Colonia, Gauchos, and Our Quest for Holy Ground

The past four days have undoubtedly been the most interesting and eventful so far. I've gotten the chance to purchase tickets at an Argentine Omnibus station, view Argentine theater, experience the Nativity (complete with light show) in seven minutes at the world's only religious theme park (yes, you read that right), visit yet another country and escape from the bustle of city life, and get a taste of genuine Argentine agricultural life at the Feria de Mataderos.

As a side note, we saw Wall-E on Wednesday (15 peso night at the gorgeous theater). The guy who bought the tickets for us tried to get tickets for the dubbed version, but they gave him ones for the version that was Engish with subtitles. I suppose his Castellano was bad enough that they thought it would be better for him that way. We enjoyed the show anyway, and we still had to know enough to read the signs, because any written words in the movie had been somehow changed to Spanish. That's computer generated animation for you...easy to change.

Thursday morning, with many a mishap and wrong turn, we made our way to the bus terminal. We accidently went into the train station instead 3 times. How can that happen, right? The building was so huge and sectioned off in such a way that we kept thinking it was a new building (which would have been the bus terminal). To actually get to the bus terminal, we had to pass through a busy market selling such wonderful things as old bottles of shampoo, 5 peso watches, and cow tongues (those things are massive!!!). I love markets. Once we reached the terminal, our quest was only beginning. Buenos Aires doesn't have a centralized bus system, which means there are more than 200 little kiosk-type stalls on the second floor of the station, all selling tickets at different, unlisted prices to a random assortment of destinations. We ended up having to do an awful lot of talking to people and asking questions (you just have to keep asking different vendors until you think you have the best price) but we finally found good deals to both Mendoza (this upcoming weekend) and Iguazu falls (the following weekend). I'm really looking forward to both trips, even though we are going to be on buses for a long time (13 and 18 hours, respectively).

Thursday evening, we had a class trip to the theater to see the musical "Pepito 88," which tells the story of the circus family that started the Argentine theater. The story was clear enough that I could follow it (it certainly helped that I had seen so many plays in my life...I just understand the point the director is trying to make a little better than others do. Some kids who spoke much better Spanish than I do were completely lost) but I could only get about 30% of the words in most songs. Some were better if they were about subjects which used words that were very familiar to me. Nonetheless, the play was a lot of fun, the sets were beautiful (they made the whole background into a shining night sky full of stars and dropped down the circus tent background in such a way that you felt like you were looking up from under the edge at one point.), the acrobats were amazing, and the actors were clearly very good. We'll see how the paper I have to write about it goes....I'm not sure my understanding was quite good enough to make a political critique of it very interesting or insightful.

Friday morning was, quite possibly, the most surreal experience I've had so far. I had read in the "Quirky BA" section of my guidebook about "Tierra Santa," a religious theme park outside of town. Anything one of a kind like that is something not to be missed, and it seemed like a win-win situation. If it was a moving religious experience, wonderful. If it was a comercialized and thoroughly amusing mess (which seemed much more likely), then I would get a laugh out of it and be able to say I'd seen the 18 meter high blinking Jesus. Two other kids in the program decided to make the trek with me, and we set off around 8:30 in the morning to find a bus that would take us there. We had a list of the correct bus lines (or so we thought) but we walked and walked and didn't see any of the ones we were looking for. After 2 hours, we were impressively far from the city, and, when I checked my map, quite close to the park. We ended up just finishing out the walk there (but we took a taxi home. That was an experience in itself, as the taxi that picked us up sounded distinctly like it had a flock of highly agitated hens hidden in the left wheel well. We weren't sure it would make it back to town without losing something important...like the engine. We got home safe and sound, though.) As we approached the park down an industrialized waterfront side street, we could see three crosses on an artificial hill take shape behind some heavy black netting.

