We made our way to Uruguay for the day via fast ferry. We went to the city of Colonia which is a small and quiet vacation town. Here I was reminded of how much American I have lost over the past 10 months. As my parents strolled down the street shopping in the windows, I found myself bored to pieces. My consumer was dead.
I thought that it seemed an awful lot like my parents knew how to do only two things: eat and shop. Speaking of eating, I have regained about 80 percent of the weight that took me 10 months to shed in the past 2 weeks of dining with my parents. I’m not complaining here! 4 inch thick steaks twice a day for two weeks (with dessert and a starter) has been a lovely change from eating once or twice a day, something modest and almost never sitting. But it has taken its toll. I am beginning to look like an American again. It was something along the lines of breakfast, then two hours later a drink, then two hours later a big lunch, then two hours later another drink, then two hours after that a big big dinner. I had flashbacks about days where I simply didn’t eat anything because I was sitting in a train for its entirety. I then to a moment to reflect on if I am interested in that lifestyle of casual and social eating. Now that I had found out how little you can survive on, I found it wasteful to go back to the old ways. For that matter, I have fully realized how wasteful the American way of life is from start to finish.
Now on to how good the food is. I ate something called a tower of meat in Colonia which is steak, chicken, and beacon stacked on top of itself in a monument to cholesterol. I believe the expression is “liquid sex” when trying to describe what happened during consumption.
As we went back to the docks to catch the boat back to Buenos Aires, the boarding station was empty. The last employee that was leaving for night and locking up told us that the boat left 30 minutes ago. My mothers eyes welled up with tears as the realization that Uruguay has a one hour difference in time and that we were stuck in Colonia till the next morning. I felt like scolding her for such a helpless reaction to such a benign setback. I wanted to say “Cry when the last ship sinks in the harbour.” But then my sense kicked in and I realized that this is the type of setback that I have been handling for the past 10 months. She was new to this type of thing.
We ended up spending the night in the Hotel that was connected to the restaurant that was responsible for the meat tower and catching the next boat out in the morning. Over the next bunch of days we ended up taking a bunch of tours that I will spare you the mind melting monotony of sharing. Well all but one. I am going to keep it brief, but it is worth mentioning.
We signed up for a load of tours without really even knowing what they entailed. One of which was while we were in the town of Mendoza (wine capital of Argentina). All of the tours leading up to this one were slightly not what the information center had promised. For instance, one city tour was only in Spanish which was fine for Bud, hard for me, and impossible for my Mom. One day trip which was hiking and climbing turned out to be hiking and repelling (the boring part of climbing when you go down.) We also had one 3 hour tour around the city where we got of the tour bus for a collective 20 minutes. But the tour that took the cake; the one that really drove the last nail in the coffin, was a day trip out to a canyon.
After sitting in a bus for 7 hours, we still hadn’t seen anything other than an expensive stretch of desert identical to Arizona. We only had stopped a few times for gas and snacks. I thought that maybe we had in fact done some sort of activity and that I had blocked the whole experience from my memory due to its lack of substance. I asked my mom if I was crazy, or did we just pay a bunch of money to sit on a bus, listening to a Spanish lady screaming into the microphone, for 7 hours without doing anything?
My Mom laughed and said she was thinking the same thing. We eventually got to a canyon (which was spectacular) and drove through the whole thing. Not for a moment, did it make any sense, to stop and let us walk around for even a half hour. Why the hell did we take a half hour at the gas station and another half hour at the snack shop? Now, the reason we all have endured 7 hours of blank dessert and screaming Argentines, is a good time to stay in the bus? This is why people don’t travel much. Because they aren’t doing it right. It is more taxing this way.
I feel less free at this moment than I do when I am chained to a desk job. Seriously, this was so backwards, it was polluting the water system. I knew exactly the fate of the weekend warrior.
That day, by the way, lasted for 15 and a half hours and we were out of the bus for less than three of which.
But it’s not all doom and gloom here in Argentina. We did happen to luck out on one of the trips we booked. We decided to spend two nights out in the mountains in a log cabin. The place we ended up was lovely. It was remote, yet awesomely equipped. There was only one catch. It only took cash and we didn’t have enough of it. The closest ATM was 40 miles away and we only had limited time in the mountains and the public buses would have taken the better part of a day to get back and forth.
What a lovely role reversal we had fallen into. Now, sort of, my consumption driven parents were forced to go on a budget (for a few days). Something that both of them have experience with, yet have been fortunate enough to be above for many years now. Bud’s solution was to ration the money for enough to have a modest meal three times a day and go on a short river rafting trip. My Mom’s plan was to get more money.
Tensions arose only minutes after we realized that our quality of life would be seriously different for the next two days. I giggled with joy to get to experience this and, even more, see how each reacted differently. This was far more interesting than sitting on a cramped bus for 15 hours.
Fortunately and unfortunately, my parents started to get creative and realized that they had some American cash with them that the hotel would accept. Also, the rafting place took credit card. Within a few hours it was back to the normal extravagance. It’s a good thing that we got to go river rafting, because it turned out to be much more fun than I had remembered it.
Not without worries, I dreaded seeing my Mother fall overboard. Of course, she did not. But I had serious anxiety about the possibility.
We went swimmingly down the river as our expert guide gave simple and direct rowing orders. Turns out, he was related to one of my parent’s friends that was about 2 degrees of separation away. Our boat rowed in unison to the point that we should have been on an instructional video. There were all sorts of safety precautions including life vests (standard), helmets (rarely seen), and safety/rescue kayaks (the first I have ever experienced) that followed the boat closely. But it was all in the guide really. He had a ton of confidence and was a great leader. He was the head of the operation and was responsible for everyone out there (three boats full).
In an agreeable fashion with my Mother, this excursion made up for the half dozen worthless tours we went on in the two weeks before. I enjoyed the time with the parents, but until these past few days, it wasn’t something memorable at all. It was just a 2 week reminder that the past 10 months were being lived in a fashion that is far superior to that of most.
I can only hope that my parents have learned something from being poor for 2 hours 
Actually, in this trip, I have heard plenty of stories that I have never heard from them. I never knew that they kayaked with whales or backpacked through Europe for 6 months. I have slowly but surely been leaked a few gems over these past few weeks.
We have only a few more days in Santiago Chile, until my parents fly home and I continue my journey. They, I am willing to admit, will be missed.