Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, the widest avenue in the world

Three days to go before my mother´s arrival in Buenos Aires, and while I look forward to seeing her, the seconds are ticking by until my travels take a strange and inevitably different twist.  I´ve never been much of a one-night-stand person, though the transient nature (and occasional loneliness) of long-term travel make this a necessity at times.  Added to this very human compulsion is the fact that it´s three in the morning and I just woke up to find my bed rocking repetitively to the sound of soft, female moaning from below.

Really?

It´s nothing new in hostels, but it´s a rarity in a full room.  I wouldn´t think to trammel the action from the lower bunk if it didn´t directly hamper my sleeping, but it did.  I cough once, then again.  Eventually the international diplomacy is taken outside to a balcony that looks out unhindered and unblocked onto Buenos Aires below.  The sexiness of such a public display wakes me further, but despite certain seals on propriety already being broken I could never be so crass as to do anything about it, and I lay in bed for an hour or more waiting for sleep to retake me.  Some time before passing out, the couple moves to the bathroom.

Most of the room (there are six bunks) wakes early the next morning for a planned trip to Uruguay.  It seems universally agreed upon that Uruguay offers little reason for extended pass-throughs, but single-day trips across the brown and brackish river that separates Buenos Aires from Uruguay are standard fare.  Montevideo is a more popular destination in the summer time due to its large, attractive beaches, but it´s April now and the weather´s cooled significantly.  As Montevideo is three hours past the smaller town of Colonia, we opt for the latter.

Uruguay

Patrick and I, on the deck of the buquebus

Buquebus is the name of the river shuttle company that handles service to Uruguay, and it can be found directly next to the Retiro bus station (the largest in BA).  Two boat options greet us, offering rides to and from Colonia that last either one or three hours (with costs that are about as proportionally different from one another as their trip lengths).  It´s early still when we´re ready to depart — around 8 AM — and we opt for the slow journey there, with a faster one coming back.  It´s not a bad deal around thirty dollars, and another stamp is added to the passport.

Despite a significant tourist infrastructure in Colonia, the town seems more geared to older travelers, with a focus on its quiet streets and centuries-old architecture.  The closest correlations in the States would be places like Annapolis, MD or Williamsburg, VA.  A lighthouse looks out over the water, allowing for glimpses of Buenos Aires on non-smoggy days.  We´re just lucky enough to see a blotchy line of distinctively urban gray far in the distance before it fades back into semi-unnatural haziness.

Out along a small peninsula of fancy restaurants and tourist shops, we sit by the water´s edge for lunch.  The pizza´s passable — and better than the thick, bready pizzas of Argentina — but doesn´t compare to the mind-blowing gnocchi (here spelled ¨ñoquis¨).  Surrounded by the river on all sides, there´s plenty of shoreline to walk around, though the muddiness of the water is unwelcoming.

The equivalent of a quarter gets us a bus ride across town to the old bull ring.  The massive structure was built in 1910, only to be closed in 1912 after only eight fights due to Uruguay declaring the fights illegal.  A fence closes off the deteriorating ring from the general public, but based on multiple gaps in the fence and a quantity of other tourists inside, no one takes the closure seriously.  Inside, Patrick and I perform a mock bullfight to an adoring crowd of four before beginning the long walk back along the beach to the city´s center.

An 8 PM ticket on the ultra-fast hydrofoil leaves us just enough time to take in an Uruguayan sunset and a few drinks before heading back for the hour-long boat ride.  It´s the perfect way to spend a day, but I likely would never come back here.  Unless I´d be entertaining my mother a week later…

I attempt to lift one of the drawbridges leading into old Colonia. I fail.

¨Manning¨ the cannon

Along the broken exterior walls of Colonia´s lighthouse

From the lighthouse, you can just make out Buenos Aires in the background

One of the cobblestone streets of old town Colonia

The ¨three bears¨ of police boats

English Zoey tripping slightly outside the old bullring

Breaking into the bullring

Patrick and I simulate a bullfight

I simulate a bloody, crushing defeat

Uruguay 2009

Dusk in Colonia. Gorgeous sky.

The Last Long Nights

There´s talk of Polo lessons during the days — the sport appears to be second only to fútbol here in Buenos Aires — and apparently no background skills are necessary, but both my opportunities are rained out.  Exhaustion causes me to skip ¨La Bomba del Tiempo,¨ a popular drum show.  It sounds completely uninteresting to me, but turns out to be one of the better weekly events in Buenos Aires.  Weeks later, I would attempt to talk others into going, only to have them reflect back at me the same casual indifference that I feel toward it now.

Buenos Aires subway cars are all open from one to the next, leading to an interesting perspective as trains go around curves.

Instead, the two remaining days and nights are dedicated to soaking in the Buenos Aires nightlife, as the city (and country, really) is notorious for following a different waking schedule than the rest of the world.  Dinner, for instance, tends to be served around 10 o´clock at night, every night of the week.  This doesn´t just apply to the younger, wilder crew — old people, families, etc, all find their way out between 10 and midnight, and while restaurants are open from 8-10, they´re largely deserted.  Mornings are for work, only until noon, when everyone returns home for siesta, generally sleeping until five in the afternoon.  It can be frustrating when something is direly needed during the day, only to find most of the small stores closed for the entire afternoon.

Bars tend to get the most business then between midnight and two, generally as a precursor for the wildly popular club scene here.  Every night, there are two to three popular clubs that seem to be highlighted, only to be forgotten about during the remaining nights of the week.  Everyone insists on Club 69 on Thursdays (more of a spectacle than the others, the club features breakdancers and garish transvestites to create a uniquely bizarre atmosphere), but the massive club´s largely forgotten about by the hostel crew on every other day.  I was curious as to whether these clubs are closed down entirely on nights that they weren´t promoted, or if alternate nights simply targeted non-tourist clientele.

