is the awareness of mugging, and my Machete is within the now standard 1/2 a second grabbing distance. I check out of the side of my eye sometimes when passing the odd group of guys on the street. It's not the most expensive looking suburb, but not by any means the poorest…making it logically by my reasoning, the perfect place to rob someone. Street after street goes by - all in all it's about 1km, and I count the numbers getting two by two closer to the one I'm looking for. 2248 Cufre….. I'm getting pretty close now, I start slowing down. There's a group of young guys on the corner and one emerges from a door. That door should be about. yep. That's the one I want. A huge bald bald guy with a kind face says something I don't understand and opens it for me. I smile and at the top of a flight of stairs stands the Uruguayan girl, with her phone and a biig smile. Yay!
The door is much too small for me to fit through with my pack, and it takes her so long to realise this I could have spent the time refilling the pacific with the beads of sweat slowly finding their way down my spine as I stand waiting for some reaction. Eventually I just hand her my guitar and I push through the door, and she says "be Careful!", to which I just look in utter bewilderment as she hands the guitar back to me and walks casually up the huge flight of stairs. I follow with my HUGE pack on…..I'm not worried about the weight, but who does that? This girl's gotta be weird. I get to the top and put my pack down asap. I am immediately greeted my a small stocky, tank of a man, with a huuuuge smile and balding hair, he says something fast and indecipherable in Spanish, to which I just say my standard, "Ola, joy es Matthew", the Uruguayan says something about him being called "The head" (about a week later I realise she was talking about the guy behind me), and he cracks a joke…er…I think. insert awkward silence. The huge guy behind me is called, "Cerveza" ? no, not quite, but it sounds like it. He seems nice and gruff and the Uruguayan girl sits me down in a rickety wicker chair.
Is there ever any other kind of wicker chair? They have to be the stupidest idea for furniture since one of our fat monkey ancestors without a tail decided to sit on the thin branches on the edge of a cherry tree and eat the rotten berries from a dead branch, became drunk, fell off the tree, which was overlooking a cliff, broke his legs and had to crawl around with his hands until he met a recluse monkey witch with deformed digits, their resulting offspring unaware or their environment, full of paranoia and mythology, clumsy and daft, sporting thumbs, willing to screw anything that moves and desperate alcoholism. huff…..um…what was my point now? damn… I mean, those chairs are so uncomfortable without a pillow on them and with one you're gifted the ever pleasant feeling of this weird buffer before oblivion that slips around as you move, every now and then hearing another crack as doom looms and the chair, piece by piece, gives way. Whether you try to pry the pinched cushion free or not, fluff leaks out of the padding wounds, those stretched ties will break and the chair will get ever more wobbly, while more cords snap in a spiral of increasing tension and they start letting your back or single arse-cheek through, bit by bit, just to catch your clothes when you get up and tear them to shreds while you wonder just what the hell happened looking back at the pieces of your wardrobe left behind you, knowing all the while you should have predicted this, because sitting on a wicker chair is a gamble you've lost before and you never remember to damn-well learn not to sit in those shit-boxes! ahh…hhhh…hhh ok….nevemind..
Anyway eventually she offers me to put my stuff in her room. I say eventually because at first she just says I shouldn't leave it where it is, and after offering no other option…for like 30mins. okaaaay…. Hey the room is beautiful, with a window covered in a vine, wrought iron rain on the small ledge. Above the adjacent kitchen is a landing full of tools and the main room next to the staircase has a dome-esq glass roof letting light in and allowing a small tree to grow next to the dining table. It's really lovely. She says that's it's really good timing I'm there, because she is free this weekend, but has university starting next week, so she will be free to hang out for now and the weekend.
Shower, Party? Sleeeeeep
At some point the guys offer for us to go to a party, and I agree it sounds like a great idea. I get my stuff down and ask if I can take a shower…ouuuu how sweet will this be. So I take a shower, try to comb out my dread (not a chance) and try to get the most out of my short time there.
As usual in Uruguay, there's a kind of 1/2 arsed, useless stupidity about the electrical connections I observe in the room. Right next to the shower head is a power cable for the heating plugged into a 3 way adaptor, which has been painted with a wall matching paint to make it almost look like it's meant to be there, with 2 empty open sockets 20cm from the shower head. As I look 'round the room I see a few more dotted in the most unlikely places, none of which are anywhere near the sink and mirror. One is half-way up a wall in a corner, another next to a skirting board half way to the door. okaaaay. All of these as is the rule here, are 2 pin sockets, and so totally ungrounded. They these thin round pins here, about 5mm thick and sticking out 2cm for electrical plugs. They're very weak and break easily, spark everytime you plug in or pull them out…it's a bit dangerous, thankfully however, ,a lot of the time, the sockets don't work at all.
After cleaning up I get dressed and head to the room. I am very weary and decide to take a nap on the fold-out couch (quite a nice one - like a double bed size. The Uruguayan girl and I end up crashing out the whole night. so much for the party.
Good Gente, Good Garden
The next afternoon I get to hang out a bit with Cerveza or whatever his name is. He likes music etc, and he gardens. He carves a lot too and takes me to his workshop in the landing above the kitchen, where he ascends another short ladder to a metal door he props open and we emerge on the rooftop. It's beautiful and white, surrounded by a small pillared wall, it's got a BBQ in the corner and a shaded awning constructed of think wooden beams surrounded entirely by plants. He has peppers and tomatoes, spices and greens, flowers and plant pots, pot plants too. Nice big beautiful pot-plants already budding under the sun. Oh yes, beautiful plants. We go downstairs for a smoke and a chat, then he says we should go for a walk. After an age, we eventually go out with the standard Mate thermos and Cuia.
But actually this walk I've been looking forward to for a few hours now ends up being a walk all the way to the street corner, some 5m from the front door, where we drink mate and beer and play guitar.…talk some shit. Still it's nice, and very Uruguayan.
Suddenly I get a call from Enrique whom I've been trying to contact. Jules has left my computer with him and he's heading north today, but I can come and get the computer now, from the other side of town if I can get there on 20 min. Bet your ass I can. I call a taxi..well someone does, immediately and one comes in 5 minutes. It's a long ride over the other side of town, and though I'm a but stoned, I have to get my computer back as soon as I can. I don't know Enrique well enough to know whether he'll take his chances and fleece the gringo or not.
The taxi is like $15 in the end and I alight it in a rich-as-fuk neighborhood, the kind of place I wouldn't have known existed here had I not seen it. Really nice manicured lawns, large expensive houses…I guess some people do have money here…a LOT of money. I search for the correct number and find it's back along the street I'm already on. I see it's a huge white apartment block which I approach and try the intercom just as a tenant arrives and lets me in the front door. Without actually knowing to which flat I'm going, I take the elevator to the top floor (smokers logic) and stand there looking bewildered until, all of a sudden, Enrique comes out of a door to my right. Errr…sweet!
His apartment is very nice inside and he has a friend over. He has some nice guitars and a balcony overlooking the city. He makes a joke about selling my computer already and gets me it. ha.ha. funny. I'm so glad to have it in my hands again and I ironically feel some weight I've been carrying around for 2 weeks lift off. Nice. We chat a while. Not a short while, the man that should have been on his way out the door takes his time to chat for over an hour before I leave. Hmmmmmm.
By now I'm well smoked. A curious thing about me and Gods greenery is I peak about 2 hours after I smoke. That means I keep on rising, long after the last toke has been taken. It's a good thing generally, right now, the trains left the station.
Pottled Prezzies and Prices
It's a hot day but I'm feeling pretty good. I've got my computer and backpack back - which, by the way, also has my passport in it and my plane tickets to Iceland in December! I've still got some money in my pocket, the sun is out, I'm blazed, nicely blazed, and I'm somewhere I've never been. I decide to take a slow walk back and check out the sights. I think I know roughly where town is. Smokers logic strike 2. Along the walk I remember I'm planning on making dinner that night so I decide to try to find a few ingredients. A lot of places are closed due to a public holiday or something so when I see a Supermercardo (Supermarket) open I trundle on in. I'm feeling pretty wonderful, and blissfully browse the shelves, I buy some nice fresh ginger and garlic, pumpkin, vegetables etc. I keep seeing all these cellophane-wrapped gift type things, can't figure out what they are, but they seem to have chocolate manufacturers logo's on them, so I look around and decide to get one for the Uruguayan girl. I grab a few snacks and treasures then head out.
Smokers, I should mention here, know something of which everyone else is unaware; that when you go shopping, you are not buying things. No. You are hunting. What you find, are treasures. Lovely, yummy and fun treasures. ….Ouuuu goodie!
As I wander, I wonder, just whether I've bothered the others by being boldly tardy taking my time this Tuesday, willingly walking and sauntering slowly along the streets across the city. mmmmmmm. And as I sift through the streets, I try to spy oddities and endidties, curiosities with furiosities, I let the sun send is heat down on my feverish forehead, I crunch crumplings of spicy peanuts salted and dusted in and out of little clusters, with silent savor sucking out the flavour and drinking hot icecream as it drips down my digits ooohhssslb, yes, it's a good day.
Walking the Talk
Eventually I grow wearily of walking and talking to the birds so I decide to catch a bus. I ask a lady at the bus shelter, "¿Tres Cruces?", the name of the intersection where the Bus station is (close enough to walk). And she says something incomprehensible to all but the famous 3 linguistic wizards who use years of training and 6-14th senses developed through ancient mystical practices made known only to the most elite of all masters and guarded secret within their minds until only upon their death they may, if the universe shows the exact omen, pass down the information to an unparalleled guru, who must have, naturally, past the tests and performed the feats of linguistic athletics, and miraculous displays of comprehension and personal power of tongue including (but not limited to) deciphering the hidden language of the east-Angolan toe-mite dances without the aid of magnification, and when learned, such knowledge utilised only in times of worldwide consequence.
