Why I'm Leaving Buenos Aires, Maybe For Good!
Trials and tribulations of an overthinking traveler.
I’m leaving Buenos Aires. Maybe forever. I don’t know when I’ll be back.
September was sad. October was hard. November will be new.
If you asked me two days ago where I would be next week, I would tell you Buenos Aires. Not today. The answer has changed.
Today I’m packing. Today I’m looking for vacuum seal travel bags. Today I’m trying to see a few last minute places in the city I thought I had many more months to see.
I’m packing my clothes and toothbrush and my shoes. I’m leaving behind my can opener I bought on the street for 1700 pesos. The hand towels I bought in Cordoba. The sofa I bought in September. The new lamps, the new chairs, the new apartment. I’m leaving behind my relationship.
The last two months I’ve been struggling with the city. It’s noisy. It’s smelly. It’s chaotic. I’m paranoid. I’m sad. I’m full of anxiety.
I’ve been struggling with my relationship. Even on the happy days as we dance in the living room to Paul Simon’s ‘Call me Al,’ and I mimic tap dancing and play the air trumpet; I tell the Salteño about my elementary school dance recital to this song, and how my dad accidentally filmed another girl on stage thinking it was me. Even though I was the only one in the class with white tap shoes. Even as we dance and laugh and tell stories, the alarm is going off. The body alarm system saying, shouting ‘beep Beep BEEP, something is wrong, something is wrong.’
Sometimes love is not enough.
I’m not only translating the stories into Spanish. I’m translating my culture into Spanish. My life experiences into Spanish. The entire essence of who I am into Spanish. Into a language not my first. One I speak well, but not the one that makes me really me. Not the one that allows me to make quick, witty, and even funny comments on the spot. Not the one that allows me to hear whispers in a quiet place all the way across the room. Not the one that allows me to understand conversation in a crowded bar with the drum beat stealing every third word but I can still fill in the blanks.
His sweaters start to take over my side of our shared closet shelf, and I start to feel like I’m losing my identity. Our closet is full of his things, overflowing, as mine are pushed to the back. His culture and his language are always present, and mine is an afterthought. Something he is thinking about trying to learn next year. I’m on hold.
We paint the two new shelves we bought from the maderero on the balcony, as the sounds of traffic blare seven floors down. He paints his shelf quickly, making broad strokes over the palettes, leaving all the corners and nooks with glaring white spots of pine. He is satisfied with his work. I take my time paying attention to every detail. Filling in those cracks. The small curved sides on each side of the palette. The inside corners. The little things matter.
Because the little things matter, I made a big decision. I’m choosing happiness.
I have a flight to Mendoza on Tuesday morning. I’m leaving my winter sweaters with one of the two friends I have in Buenos Aires. I’m going to Mendoza. Two days ago I blew up my life, bought a plane ticket, booked housing in a city I’ve never been to. I’m spending most of the day fitting that blown up life into two suitcases and a duffle bag.
I’m going to Mendoza. Then who knows. Maybe I’ll see the Seven Lakes in Bariloche. Maybe I’ll see the Tulipanes in Patagonia. Maybe I’ll leave Argentina. First I need a few weeks to be alone.
Now the fun stuff!
(Unfun part: I still didn’t have a phone on this trip, so I had to use my ipad or borrow the Salteños phone, so quality of photos is meh)
Early in the month we went down to Puerto Madryn, in the Chubut province, in Patagonia, along the Atlantic coast. This is an area famous for its wildlife, most notably Southern Right Whales and Magellan Penguins. October through December is the peak season for the area as it is the time when the whales arrive, and the penguins come to breed. Unfortunately we didn’t see any baby penguins, as they are born closer to the end of November. However, we did see baby elephant seals, sea lions, and whales.
We saw THOUSANDS of penguins everywhere, covering the hills, the paths, the rocky beach at the penguin reserve in Punta Tombo, 3 hours south of Puerto Madryn. We also drove down rocky dirt roads to a place called Playa Isla Escondida, where we saw elephant seals in the wild. And I’ll tell you what. It got WILD. When we first arrived, we saw a macho (male) slowly bounce his way up out of the water and into the center of pack of hembras (females) nursing their babies. This guy was massive. Every few minutes he would bounce himself around to a new location until he finally found what he was looking for. With one arm flap, he grabbed the nearest hembra and slid her underneath him, and well… nature happened. And we all watched.
Check out this video from our first day in the area. We went down to Punta Tombo to the penguin reserve. It also includes the footage of elephant seal business time:
The most magical moment was at Punta Flecha. We got up early in the morning to watch the sunrise from the cliffs, and the whales in the water down below. It was truly an incredible experience to see these massive animals in the wild. Pure magic.
Later that day we headed up the coast of the Golfo Nuevo and spent the day in the Peninsula Valdes. There we saw more penguins, more sea lions, elephant seals, guanacos, etc. before concluding the day on a boat surrounded by whales. I had never been whale watching before and this was a great first time.
We divided our other two days in the region between checking out the small stops along the Golfo Nuevo coast, as well as the three small towns south of Puerto Madryn: Gaiman, Trelew, Rawson. Gaiman is a Welsh village famous for its tea houses. Apparently Princess Diana once had traditional Welsh tea here. Trelew is famous for its paleontology museum. The largest dinosaur fossil was discovered here, and in the museum you stand next to one of the leg bones. It’s taller than you are. Rawson is a port city, with a quiet coast in the off season.
Once I got back from Puerto Madryn, I had another exciting ten days ahead of me; my sister and my mom came to visit. We spent ten days gallivanting around the city, though at a much slower pace than normal. My sister is 5 months pregnant, so everything slowed down quite a bit. Which I loved. Generally she wants to do all the things in one day to really take advantage of her time; I like to do one thing per day and take my time. She was finally at my speed, though we did a lot more than one thing per day.
We visited all the main attractions: Obelisco, Cabildo, Casa Rosada, San Telmo’s Sunday Feria, several museums, tours, cemeteries, botanical gardens, and ate fantastic food. My sister pet almost every single dog in the city.
The next monthly newsletter I write, I don’t know where I’ll be. Maybe Mendoza. Maybe Bariloche. Who knows. I hope you’ll continue to follow along on the adventure. Why not!?