Almost to Patagonia

We left Buenos Aires last night by train and awoke this morning in Bahia Blanca. The train ride was slow, but fun. My highlights included hanging out at the tail end of the train and singing Bob Marley and Beatles songs at the top of our lungs with our new Venezuelan friends Miguel and Lucy, and taking a leak in the bathroom only to watch it run down a small hole and onto the tracks below. And for those of you sick enough to wonder... yes, its the poopin hole too. I guess it doesn´t take much to entertain me.
We also got to get out of the train for a while at one point and finally see some of these Southern stars now that we´re away from the city. I saw stars I´ve never seen before, though the only constellation that I could see was the Southern Cross. We saw Orion too, though he was upside-down.
But now we are in this sleepy little town, hanging out in the park (where jugglers have been known to surface) and waiting for the stores to reopen from their siesta so we can get some food. The only things in town that are open are the Locutorios where I now sit, typing away, surrounded by teens who are ¨gaming¨ all around me.
I´ve heard that the Internet gets more scarce the further South we go - I´ve already noticed that it´s more expensive - so it may be a while before I can post again. But its almost 4:30 so I´ve got some groceries to buy and a campsite to locate. We´re thinking of somewhere along the train tracks. I love South America.

This entry is mostly for the jugglers

Since our arrival, whenever we told people we were malabaristas, they almost always said we should go to the weekend market at Plaza Franzia. After our all-night adventure with Condor, we slept most of Saturday but made it there before sunset (which doesn´t happen here until about 9:30) and, sure enough found some jugglers. I thought that they would be there to make some money as it is a large artisan market full of shoppers looking to spend some money, though the jugglers we saw were just hanging out in a large open grass area in the middle. Most people were leaving when we got there, though everyone we talked to said that even more are there on Sunday.
We showed up early the next day, and sure enough, the grass filled with jugglers, musicians, and capoera aficionados. It was like being at a juggling festival and apparently it happens every weekend. We heard that most of the jugglers were out of town too, making money in the beach towns where everyone is on vacation right now. There were still a good amount there though. We met jugglers from France, Austria, Venezuela, and, of course, Argentina. The French woman was probably one of the best club swingers and contact club jugglers I´ve ever seen in person. So fluid and with so many tricks. Contact club work seems very popular and I hope to learn a bit before I return. There´s a guy and girl from Venezuela that make 5-club look easy and some of the clubs they juggle are made out of soda bottles on sticks. They´ve travelled here from Venezuela, paying for the whole trip with their juggling. It seems like the most common way to make money here is by stoplighting. At a red light, they go out into the crosswalk, do a quick routine, and collect money from the drivers before the light changes. We haven´t tried it yet but plan to before we head down to the beach in a day or two. I think our Venezuelan friends are going to join us. We´ve been hanging out with them a good deal. Good people.
After our day of juggling a big group of us went to the Observatory where they´re having concerts on the weekends. We went for the music, but also found out there´s a comet in the sky here, though its tough to see in the city. The concert was a local Blues musician and the crowd was easily a couple thousand people. But the jugglers were the only ones dancing. Ah, jugglers.