So no, I didn't quite catch *everything*, but I think by the shake of her head she meant, "Yes".
As the bus roars towards destiny an old gent gets on and starts playing guitar. I grab my recorder and make a take. It's really great here they way people get on busses and play us all a tune. I give him a few pesos. I feel great. After a while I think we are near Trés Cruces and I see it go by. Ok next stop. I pull the dinger and the bus eventually pulls in. As I and a few other passengers spill out, I ask one if he knows where Trés Cruces is. He responds with some surprise and tells me it's a long way away. I know it's not right and try to talk to him, but he seems quite worried. I say Tranquilo! (perhaps most useful word in all of South America - followed closely by 'Claro') and try to calm him down but there's a communication gap. After a while he works out I speak English. Turns out he's originally Australian. Though he looks like a local, apparently he was born there, and lived there until his adolescence, when he moved here, sometime in the late seventies. I guess I've given away that we end up spending some time in each others company.
He's convinced I'm lost, though I try to reassure him, he demands to help and I get out my scrap of paper with the address on it at his request. He is sure he knows exactly where I'm headed, and although I am far from convinced, I go with him due mainly to his insistence. We walk for quite a while, through streets that look completely foreign and engage in ever more interesting conversation. By the time we get to Trés Cruces, we've already been walking for about 30mins. I don't quite know how he managed to take that long to get here, considering it was so close to begin with, but I relent and say (if nothing more than to make him feel his efforts are worthwhile) that I'm glad he helped me, because he was obviously correct. Still I secretly believe he was somehow walking in circles or something.
Anyway we get to discussing Nationalities, cultures and people, how I think Uruguayans are friendly and helpful, but only in certain ways, and in others, seem rude and callous. We talk of economics and dreams, of what we want in life and how to get it. We both know the sting of lost love, which is a nice thing to talk about for me.
Anyway what he wants is a woman to share time with. He is courageous, I think, to say he wants love. We all do, all the time don't we?, but fuk if it isn't hard to find someone who'll actually admit it! Anyway we talk a lot, and he's wonderfully friendly. As we get closer to my designation he says that his wife will be wondering where he is, because he's so late. Wait…did he say his wife? ..ok that's weird. Anyway to prove he's been helping me, 'cause she'll never believe him, he stops and takes a photo of me. Yep.
Then we get to 2298 and he says a quick goodbye. I thank him, and ring the bell.
Full Moon Fever
Frederiko lets me in. It's a good thing he was nice enough to do that. It's a good thing a lot of those guys living there were nice, 'cause it was a bit of a mission trying to live there. The fist day The uruguayan girl left, I got up, everyone else was asleep and the door was locked. I tried to message her, How do you want me to leave? Should I take the keys so I can lock up. No. What I have to do, is either wake up someone I don't know, and ask them to let me out or else don't go anywhere. Great. I'm staying at your house and now I'm waking you up. I try to think of a way out of it. How can I lock the door. Why can't I take the keys, why the hell am I being put in this position?? She's the one who asked me to visit HER! So I go to the roof and eye up the tree, but I'm too smoked out to be jumping off roofs into trees 8m+ off the pavement. Still, for quite a while I was psyching myself up to really do it. It really annoyed me. I was there for over an hour trying to figure a way out of the prison.
And his didn't just happen the first day, and I wasn't just trapped in there for a short while. Sometimes I was stuck for hours, weighing up if it was too early to bang on someone's door, or what would happen if I just took the spare keys. Oh yeah, there were spare keys. I was told I couldn't use them. Great. How happy a person would be if I woke them up and couldn't even explain to them why I wasn't using the spare keys. What if they were one of the people's who was asleep? I tried not to let it bother me, but actually it boiled my blood that it kept happening. And to get back in, I'd have to yell out or ring the bell, and if there was no-one home, I had to just stand out there or come back later. The Uruguayan girl would lock her room too while she was away, so all this time I couldn't even get to my stuff even if I got in. It was a bit crap.
She also kept complaining about my backpack and stuff being out. I just couldn't understand what exactly she expected me to do with it! I couldn't work out if she was serious, did she really not want me here? Then why did she ask me to come? Was she just grieving over her lover that dumped her? It was a strain. Added to this was the unmistakable impression that she was completely self absorbed, and that was just the kind of attitude in the others I'd tried to get away from. Mhghghgmmmm
Back to the moment, for me, getting her this gift and making dinner, was my way of just trying to not give in to the worries and anger (fear) responses.
I started cooking up a grand curry, which I really love to do. I know people will like it, and I like to cook. The Uruguayan girl got back and while she took a shower, I hid the chocolate gift thing under her pillow.
When the food was ready we all gathered around the small round wooden table and bench seat near the little tree in the dining area and ate. Gradually more people arrived and we all started talking (well they did) with much frivolity. Actually I really enjoyed not talking, and especially, not being expected to. I talk a lot usually, out of boredom or to prevent just sitting there - you know those staring situations? Maybe try to coax a laugh. But being unable to speak Spanish, I was not expected to say or understand a thing, and honestly, I didn't want to. I just looked around like a tourist on a venetian gondola, not trying to do a thing, or put a good impression out etc. Bliss.
And we eventually started singing etc and playing guitar. I hate being a jukebox, people ask me to play something they can sing along to, people want me to be their monkey, they don't care about art, they just want something they can laugh at to continue their bullshit lives. Music is a quick release…and enabler. But here, I see how they openly don't give a rats ass you can play guitar, if you choose to play guitar, you should play something they like, so they can drink and sing, and then hand it over and watch, and drink, while the next guy does it. At first I stop playing out of disgust at being asked to play something then no -one listening. But then I start to get it. They never gave a shit, and wont, about NZ music, your music, my music etc, they just wanna sing some songs they know and talk volumes at volumes of shit or whatever with their mates. I can get that, it's a plebeian life, so have a sing-song and a beer. Still I wont play guitar for them, I'm not ready to make that step. I don't have the motivation presently. But I come to accept their point of view.
Anyway that night I can't sleep, not sure why, but I head up to the roof to look at the full moon. Maybe that's why I can't sleep. I sit there, with my guitar, and sing myself a few songs. I think I even recorded one. I'll see if I can put it up on the Facebook blog group. I look out over the rooftops and trees, past the pot plants and washing. I'm melancholy a bit. It's a bit lonely here, and I think of the frog I left in wellington. I miss her quite a lot. I often look into shop windows or market stalls and see things she would enjoy…I imagine sending her the things and her happy face expectantly holding the packages. I think it's the packages she would like the most…but I don't really have the money to be doing that. Probably isn't so good for the heart either.
Back to the life in Montevideo.
Culture Clash
People talk of culture shock enough for the phase to instantly call to mind a fairly decent construct for most audiences. I tend to get along well with foreigners, and pre-supposed culture, boiling down to it, well it's just a set of behaviors right?, So it wouldn't shock me.
It didn't. At all.
What it did do was piss me off. Hell I get pissed off with people pretty swiftly, so it should come as no surprise that here in South America nothing was much different. I had my reservations coming here. I can't say I ever enjoyed any cultural experience described as Latin. Food is food, and I love it, but it's not really culture, and dancing, music, art, blah blah blah work, interests blah blah. No. I disagree. I would say culture comes down to how things are done. The general attitude, the assumptions, social conventions and expectations, to me, they make up what I call culture. It's the visibly invisible flavour of a persons approach to life, betraying the underlying belief systems underpinning the social norms, where the habits formed. Beliefs make what I call culture. What is acceptable, and what is not. Behavior. The behavior considered suitable, or non-suitable. Latin culture, at this stage of my journey, confirmed all I thought it would be from gauging the Latinos I'd met. The one trait, belief system, belying every action they did, as I saw it, was self-absorption. To put it more accurately, more self absorption than I considered indicative of a healthy belief system - though I don't ever think of it that way or to that level (I'm analysing myself here). No, I'd just say that all these fukers don't give a shit about anyone but themselves, and treat every person they meet as a prop in their personal stage-play, to be discarded the instant it is no longer needed.
This of course is a harsh, critical, judgmental and evidently completely inaccurate description of Latin culture. but for me, it was the most powerful and significant, hence defining characteristic, and I was fast getting dark minded. Basically because of this Uruguayan girl. Now her flatmates were wonderful, friendly and kind, never doing anything to reinforce my prejudice, but, and this shows something about humans (yep, that's right, I'm accusing you all of being like me underneath it all), my mind didn't focus on the positive. My minds job it seems, is risk aversion. But here, my amigos, built on the shaky stack of twigs I call a belief system, like believing experiences being good or bad etc and that I may be able, with enough thinking, control the instance of the deemed negative stimuli from rolling in in quantities to which I have also assigned the label "bad", stands my idiocy. Such is my poison. So on it went, confirming itself, seeking control, and failing each time with another confirmation, garnishing a belief, rancid as cud, trying to pander to fear and lying in it's teeth, the destructive construction that through its method happiness may be had.
You can't fight violence with violence, it's so clear we all ignore it, and these beliefs are violent ideas, trying to appease perceived violence of stimuli. Oh dear the staircase appears to have no end. ….was it me who decided what stimuli was bad? or was that just a name I gave something I would always want to avoid. The constant contest of attention continues for all of us. Do we take the time to re-assess our interpretations of stimuli? or do we back our beliefs and use them to get things done. Tasks that take us to that ever narrowing line where contentment is said to be found.
