The Overpacker

I’m not dead.  Nor am I maimed.  I don’t even have a headache.  Thanks for asking, though.

You just haven’t heard from me because I haven’t been keeping up with my daily writing chore.

To realize just how far back I’ve fallen, you’ll need to first understand how this site works.  Posts are dated as of the date the incidents recounted therein in occurred.  In non-legalese, that means, for example, that the events of the “Day 55 – McDonald’s” occurred on Saturday, December 4th, 2010 and were posted as of that date.  In the time warp that this “The Overpacker“, though, the Day 55 post might have actually been written days after and been released on the site even later than that.

Now, just how far behind am I?  Just look at the date of this post and do some math.  It reads December 4th.  I am writing this “Programming Note” on Monday, December 27.  That means for nearly a month I haven’t written anything worth posting.  I have been a bad writer.  I have been a deliquient writer.  Actually, based on the my understanding of the definition of the word “writer”, because I haven’t done any writing, I’ve been a non-writer.  I guess I’ve just been a tourist.

But no more!  I commit to making up for lost time.  Expect a flurry of posts over the next few weeks.  Twice, thrice, perhaps even fivice posts a day.  For my own sanity, they will have to be shorter, otherwise my poor Patagonia frostbitten fingers may fall off.

Expect tales of Uruguay (an underrated travel destination), Buenos Aires (a second go around, but with less sitting on my ass), and a tale of overpacking my way through through a Christmas Patagonia trek (spoiler alert:  someone in the tale–I’m not saying who–did not complete the “W” circuit).

So sit back.  Nestle into that office chair or prison issue seat or whatever you happened to be chained to when you’re reading this.  Kiss the holidays goodbye.  Rub your winter belly.  And prepare yourself for rapid fire Overpacker.

With a little luck, we’ll be back on a normal schedule in time for me to resolve for the New Year that I’ll never fall behind on writing ever again.  That or my fingers will have fallen off from too much typing and I’ll have to resolve to learn to type with my toes.

See you around.

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Saturday, December 4, 2010

Compared to McDonald’s, I prefer In-N-Out; and Del Taco; and a homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwich; and just about anything short of a poop sandwich in pee sauce.

On the road, though, the things are different. On the road I seek out McDonald’s in every country I can. McDonald’s—the de facto American commercial embassy—is a window into local culture and cuisine. The McDonald’s food around the world is mostly the same, but the company is smart enough to know that, if it wants customers, it has to play to local tastes. You take “classic American” food and feed it through the Rube Goldberg machine and out comes America through the eyes of China, Thailand, or Oman. Read more…

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Friday, December 3, 2010

Ah, I’m nearly back in tourist mode! (After almost a week off, this deserved an exclamation mark.) First up, a revisit to Recoleta Cemetery, this time with Jamil. On this visit, for some reason, I noticed a ton of cats. Perhaps it was because there wasn’t rain on the horizon. There was even a cat lady who walked through the cemetery calling out to them and, in her wake, a procession of cats emerged from the maze of mausoleums and followed her to her food like a horde of slow moving horror movie zombies. Read more…

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Thursday, December 2, 2010

Walking the streets of Buenos Aires, you might think you were in Europe. Florida Street, a pedestrian shopping street feels like you’re walking down Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. It’ s a big city with wide avenues, traffic, and a ton of cars. There’s not a lot in this part of town that tells you that you’re in South America. Read more…

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Wednesday, December 1, 2010

I live in a spacetime warp. People here don’t seem to eat healthy at all, yet none of them look like the Klumps. Milanese for dinner, mounds of meat on the weekends. Rarely a vegetable in sight.

A good example is medialunas. It’s a typical Buenos Aires breakfast taken with café con leche. (FYI, Argentines don’t have café con leche at night; it’s strictly a breakfast thing.) A cross between a croissant and doughnut, they’re delicious. They should also make all Porteños balloon like the national debt.

This country is a magical place.

GALLERY: No bonus pics. After a activity heavy day yesterday Mervyn had to take a break and do more nothing.

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Tuesday, November 30, 2010

I love cemeteries for the same reason I love scuba diving. In the ocean, you feel small and at the mercy of a force much greater than you. Here, standing amongst the monuments to the long gone or the recently departed, is much the same thing. There is peace, there is silence, and there is the understanding we’re all headed for the same fate. Take a deep breath and you can feel infinity tugging at the hem of your life. Read more…

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Monday, November 29, 2010

If you’re not paying attention, the Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires—otherwise known as Porteño—sounds Italian. There’s good reason for this.

First, over the last 50 years or so, the largest immigrant group to Argentina has been Italians. Naturally, bits and pieces of Italian culture, including some words, have bled their way into BA culture. We even have evidence of this back home. Argentina’s greatest basketball export—Manu Ginobili—has an Italian last name. In other words, he is of Italian descent, as are many of his countrymen. A quick look at the prominent names in BA will confirm that.

