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Published: April 16th 2006
First and foremost, chag Semaech and Happy birthday Michelle! I hope you had a fantastic birthday and everyone had a great Pesach... 😉 how is everyone??
I am currently staying in a cute little hostel called Wincas in Mendoza.
On our first night we had a massive asado (which is a famous Argentinian bbq) and we went out to a club called Opium till late, which played a lot of INXS and 80's trash.
After the club I was so wasted and couldn't go to sleep, I noticed someone watching the third Star Wars downstairs so I went to check it out, I didn't speak to the person sitting on the couch at first, because I was pretty damn wasted and was in no mood. He started asking me questions, the usual stuff, like where I am from, what I do and i was answering in a slur and he was commenting under his breath saying that's bullshit or something, so I started to laugh it off and then he said something strange and out of the blue... have you seen finding nemo? I said yeah? and he said, do you remember when the blue fish immitates the whale? and I said... uh, yeah? and he said that's what you sound like and he started moaning like a whale...it was close to 4am and this heffer on the couch is moaning like a whale loud enough to wake up the entire hostel and talking so much shit i think i would have preferred to scrape up monkey poop all night. I said thanks and laughed it off nervously because it was a pretty random comment and I turned towards the tv, hoping to focus his attention onto something else. The next thing I knew, he was sitting next to me with his hand on my stomach telling me that he wants to see if my diaphram works! apparently diaphram is the thing in your stomach? not the contraceptive obviously... anyway, as soon as he did that, I pardoned myself as politely as I could and I ran like a mother fucker up the stairs and bolted the door shut, I saw him the next morning and avoided him entirely, pretending lthat we never had such an unusual encounterment.
The next morning I woke up with an enormous hangover and left my room just before lunch, as I was walking down the stairs I noticed a curly haired boy sitting by the window writing in his journal, I was still half asleep and managed to say hello and he said, Deborah? and I looked at him inquisitively and had no idea who in the hell this person was or how he knew my name. Apparently, he was on of the hundreds of israelis I met in the Pucon hot springs. I couldn't believe he remembered me and I love it when you bump into someone you've met before, it's always a strange encounterment. So we spent the day in the zoo together and it was a lot of fun and also very upsetting, so upsetting in fact I wrote a letter to Greenpeace that same afternoon...
In the letter I desribed this zoo as having tiny cages with magnificent birds like hawks and Condors and the cages were so small that these birds don´t even have any room to fly.
I remember watching a documentay once about polar bears and how if their habitat is not climatized to suit them they could suffer severly. Two full grown polar bears were in a very tight caged off area with a tiny pond maybe about a metre wide that went around the pen, the water was filty with a layer of skin made up of dirt and oil and it was 25 degrees. I saw in this documentary that the workers in the zoo went to all measures to get these creatures comfortable, they even imported snow from the Arctic. It seemed like this zoo expected the polar bears to adjust somehow.
In another instance, there was a fairly large cage which held about 250-300 baboons, they were extremly agressive and filthy, the cage was covered in faeces and food and they were constantly fighting and having sex with eachother, we witnessed one baboon claw the other nose and it was a bloody sight and only a few feet away from the people watching this. It seemed like a cest pool for disease and it was heart breaking to witness such incredible creatures caged like this and I remember thinking that they will have a short and unhappy life living like this.
As well as this, the lions and tigers and pumas were pacing up and down and roaring which is something i´ve never witnessed before, i´m used to them lying lazily in the sun like in Taronga zoo, all these animals seemed crazed.
Lastly, my friend just came back from buenos aires and said that you can pay to have your picture taken with a lion, a real lion. When i asked how, he said that they sedate the lion and i asked if anyone can do it and he said they can and that the lion gets sedated every day.
I don´t understand why this is being done just for the sake of a picture... !
If there has to be zoos, why can´t it be in a national park where there is plenty of space and that maybe instead of them being in a cage the people that come to watch them can walk through the park protected some how, like in a car or a train or something. Anything is better than the way it is now.
I was convinced that the animals in this zoo would have very short and unfullfilling lives, but i've had several arguments with people in my hostel since, apparently, because the main goal for animals is to hunt and feed- a situation like this is ok for them to live in, because they are being fed and protected. I'm not convinced that this zoo was "ok" for any animal and i'm not sure what my letter will do and i'm sure I will see more injustice as I make my way along the rest of this region.
I am nearing my second week in Mendoza and it's safe to say i'm ready to leave and head south of Argentina, most probablly Bariloche, the land of chocolates. I'd like to go south first to beat the weather because it's noticeably starting to get colder now.
I haven't done much here except for going to the zoo and paragliding.
My mother will probablly faint when she reads this...
I was strapped to a man and a parachute and we were standing on the edge of a mountain, waiting for a gust of wind big enough to carry us away. It came too suddenly and we started running, all of a sudden my legs were in the air and we were flying. First we swooped low and I thought we were going to hit the ground and then the wind pushed us up higher and higher
above the monsterous mountians and rocky peaks. It was v cool and incredibly nausiating and the views were average, but the feeling of being in the air was incredible and exillerating.
And the nausiating feeling, apprently is a sign of a fear of heights, which is news to me, I don't think I have a fear of heights ...but my stomach did. It was awesome and it makes me consider skydiving more and more.