Night Parking
The guys decide to have a few beers at the park. The Uruguayan girl is out and I decide to go with them. We squeeze 5 guys into a tiny 2 door, and with a chorus of all drinking and toking we bowl down the road on our roller coaster as I notice there are no functioning seat belts. In a few months time I will be completely used to this custom, but at the moment I just try to re-assure myself that these crazy guavas are sufficiently experienced as to not be taking us all to death. As it turns out, the park is very close and as the music blares from cheap crappy speakers and the old car putters on in full clank, we arrive and laboriously peel our bodies out of the sardine can. The park is crawling with people, even though it's nearly dark, life teams and friends drink, lovers canoodle and families play all around us.
It's somewhat of a change from NZ, most likely due to NZ being colder, but parks here seem to be appreciated and used to their capacity in Uruguay. I also see parents really playing with their children a lot more. There's no 7:30 bed times here, and the extra hours available are used by fathers to kick around a football or mothers to picnic with their children. There's soo much less yelling and frustration directed at children here, not at all like I'm used to seeing in NZ. The adults accept children and how children like to play, and they play with them, rather than sending them off to play with each other and occasionally barking aggression towards those bothersome pests that interrupt their oh-so-important adult conversations. You know it's true, don't even bother with me, I've seen NZ parents my whole life and most of them are nothing like these guys. Of course some are, but I'm relating generalities here to show how some things can be and are normal which to us, are not.
Anyway as we sit and drink in the park next to a landscaping wall fitted with seat-like surfaces (the park is divided in multiple lines by such things with lighting as if it were a street -and internet wifi too!) we get the ball out and Enzo (the french pinch hitter - a professional football player), gets the grand idea that the Kiwi in the crowd could be used to curry some favor from a semi-adjacent group of girls. They are on the same wall, but about 20m from us. The plan, I am told, will be simple and guaranteed to work. Through skeptical ears (if ears can be) I hear that I am to use my foreign-ness as a drawcard - this, he is utterly convinced, is a sure winner. I just don't believe he is even within orbit of the planet where the truth may be whispered deep underground. I've never got the impression, even for a second, that Uruguavas are at all interested in people from other countries in anything close to a positive way. But who knows. Anyway the plan is that I "mistakenly" kick the soccer…wait…football, over near the girls and go and get it, at which point, upon having drawn attention to myself, and that self being obviously exotic, the girls will become possessed with an urge to initiate conversation with me - you know the one: "where are you from stranger…" etc. I believe there's more chance of being struck by lightening on a clear day while dressed in a rubber suit, but Enzo's convinced. OK
So here we are kicking the ball around, and I'M supposed to be accurate enough to get it somewhere near the girls? The irony is not lost on me that it is because I am from a rugby obsessed nation, my accuracy is somewhat similar to that of a drunk cow in an apple orchard. I kick the ball perfectly, I am sure of that, but culturally it will not accept the suggestion of my feet, and as far as I can tell, changes it's mind instantly, and flies to whichever location would make me most appear spastic. I'm allowed to use that word now that the politically correct have freed it up by giving us alternative words and deemed it an insult right? So anyway, the job proves simply impossible for me, and with my beer in clear and present danger of being spilt with all this kack-knee effort, the cheese-eater takes aim in my steed.
He gets it with no effort in one. But, he IS a professional remember. So…y'know… Anyway, I GO GET THE BALL!!! aaaaaand they look up! theeeen nothing. Yeap, thought so. Meh.
At some point I tell the guys to invite the Uruguayan girl over, but they say she wont come. They do invite her, but she declines as they predicted. They explain that they aren't close friends. I ask why and they hum and harr… well, they try to put it, for example, she always locks her door. No one else does, but she does. She's kind of…well…she doesn't really talk to us. She doesn't really do anything with us…you know? I get the picture, I've flatted a lot, I understand about these things. They ask me about her and I, it is their impression that we are in some way lovers. I assure them, this is not the case at all - in fact, I too have been finding it hard to get along with her…but she's probably just stressed because of what happened in Argentina. Ahh, yes…what about it? Well, I add, you know, she was so exited to be meeting with her boyfriend, but it turned out he wasn't that interested - that would stress almost anyone.
At this point I realise they have no idea about this. I worry, briefly, that maybe I shouldn't have told them. But, I can't be bothered worrying about keeping other people's secrets - especially if they have not told me they're secrets. Doesn't matter, I sigh to myself (a 'mind-sigh'), these guys are really cool, and it's no lie. If anything, it could help them all get along, maybe they will be more understanding of each other. Anyway we eventually run out of booze, night falls, and we decide to return to the house.
Knowing When To Call It
Life there, as I mentioned, is confusing and aggravating. I have to say, the welcome-mat seems to be disintegrating. The Uruguayan girl seems to enjoy most of all insulting me. In one particular conversation she finds out I told them about her boyfriend and becomes very annoyed. I apologise profusely but this does not appease the accusations spitting from her bile-tipped tongue so I remind her, that these are her flatmates, and besides thinking they already knew, she had not told me it was a secret - and what's more, it is true! Her lovely reply is a metaphor that I am like a duck. I am like a duck because with ever step, I leave a shit. How lovely. It's so nice to be yelled at. It's so nice she expects me to lie and keep secrets for her. It's so nice how kind she has been to me since I decided to come see her at her request because I thought she was depressed, and to add to the insult, after I swallowed my pride and apologised for what was essentially nothing, she describes me as shitting all over the ground with every step. So nice.
Although I've been asking her repeatedly if she minds that I'm staying here. That I'm staying just to try to cheer her up. and that I don't need to stay. She reassures me often, that she really likes me being there. She even says that to me out of the blue sometimes, and I try to think back to the Canadianas and others and think, maybe it's me that's always paranoid people are pissed off with me? Maybe it is that. I know I have this paranoia. Well I know it seems I might. Even so, I call it. I decide not to react, I just need to leave. There are great guys here in her flat, but they are not my hosts. They quietly remind me that I may be having difficulties with the Uruguayan girl because I get along well with them. This could only be part of it, but it does seem likely.
Anyway the Uruguayan girl accompanies me to the bus terminal and helps me buy a ticket to Pasados, which is the nearest large town to where the Rainbow Gathering is being held. I still have 2 weeks of it left. I'll get amongst MY people, find some good souls, travelers, people who aren't tied up in their culture so much as to forget we are all brothers and sisters. I know 99% of people at rainbow gatherings are nothing like that - but it's easy to find that other 1%, depending on what you choose to do there. I find, I can whittle it down pretty fast, away from the workshops of the designer hippies, smokey dens of the stoners (the look-a-hiipie-likes), the round-the-fiery-alters-and-singing of the Hippier-than-thou religious types, and get stuck into making food, building shelters and doing things that make the even actually work. In amongst this group I find the soul of the movement - not in it's organizers (most of whom left their rational minds in a pool of LSD and vomit in the 60's), but amongst the people minding their own business, minding the business of getting it all working. The quiet ones usually not participating in the trumpeting cacophony of droning "weee beliiiiiiiive" chants of the hippy-notized, or the fake motivated cries of the proclaimers of the "lets add this to the rules of anarchism" Idiots, and just doing what needs to be done, maybe enjoying a fiddle on an instrument out of the way of prying ears.
Thinking of all this renews my hope that my trip is not dammed to be spent as my life in NZ is - that is, at the whim of those with more power, more money. The possessors. Those violent idiots who seek to control their fate by focusing their sense of self into objects, calling them the same, and defending title with their brute and lies. The people who oppress us all. This great whore with a billion children called, 'ownership'. The monetary system. The right to live. 1984. I really pin my hopes on this idea, that I can get away from all this stress, if I can just get to the rainbow.
We find a bus company, and I explain to the Uruguayan girl, that it is essential I get a good seat - she gets me the best one. It is even more important, that I am only going to Pasados, Argentina. I have checked, I have no visa for Paraguay, and most of the buses to Pasados go to Paraguay. She negotiates and buys me the ticket, which says "Encarnacion" which is in Paraguay. I ask her about that, but I am assured, there is not problem, it's just the final destination of the bus.
Happy, finally, I hold a ticket out of this madness. Back at the flat the guys are really sad to see me go. They really want me to go to a party they're having on saturday, but I really want to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible. It sux I'll miss the party, but I HAVE TO GO. I don't wanna spend another minute here - but the 24 hours it will be 'till I leave…well…that's FINE.
The bus leaves at 1pm the next day and we stay up having goodbye drinks with the guys. I say my goodbyes. The next morning the two of us get ready and I buy the necessary supplies. Curry, potatoes, oil and salt. I already have curry oil and salt at the flat. Ordinarily I would leave it behind, but I am done with favors for this girl. Oh my hypocrisy. I buy potatoes on a leisurely walk. The uruguayan girl accompanies me to the road where we are met by her parents and they drive us to the terminal. They have a nice car - which I am explained, for the Uruguayan girls, is just the best thing in the world.
And then I say my goodbyes to her outside the terminal. Which I wish is where the uruguayan adventure ended.