Second, everyone here uses a lot of ito’s and isimo’s. Something isn’t pequeño, it’s pequito. It’s not bella, it’s bellisimo. All this makes Porteño Spanish sound quite Italian.

Third, Porteño sounds lazy. The ll’s and the y’s are pronounced with a “zsh” sound, which has the effect of this Spanish sounding nothing like Spanish. Nothing.

Finally, there’s the lilt. You know how caricatures of Italians have them speaking in quick rises in pitch of their voice? “That’s ah biggah pizzah!” kind of thing. Well, Porteños have got that down. Along with the wild hand gestures, particularly the pursed fingers waved at someone with an upturned palm.

Stop paying attention and you’d think you were in Rome with a bunch of Italians who happen to be speaking a little cotton mouthed (the “zsh” thing).

It’s part of what makes Argentina, and Buenos Aires in particular, unique.

GALLERY: No bonus pics, naturally, since Mervyn couldn’t even be bothered to take a regular one.

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Sunday, November 28, 2010

Part of the fun of traveling is trying old foods in new ways. Tonight: my first experience with boiled egg on pizza followed immediately by my first experience with eggs over easy on pizza. Gotta love Argentina. Read more…

Location: Country club outside Buenos Aires

Date: Saturday, November 27, 2010

I came to Buenos Aires in large part to make it to today’s asado. An asado is an Argentinian version of a barbeque, which basically means it’s like any charred meat-fest except they speak Spanish and use parts of animals you only thought went into hotdogs. Interestingly, this describes nearly all the differences in international cuisine. Read more…

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Friday, November 26, 2010

I’m here in Buenos Aires to relax and do nothing. After five days straight on buses and cars, I’m just happy to rest, sleep, and do nothing more strenuous than move my eyes over a good book while occasionally lifting a coffee to my lips.

At the same time, I’m enjoying watching my body recover from the brutality of Bolivia’s altiplano. I’m slowly getting over my cough. My bones are thawing. I’ve learned I can go outside without a scarf and a toque.

Best of all, my fingers are spontaneously shedding skin. It’s like watching ten baby snakes molt. Turns out the conditions up there were so bad that my body went ahead and built up thick calluses on my finger tips even though I did as much manual labor as a quadriplegic Bill Gates.

Now, in the milder, saner conditions of the city, my body is reverting back to its softer state. Bolivia—it sticks with you in ways you wouldn’t expect.

GALLERY: No bonus pics. Mervyn did nothing more interesting than stare at paint peel.

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Thursday, November 25, 2010

This trip I’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with Danes and Canadians and learned much of their cultures. For example, Danes engage in something called issparkning (literally: ice kicking) where they unwrap cartons of vanilla (and only vanilla) ice cream and see who can kick them the farthest. Calgarians (Canadians from the city of Calgary) spend two weeks of every year dressing up as cowboys getting drunk before lunch in a tradition called “Stampede.” Both countries have small populations relative to their size. Both have lots of white people. Read more…

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The hardest thing to come by in Buenos Aires is change. Not political change. Not social change. Not change some naïve collegiate can believe in. I’m talking change as in “coins or bills of low denomination.”

Everyone at tonight’s dinner has experienced it. If you need change to make a phone call—like I did when I arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday—vendors will brush you off and if you ask who can help you they will wave in a direction far away from them. I tried to pay for 4 pesos ($1 USD) worth of stuff with a 5 peso bill and a guy asked me if I had 4 pesos in coins. I gave it to him. I will never make that mistake again. Read more…

Location: Roads between Salta and Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: Monday/Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Matter cannot be created or destroyed, unless we’re talking about the matching sock that vaporizes in my dryer. 2+ 2 equals 4 unless I happen to be reading 1984 whereupon it will equal 5 or whatever Big Brother thinks is best. If you try to act on the object that is my hard head, you can expect an overwhelming (not equal) and opposite reaction.

I defy the laws of motion. I am a science scofflaw. A physics rebel. Read more…

Location: Salta, Argentina

Date: Monday, November 22, 2010

Argentina is different. Walking the streets around the city’s main square, what strikes you is that you’ve entered a consumer culture. The locals are window shopping. They buy because they can, not because they need to. That’s not everyone, of course, but it seems like there are more people here doing so than in Bolivia and Peru. In that way, it doesn’t feel that far from home. Read more…

Location: Roads between San Pedro de Atacama, Chile and Salta, Argentina

Date: Sunday, November 21, 2010

There’s not much for me here in San Pedro de Atacama. There’s sandboarding (done it). There are geysers (done that, too). There are trips to Chile’s altiplano (done better). It is warmer than Bolivia, but that’s like being impressed that I’m less broke than MC Hammer. It also doesn’t help that Chile is almost as expensive as back home. Read more…