Look out the window. The whole world is a story, and every moment is a miracle.
-Bruce Taylor, UWEC Professor of Creative Writing

Madrid: first impressions

People keep asking me if I prefer Barcelona or Madrid.
     I've told them to ask me again in 3 years (that's how long I was in Barcelona). That way I can make a fair and informed comparison. Right now I miss the beach terribly. Sounds awful doesn't it? Get the violins out quick.
     Madrid, Barcelona. They are very different. The people, the way of life, the bars, the food. Here there's great banter, and tapas with your drink for free which goes a long way. There seems to be a big party scene and it doesn't feel too different to London - both big, cool capital cities with a lot going on and a lot of people moving fast around you, all the time. I'm sure I'll love it.
     After 9 days I have worked a full week in my new job, lived in two flats while searching for one to really live in, still don't have a mobile but yes I do have a lot of dirty clothes. Fingers crossed I'll have a home from Tuesday and will put a wash on.
     It's all gone so amazingly fast that I have to catch my breath.
     Just three weeks ago I was mooching around Buenos Aires reflecting on my many months of travels, gazing down at my tanned feet and snapping away on the camera. All of a sudden I have a job again (a really great job), with a title and a desk and a computer and a phone and workmates and an office and it feels a little like Let's Pretend. As quickly as you jump out of reality, you're thrown right back in.
     Would I opt to live travelling? No, I wouldn't.     

It's the end of the road

Moving swiftly on, from politics to geography: the Iguazu Falls. Wow.

You have to see it to believe how mind-blowing it really is. It’s the kind of thing that reminds you how tiny and insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things, like, for example, nature. Nature has the tendency to make me feel about as big as an amoeba; its almighty power, size, age, in comparison to me, a whipper snapper whose time on earth is more than fleeting. But you soon forget all those thoughts when you hit Buenos Aires, and all of its buildings and shops and offices and banks and parks are all built for you and the fourteen million others that live here. You quickly get into the swing of urban things, and we were really lucky to be taken in by a lovely couple we met earlier in Cafayate over a glass or two of wine in a winery. These lovely porteños made sure we tried the most delicious of wine, beer, asados, pizza… I can’t go on because I’m too hungry. We went for a Sunday asado at their family’s home and saw how its done: pretty damn well!
     I’m writing this back in London, but I have to explain how absolutely grateful and humble I was by the end of our trip of four and a half months in Latin America. It was when we were, as my friend Facundo so eloquently put it, with one foot there and one foot back home. It wasn’t a particular place, a thing, a person, a landscape, a sunset. It was everything. It was the whole, full, wonderful experience of being able to travel and see so many different and amazing things, meet so many beautiful people that made me so aware of being a very lucky and happy person.
     In Buenos Aires, our lovely porteña host said one day, “Europe isn’t the world”. First I thought, “Well of course Europe’s not the world”. It took me a while to think about it and understand what she meant. We have it so good, crisis or no crisis, with our access to health and education, to fresh water, to hot water, with a minimum wage, housing, social security. And some people (lots of people) have it so, so bad. At one point in Bolivia, rain water was privatised.
     So yes, I am extremely lucky and privileged, and I need to remember that, always. When you’re having a bad day and everything feels a bit shit, think for a moment that you are living in an old man’s right knee, or think of how teeny tiny you are compared to this:

If you have loved the sound of any of the places I have talked about in this journey, please, go there.

This is the end of the travel road, and the beginning of another. As soon as I got back to London I landed myself a job in Madrid. The next chapter of this blog, I mean my life, will be all about that.

 

The ones who were made to disappear

After some delicious days in Mendoza we took a 17 hour bus ride to Rosario. No disrespect to Rosario or her residents but the only reason we stopped there was so as not to be on a bus for 30 hours. That just sounds like being a hamster in a cage with no wheel. I'm glad we stopped there. It's a pretty city with a river where the first Argentinian flag was raised. But more importantly, here we visited the Museo de la Memoria, or the Museum of Memory.
     I won't pretend to know what I'm talking about so I will try to describe what I learned that afternoon.
     This museum holds an exhibition about the Dirty War; the tragic days between 1976 - 1983 when men and women, mothers and fathers, mothers-to-be, children, babies and babies not yet born into the world were "made to disappear". Hearing it is horrible, but seeing puzzles of photographs of people who make up communities, families, where blank spaces mark "the disappeared" person, where there is a red line across it stating "murdered", it is made to be quite real. Or as real as it can be when you are an observer of photos on a wall.

Neither words, nor I, can describe what "the disappeared" must have gone through, or their loved ones (many of whom were made to "disappear" soon afterwards. Pregnant women were made to "disappear" and were kept prisoners in some kind of torture centre, then later killed. Or they were kept until they gave birth, were then murdered, and their new-born babies were given to military families. Some of these babies have been found, by their grandparents, perhaps, and have taken back their original name. Others can't face the reality that they were stolen, or that their parents were complicit, so opt to live on as if nothing ever happened. This way their "adoptive" parents don't go to jail.

What was the torture centre during the period of the Dirty War is now a government building and when you stand outside and look at it, you realise how recent this mass killing was by the graffitti on the road that says "Justice. Not one child less".

It is estimated that 30,000 people were made to "disappear".

Argentina: the land of vino and asados

First stop: Salta.
     Salta feels like a little Madrid or Rome - lots of Argentina does. So you understand when everyone tells Oscar that one of their grandparents or great grandparents came from any number of regions of Spain and the Basque Country. They smile with twinkly eyes as they tell you who from their family lives there now. I knew there were links, but I hadn’t imagined they were so strong and alive today.
     After three months of a pretty unvaried diet of soup, rice and potatoes you can imagine our delight at being in the land of empanadas, pizza, pasta, choripan, milanesa, provoleta, bife ancho, bife de chorizo, and vacio that looks like this:

     As if we weren’t having enough fun with food and wine, we moved on to Cafayate. Here we had a ball with wine, wine, wine, more wine, and alfajores. Yum! We hired bikes and cycled to wineries until the tyre went flat, returned the bikes and carried on by foot. We tried Torrentes, a delicious white, the only wine with 100% Argentian grape, as well as Malbec, Bonarda, Cabernet Sauvignon, Tannat in Nanni, Esteco, Etchart, Las Nubes, and other wineries. We hooked up with a couple from Buenos Aires who were having as much fun as we were trying wines, so we went to a bar and bought some really expensive ones to share. That myth about not getting a hangover from expensive alcohol was tried, tested, and failed.

     In our 19 hour bus ride to Mendoza, after the pane of glass beside me getting smashed (by thieves who wanted to rob everyone onboard), we had to change buses. I was half asleep and left my bag under the seat. I remembered half an hour later; the driver rang the station, they got my bag and gave it to the driver of the next bus to give to us in Mendoza. It found me safe and sound, with everything inside. That was a lovely moment.
     In Mendoza, with faith in the good in humankind, we continued our journey of wine, and asados with the best steak I’ve ever eaten, and facturas, and alfajores, with dulce de leche on top. We were lucky enough to be taken in by Rodolfo, with whom we ate, drank and rested like real Mendocinos. Life in Mendoza is good! Demasiado deli.