Adventure 1 - part 2

Our first stop came 30 or 40 minutes into the train ride and we met our first malabarista on the platform. His name was Mora and he was about to board the train we were deboarding, but Condor convinced him to join us. We left the platform and went to what they called a Cantina. It looked like a convenience store with a table or two in the back and would be the first of many we would stop at on our journey. They sell their beer in glass bottles and only in liters. To avoid paying the deposit on the bottles, we would pour a liter or two into an empty plastic bottle that the cantina was always happy to provide. This allowed us to take beer with us everywhere we went. We´ve been told that it´s illegal to drink in the streets, but it doesn´t seem to stop anyone from doing it. We threw a couple back and juggled in the street for a while, comparing clubs, tricks, and the different things we call each, then headed out toward the ¨circus¨.
We walked a good mile or two before we got to our destination, a grassy area outside of a small office building where jugglers commonly gather to hang out. But this private circus was already abandoned when we got there. Though we all agreed that the walk alone was worth our time. We were finally getting to see the ¨real¨ parts of Buenos Aires. We´ve been staying in a more upper class section of town – though still far cheaper than most areas of the US – and now we were starting to get a taste for how the working class live; the parts of a city that only a local guide can show you. Where we were had the feeling of neighborhood and community, something you don´t feel as much in the heart of the city.
So with our destination a bust, we turned around and headed back to the train, stopping for 2 pizzas and 4 more liters of beer on the way, then back on the train.
I thought our next stop was going to be Condor´s house. Since we were out in the sticks, he offered to put us up for the night, but after a stop at another cantina, more juggling in the streets, and another long walk, we ended up at a house that had a death metal band playing in a big room with no windows. Not normally my scene, but once again, a glimpse into a part of Buenos that, without a guide, we never would have been able to see. We didn´t stay long though. I´m still not a hundred percent certain, but I think the only reason we went there was to get some papers for the mota that Condor had bought for us. I was sure we were going back to his house after we left the show. This definitely seemed like his neighborhood as he and Mora both knew people everywhere we went – at the cantina, walking down the street, at the show – always greeting them and us with the touching of cheeks and a kissing noise and a quick handshake or pat on the back. But we headed back to the train – without missing a stop back by the cantina, of course – only to find out that the trains has stopped running for the night.
Condor said we could walk or look for a car. We asked him how far of a walk it was, to which he replied, ¨Dos o tres cervezas.¨ So we walked. This would prove to be the theme of the remainder of our night. We walked a good 2 or 3 miles conversing the whole time. I´m always amazed at how much better my comprehension and speech gets after I´ve got a few beers in me. The roads slowly turned from pavement to dirt. The cantinas turned from convenience stores to what looked like people´s homes. And we kept meeting other people walking around too, who might join us for a while. Our number grew and depleted again several times. We ended up hanging out under a street lamp across the street from a house that sold beer until the sun came up, occasionally walking across the street and knocking on the window of the house to awaken the woman who lived there for more beers. We juggled the whole time and were probably met by 4 or 5 other jugglers just passing by. The trains were running again by the time we were done, so we caught one back to the city, exhausted, but happy.
I never felt unsafe. I never felt unwelcome. Just the opposite.
This is the South America that I hope to see and write about on this journey. There´s a few touristy things I want to do and see – Machu Picchu, Patagonia, the Amazon – but what I really want to see is how the people live. And who´d have thought that juggling would be the passport?

The journey begins

The journey begins in Buenos Aires. It´s a beautiful city and has thusfar been the perfect portal for my acclimation to a new continent. It has all the conveniences one would expect to find in any metropolis at less than half the price you´d pay in the States. A liter of beer costs a dollar and I bought a decent traveling guitar for thirty. I´m here with two other jugglers from Washington, Lebn and Sam, and we all bought one-way tickets. We spent the first few days after arrival wandering the city, seeing some sights and juggling in the many Plazas that cover the city. We´ve mostly done this on foot, my favorite way to get to know a new city, though we have taken a bus, or collectivo, on a couple of occasions.
We´d heard before we came that there were lots of jugglers in the city, though we didn´t encounter any, outside of the two juggling shops that we visited, until we stopped in Plaza San Martin to juggle and play some music when a muchacho who called himself Condor stopped by to say hello. He did a little bit of contact juggling (that´s usually one ball that you roll around on various parts of your body for those of you who don´t speak juggle) and told us that he had many friends who were malabaristas (jugglers). He invited us for a beer and we accepted. Little did we know it would be the first of many.
On the way to get the beer he told us about a traveling circus and wanted to know if we wanted to go with him to see it. At least, I think that´s what he said. An important fact to note about this entire adventure is that my Spanish isn´t that great but it is still much better than anyone´s English that we would meet. Sam´s Spanish is pretty good though and he translates what he can for us, but who knows what´s lost and what assumptions I made from the little bits that I did understand. Regardless, we all got on a train with the knowledge that other jugglers would probably be in our future.
To be continued…
I´m going to mail a letter and meet some people in the park to juggle. But the Internet is cheap and open 24 hours, so I´ll finish my tale soon and I´ve already got another brewing.
Ciao for now.