The Exploitation and Contradiction of South America - Stop Whining, Start Chilean: Volume 7

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Writing a travelogue has been great. Sitting here in an oasis amongst what have to be some of the largest sand dunes in the world, I get to choose what gets read, what I think is important, and what spin I feel like putting on it. It must be exactly like being a travel guidebook writer. Uh, except I don't get paid, and you have to stumble upon my work to find it. Yeah, and I fund all this traveling myself. And I don't get all the perks from hotels and restaurants. But I don't have any obligation, which may be why I left Paraguay over a month ago and haven't written anything new.

Point is, I'm not going to talk much about a natural phenomenon that straddles Brazil and Argentina, the Foz de Iguazu. It's the second most-visited tourist attraction in South America but should easily be the first, in my opinion. Shhhhh, don't tell anyone. Maybe its remote location prevents the arrival of the large crowds that Peru and Machu Picchu attract. The powerful forces of erosion, over millions of years, of course, have turned this area into miles of tropical waterfalls, which cascade millions of gallons at a time, over the edge of the earth, hundreds of feet into pools below. That is my weak, one sentence explanation for this feat of nature that can only be done justice by your physical presence. Getting there is up to you.

Continuing from last time then. Crossing out of Paraguay and back into Argentina from Brazil was a snap. It was almost like the Brazilians didn't even know Andy and I were there. Now, all we had to do to enjoy Argentina was to put our minds to the setting: Europe. That, wash our clothes (twice), realize we were relatively poorer than the Argentineans, enjoy the first world food while drinking their safe tap water, and...that's it! Traveling became much more simple and comfortable, if not more boring. Another day, another plaza, another cathedral.

Of course, Argentina has an amazing history too. In the 1800's, after independence and the end of Spanish tariffs on trade, Genoan immigrants moved into the port area of Boca, near Buenos Aires, to capitalize on the tin trade. This created an Italian immigrant boomtown, which thrived for years until a new, more accessible port opened. Boca now remains a depressed district, but rich in color and history, the corrugated tin siding of the houses painted bright like the spirits of the hard-working men of the port. This was where the tango was born. My understanding of this seductive dance is that it tells a story where a man falls in love with the wrong girl: a prostitute. His spirit is shattered when he cannot stay with her. (Maybe he has to go out to sea or she is not willing to give up her profession). A heartbreaking tale whose roots easily make sense in the context of this historic culture. (We all know women and seamen don't mix.)

Culturally we felt like we had been in Buenos Aires before. "The Paris of the south" was a refreshing break but not really what we were looking for. My hasty generalization would be: If Italy and Spain took a trip to South America together, and, after a night of passionate European love-making, Spain became pregnant with Italy's kid, and the kid was born much larger than the size of both their parents combined, then you would have Argentina. We couldn't afford to spend much more money in Argentina, so we headed west for Chile, which happened to be twice as expensive. On the way across the flat open plains of the Pampas, where the legend of the great Gaucho still thrives, Andy and I conversed about the financial situation of Argentina. The conversation didn't last long.

Andy: "I would definitely come down here and live for a year. I hope their economy stays bad."

We both looked at each other and broke out laughing. We had no idea how much these millions of people had suffered in the last few years as their economy collapsed and their peso had devalued to almost a third of its worth in a matter of weeks. But as Andy put it, "Imagine going to buy your favorite burrito that used to cost six dollars one day and the next day it was fifteen dollars." Sometimes in life, only a burrito can put things into perspective. But the reason we were laughing was that we both at once realized the error in his earlier statement. Selfishly thinking about our personal financial welfare, which is quite healthy, we disregarded the well being of 13 million port dwellers in the Buenos Aires vicinity, who had their bank accounts frozen as their money evaporated.