Mendoza is a fantastic little city filled with wide leafy streets and is one of the cleaner and safer cities I have been to. I highly recommend it as a place to sleep in, laze around the parks, eat icecream and get to know the people around you. We started as a group of 12 people, we all met in the hostel on a Asado (Argentinian bbq night), and now there's about five of us left and everytime someone leaves the group it feels like you're losing a member of your family.
Every night we cook, we have made many Asados ourselves and beautiful pastas with sundried tomatoes, sausages, meats and Israeli rice, followed by ice-cream and averaging 1-2 bottles and 2 pints of beer to myself and easily a packet of Marlboro blues...
Going to the supermarket to plan the evenings meals are a highlight, it gives us an excuse to leave the hostel and we have learnt how much food to buy to serve 12 people, when I say we I mean Jason- I don't want to take credit for all his hard work!
In fact, it's safe to say that Jason the "heeb" from NYC cooks for the hostel every night and we, his little helpers- help out as best as we could by cleaning up and chopping up stuff.
On Passover, the heebs got together and made a terrific dinner or chicken drumsticks, egg noodle soup, potatoe salad and matza after a short and entertaining sedar led by two Israeli girls, Sivanne and Jessica. There were about 8 or 9 of us sitting at the table and i'm sure everyone who wasn't jewish who attended thought it was all very strange and funny. We actually talked about the stories behind pesach and the meanings behind the obscure food items on the table, which is unusual, because in our house and most houses I assume, everyone says a quick prayer and then ravishes the food. For desert, one israeli girl made a beautiful fruit salad with apple and wine punch... it was all very yummi.
We go to bed around 3am usually and spend the night talking and listening to music, or watching Friends or movies like Melinda and Melinda (a woody allen film, Sarah have you seen it? it´s great!).
Everyday we wake up and say to eachother, we really should do something today and all we end up doing is eating icecream or going to the park to have a smoke. I have been meaning to go to the store to see why I can't make calls since I got here almost two weeks ago, but I have been so lazy and we all blame it on Mendoza, it's very hard to leave once you're here. But tomorrow, I swear this time, I will seriously plan a way to get out of this place.
I really have enjoyed getting to know such awesome people in Mendoza which is probablly what has kept me here for so long. 2 in particular who remind me of a mix between certain people i went to school with or know too well.
I would have to say Dave from Canada and Jason from NYC are a good mix of Allen, Sammy and Dan Harkham, Domnicov and Krammer.
Allen, if you're reading this, i have made a friend with someone who is more passionate about movies, music and books then you were when we were in high school, it's so funny for me to see someone that talks about the effect that Bob Dylan had on the beatles that isn't Allen! He even does the same crazy hand gestures!
And Dave, here is written proof so that when you go back to Canada and feeling glum, look at this email because you should be a fucking writer, how can someone who knows so much and knows how to express himself so well NOT be a writer?! It's madness I tell you. How can I be writing when I know half the stuff that you know? I have told you all this allready repeatedly, but here it is in writing and I hope you do something about it.
Dave and Jason have suggested I read Wuthering Heights, i'm half way through now and it is an exceptional book. Harriet (from Holland), Jason, Dave and I just came back from a weekend away at these mountains. We were sick of the city and wanted to get in touch with nature..
i'd like to say it was in San Salta or San Antonio??? It was a beautiful place wherever it was and it was the coldest I have ever been, i'd say between 10 and 15 degrees.
We stayed in a tiny little cabin owned by these two guys who baught it as a business together. The landscapes surrounding us were magnificent dark mountains covered in thick fog and the streets were lined with tall thin trees burnt yellow for Autumn. It was a really small town and we didn't do much but read, eat and go to the pub nearby. This book, Wuthering heights is a perfect read for the location I was in, dark, earie, cold and wild.
On our second day, we went for a five hour hike to the mountain, I have never felt so unfit and was cursing the day I ever picked up a blasted ciggerette. My lungs were exsasperating and my heart was beating like an overweight racehorse, every step I thought I was going to passout and I think it was mostly to blame on the cold weather and the high altitude we were at and when I looked up the others hadn´t even broken a sweat, even Harriet who had a limp was doing better than me!
I fell on my ass several times throughout the day, not on dry flat ground but in a running river with slippery and unstable stones that I was attempting to walk across with awkward balance and a heavy pack. Ofcourse I was the only one who fell (as usual) on my ass in the water covered in mud and I looked up and everyone else did it with such ease. Once again, I have kept to my good old ways by acting like a clumsy fool and falling, out of all places... on my ass.
Last night was Saturday night, and after another Asado that the hostel prepared we all went to a club called corche or something. I was wearing my usual socks and thongs and my filthy cargo pants. That's one thing that I love about this place, you can look like something that's been picked off someone's shoe and still be allowed in anywhere.
We drank alot and danced like insane people and there was this one instance where Omid took me and spun me around like I was a rag doll. He did the whole turning thing and bending over thing and I was so drunk and dizzy but laughing my head off. Eventually it got so insane that he threw me and I fell on the floor and had to be picked up by several faceless people.
i'm going to have some nutella icecream now.
later 😉
deb
ps- can someone tell me what's going on in LOST!!???
pps- mum I will call you tonight most probablly.
mwa to you all.
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Sarah
non-member comment
awesome
Hey Deb, your blog is awesome, everything is sounding like a lot of crazy fun! Look after yourself! Can we see some pictures? Love you lots xxxx sarahinisrael PS- were you referring to me or your sister Sarah whe you asked about Melinda and Melinda? Bc I have seen it! It's cool :-)