Termination
I am in a very good mood as I wander in and check in. I present my passport and keep an eye on my gear just down behind me. I have limited funds, but I want to be comfortable. I get some expensive food at a kiosk after withdrawing the last few dollars of my money from a machine at the other end of the terminal. I go outside and sit at the platform in the last polygon of sunlight against the terminal wall and eat my sandwich and chocolate biscuit. As the light creeps away the bus parks in front of me directly, like a commanding white bull elephant, and I smile. Yay! One bus-ride and I'm out of here. I still have a sneaking worry about visa issues, but I've checked in, the Uruguayan girl assured me it's ok, I even asked the guy at the desk, so I'm just worrying over nothing now. I am so happy to be going, I put my bag up to be loaded. The decidedly unfriendly baggage handler says something completely incomprehensible to me, but eventually I get it, I have to put the shoes, jug and machete inside my bag before he loads it. I think this is stupid, but I eventually squeeze them all in. By backpack looks quite strained, but anyways, it's on. I ask the driver as they check my ticket, " I am only going to Posados right?", "right", "I'm not going to Paraguay, just Posados", "right", "right". Sweet. I am, as it turns out, quite an anxious person, this trip has revealed just how anxious I really am. It takes a some reassurance for me to eventually relax
I climb onto the bus. I have by far the best seat. Number 1, right up front, top deck, huge Window in front, huge one beside. Fuck yeah! I will have the BEST view of whatever is between me and Pasados. I am so happy. I say a quiet goodbye to Montevideo. I won't be back here, I did my tour of duty.
That polygon of light is now just nearly over the outside wall and I watch it thinking of all that lies ahead.
Visa Vamous
And this is where and when everything turned. One second I am in a lovely, calm, peaceful place, then, along comes the visa lady. I am butted out of my meditations by a very well dressed woman in a skirt holding my passport asking for my name. This isn't at all what I wanted to see. She's saying something to me….I don't understand it, …but I think I know what she means. I ask, if she's asking me to leave. She points at my passport. I say, "Pasados, no Paraguay, Pasados". This doesn't help. I ask if there's anyone who speaks english that can help me. I know how to say my spanish is "terrible" and "yo solo en Uruguay trés Semanar" - roughly, I've only been in Uruguay 3 weeks - my way of saying, "I don't understand everything you're saying". An english girl hears the fuss and comes to help, she explains, they are saying I can't go, and I must get off the bus because I don't have a visa to Paraguay. Even now, nearly 3 months later, I am pissed off as I write this. "but I'm not going to Uruguay", I say. Turns out, the bus doesn't stop in Pasados - nor will it stop for me anywhere before Encarnacion. I ask, can't they just let me off near the road? I'll hitch! no. Why? No. What? No. Get off. Can you just take me to the north of Uruguay then, I'll go fr.. NO. Why? No. There's no getting through. If I could speak spanish, there wouldn't be a problem, but I am just another foreigner, and they just don't give a fuck. There's no way around it, and I can't communicate. They don't want to hear anything.
Quite stunned, I slowly leave the bus, and they get my gear out….terribly packed and bulky I heft it to the ground and in a complete daze stumble back to the now cold platform wall. I watch the bus leave. I am not on it. Not near the window. Not relaxing in the chair while terrain rolls by. I am here. In Montevideo. The ticket cost all of my money save about $50, which is barely enough. Only enough if you're camping. I try to call the Uruguayan girl. I don't know what to do, maybe she can come talk to them for me - I just don't have the spanish to do it. She said she would help if there were problems. I don't get through so I send a text telling her what happened. She seems surprised, and asks whether I told them I wasn't going to Paraguay. I said yes, but they kicked me off anyway. Now, things are changing. I'm really in a state. I just don't know what to do. I have this 2500 peso ticket, and the bus has gone.
I sit to try to relax. She texts me, telling me I should exchange my ticket for somewhere else. "if I had that happen, I would just want to go somewhere else". That's what she said. "make sure you get another ticket taking you somewhere - you can go to Buenos Aires". That's what she text me. Make sure you go somewhere. When would she EVER have had this happen? Why would I want to go to Buenos Aires? Why wont she help me, I can't even tell them the word "exchange". In reality I didn't even ask myself these questions. I knew she just wanted me gone. She didn't give a shit she'd bought the wrong ticket. She didn't even want to try to sort it out with me. She was just annoyed I was still around. She txts me telling me she doesn't want to come to the terminal. I texted back, "thanks, I'm glad you feel that way". "what, I don't understand" was the answer. I could have been talking about the prospect of going to Buenos Aires, but we both knew what was really going on. When someone has a problem like this you don't tell them to just exchange it for a ticket to somewhere they never had an intention of going. I know what help sounds like and this isn't it.
I am not in the early stages of a panic attack. Oh yes it may seem an over-reaction. Well itwas an over-reaction…but at the time it seemed terrible. Over anxious, maybe that is just what I am like. But a week of being treated like shit, a week of taking it on the other cheek, and the spending all my money to try and get away from this bitch and she's saying, "I'm just on the other side of town, and it's really hard for me to get over and help you". When she offered help. She started by offering to come, and when I said, "that'd really help", the answer was, "Just go to Buenos Aires". I apologise to her, maybe the stress of the situation is clouding my judgement, I ask for help, I don't know what to do. I can't talk to these guys and I don't have enough money to buy another ticket, what do I say? Why wont she help? Why is she just trying to get rid of me. No I don't ask myself these questions either because it's obvious. She just wants me gone. Ok. So she wont help me get to the rainbow. So I haven't enough money to buy another ticket and I don't know how to ask for an exchange - let alone whether they'd give me one. I didn't buy the ticket, I don't know what they told her. How can I say I wasn't told? How can I ask for my money back? I don't have enough money not to. If I stay in a backpackers, I only have enough money for 2 days, no food - IF I find one. And the days getting late. I cant even afford a bus, if I find a backpackers, it will have to be on foot, and there are none nearby.
I am shaking and completely immobilised. Yeap, I just am so maddened by her attitude, and that of the passport controller. Looking back it doesn't seem like such a big deal but at the time is was HUGE. I can't say exactly why, maybe you'd have to be me, but for me, that situation was colossal, and I couldn't think. I was so mad with rage. Rage for the girl who bought the ticket, rage for the company that sold it, checked me in, rage for the racism of the visa lady who just didn't wanna help another foreigner. Rage for the girl who just wanted my out of her hair after creating this gigantic balls-up. Rage. Imagine, if you want to relate, being in this state, unable to think, unable to act, no knowing what to do, watching the time tick by. Trying to rack your brains for intuition. What do I do? The later you leave it, the worse it gets. You can't sleep here you know - and you can't afford to sleep anywhere for more than 2 nights..and what then? Starve? So can you afford to sleep anywhere? I am in this state not for 10min, not for 30….no…I am locked in blind confusion 5, count them, 5 hours. Just so you know, that's FIVE HOURS. I am shaking for five hours, desperately thinking of what to do, for FIVE HOURS, unable to think of a single thing, watching the clock, knowing all the while the situation is getting worse and wore and worse, for, five, hours. Just do something, my brain tries to yell above the hum. Do Something! Nope. I did call Federico of the Boulevard Sarandi Backpackers and he said his backpackers was shut down from the bed bugs Jules found. He said he may be able to help me after he finished uni. Maybe. 'Maybe' was not the reassurance I wanted. I get out my laptop and search for backpackers. Nope, none near. All I find are in or near the old city, they're not cheap…and they aren't taking bookings. I have to put more credit on my phone. Should I do it? How much will I need that money when I go to try and get a bed…or food.
The Uruguayan girl texts me with a sentence. She says "go up to the desk and say this". I have no idea what it is, but I have some idea what it will be. Some sort of phrase asking for an exchange. I go to the desk. I don't want an exchange, I want to go to the rainbow. It's nearly over, if I exchange my ticket…..I'll never go. But I have lost my will to fight. I resign. I pack my laptop in my bag. I hoist my pack on slowly, put my bag on the front and reach down for my guitar. I am so tired, utterly exhausted, even though I haven't actually moved almost at all. I grasp the phone and hold it out front as I clump jangley legs to the desk I don't remember what I said, but I said it.
The man says, a destination, I have no idea what he's saying, and I say, uh huh, then he says something else and I recognize "¿Florianópolis?". I heard Nicole and Katie talking about this place, they liked it. "¿Donde esta?", I reply, terribly roughly translating to "Where is?", "Brazil" is the answer. "¿Bueno?", I ask, "Oh Sííííí, muuuy Bueno!", is the reply. "Ok". And with that, I'm going to brazil. No Rainbow, for me, the whole reason why I decided to come to South America. Also, nowhere to stay. But I'm going. Turns out the first bus is on Monday, 3 nights away. Actually…I am quite relieved. I only need 3 nights accommodation, and then I am going somewhere nice. I am not entirely relieved, but at least I have something I can work with. I message the Uruguayan girl and she responds with the sentence I knew was coming from the beginning. "you can't stay here".
Nice. real nice. You ask me to come. You treat me like shit everyday. You buy the ticket, you fuck it up, you wont help…..then you won't even let me stay at you place for 3 nights more. Nice. I just take one last look at a map and head to the bus stop. I'll go to the old city at night, where people get mugged, and I'll walk around with all my gear 'till I find a backpackers. Fine.
I position my machete where I can reach it as always, and head out to find a room
Finding Nemo
So I wander out of the bus terminal I know so well now, up to the street where it's surprisingly cold. Cold? Oh yeah…I remember you, you're that feeling I get if it's not warm…hmmmm, it's been a while.
I walk towards…er…nothing really, I don't have a clue where the Uruguayan girls house is. I try to message her, but as usual, Latino's consider all txt messages to read: "Call Me" and she does, telling me to call her, which I do, and I try to get her address. Over the phone, this, I know, is idiocy, when I can't speak the language but it's no use arguing. She gives me the name as I struggle to understand, and gives me directions. Of course, this is useless as I just don't understand any names of places or even when one word ends and another begins etc. I don't even know what letter with which to start the name of her street, let alone if it's more than one word. Anyway, I find an internet café (through some MASSIVE fluke) and go on Google maps (how many times has that proved the backbone of my orientation?). I message The Uruguayan girl in dumd hope of a text response and for some reason she gives me the address, finally, by message. I really dont know what got into her, she actually READ the message. After trying to help me with my first scraps of information somehow plucked from the brain intestinal belch of comprehension I had, the guys at the café find it straight away and they direct me to the adjacent street. It's like, 20m away. Again, what a freaking fluke.