Wait, why were we laughing? Oh yeah, see it's all part of the exploitation. If Argentina wasn't such a cheap place to travel, we may not have even been there at all. Now rationalization: As the country has financially nose-dived from a first-world-like economy to a more third-world economy, tourism has definitely increased. And this will help the economy bounce back, right? So we were actually in Argentina to SAVE it, not to exploit the poor. Did you see how I did that? See that there? Without rationalization, there can't be proper exploitation and contradiction. And without privilege, none of this could exist for us. We speak English. We speak Spanish. Our money is worth more than almost anybody's. And we have more money than almost everybody else. If you put us in a bracket of wealth, we would most certainly be in the top 20% of the wealthy in the USA. (Debt counts as wealth, right?) And just having an income in the USA puts you in the top 5% financially in the entire world. So we are in the top one percent wealthiest in the universe. And to finish the discussion of our ominous privilege, we each carry a passport that reads:

"The Secretary of State of The United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance, and in case of need, to give all lawful aid and protection."

Strong words from a strong country. And every one of the fifty or so countries I have crossed into has heeded those words for fear of losing their oil fields. Where was I? The point is, we have great privilege and it is our duty to understand it while hopefully using it to spread positive messages as we travel. It has been and will always be difficult to completely empathize with people who are not as fortunate, as we blaze through their country with a pocketful of their currency and no understanding of their culture. But we try to. That is why we are here.

As we crossed the Pampas at around 3am our bus broke down (duh!). It was dead silent and freezing. The bus had lost power for some reason and those who were intelligent enough to have NOT left all their blankets, sleeping bags, and most of the warm clothes in Paraguay, (everyone except Andy and myself), slept soundly. And although I didn't recognize any of them, the stars were amazing out here in the wild, open plain. And the moon was upside down. This was as far south as I had ever been; as close as any continent gets to Antarctica. But before we were attacked by penguins or gauchos, the bus revved up and we were on our way again.

The bus stopped in Mendoza, the wine-growing region of Argentina. At this point we weren't eager to pay ten dollars to visit a winery to sample one glass of wine. In fact, we were ready for something even less cultural than that. I had personally done eight straight weeks of intense traveling through the Andes and Chaco learning more than I could ever hope to retain and, language permitting, understanding quite a bit of culture. It was Chilean time. We crossed the border over the Andes near the highest peak in South America (Aconcagua, 7000m) and zoomed down into fabulous(ly polluted) Santiago. The next days were spent skiing, walking around viewing mountain and city-scapes, relaxing, generally learning nothing except how much seafood we could stuff ourselves with, and drooling over the sexy, stylish women of Santiago.

For the hundredth time in my life, I had a recurring revelation. Sitting on a bench in Santiago, I just watched the people pass. They were all very happy and looked to be living simply. Nothing they did was affected by anything I did. Their culture was absolutely independent and unique. This can be said of places almost anywhere in the world, fortunately. Thriving, brilliant, and self-sufficient, even sometimes ignorant of outside influence. It is the way it should be. The more time passes, the more times I see somebody walking down the street in another country with a Marilyn Manson t-shirt or some other cultural influence from the west. The more satellites that broadcast MTV, the smaller the world gets. But it is still possible to see remnants of the way it was. As the world becomes homogenized there is nothing better than to sit back and appreciate shreds of culture which are still so profound, even if so simple.

As far as Chilean culture is concerned, we did make it to a heavy metal concert. The curly, black hair, which reached down to the waist of ALL of the Chilean men, looked to be the style of circa 1989, or at least that is the year they started growing it. Our hair was about three feet too short and the wrong color, and we didn't have nearly as much black leather as was required by the dress code, but when the songs got going and the heads got to banging, it was difficult to know whose mullet was whose as we all swam in a sea of Aquanet as the waves of wavy hair crested and broke to the intense rhythm of the band.

And such was the recipe for a few simple days in Santiago until I had to bid farewell to my travel buddy, Andy, who was there with me the whole time exploiting and contradicting while questioning the exploitation and contradiction.


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