Strange characters at Club 69

Promoters canvas the hostels, taking down names and offering ¨discount¨ VIP tickets, which include a free ride to whatever club is being promoted — rides back to the hostel are each individual´s responsibility, and typically involve an expensive cab ride.  At two in the morning, Club Bahrein is still mostly empty, leading me to think that tonight might not be its night after all.  My fears are unfounded; by 2:30, the dance floor is full.  By 3, it´s uncomfortably crowded.  In the bathroom someone tries to sell me cocaine — it´s the first time I´ve even had the drug (or any drug, really… other than my Peruvian jungle experiences) mentioned to me since Ecuador.

It´s my last single night in town and I´m feeling my independence rapidly slip away.  Tomorrow morning, I´ll be glad to see my mother after nearly seven months apart; tonight I mean to bask in the city´s late-night vitality and ardor one final time, with such enthusiasm that I worry I may be creating expectations that Buenos Aires won´t possibly be able to live up to.

Along the streets of Buenos Aires

A Californian girl and I opt to introduce the international world to Beer Pong, as Europe, Australia and South America are strangely unaware of the popular North American sport.  A trio of Brazilian girls latch onto us and seem fascinated by the subtle, thirst-quenching nuances of the game.  They´re terrible at it, but tenacious enough to keep playing until we head off to another club — a local one this time, within walking distance.

Elsewhere, we dance and drink, pose for pictures and laugh uncontrollably.  One of the girls and I hit it off and she sits on my lap as we talk on a sofa in a dimly lit corner of the bar.  Now outside, it´s raining lightly and we´re kissing each other under an air conditioning unit to stay dry.

¨I promised myself I wouldn´t do this,¨ she says in perfect English.  Of the three girls, only she spoke my language fluently.  ¨I have a boyfriend in Sao Paulo.¨

I kiss her again, unaffected by this information.  Several months on the road have left me unhinged from the unspoken proprieties that exist to keep society from crumbling into a global version of MTV´s The Real World.  She pulls away again.

¨I think he is gay, though.  I think most Brazilian boys are gay.¨ Before I say anything, she corrects herself.  ¨Not really.¨

Our group, my last free night in town

¨I´ve only met a few.  Pretty sure they weren´t gay,¨ I say.  I think back to a group of mostly male Brazilians that latched onto Jaimee and me at one of the street parties, lightly dressed as Roman soldiers, pharoahs and mythological figures.  The cupid kept hitting me with his arrow, though I assumed his gaity was simply proper role-playing and not, well, gaity.  And then there was that trannie motorcade… ¨Or at least not all of them were gay.¨

¨No.  No.  Too many boys in my life are gay, I think.  Are you gay?¨

¨I hate sports and can sing along with most of Les Miserables.¨ She laughs as I kiss her again, pushes my hand down as I make a physical gesture of my sexual allegiance.

Around us, the city is alive with people rushing by, taking no notice of yet another couple passionately embracing against a wall, like the countless embracing pairs painted onto shirts, keychains and wine holders at every tourist market.  Nearby, a younger couple share a fold-out chair at a small cafe, protected from the rain only by their table´s thin, canvas umbrella.  Taking breaks to talk, their eyes are mere inches from one another and their locked gazes far more lavish and promiscuous than their soft, innocuous kisses.  Forget Paris (not that I´ve been there to remember it in the first place) Buenos Aires is a city in love.  A city in love with being in love.  And tonight, I am one with this city.

Later, as we kiss for a final time, the transient nature of such encounters is once again hammered in.  On the road, we form brief, powerful connections formed by either the standard rules of attraction put into overdrive by immutable travel deadlines or by the incidental bombardments of loneliness that are the biggest drawbacks to this solitary lifestyle.  Meaningful, ¨real¨ connections one day will be nothing more than additional names on my roster of facebook friends the next.

In the computer lab of The Milhouse, after a long night

It´s 6 in the morning and my mother arrives in Buenos Aires in two hours.  While Bianca from California and I sit upstairs at the computers, Patrick returns from a night clubbing just in time for us to say our goodbyes.  He´s in town two days more, and there´s some talk of meeting up for lunch, but he´s fully on siesta schedule now, and we both know a meet-up is a slim chance. By next week he´ll be somewhere in western Africa, but we say we´ll keep in touch and it seems more likely this time than with other people I´ve traveled with.

At the airport, I stand slouched over with the taxi drivers and their big white signs, and the families and friends of eagerly anticipated arrivals.  Children shuffle around me, waiting on relatives, and an old woman shrieks and runs past the greeter line to hug an older male that must be a brother.  Tears pour from her eyes at an unnaturally steady flow as she places an unrelenting grip around him, rambling something meaningful and heartfelt to him that is too broken by her emotion for my poor Spanish comprehension to understand.  In my exhaustion I start to feel cold and self-critical.  Will I be greeting her with warmth and excitement as she comes through the door, or simply stumble over with the emotional fervor of a distant co-worker?

It´s late now.  She should be here.  Is it wrong that I´m mentally comparing her conspicuous absence to that of luggage that hasn´t appeared when everyone else from the same flight has already retrieved their things and gone?  A mom-sized silhouette appears behind the opaque glass doors.  Her eyes expand to match her large grin and I shuffle over to her through the crowd.  We hug each other tightly.

¨Ooooooooh I missed you sooooooo much,¨ she says, without letting go of me.

¨I really missed you too,¨ I say.  And I wasn´t even certain until this moment, but I generally mean it.  ¨I love you, Mom.¨

¨You´re so thin.¨

¨Thanks…¨

¨You´re too thin!¨

¨Ok.¨

The next two weeks will be interesting.