I walk down the road, in the now crispening (it's a word, fuck you) but still tepid air, glancing with the kind of blissful apathy you indulge it while traveling. It's the , "yeah..tisk, here i am in Montevideo, yhap…tisk…it's ouuuuu, bit mor' 'n hhhh 'haf way 'round th' world. Yeahp, I'm a-just-..ahh walking down th' street, I don't havta look at anythin', I'll 'ava glance or two, yheap, …tisk..", kinda option. This but under it all the time is the awareness of mugging, and my Machete is within the now standard 1/2 a second grabbing distance. I check out of the side of my eye sometimes when passing the odd group of guys on the street. It's not the most expensive looking suburb, but not by any means the poorest…making it logically by my reasoning, the perfect place to rob someone. Street after street goes by - all in all it's about 1km, and I count the numbers getting two by two closer to the one I'm looking for. 2248 Cufre….. I'm getting pretty close now, I start slowing down. There's a group of young guys on the corner and one emerges from a door. That door should be about. yep. That's the one I want. A huge bald bald guy with a kind face says something I don't understand and opens it for me. I smile and at the top of a flight of stairs stands the Uruguayan girl, with her phone and a biig smile. Yay!
The door is much too small for me to fit through with my pack, and it takes her so long to realise this I could have spent the time refilling the pacific with the beads of sweat slowly finding their way down my spine as I stand waiting for some reaction. Eventually I just hand her my guitar and I push through the door, and she says "be Careful!", to which I just look in utter bewilderment as she hands the guitar back to me and walks casually up the huge flight of stairs. I follow with my HUGE pack on…..I'm not worried about the weight, but who does that? This girl's gotta be weird. I get to the top and put my pack down asap. I am immediately greeted my a small stocky, tank of a man, with a huuuuge smile and balding hair, he says something fast and indecipherable in Spanish, to which I just say my standard, "Ola, joy es Matthew", the Uruguayan says something about him being called "The head" (about a week later I realise she was talking about the guy behind me), and he cracks a joke…er…I think. insert awkward silence. The huge guy behind me is called, "Cerveza" ? no, not quite, but it sounds like it. He seems nice and gruff and the Uruguayan girl sits me down in a rickety wicker chair.
Is there ever any other kind of wicker chair? They have to be the stupidest idea for furniture since one of our fat monkey ancestors without a tail decided to sit on the thin branches on the edge of a cherry tree and eat the rotten berries from a dead branch, became drunk, fell off the tree, which was overlooking a cliff, broke his legs and had to crawl around with his hands until he met a recluse monkey witch with deformed digits, their resulting offspring unaware or their environment, full of paranoia and mythology, clumsy and daft, sporting thumbs, willing to screw anything that moves and desperate alcoholism. huff…..um…what was my point now? damn… I mean, those chairs are so uncomfortable without a pillow on them and with one you're gifted the ever pleasant feeling of this weird buffer before oblivion that slips around as you move, every now and then hearing another crack as doom looms and the chair, piece by piece, gives way. Whether you try to pry the pinched cushion free or not, fluff leaks out of the padding wounds, those stretched ties will break and the chair will get ever more wobbly, while more cords snap in a spiral of increasing tension and they start letting your back or single arse-cheek through, bit by bit, just to catch your clothes when you get up and tear them to shreds while you wonder just what the hell happened looking back at the pieces of your wardrobe left behind you, knowing all the while you should have predicted this, because sitting on a wicker chair is a gamble you've lost before and you never remember to damn-well learn not to sit in those shit-boxes! ahh…hhhh…hhh ok….nevemind..
Anyway eventually she offers me to put my stuff in her room. I say eventually because at first she just says I shouldn't leave it where it is, and after offering no other option…for like 30mins. okaaaay…. Hey the room is beautiful, with a window covered in a vine, wrought iron rain on the small ledge. Above the adjacent kitchen is a landing full of tools and the main room next to the staircase has a dome-esq glass roof letting light in and allowing a small tree to grow next to the dining table. It's really lovely. She says that's it's really good timing I'm there, because she is free this weekend, but has university starting next week, so she will be free to hang out for now and the weekend.
Shower, Party? Sleeeeeep
At some point the guys offer for us to go to a party, and I agree it sounds like a great idea. I get my stuff down and ask if I can take a shower…ouuuu how sweet will this be. So I take a shower, try to comb out my dread (not a chance) and try to get the most out of my short time there.
As usual in Uruguay, there's a kind of 1/2 arsed, useless stupidity about the electrical connections I observe in the room. Right next to the shower head is a power cable for the heating plugged into a 3 way adaptor, which has been painted with a wall matching paint to make it almost look like it's meant to be there, with 2 empty open sockets 20cm from the shower head. As I look 'round the room I see a few more dotted in the most unlikely places, none of which are anywhere near the sink and mirror. One is half-way up a wall in a corner, another next to a skirting board half way to the door. okaaaay. All of these as is the rule here, are 2 pin sockets, and so totally ungrounded. They these thin round pins here, about 5mm thick and sticking out 2cm for electrical plugs. They're very weak and break easily, spark everytime you plug in or pull them out…it's a bit dangerous, thankfully however, ,a lot of the time, the sockets don't work at all.
After cleaning up I get dressed and head to the room. I am very weary and decide to take a nap on the fold-out couch (quite a nice one - like a double bed size. The Uruguayan girl and I end up crashing out the whole night. so much for the party.
Good Gente, Good Garden
The next afternoon I get to hang out a bit with Cerveza or whatever his name is. He likes music etc, and he gardens. He carves a lot too and takes me to his workshop in the landing above the kitchen, where he ascends another short ladder to a metal door he props open and we emerge on the rooftop. It's beautiful and white, surrounded by a small pillared wall, it's got a BBQ in the corner and a shaded awning constructed of think wooden beams surrounded entirely by plants. He has peppers and tomatoes, spices and greens, flowers and plant pots, pot plants too. Nice big beautiful pot-plants already budding under the sun. Oh yes, beautiful plants. We go downstairs for a smoke and a chat, then he says we should go for a walk. After an age, we eventually go out with the standard Mate thermos and Cuia.
But actually this walk I've been looking forward to for a few hours now ends up being a walk all the way to the street corner, some 5m from the front door, where we drink mate and beer and play guitar.…talk some shit. Still it's nice, and very Uruguayan.
Suddenly I get a call from Enrique whom I've been trying to contact. Jules has left my computer with him and he's heading north today, but I can come and get the computer now, from the other side of town if I can get there on 20 min. Bet your ass I can. I call a taxi..well someone does, immediately and one comes in 5 minutes. It's a long ride over the other side of town, and though I'm a but stoned, I have to get my computer back as soon as I can. I don't know Enrique well enough to know whether he'll take his chances and fleece the gringo or not.
The taxi is like $15 in the end and I alight it in a rich-as-fuk neighborhood, the kind of place I wouldn't have known existed here had I not seen it. Really nice manicured lawns, large expensive houses…I guess some people do have money here…a LOT of money. I search for the correct number and find it's back along the street I'm already on. I see it's a huge white apartment block which I approach and try the intercom just as a tenant arrives and lets me in the front door. Without actually knowing to which flat I'm going, I take the elevator to the top floor (smokers logic) and stand there looking bewildered until, all of a sudden, Enrique comes out of a door to my right. Errr…sweet!
His apartment is very nice inside and he has a friend over. He has some nice guitars and a balcony overlooking the city. He makes a joke about selling my computer already and gets me it. ha.ha. funny. I'm so glad to have it in my hands again and I ironically feel some weight I've been carrying around for 2 weeks lift off. Nice. We chat a while. Not a short while, the man that should have been on his way out the door takes his time to chat for over an hour before I leave. Hmmmmmm.
By now I'm well smoked. A curious thing about me and Gods greenery is I peak about 2 hours after I smoke. That means I keep on rising, long after the last toke has been taken. It's a good thing generally, right now, the trains left the station.
Pottled Prezzies and Prices
It's a hot day but I'm feeling pretty good. I've got my computer and backpack back - which, by the way, also has my passport in it and my plane tickets to Iceland in December! I've still got some money in my pocket, the sun is out, I'm blazed, nicely blazed, and I'm somewhere I've never been. I decide to take a slow walk back and check out the sights. I think I know roughly where town is. Smokers logic strike 2. Along the walk I remember I'm planning on making dinner that night so I decide to try to find a few ingredients. A lot of places are closed due to a public holiday or something so when I see a Supermercardo (Supermarket) open I trundle on in. I'm feeling pretty wonderful, and blissfully browse the shelves, I buy some nice fresh ginger and garlic, pumpkin, vegetables etc. I keep seeing all these cellophane-wrapped gift type things, can't figure out what they are, but they seem to have chocolate manufacturers logo's on them, so I look around and decide to get one for the Uruguayan girl. I grab a few snacks and treasures then head out.
Smokers, I should mention here, know something of which everyone else is unaware; that when you go shopping, you are not buying things. No. You are hunting. What you find, are treasures. Lovely, yummy and fun treasures. ….Ouuuu goodie!
