beef or bust

Believe it or not, their is a train that goes to the end of the world in Ushuaia. Ushuaia being the southernmost city in the world-- a mere 550 km from Antarctica. A tourist trap of sorts. An interesting one at that. A pretty city. ANYWAY, two things:

One, I have no interest in going to the end of the world. In fact, the thought of such a trip and a place conjures images of things similar to what you may see in a Stephen King movie-- the Langoliers for example. The end of the world-- and going there, ON A TRAIN!, sounds terrible.

Two, if, and only if I was required to make a trip to the end of the world, I would undoubtedly want to make the trip in a bus. A big bus, preferably electric blue in color and equipped with wheels that could run over things-- anything-- if necessary. Inside the bus My Morning Jacket would be played over a loudspeaker. And food, christ, their would be peanut butter and jelly. Lots of it. This, of course, becuase you must surrender your leg to get a small jar of the stuff here in Argentina.

Buses in Argentina happen to be the closest thing to heaven with 8 wheels (or so I think, this item is still up for research) in this country. I have taken every opportunity to utilize this mode of transport making it my movement method of choice. As the crow flies, I have traveled roughly 17,000 miles in a bus in this country-- read: 3,202 miles. My route has been of fairly euiler´esque variety having traveled first down the east coast, across the south of the Patagonia crossing in to Chile and then up the west coast of Argentina.

Beautiful.

I have seen whales fully breached, eaten ice cream that tasted like Jesus prepared it himself, watched a man get nearly creamed by a truck, seen a few glaciers, eaten hot dogs at the foot of a mountain roughly the size of Texas, met something like three thousand German tourists, bartered with an elderly woman (in spanish!) for a set of headphones, hell, been to the end of the world.

BUT NEVER, and I mean NEVER have I ridden in a bus as much as I have here in Argentina-- and thoroughly enjoyed it, mind you.

There´s simple things like the scenery:

The sights rain from boring to interesting in the confines of a air-ride equipped 8 wheeler. By interesting, I mean to the point of hallucination, by boring, I mean to the point of simply asking the driver to stop and stepping out. Hallucination!? Oh and its natural. So natural it is scary. REALLY, REALLY scary in fact. The first time it happened to me I thought I ate a bad apple or drank some shitty water. But then it hit me! These buses, these magnificant moving things, they have drug-like properties. And its free! FREE!

Step 1 - Look out the window.

Step 2 - Do not look away. Stare, eyes open-- blink as little as possible-- for something like 70 minutes.

Step 3 - Do not look away.

Step 4 - Finally, turn off the music, look away. LOOK AWAY!

Step 5 - Hold the sides of your chair very tightly. Veeeeeeeeeery tightly. Look at the curtains... THEY ARE MOVING! Ok, now you are seeing the merits of a perfectly natural hallucinogen. The clouds! They are jumping around like dancing rabbits! The best part-- hands down!-- is the movement that the floor makes. Yes, yes, it suggests vertigo, makes me want to puke at times, but I promise it is the most staggering part of the whole occasion.

So these buses-- kind of similar to the Magic School buses that I read about as a little child-- also from time to time offer you different services of class. Yep, just like an airplane. I have taken all three-- semi cama, coche cama and cama EJECUTIVO (that is semi bed, full bed and EXECUTIVE bed).

Coche cama is my favorite-- leather seats, bob o bon candy bars (hands down the best version of chocolate bar in Argentina, akin to the claims I make about Tim Tams in Australia but this time it just involves a golden wafer that happens to taste like warm peanutty something), tea if you should so choose and the BEST selection of Spanish dubbed movies that almost ALWAYS involve a few things:

1) Violence, a lot of fucking violence. Things blowing up, arms severed, flames, guns. The thematic undertone of all the violence is something as it relates to the near demise of The United States of America. I never realized until now how many movies have actually been created post 9/11 that involve a terrorist act dangerously similar but millions times worse. The most recent one involved Denzel Washington, an extremely attractive black woman and some stupid contraption that allowed you to view things as they happened in the past. Anyone?

2) Sex, either overt or suggested. Pretty Woman is a perfect example of suggested and the example for overt I do not know the title-- but the woman had great breasts, blonde hair and she was probably 5´9´´. Sorry, thats all I´ve got.

3) A sports team. Yes, either a coach and his plight to make his sports team win (Friday Night Lights, the movie with the Rock coaching a bunch of inner city gangsters, etc).

