After a paradisiac week in Punta del Este, meaning 32C degrees and surfing in just my bikini for two hours (after that my fingers start to go numb), in April, in autumn, a season that when I was in Punta del Este back in 2009 we had to light up the chimney, even though I would go to the beach and swim in the ocean anyway, reason why the guys working at the beach bar called me “Little Mermaid”. But let’s not difer, after such an incredible summer week at the beginning of autumn, my last day in Punta del Este was warm, but the windiest of them all. At 3PM I headed towards the beach anyway to which seemed like a sand storm. There was a guy napping there with a huge backpack and three kids running around and playing. In my sleep, trying not to eat sand, I heard them speaking German. Which made everything more clear, since no local would be on the beach on a day like that. Only a crazy German would. I left to another beach in search of a dune that would shelter me from the wind with no success, wind was coming from every possible direction. So I went back, walking through lots of accumulated iodine. The German and his kids were still there. The sea was wild, wilder than it usually is. Waves were going, following the wind, in every direction, breaking in every spot you could lock your eyes on. Lifeguards were all wearing jackets, having some mate inside their cabin. I was dying to get into the sea, but my family would tell me I was crazy as they did when I left to the beach. It was my last day, but with the sea like that, I was doubting myself and my swimming skills. At that moment, the German starts changing clothes, using a towel to cover himself he put his bathing suit on and walked towards the sea. He was my perfect excuse, the water was warm, the air, even full of sand, was warm as well. He swam  to the horizon not to be seen again, I went into the water. It was lovely, I didn’t want to get out, I didn’t see the German again till he came from another part of the beach and got into the water again. We both got out at practically the same time. We were near because there weren’t a lot of places where you could cover yourself from the mild sand storm, so he talked to me and asked where I was from. I told him I was from Argentina and he said “Ooh, that’s why, not Uruguayan woman would bath on a day like this”… I asked him where he was from, he said Germany. “That’s why you are at the beach as well…What do you do here?” He told me he works as a lawyer, his partner represents them both in Germany and he works from Punta del Este thanks to some little magic called the internet. He then continued talking about how Uruguay is different from the rest of Latin America and how in Germany summer was brief and unstable meanwhile in Uruguay he goes to the beach while the water is warm which is, as he said, from October to May, that is 8 months of beach against 6 weeks of summer: “We only have one life, so why not spend it here, at the beach? Everything is expensive here, but if Uruguayans can do it, so can we”, he told me, which made total sense and thought he was certainly winning at this game. In his 50s, proud of his hairy beer belly, enjoying the beach everyday as if it were the last, taking his kids, who were doing their own thing running all over the place, leaving him in peace to have a nice nap under the sun. They only came when they knew it was time to leave by the sight of his father taking his bathing suit off and changing his clothes. A total geezer. I was a bit cold since I was sick that morning, and his kids came to talk to him so we started to say goodbye. He asked me my name, his was Ralph. He corrected my “R” twice, first an English one then a French one till at last I got something that sounded a bit more Germanic. I started to walk back home, he and his kids went to grab their bikes. I was waiting to cross the avenue by the beach, which sometimes takes like forever due to a curve and as he started crossing right behind me a car came, I heard the break and Ralph saying not so nice things to the driver super out loud and waving his arms up in the air, then three boys went past me riding their bikes, followed by that crazy German waving to me and saying “Chau”, who was there at the beach to make me realize that I wasn’t crazy because I wanted to feel the ocean in spite of the weather one last time, that the crazy ones were all those who weren’t at the beach.

Since I was three years old till I was ten, I went to piano and double-decker keyboard lessons. It all started when my mum entered her room while I was watching telly. I was watching ballet. I just thought the ballerinas were beautiful and elegant and magical altogether. The music was piano. She told me in that tone people use when they are deeply inhaling whatever they are experiencing and feeling with awe and joy: “Listen to that piano.. Do you like it?” I was three, I said yes to please her, not that I didn’t like it, but I was paying attention to the dancing, not the music. “I’ve read kids who learn how to play an instrument when they are little learn to read and write quicker and turn out smarter than other kids… Do you want to learn how to play the piano?”. I, a bit confused about how that conversation turned out, said that I wanted to be a ballerina. My mum said: “Yeah, but do you want to learn how to play the piano? Listen how lovely it is.” Being an only child as I was back then, my parents, and mostly my mum were the world to me, I wanted to please her. I said yes in a “yeah, why not? Let’s try this piano thing I don’t really get because I’ve only been on this planet for three years and haven’t seen much of it” kinda way.

So it started, my mum would come to the lessons with me, because it was mandatory since we were all really little. She was thrilled, to me it was like a game. Learning new things and mastering in what could look like a cocky way to others is my own personal game, although I was super lazy and went to school all day long so my mum had to remind me that I had to practice for me to play at home. I remember one morning when I was 5, there was this piano music playing on TV so I turned my keyboard on and started playing it. My mum heard me and she was so happy I’ve developed such a good ear.

The lessons were divided in parts. One was playing whatever we were playing at the moment, another was exercising on the piano, another one was singing musical notes while the teacher would play the piano, another one was turning our backs to the piano and sing the note she was playing, we had to guess. It was fun. Then, at the end of the class, we would do an ensemble with several simple percussion instruments. Since I was three, I always chose the triangle, I chose it because it was metallic, simple, shiny, whimsical and magical to me. Its sound seemed from another world full of fairies and ballerinas. Whether the rest of the instruments were bongos, some others made of wood and a xylophone, which I played once when they gave the triangle to the most obnoxious girl in the class, even though we were all friends, she was daddy’s little perfect girl, ahead of the class, with pompous dresses and super tidy hairdos with her straight, strong black hair and her sacred pale skin, also, her name was Miracles in Spanish… Anyway, this isn’t about her, everything was fine with her although she was really annoying in that way.