As I wander, I wonder, just whether I've bothered the others by being boldly tardy taking my time this Tuesday, willingly walking and sauntering slowly along the streets across the city. mmmmmmm. And as I sift through the streets, I try to spy oddities and endidties, curiosities with furiosities, I let the sun send is heat down on my feverish forehead, I crunch crumplings of spicy peanuts salted and dusted in and out of little clusters, with silent savor sucking out the flavour and drinking hot icecream as it drips down my digits ooohhssslb, yes, it's a good day.
Walking the Talk
Eventually I grow wearily of walking and talking to the birds so I decide to catch a bus. I ask a lady at the bus shelter, "¿Tres Cruces?", the name of the intersection where the Bus station is (close enough to walk). And she says something incomprehensible to all but the famous 3 linguistic wizards who use years of training and 6-14th senses developed through ancient mystical practices made known only to the most elite of all masters and guarded secret within their minds until only upon their death they may, if the universe shows the exact omen, pass down the information to an unparalleled guru, who must have, naturally, past the tests and performed the feats of linguistic athletics, and miraculous displays of comprehension and personal power of tongue including (but not limited to) deciphering the hidden language of the east-Angolan toe-mite dances without the aid of magnification, and when learned, such knowledge utilised only in times of worldwide consequence.
So no, I didn't quite catch *everything*, but I think by the shake of her head she meant, "Yes".
As the bus roars towards destiny an old gent gets on and starts playing guitar. I grab my recorder and make a take. It's really great here they way people get on busses and play us all a tune. I give him a few pesos. I feel great. After a while I think we are near Trés Cruces and I see it go by. Ok next stop. I pull the dinger and the bus eventually pulls in. As I and a few other passengers spill out, I ask one if he knows where Trés Cruces is. He responds with some surprise and tells me it's a long way away. I know it's not right and try to talk to him, but he seems quite worried. I say Tranquilo! (perhaps most useful word in all of South America - followed closely by 'Claro') and try to calm him down but there's a communication gap. After a while he works out I speak English. Turns out he's originally Australian. Though he looks like a local, apparently he was born there, and lived there until his adolescence, when he moved here, sometime in the late seventies. I guess I've given away that we end up spending some time in each others company.
He's convinced I'm lost, though I try to reassure him, he demands to help and I get out my scrap of paper with the address on it at his request. He is sure he knows exactly where I'm headed, and although I am far from convinced, I go with him due mainly to his insistence. We walk for quite a while, through streets that look completely foreign and engage in ever more interesting conversation. By the time we get to Trés Cruces, we've already been walking for about 30mins. I don't quite know how he managed to take that long to get here, considering it was so close to begin with, but I relent and say (if nothing more than to make him feel his efforts are worthwhile) that I'm glad he helped me, because he was obviously correct. Still I secretly believe he was somehow walking in circles or something.
Anyway we get to discussing Nationalities, cultures and people, how I think Uruguayans are friendly and helpful, but only in certain ways, and in others, seem rude and callous. We talk of economics and dreams, of what we want in life and how to get it. We both know the sting of lost love, which is a nice thing to talk about for me.
Anyway what he wants is a woman to share time with. He is courageous, I think, to say he wants love. We all do, all the time don't we?, but fuk if it isn't hard to find someone who'll actually admit it! Anyway we talk a lot, and he's wonderfully friendly. As we get closer to my designation he says that his wife will be wondering where he is, because he's so late. Wait…did he say his wife? ..ok that's weird. Anyway to prove he's been helping me, 'cause she'll never believe him, he stops and takes a photo of me. Yep.
Then we get to 2298 and he says a quick goodbye. I thank him, and ring the bell.
Full Moon Fever
Frederiko lets me in. It's a good thing he was nice enough to do that. It's a good thing a lot of those guys living there were nice, 'cause it was a bit of a mission trying to live there. The fist day The uruguayan girl left, I got up, everyone else was asleep and the door was locked. I tried to message her, How do you want me to leave? Should I take the keys so I can lock up. No. What I have to do, is either wake up someone I don't know, and ask them to let me out or else don't go anywhere. Great. I'm staying at your house and now I'm waking you up. I try to think of a way out of it. How can I lock the door. Why can't I take the keys, why the hell am I being put in this position?? She's the one who asked me to visit HER! So I go to the roof and eye up the tree, but I'm too smoked out to be jumping off roofs into trees 8m+ off the pavement. Still, for quite a while I was psyching myself up to really do it. It really annoyed me. I was there for over an hour trying to figure a way out of the prison.
And his didn't just happen the first day, and I wasn't just trapped in there for a short while. Sometimes I was stuck for hours, weighing up if it was too early to bang on someone's door, or what would happen if I just took the spare keys. Oh yeah, there were spare keys. I was told I couldn't use them. Great. How happy a person would be if I woke them up and couldn't even explain to them why I wasn't using the spare keys. What if they were one of the people's who was asleep? I tried not to let it bother me, but actually it boiled my blood that it kept happening. And to get back in, I'd have to yell out or ring the bell, and if there was no-one home, I had to just stand out there or come back later. The Uruguayan girl would lock her room too while she was away, so all this time I couldn't even get to my stuff even if I got in. It was a bit crap.
She also kept complaining about my backpack and stuff being out. I just couldn't understand what exactly she expected me to do with it! I couldn't work out if she was serious, did she really not want me here? Then why did she ask me to come? Was she just grieving over her lover that dumped her? It was a strain. Added to this was the unmistakable impression that she was completely self absorbed, and that was just the kind of attitude in the others I'd tried to get away from. Mhghghgmmmm
Back to the moment, for me, getting her this gift and making dinner, was my way of just trying to not give in to the worries and anger (fear) responses.
I started cooking up a grand curry, which I really love to do. I know people will like it, and I like to cook. The Uruguayan girl got back and while she took a shower, I hid the chocolate gift thing under her pillow.
When the food was ready we all gathered around the small round wooden table and bench seat near the little tree in the dining area and ate. Gradually more people arrived and we all started talking (well they did) with much frivolity. Actually I really enjoyed not talking, and especially, not being expected to. I talk a lot usually, out of boredom or to prevent just sitting there - you know those staring situations? Maybe try to coax a laugh. But being unable to speak Spanish, I was not expected to say or understand a thing, and honestly, I didn't want to. I just looked around like a tourist on a venetian gondola, not trying to do a thing, or put a good impression out etc. Bliss.
And we eventually started singing etc and playing guitar. I hate being a jukebox, people ask me to play something they can sing along to, people want me to be their monkey, they don't care about art, they just want something they can laugh at to continue their bullshit lives. Music is a quick release…and enabler. But here, I see how they openly don't give a rats ass you can play guitar, if you choose to play guitar, you should play something they like, so they can drink and sing, and then hand it over and watch, and drink, while the next guy does it. At first I stop playing out of disgust at being asked to play something then no -one listening. But then I start to get it. They never gave a shit, and wont, about NZ music, your music, my music etc, they just wanna sing some songs they know and talk volumes at volumes of shit or whatever with their mates. I can get that, it's a plebeian life, so have a sing-song and a beer. Still I wont play guitar for them, I'm not ready to make that step. I don't have the motivation presently. But I come to accept their point of view.
Anyway that night I can't sleep, not sure why, but I head up to the roof to look at the full moon. Maybe that's why I can't sleep. I sit there, with my guitar, and sing myself a few songs. I think I even recorded one. I'll see if I can put it up on the Facebook blog group. I look out over the rooftops and trees, past the pot plants and washing. I'm melancholy a bit. It's a bit lonely here, and I think of the frog I left in wellington. I miss her quite a lot. I often look into shop windows or market stalls and see things she would enjoy…I imagine sending her the things and her happy face expectantly holding the packages. I think it's the packages she would like the most…but I don't really have the money to be doing that. Probably isn't so good for the heart either.
Back to the life in Montevideo.
Culture Clash
People talk of culture shock enough for the phase to instantly call to mind a fairly decent construct for most audiences. I tend to get along well with foreigners, and pre-supposed culture, boiling down to it, well it's just a set of behaviors right?, So it wouldn't shock me.
It didn't. At all.
What it did do was piss me off. Hell I get pissed off with people pretty swiftly, so it should come as no surprise that here in South America nothing was much different. I had my reservations coming here. I can't say I ever enjoyed any cultural experience described as Latin. Food is food, and I love it, but it's not really culture, and dancing, music, art, blah blah blah work, interests blah blah. No. I disagree. I would say culture comes down to how things are done. The general attitude, the assumptions, social conventions and expectations, to me, they make up what I call culture. It's the visibly invisible flavour of a persons approach to life, betraying the underlying belief systems underpinning the social norms, where the habits formed. Beliefs make what I call culture. What is acceptable, and what is not. Behavior. The behavior considered suitable, or non-suitable. Latin culture, at this stage of my journey, confirmed all I thought it would be from gauging the Latinos I'd met. The one trait, belief system, belying every action they did, as I saw it, was self-absorption. To put it more accurately, more self absorption than I considered indicative of a healthy belief system - though I don't ever think of it that way or to that level (I'm analysing myself here). No, I'd just say that all these fukers don't give a shit about anyone but themselves, and treat every person they meet as a prop in their personal stage-play, to be discarded the instant it is no longer needed.
This of course is a harsh, critical, judgmental and evidently completely inaccurate description of Latin culture. but for me, it was the most powerful and significant, hence defining characteristic, and I was fast getting dark minded. Basically because of this Uruguayan girl. Now her flatmates were wonderful, friendly and kind, never doing anything to reinforce my prejudice, but, and this shows something about humans (yep, that's right, I'm accusing you all of being like me underneath it all), my mind didn't focus on the positive. My minds job it seems, is risk aversion. But here, my amigos, built on the shaky stack of twigs I call a belief system, like believing experiences being good or bad etc and that I may be able, with enough thinking, control the instance of the deemed negative stimuli from rolling in in quantities to which I have also assigned the label "bad", stands my idiocy. Such is my poison. So on it went, confirming itself, seeking control, and failing each time with another confirmation, garnishing a belief, rancid as cud, trying to pander to fear and lying in it's teeth, the destructive construction that through its method happiness may be had.
