After a night in a hostel on the brazilian side of Iguazu falls, I got an another torturously long bus journey headed for Buenos Aires. I wanted to get to the Argentinian capital and speak a bit of Spanish before going back up through Brazil all the way to French Guyana - at least that was the plan.
I felt full of melancholy as I boarded the bus, a mixture of exhaustion, confusion, the feeling of my own strange and solitary antics, I was alone. This trip, in all honesty has no real direction but is designed to give me some direction - I'm waiting for a bit of a light bulb moment one of these days. Here's one of the many stories I'm carrying along with me as well as my extremely heavy backpack and one of the reasons why I'm travelling but with no itinerary or fixed plans.
I was supposed to do this trip last year with one of my friends, ironically we met in Martinique, the place I'm heading back to. She was suddenly diagnosed with a rare type of cancer which by the time of its late discovery had already grown into a large tumor. Last minute plans we had hatched barely after New Year's Day to buy flights to Equador, see a bit of Peru and then somehow get to Colombia were shelved almost as soon as they were made. She told me to go alone and made the treatment she needed seem like something she merely had to get to out of the way over the next few months, that all plans for fun and travel would annoyingly have to be postponed. That's not how things worked out. I was concerned and decided to wait for a green light on her response to treatment that never came. Needless to say the few months that followed were difficult and I deliberated on not even travelling at all, instead staying at home and getting a job, a career even. The last place I wanted to be however, was London. She had been the person who tempted me back when I was sizing up staying in Martinique long term. She made London more fun and crazy than I think I ever could have myself. She was a part of who I became when I got back from travelling somehow, I had lost all sense of direction without her, my plans were directly linked to hers at this point, after all. On top of that what had happened made me think of how we had met, how she had influenced me and I realised that I wanted that support to always be there, the delicate spin she put on reality, the way her perspective tinted my own vision of the world. Decisions were easy to make once run past her. I couldn't live in the city thinking about what had happened to her and how I had been abandoned. I struggled to think about travelling alone knowing how much fun we would have had, the brilliant companionship she would have made.
She's also one of the few people who was in on the return to Martinique secret. She knows me, she experienced that place, she met him, she knows the strange way it works or doesn't work and understands all the reasons why.
So I made it to Buenos Aires with all these thoughts whirring around my head from the semi sleepless night on the bus. It was bright and early in the morning when we descended on the capital city and hit the bad traffic. A cool and fresh blue sky and crowds of Argentinians making their way to work in their winter coats was a contrast from the mild weather in Sao Paulo and the warm coastal Florianopolis air. I think I'm the furthest into the southern hemisphere I've ever been and quite far away from home. But Buenos Aires feels alarmingly familiar, it really does feel European, European with a twist. A good twist. I was shocked by the number of military police in the bus station, I wondered if the streets were as heavily patrolled, I thought the military presence had drained out of the streets of Buenos Aires a while ago. Out of the bus terminal however, I don't think I saw a single other one.
I was supposed to do this trip last year with one of my friends, ironically we met in Martinique, the place I'm heading back to. She was suddenly diagnosed with a rare type of cancer which by the time of its late discovery had already grown into a large tumor. Last minute plans we had hatched barely after New Year's Day to buy flights to Equador, see a bit of Peru and then somehow get to Colombia were shelved almost as soon as they were made. She told me to go alone and made the treatment she needed seem like something she merely had to get to out of the way over the next few months, that all plans for fun and travel would annoyingly have to be postponed. That's not how things worked out. I was concerned and decided to wait for a green light on her response to treatment that never came. Needless to say the few months that followed were difficult and I deliberated on not even travelling at all, instead staying at home and getting a job, a career even. The last place I wanted to be however, was London. She had been the person who tempted me back when I was sizing up staying in Martinique long term. She made London more fun and crazy than I think I ever could have myself. She was a part of who I became when I got back from travelling somehow, I had lost all sense of direction without her, my plans were directly linked to hers at this point, after all. On top of that what had happened made me think of how we had met, how she had influenced me and I realised that I wanted that support to always be there, the delicate spin she put on reality, the way her perspective tinted my own vision of the world. Decisions were easy to make once run past her. I couldn't live in the city thinking about what had happened to her and how I had been abandoned. I struggled to think about travelling alone knowing how much fun we would have had, the brilliant companionship she would have made.
She's also one of the few people who was in on the return to Martinique secret. She knows me, she experienced that place, she met him, she knows the strange way it works or doesn't work and understands all the reasons why.
So I made it to Buenos Aires with all these thoughts whirring around my head from the semi sleepless night on the bus. It was bright and early in the morning when we descended on the capital city and hit the bad traffic. A cool and fresh blue sky and crowds of Argentinians making their way to work in their winter coats was a contrast from the mild weather in Sao Paulo and the warm coastal Florianopolis air. I think I'm the furthest into the southern hemisphere I've ever been and quite far away from home. But Buenos Aires feels alarmingly familiar, it really does feel European, European with a twist. A good twist. I was shocked by the number of military police in the bus station, I wondered if the streets were as heavily patrolled, I thought the military presence had drained out of the streets of Buenos Aires a while ago. Out of the bus terminal however, I don't think I saw a single other one.
I teamed up with an English guy who happened to be on the bus, we found a cafe to sit in and collect ourselves - neither of us had slept very well, Buenos Aires was disorientating and it was far too early to check in anywhere. On top of that I didn't have anywhere reserved nor did I have any addresses of any suggested hostels. We went to San Telmo where we thought we might stay and sat in a cafe for a good hour or so, I tried unsuccessfully to put enough caffeine into my bloodstream to wake myself up and get myself to wherever we were going to stay. This was not an easy feat, my bag weighs a ton and we needed to walk more than 10 blocks. Walking more than 5 minuets with my backpack on makes me want to die, it's quite an amazing sort of pain trying to carry it around. My shoulders are a mess.
I liked the city, I really liked it. It has a run down feeling to it which I was expecting to some extent, but not in the way I found it to be. The architecture is beautiful and the streets are full of character - particulalry around San Telmo. There is lots of graffiti and I liked the out of date but stylishly run down, grubby looking buses. Buenos Aires has a feeling of being stuck in the past, nothing has been replaced for a while. I liked it. It seduced me and I made the decision there and then, having carefully considered and judged the map of the continent (by eye, with a beer in my hand), that I might as well go up the other side - cheaper than Brazil and I get to see more countries. I'll stay here for a bit first though...
Step in the right direction?
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