This is neither here nor there. I never finish these movies as I am either nodding off because I cannot follow the spanish, burying my face in a milanesa sandwich or said bon o bon candy bar OR I am concentrating in perfecting the air guitar solo to THE BEAR starting at 3:13-- a song by My Morning Jacket. Listen to that one Alex. If I come home and you can play that sonofabitch all the way through, my life plans are canceled and we are starting an MMJ cover band that will tour the country-- starting in Michigan, we won´t bite off more than we can chew. This band will likely involve Mike because let´s be honest, his voracious appetite for Jimothy et al would really complement our whole outfit. I have a beard right now that would probably put me in the running for the frontman role, and you Alex, well, grow your hair out and choose either the role of Carl Broemel or Patrick ANIMALIA Hallahan. Oh god. Mike, can you handle TWO TONE?

Sorry.

I am so excited.

The spanish is coming along. By "coming along" I mean I am really awesome at responding very enthusiastically as to what I did in a day. I can always ask where the bathroom is and totally understand the directions that I get back. I have been-- TWICE!-- mistaken for a foreigner because I did NOT sound like I was speaking gringo english. This statement, on both occasions, urged me to go to a place where I was alone and totally do the KIP Yessssssssssssssss thing from the movie Napoleon Dynamite. These are big deals you see.

I can name with relative certainty, every beef cut on a bull, because, after all Argentina has more beef available than I have ever seen in my LIFE. I eat beef roughly 4 times a week and subscribe wholeheartedly to the merits of what I call the BEEF OR BUST diet. It basically involves survival off the wonder meat and encourages consumption whenever possible. BEEF OR BUST does not include hot dogs, salami, any sort of conglomerate meat (I guess thats salami) or the other weird stuff like brains, hooves, or... TONGUE.

Jesus.

I was at a hostel, sleeping in a closet, mind you in a town called Chaltan. This place just celebrated its 23rd birthday not too long ago and is somewhat behind in terms of modern civilization. This is extremely endearing if you are looking to camp in a tent and go hiking for a few days (like most people that go there) or terrifying if you have just come out of a four day hike in Chile (that´s me) and want nothing to do with nature, mountains, drinking out of streams, tents, hiking boots, etc etc etc etc etc.

ANYWAY, this hostel, dare I call it that, offered me a room in a closet. Literally, a closet. Every other hostel in the pre-civilization town was full because of said birthday party taking place and so I was left with no choice. OK, deep breath. It was a family that owned the house, and judging by the look on their faces when I walked in they had either NEVER seen a tourist enter in to their hostel or they were just terrified that my grizzly persona was even considering staying in their home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got the tour of the place, the fella told me I could use any of the books on the main table entrace, yep yep, yadda yadda. He showed me a "sample room"-- a room at least 56 times more accomodating than mine-- then I met his daughter, their dog that made me want to cry because he smelled so bad and the laundry room. Oh the laundry room. It resembled a cold war prison and I was not going to use it. Then the kitchen. Jesus Christ. The kitchen. It was clean. It was nicely organized even. Lots of pots, even a fridge to use and WOW! they had a microwave. This was good news, great news! I had not had a microwave in a while. And then my head turned 30 degrees to the left and I witnessed the most horrific thing sitting at the kitchen table. It wasn´t another child or a furry creature that made me want to throw up. It was a COW TONGUE. A FULL COW TONGUE. This thing was massive, anf gray and it looked like it had goosebumps. All over. It was at least three feet long, and it was thawing on the table. I was terrified. I yelped a little bit. I was thoroughly disgusted and asked what in the FUCK that thing, that monstrosity, that AHHH! that WHATEVER IT WAS!

"Ahhhh senor, la garganta." He is pointing to his throat, not mine. Signalling to the region of the bull where this thing was taken from. Listen compadre, I get it. I get it.

"Si, si, si, si, si, si." I said it many more times than that because I did not know what else to say.

"Ehhhh, a BOOOOL, a vaca." He was trying to make it more obvious, but I understood, and it was terrifying me. I was already having bad dreams because of this TONGUE, this piece of flesh just sprawled across the kitchen table. The kitchen table that I was going to cook ravioli on. Oh jesus. I knew I should have bought those sanitary wipes. If not for cleaning my hands, then God, just to prevent the spread of some disease.

Deep breath. I turned around. I was sick.

"Claro, claro. Vamos a su habitacion!"-- OK, OK, lets go to your bedroom.

"Si, si, si, si, si, si, si."

And then the bedroom appeared, far different than the "sample room"-- it was a glorified closet, had to be. There were no brooms, no cleaning solutions, no light either. Ummm, was there a mattress? I lightly gestured towards the sample bedroom but this was apparently reserved for the caballeros that were coming later. Awesome. I had no choice.

Feeling as though I would happily take the train to the end of the world if it meant I could get out of Transylvania just a little quicker, I immediately hopped the next bus out. Being in the confines of that smooth 8 wheeler never felt so good. Bring on the candy! The tea! Poorly dubbed movies! Andale!