You can't fight violence with violence, it's so clear we all ignore it, and these beliefs are violent ideas, trying to appease perceived violence of stimuli. Oh dear the staircase appears to have no end. ….was it me who decided what stimuli was bad? or was that just a name I gave something I would always want to avoid. The constant contest of attention continues for all of us. Do we take the time to re-assess our interpretations of stimuli? or do we back our beliefs and use them to get things done. Tasks that take us to that ever narrowing line where contentment is said to be found.
Night Parking
The guys decide to have a few beers at the park. The Uruguayan girl is out and I decide to go with them. We squeeze 5 guys into a tiny 2 door, and with a chorus of all drinking and toking we bowl down the road on our roller coaster as I notice there are no functioning seat belts. In a few months time I will be completely used to this custom, but at the moment I just try to re-assure myself that these crazy guavas are sufficiently experienced as to not be taking us all to death. As it turns out, the park is very close and as the music blares from cheap crappy speakers and the old car putters on in full clank, we arrive and laboriously peel our bodies out of the sardine can. The park is crawling with people, even though it's nearly dark, life teams and friends drink, lovers canoodle and families play all around us.
It's somewhat of a change from NZ, most likely due to NZ being colder, but parks here seem to be appreciated and used to their capacity in Uruguay. I also see parents really playing with their children a lot more. There's no 7:30 bed times here, and the extra hours available are used by fathers to kick around a football or mothers to picnic with their children. There's soo much less yelling and frustration directed at children here, not at all like I'm used to seeing in NZ. The adults accept children and how children like to play, and they play with them, rather than sending them off to play with each other and occasionally barking aggression towards those bothersome pests that interrupt their oh-so-important adult conversations. You know it's true, don't even bother with me, I've seen NZ parents my whole life and most of them are nothing like these guys. Of course some are, but I'm relating generalities here to show how some things can be and are normal which to us, are not.
Anyway as we sit and drink in the park next to a landscaping wall fitted with seat-like surfaces (the park is divided in multiple lines by such things with lighting as if it were a street -and internet wifi too!) we get the ball out and Enzo (the french pinch hitter - a professional football player), gets the grand idea that the Kiwi in the crowd could be used to curry some favor from a semi-adjacent group of girls. They are on the same wall, but about 20m from us. The plan, I am told, will be simple and guaranteed to work. Through skeptical ears (if ears can be) I hear that I am to use my foreign-ness as a drawcard - this, he is utterly convinced, is a sure winner. I just don't believe he is even within orbit of the planet where the truth may be whispered deep underground. I've never got the impression, even for a second, that Uruguavas are at all interested in people from other countries in anything close to a positive way. But who knows. Anyway the plan is that I "mistakenly" kick the soccer…wait…football, over near the girls and go and get it, at which point, upon having drawn attention to myself, and that self being obviously exotic, the girls will become possessed with an urge to initiate conversation with me - you know the one: "where are you from stranger…" etc. I believe there's more chance of being struck by lightening on a clear day while dressed in a rubber suit, but Enzo's convinced. OK
So here we are kicking the ball around, and I'M supposed to be accurate enough to get it somewhere near the girls? The irony is not lost on me that it is because I am from a rugby obsessed nation, my accuracy is somewhat similar to that of a drunk cow in an apple orchard. I kick the ball perfectly, I am sure of that, but culturally it will not accept the suggestion of my feet, and as far as I can tell, changes it's mind instantly, and flies to whichever location would make me most appear spastic. I'm allowed to use that word now that the politically correct have freed it up by giving us alternative words and deemed it an insult right? So anyway, the job proves simply impossible for me, and with my beer in clear and present danger of being spilt with all this kack-knee effort, the cheese-eater takes aim in my steed.
He gets it with no effort in one. But, he IS a professional remember. So…y'know… Anyway, I GO GET THE BALL!!! aaaaaand they look up! theeeen nothing. Yeap, thought so. Meh.
At some point I tell the guys to invite the Uruguayan girl over, but they say she wont come. They do invite her, but she declines as they predicted. They explain that they aren't close friends. I ask why and they hum and harr… well, they try to put it, for example, she always locks her door. No one else does, but she does. She's kind of…well…she doesn't really talk to us. She doesn't really do anything with us…you know? I get the picture, I've flatted a lot, I understand about these things. They ask me about her and I, it is their impression that we are in some way lovers. I assure them, this is not the case at all - in fact, I too have been finding it hard to get along with her…but she's probably just stressed because of what happened in Argentina. Ahh, yes…what about it? Well, I add, you know, she was so exited to be meeting with her boyfriend, but it turned out he wasn't that interested - that would stress almost anyone.
At this point I realise they have no idea about this. I worry, briefly, that maybe I shouldn't have told them. But, I can't be bothered worrying about keeping other people's secrets - especially if they have not told me they're secrets. Doesn't matter, I sigh to myself (a 'mind-sigh'), these guys are really cool, and it's no lie. If anything, it could help them all get along, maybe they will be more understanding of each other. Anyway we eventually run out of booze, night falls, and we decide to return to the house.
Knowing When To Call It
Life there, as I mentioned, is confusing and aggravating. I have to say, the welcome-mat seems to be disintegrating. The Uruguayan girl seems to enjoy most of all insulting me. In one particular conversation she finds out I told them about her boyfriend and becomes very annoyed. I apologise profusely but this does not appease the accusations spitting from her bile-tipped tongue so I remind her, that these are her flatmates, and besides thinking they already knew, she had not told me it was a secret - and what's more, it is true! Her lovely reply is a metaphor that I am like a duck. I am like a duck because with ever step, I leave a shit. How lovely. It's so nice to be yelled at. It's so nice she expects me to lie and keep secrets for her. It's so nice how kind she has been to me since I decided to come see her at her request because I thought she was depressed, and to add to the insult, after I swallowed my pride and apologised for what was essentially nothing, she describes me as shitting all over the ground with every step. So nice.
Although I've been asking her repeatedly if she minds that I'm staying here. That I'm staying just to try to cheer her up. and that I don't need to stay. She reassures me often, that she really likes me being there. She even says that to me out of the blue sometimes, and I try to think back to the Canadianas and others and think, maybe it's me that's always paranoid people are pissed off with me? Maybe it is that. I know I have this paranoia. Well I know it seems I might. Even so, I call it. I decide not to react, I just need to leave. There are great guys here in her flat, but they are not my hosts. They quietly remind me that I may be having difficulties with the Uruguayan girl because I get along well with them. This could only be part of it, but it does seem likely.
Anyway the Uruguayan girl accompanies me to the bus terminal and helps me buy a ticket to Pasados, which is the nearest large town to where the Rainbow Gathering is being held. I still have 2 weeks of it left. I'll get amongst MY people, find some good souls, travelers, people who aren't tied up in their culture so much as to forget we are all brothers and sisters. I know 99% of people at rainbow gatherings are nothing like that - but it's easy to find that other 1%, depending on what you choose to do there. I find, I can whittle it down pretty fast, away from the workshops of the designer hippies, smokey dens of the stoners (the look-a-hiipie-likes), the round-the-fiery-alters-and-singing of the Hippier-than-thou religious types, and get stuck into making food, building shelters and doing things that make the even actually work. In amongst this group I find the soul of the movement - not in it's organizers (most of whom left their rational minds in a pool of LSD and vomit in the 60's), but amongst the people minding their own business, minding the business of getting it all working. The quiet ones usually not participating in the trumpeting cacophony of droning "weee beliiiiiiiive" chants of the hippy-notized, or the fake motivated cries of the proclaimers of the "lets add this to the rules of anarchism" Idiots, and just doing what needs to be done, maybe enjoying a fiddle on an instrument out of the way of prying ears.
Thinking of all this renews my hope that my trip is not dammed to be spent as my life in NZ is - that is, at the whim of those with more power, more money. The possessors. Those violent idiots who seek to control their fate by focusing their sense of self into objects, calling them the same, and defending title with their brute and lies. The people who oppress us all. This great whore with a billion children called, 'ownership'. The monetary system. The right to live. 1984. I really pin my hopes on this idea, that I can get away from all this stress, if I can just get to the rainbow.
We find a bus company, and I explain to the Uruguayan girl, that it is essential I get a good seat - she gets me the best one. It is even more important, that I am only going to Pasados, Argentina. I have checked, I have no visa for Paraguay, and most of the buses to Pasados go to Paraguay. She negotiates and buys me the ticket, which says "Encarnacion" which is in Paraguay. I ask her about that, but I am assured, there is not problem, it's just the final destination of the bus.
Happy, finally, I hold a ticket out of this madness. Back at the flat the guys are really sad to see me go. They really want me to go to a party they're having on saturday, but I really want to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible. It sux I'll miss the party, but I HAVE TO GO. I don't wanna spend another minute here - but the 24 hours it will be 'till I leave…well…that's FINE.
The bus leaves at 1pm the next day and we stay up having goodbye drinks with the guys. I say my goodbyes. The next morning the two of us get ready and I buy the necessary supplies. Curry, potatoes, oil and salt. I already have curry oil and salt at the flat. Ordinarily I would leave it behind, but I am done with favors for this girl. Oh my hypocrisy. I buy potatoes on a leisurely walk. The uruguayan girl accompanies me to the road where we are met by her parents and they drive us to the terminal. They have a nice car - which I am explained, for the Uruguayan girls, is just the best thing in the world.
