Salta'd

Last night a few friends and I went grocery shopping, here in Salta, a city at the northern end of vast Argentina. We bought four nice sized steaks and three bottles of red wine for under 10 dollars. Then we walked into the Plaza market and somehow got sucked into a casino; it took about half an hour to learn how to play the poker game, and about an hour to lose our 20 pesos each. Salta is fast and beautiful; I've probably had too much of the street meat, but it is all so good.

Not sure the plan yet, but might be headed to Mendoza tomorrow before finally arriving in Buenos Aires. But it's not exactly on the way: it's a 20 hour bus ride from Salta, and then once I leave Mendoza, it would be another 20 hours to BA. Yeah wine country and al of that, sounds good, but haven't really decided if its better to go solo and see all the other citites in between; Che is born in Rosario, Cordoba sounds exciting and uni-town-ish, etc...: these British friends of mine are going and I'm trying to figure out the plan.

Sad to have left behind the relative 3rd worldness of Bolivia and Peru now that it's gone. Trite to say it, but I am chastened from not having bought enough cheap Al Paca sweaters (only one, which I don't like much now) and cool leather goods. I didn't realize how different, and much more expensive this world would be. Getting into Chile felt like leaving the circus. All a sudden the roads are paved and the waiters expect tip.

Last week (I think), I travelled through the salt desert in Bolivia. At times, the vast white vista would reflect the sky (a thin layer of rain) and there would be nothing to tell you you weren't floating in heaven, except for the ground under your feet or the magic, enormous horizon of dead volcanoes. After a day of that you get into Salvador Dali territory (literaly, you see some places that he used as background for his work)... giant stone trees, smooth valleys and plateaux of brown sand desert, ornamented with stone obelisks and snow peaked volcano. (No hundred foot tall elephant nor gigantic eggs, however...)

Slept in salt hotel on outskirts of this tiny, beautiful city in the desert, where we bought wine (of course) and played cards with the other tourists, after taking in the sun set.... At night the skies twinkled as in Disney movies. The stars on and off like millions of beacons... bright... Orion the only one I can recognize (I think actually, someone told me, that the Southern Hemi stars are completely different...all except Orion and his bright, definitive Beetlejuice.. maybe his dogs - Cerebus...?....) The southern cross, what looks like teh big dipper upside down. I remember the second night walking 20 metres away from the camp and being completely lost in the sky for about 20 minutes. Later when the moon was out it was easier to walk...

I even met a Basque photo journalist, working freelance in San Pedro de Atacama (the entrance, beautiful, city ion Chile from the Bolivia border..I stayed one night...). He was a doc filmmaker in this town once and now was back to take some pictures, of all things, of the stars from Atacama observatory. Good life, good job, makes me wonder...

Have been trying to figure out the plan for summer. It was my One Month anniversary for taking off a few days ago (St Pats day I think...) Go sailing the Baltic? Live and learn on some boat which I have no idea how to work, but defintely would love to learn how... or get a job writing or something in Canada...(I am waiting on an offer, I hope, from the Montreal english daily.) Anyway: anyway: anyway: it's taking up a lot of thought.

BOOK REPORT:

just finished Lowry's UNDER THE VOLCANO. It is the most beautifully written, and yet awfully depressing, book I have read. A masterpiece work for its narrative - the plot takes place in one day, the day of the dead, in a small Mexican town, in the life of an ex-British consul...but it occupies a Shakespearian sort of eternity. I think it is mostly a Adam and Eve type story (the woman's name is Yvonne...) an attempt to sneak back in the garden. Or a lament of the fallen state of things (love, his own life). But what is lost is lost.

Lowry is either a Canadian or a Brit, depending who you ask. Canada in the book occupies the role of New Eden. The Mexico is hell (or not Mexico, but the self imposed vision, mythology, of the Mexico, is... I do it too, I have been doing it, mythologizing the difference of the people here... my hell. My heaven.)

The fact that 300 pages are here weaved and the plot lasts only hours, and stays stressful, interesting, tense, till the end, is wonderful, impressive. When traveling you are supposed to give up your books once read...but I love the verse so much I might read again. Or I might retype the parts I really loved to learn the poetry of them, to realize maybe how to do it... (a trick picked up from Hunter S Thompson, who used to retype Melville. And Melville probably did for Shakespeare...and so on... "you can see where the great tide has finally receded"...)

TODAY: gondola ride up Salta's volcano, bus station, laundry, and relax and write.