Toes in the Water

Well it looks like Argentina has rubbed off on the United States, from what I hear. The protests about the new security measures at airports rings of a manifestación Buenos Aires-style. Take that, TSA. I don’t think there is a word for big body scanner in porteño Spanish- I walked through the metal detector with half a spaceship in my pocket and I got a big smile and a ‘have a nice trip’. I could have been smuggling raw Argentine beef and all I would have got was a ‘what kind of cut?’ question thrown my way. Add that to my immigration officer who found it more efficient to be texting while stamping a friend’s passport as I waited next in line, and you’ve got a water-tight system. Officer Juan then got up to fill up his water bottle and continue texting, leaving about 10 of us stranded there in line as we watched him successfully not fill up his bottle and just stand feet away from his desk staring at his phone. Power trip 101.

Our ferry captain seemed to think that going faster than a sloth eating a banana is against the law, so our trip that could have taken about an hour wound up taking 3. I spent the hours crossing the Rio de la Plata on the top deck catching up with friends and not feeling sorry for everyone dealing with sub-50 degree temperatures back north. Once there, as we walked up the tree-lined driveway to Mario’s place on the outskirts of town, the semester-long debate over Mario’s source of income resurfaced. Phantom multi-national corporation? Smuggling business? Secret President of Argentina? His house in Colonia doubles as a bed and breakfast, but I would really call it a private estate. It has a lemon orchard, pool, pond, mansion of a house, and enough land on which to build the Field of Dreams.

We had a Thanksgiving southern hemisphere-style, with turkey and yams mixed with fruit, hummus, pumpkin spread and cranberry sauce on steroids in 90-degree heat. Someone had the ingenuity to bring along a football as well. After making my case to be the niners' QB, I had to answer the call of the beach. We wandered down a dirt road, with no end in sight (I seem to have a knack for walking down dirt roads with no end in the middle of no where) but eventually stumbled across a beach fit for a postcard, dilapidated boat on the sand and all.

Food was the farthest thing on my mind as the sun started to set behind the black hole of smog hovering over Buenos Aires. But there I was, eating dinner outside on a clear, warm summer night with the rio de la plata a few hundred feet away. If I really have to, I'll suffer through it.

After walking out of my posada the next morning, in which every angel painting, picture, or figurine known to man graces every surface (the name of the place is posada del angel - I don't know if they needed to get so literal) in the place, I wandered up the coast to find a beach to call home for the day. Turn on 'Toes' by the Zac Brown Band and you'll get an idea of my daylight hours. The big questions, those really difficult ones, were how big the frisbee field should be, if I should go in the water or not and if I wanted a choripan or chivito for lunch. I took hours deliberating. After those many hours we passed away the night after an all-program dinner by a fire on the beach watching the thunderstorms across the river over Buenos Aires.

We just couldn't get the beach out of our system in one day, so we all piled into probably the only 4 taxis in town and headed to a spit of sand a few km outside of the city. We were the only people there, which might have been due to the perfect storm bearing down on the coast. The sun was non-existant, winds were high and whipping sand around like Roger Federer makes any opponent run. It was painful. We weren't alone on the beach though - we shared our hurricane with a herd of cattle. If I were a cow in Uruguay I'd for sure hit the beach. We went up to them and all I could think of was running back the other way with 15 angry cows behind me. Who needs San Fermin when you can do it on the beach in Uruguay? I think they were too busy eating sand to care, so we skipped rocks and made faces at them and only got a face-full of cowpies in return. They know who's king of the beach.

We could only take so much of the Sahara Sandstorm, so after a few hours we packed up and retreated back to the cobblestone streets and 1960s cars of Colonia. The taxi service sent one too few, so what do you know but three of us were walking down a dirt road with no end in sight until it showed up. I rounded out my Uruguayan food adventures back in Colonia with a chivito, which is essentially the best steak sandwich you've ever had. Throw in a little sand for crunch, and there's nothing better. Ice cream sounded like a good idea to balance out the protein, so a couple of us decided to walk up the street to an ice-cream store. It looked great. We were literally standing across the street when probably the entire elementary school population of Colonia walked into the ice cream store. We just looked at each other and laughed. It was a sign. We settled for kiosk ice cream and popsicle sticks instead of cones. A little lawn-chair time next to the posada's pool and five different angel statues rounded out the day before jumping on another three-hour ferry back to Uruguay's big brother across the river.

So how was your Thanksgiving?