And then I say my goodbyes to her outside the terminal. Which I wish is where the uruguayan adventure ended.
Termination
I am in a very good mood as I wander in and check in. I present my passport and keep an eye on my gear just down behind me. I have limited funds, but I want to be comfortable. I get some expensive food at a kiosk after withdrawing the last few dollars of my money from a machine at the other end of the terminal. I go outside and sit at the platform in the last polygon of sunlight against the terminal wall and eat my sandwich and chocolate biscuit. As the light creeps away the bus parks in front of me directly, like a commanding white bull elephant, and I smile. Yay! One bus-ride and I'm out of here. I still have a sneaking worry about visa issues, but I've checked in, the Uruguayan girl assured me it's ok, I even asked the guy at the desk, so I'm just worrying over nothing now. I am so happy to be going, I put my bag up to be loaded. The decidedly unfriendly baggage handler says something completely incomprehensible to me, but eventually I get it, I have to put the shoes, jug and machete inside my bag before he loads it. I think this is stupid, but I eventually squeeze them all in. By backpack looks quite strained, but anyways, it's on. I ask the driver as they check my ticket, " I am only going to Posados right?", "right", "I'm not going to Paraguay, just Posados", "right", "right". Sweet. I am, as it turns out, quite an anxious person, this trip has revealed just how anxious I really am. It takes a some reassurance for me to eventually relax
I climb onto the bus. I have by far the best seat. Number 1, right up front, top deck, huge Window in front, huge one beside. Fuck yeah! I will have the BEST view of whatever is between me and Pasados. I am so happy. I say a quiet goodbye to Montevideo. I won't be back here, I did my tour of duty.
That polygon of light is now just nearly over the outside wall and I watch it thinking of all that lies ahead.
Visa Vamous
And this is where and when everything turned. One second I am in a lovely, calm, peaceful place, then, along comes the visa lady. I am butted out of my meditations by a very well dressed woman in a skirt holding my passport asking for my name. This isn't at all what I wanted to see. She's saying something to me….I don't understand it, …but I think I know what she means. I ask, if she's asking me to leave. She points at my passport. I say, "Pasados, no Paraguay, Pasados". This doesn't help. I ask if there's anyone who speaks english that can help me. I know how to say my spanish is "terrible" and "yo solo en Uruguay trés Semanar" - roughly, I've only been in Uruguay 3 weeks - my way of saying, "I don't understand everything you're saying". An english girl hears the fuss and comes to help, she explains, they are saying I can't go, and I must get off the bus because I don't have a visa to Paraguay. Even now, nearly 3 months later, I am pissed off as I write this. "but I'm not going to Uruguay", I say. Turns out, the bus doesn't stop in Pasados - nor will it stop for me anywhere before Encarnacion. I ask, can't they just let me off near the road? I'll hitch! no. Why? No. What? No. Get off. Can you just take me to the north of Uruguay then, I'll go fr.. NO. Why? No. There's no getting through. If I could speak spanish, there wouldn't be a problem, but I am just another foreigner, and they just don't give a fuck. There's no way around it, and I can't communicate. They don't want to hear anything.
Quite stunned, I slowly leave the bus, and they get my gear out….terribly packed and bulky I heft it to the ground and in a complete daze stumble back to the now cold platform wall. I watch the bus leave. I am not on it. Not near the window. Not relaxing in the chair while terrain rolls by. I am here. In Montevideo. The ticket cost all of my money save about $50, which is barely enough. Only enough if you're camping. I try to call the Uruguayan girl. I don't know what to do, maybe she can come talk to them for me - I just don't have the spanish to do it. She said she would help if there were problems. I don't get through so I send a text telling her what happened. She seems surprised, and asks whether I told them I wasn't going to Paraguay. I said yes, but they kicked me off anyway. Now, things are changing. I'm really in a state. I just don't know what to do. I have this 2500 peso ticket, and the bus has gone.
I sit to try to relax. She texts me, telling me I should exchange my ticket for somewhere else. "if I had that happen, I would just want to go somewhere else". That's what she said. "make sure you get another ticket taking you somewhere - you can go to Buenos Aires". That's what she text me. Make sure you go somewhere. When would she EVER have had this happen? Why would I want to go to Buenos Aires? Why wont she help me, I can't even tell them the word "exchange". In reality I didn't even ask myself these questions. I knew she just wanted me gone. She didn't give a shit she'd bought the wrong ticket. She didn't even want to try to sort it out with me. She was just annoyed I was still around. She txts me telling me she doesn't want to come to the terminal. I texted back, "thanks, I'm glad you feel that way". "what, I don't understand" was the answer. I could have been talking about the prospect of going to Buenos Aires, but we both knew what was really going on. When someone has a problem like this you don't tell them to just exchange it for a ticket to somewhere they never had an intention of going. I know what help sounds like and this isn't it.
I am not in the early stages of a panic attack. Oh yes it may seem an over-reaction. Well itwas an over-reaction…but at the time it seemed terrible. Over anxious, maybe that is just what I am like. But a week of being treated like shit, a week of taking it on the other cheek, and the spending all my money to try and get away from this bitch and she's saying, "I'm just on the other side of town, and it's really hard for me to get over and help you". When she offered help. She started by offering to come, and when I said, "that'd really help", the answer was, "Just go to Buenos Aires". I apologise to her, maybe the stress of the situation is clouding my judgement, I ask for help, I don't know what to do. I can't talk to these guys and I don't have enough money to buy another ticket, what do I say? Why wont she help? Why is she just trying to get rid of me. No I don't ask myself these questions either because it's obvious. She just wants me gone. Ok. So she wont help me get to the rainbow. So I haven't enough money to buy another ticket and I don't know how to ask for an exchange - let alone whether they'd give me one. I didn't buy the ticket, I don't know what they told her. How can I say I wasn't told? How can I ask for my money back? I don't have enough money not to. If I stay in a backpackers, I only have enough money for 2 days, no food - IF I find one. And the days getting late. I cant even afford a bus, if I find a backpackers, it will have to be on foot, and there are none nearby.
I am shaking and completely immobilised. Yeap, I just am so maddened by her attitude, and that of the passport controller. Looking back it doesn't seem like such a big deal but at the time is was HUGE. I can't say exactly why, maybe you'd have to be me, but for me, that situation was colossal, and I couldn't think. I was so mad with rage. Rage for the girl who bought the ticket, rage for the company that sold it, checked me in, rage for the racism of the visa lady who just didn't wanna help another foreigner. Rage for the girl who just wanted my out of her hair after creating this gigantic balls-up. Rage. Imagine, if you want to relate, being in this state, unable to think, unable to act, no knowing what to do, watching the time tick by. Trying to rack your brains for intuition. What do I do? The later you leave it, the worse it gets. You can't sleep here you know - and you can't afford to sleep anywhere for more than 2 nights..and what then? Starve? So can you afford to sleep anywhere? I am in this state not for 10min, not for 30….no…I am locked in blind confusion 5, count them, 5 hours. Just so you know, that's FIVE HOURS. I am shaking for five hours, desperately thinking of what to do, for FIVE HOURS, unable to think of a single thing, watching the clock, knowing all the while the situation is getting worse and wore and worse, for, five, hours. Just do something, my brain tries to yell above the hum. Do Something! Nope. I did call Federico of the Boulevard Sarandi Backpackers and he said his backpackers was shut down from the bed bugs Jules found. He said he may be able to help me after he finished uni. Maybe. 'Maybe' was not the reassurance I wanted. I get out my laptop and search for backpackers. Nope, none near. All I find are in or near the old city, they're not cheap…and they aren't taking bookings. I have to put more credit on my phone. Should I do it? How much will I need that money when I go to try and get a bed…or food.
The Uruguayan girl texts me with a sentence. She says "go up to the desk and say this". I have no idea what it is, but I have some idea what it will be. Some sort of phrase asking for an exchange. I go to the desk. I don't want an exchange, I want to go to the rainbow. It's nearly over, if I exchange my ticket…..I'll never go. But I have lost my will to fight. I resign. I pack my laptop in my bag. I hoist my pack on slowly, put my bag on the front and reach down for my guitar. I am so tired, utterly exhausted, even though I haven't actually moved almost at all. I grasp the phone and hold it out front as I clump jangley legs to the desk I don't remember what I said, but I said it.
The man says, a destination, I have no idea what he's saying, and I say, uh huh, then he says something else and I recognize "¿Florianópolis?". I heard Nicole and Katie talking about this place, they liked it. "¿Donde esta?", I reply, terribly roughly translating to "Where is?", "Brazil" is the answer. "¿Bueno?", I ask, "Oh Sííííí, muuuy Bueno!", is the reply. "Ok". And with that, I'm going to brazil. No Rainbow, for me, the whole reason why I decided to come to South America. Also, nowhere to stay. But I'm going. Turns out the first bus is on Monday, 3 nights away. Actually…I am quite relieved. I only need 3 nights accommodation, and then I am going somewhere nice. I am not entirely relieved, but at least I have something I can work with. I message the Uruguayan girl and she responds with the sentence I knew was coming from the beginning. "you can't stay here".
Nice. real nice. You ask me to come. You treat me like shit everyday. You buy the ticket, you fuck it up, you wont help…..then you won't even let me stay at you place for 3 nights more. Nice. I just take one last look at a map and head to the bus stop. I'll go to the old city at night, where people get mugged, and I'll walk around with all my gear 'till I find a backpackers. Fine.
I position my machete where I can reach it as always, and head out to find a room