I knew we were in for a treat when we entered the grounds and spotted a man wearing middle eastern garb sweeping the entrance area with a very modern broom. Two of us paid our 20 pesos to get in, (the other girl decided it wasn't worth 20 pesos and went to sit on the pier and read) and we were off. We started by watching the Nativity in the form of a gigantic light show with 400 or so life-sized sheep, camels, wise men, etc. housed in a huge artificial cave. My favorite part was when the costumed guide used her walky-talky to tell them to start the show, but despite that, there was something slightly moving about the whole thing. It might have been the enraptured people around me (who didn't seem to notice how ridiculous it all was) or the familiarity of the story, but I kind of felt like it was actually Christmas. We spent the next hour watching monks in robes talk on their cell phone under artificial palm trees (real palm trees grow here! Why make them artificial? I suppose they matched everything else better that way...), catholic school girls browse the market of Jesus-themed pottery, necklaces, food, etc., and the giant 18 meter Jesus rise out of the ground on the half hour. I got my picture taken with a 12ish foot tall bust of Jesus and had the chance to walk down the road of the Pharisees (until my friend and I decided that, biblically at least, they hadn't actually taken the path we wanted to follow).

On Saturday morning, we made our way to the port in the wee hours of the morning (7:30am is way before anyone in their right mind gets up here) to catch our ferry to Colonia, Uraguay. The ferry was quite large, the ride was pleasant, and I didn't even get seasick. When we stepped off the boat in Colonia, we were immediately struck by the quiet and the freshness of the air. Buenos Aires is a loud, dirty city (which, I gather, is a common theme in big cities worldwide), and Colonia's charm lies in the fact that it is just the opposite. We picked a slightly chilly day to travel, so tourists were few. We, with our good, strong, Illinois constitutions, were pretty comfortable. Argentines don't like the cold, or really even the slightly cool. People here wrap scarves around their faces when it is in the high 50s and low 60s. Odd... Anyway, we had plenty of space to sit on the beach, walk on the beautiful old city wall overlooking the sea, eat at a local café, enjoy amazing ice cream on the pier, climb up in the lighthouse, and visit every single closed museum in the city (I guess when it is too cold for tourists, it is too cold for museums....). One actually had huge panels of that corrugated metal used to roof houses covering the windows and a sign that said "closed for renovations." It didn't appear to be preparing to open any time soon. The hardest part of Colonia to adjust to was the monetary system. A peso of the Uraguay variety is equal to just under 20 US dollars. There is something about paying 70 anythings for a sandwich and drink that seems like a bad idea (even though it is actually almost nothing in dollars). I even got to hold a 500 peso bill, which seemed like a lot even though it wasn't. All in all, Colonia was a great trip and a wonderful way to relax.

Sunday, a friend and I (I'm avoiding names since this is being published online, but she's the same girl that appears in many of my posts. Mom, you've seen her pictures) decided to attempt to navigate the little piece of hell known as the BA bus system in order to reach La Feria de los Mataderos. It only took 1.5 hours of wandering to reach a point that actually had a bus stop for the correct colectivo line, and we were soon(ish) on our way to the charming little suburb of Mataderos. According to the city guidebook left by my room's former inhabitant, which is often wrong, this barrio contains a livestock market which is completely off the beaten track, empty of tourists, and amazingly worth the trip. For once, the book was totally correct. I got to watch singers and other performers of traditional Argentine art and browse the most amazing market imaginable. The food there was phenomenal, too. If anyone ever offers you humita, expect heaven mixed with corn and cheese wrapped in a corn husk. It was utterly delicious. The grand finale of the afternoon involved boys ranging in age from around 4 to nearing 80 barreling down the street on horses, attempting to stick a small, metal/wooden pencil like object through a tiny ring hanging from a bar. It was a truly impressive feat. The crowds were made entirely of locals, and the whole atmosphere was as authentic as it gets. Best of all, I finally found the perfect maté, bombillo, and thermos. I've been looking for a set that called to me at every market I've visited, and this one was perfect. Now I can drink mate whenever I want (the drink and the cup share the same name, in case you were confused.) My cup sat on my shelf curing for the last 24 hours, and I'm currently enjoying my first batch of naranja mate (orange-flavored mate). Mmmmm! I was careful to cure it properly. The rituals surrounding mate are what make it what it is. Don't worry, I'll introduce you all to it when I get back. Mate is a tradion based on sharing.

{Over the course of the last three days, I've somehow managed to make this into a short novel. Props to anyone who get all the way through. There was just so much that happened...and it's only going to get better as I finish classes, travel to Mendoza to meet up with a friend who is working abroad in Chilé, and begin my industry tours in the next week}

---

---