One day, when I was 8, my teacher got sick of me always choosing the triangle and a boy whose name I can’t remember choosing a wooden rectangular hollow instrument which name I’ve never ever learnt. So she made us switch. We all started playing and I couldn’t keep the beat exactly right with this new and strange to me instrument I was experimenting with. Also, to my surprise, since I’ve always thought the triangle was the most beautiful but still the easiest instrument on the ensemble followed by toc-tocs, the boy couldn’t keep the beat with the triangle either! I was not a complete failure who could only play the stupid triangle and it wasn’t as easy as it seemed, after all. My teacher stopped us to fix the beat. The next time I was getting it right but the triangle kid kept missing the beat. The next time the triangle kid got it right but I didn’t. Then another time we both got it right but after all the previous mistakes, we confused some of the other kids who were now making mistakes. Finally, the teacher got tired and frustrated and she gave me my triangle and the kid his wooden instrument back. I was pissed because I wanted to master it, yet happy and glad to have my beloved metal, shiny, whimsical, magical triangle back.

• Sup
• Just listening to “hopeless romantic” songs. You?
• Eating some pizza
• Good.
• What was going on with you yesterday?
• I was sad because of a guy who didn’t love me and, I don’t know, I missed him and I was mad at me for missing someone who didn’t love me. You know, girls stuff.
• And boys.
• Yeah, as well.
• What does the guy do?
• What does he do with what?
• With his life.
• He moved far away. Luckily, I guess. One gets worked up anyway but at least you don’t see him around, that helps, I guess.
• I think we’ve talked about this guy before.
• Yes. I don’t change guys.
• Uf
• We can not talk about that if you want.
• Hahaha. Whatever you want.
• I don’t know. Whether I speak or not, it doesn’t stop being sad. I take a lot o time to get over someone. I suppose that’s why I don’t like people often. And that’s it. Good luck with your pizza.
• Yeah. It took me a decade to get overa n ex. I really regret having lost that thinking time.
• Yeah, I know. I choose not to think, but every once in a while It comes back.
• Hahaha. If it comes back throw it away.
• I don’t know, it’s hard when you still consider the other person as a good person and smart and a thousand things that make you not want to throw him away.
• The other person doesn’t know how to love you.
• I think he chose not to. At times he knew how to.
• Right. He didn’t want to. Worse, right?
• I don’t know, maybe at times he knew how to and at times he didn’t? Or sometimes you don’t want to because you come from a situation where you loved and it didn’t feel good. I’m at that moment right now.
• It’s respectable.
• Yeah, I also wander if it was me, if it was the moment, probably both. I would like to sleep for a week and wake up not feeling anything at all.
• Yeah. Better to wake up and feel again.
• No.
• Being in love is a sensation in life, not a name.
• It happened just once to me and I don’t want it to happen again.
• OK.
• Eventually if it has to happen it will. I just hope to be the one who gets tired of it before. You still feel bad, but it doesn’t torture you afterwards. You? Work? Girls?
• I’m doing OK. Trying to have a year with a bit of luck.
• With lots of luck.
• I don’t ask for that much.
• You have to ask for everything and then if you don’t get it, oh well.
• Or ask for little and then they give you a lot.
• To the universe you must ask for everything, because it has everything to give us. That’s what I’m talking about, the universe’s infinite abundance. You don’t have to ask for anything to people, they’ll give you everything if they want to, obviously I’m not talking about material things. Regarding the universe, I am talking about material things as well.
• I’m not talking about the universe.
• Right, I am.
• I am talking about here.
• Haha. And where do you think we are?
• The people, the supermarket, the cyber cafe, the university.
• That’s universe.
• The universe is outer space.
• If one day you are exhibiting your work at the MoMA, it’s because you and the universe worked together for that to happen.
• It’s super far.
• No, you’re on the Earth, which is a planet that’s in outer space. You are part of said outer space.
• Hmmmm. I have no idea what you are talking about. I’ve never touched a star.
• You became super anti-stars and your world shrank.
• It got closer.
• No, if that was the case you woud get that you’re part of the universe.
• It doesn’t change a thing.
• Yeah, if you think you deserve just a little luck, that’s all you’ll get. If you think you deserve lots of luck, you’ll get that.
• If you want we can talk about astronomy. Or physics.
• That’s a different thing.
• But don’t mix love in this.
• There’s lots of love in astronomy and physics.
• Not at all. There’s lots of numbers.
• So?
• So what?
• They are not necessarily separated. To me, an astronomer puts lots of love in what he studies.
• Yes.
• Same as a physician.
• Yes. Become an astronomer.
• I’m not really good with numbers but I’ve thought about it.
• Ha. Same as me.
• I’m not good with love either for that matter.
• Nobody is good with love.
• No, that’s true. Luckily there are tons of people that are good with numbers.
• Yeah.

I was brought-up Catholic. I still once in a while go to mass because it feels like meditating, I believe it truly is a form of meditation, since you don’t need to be in a yoga position saying: “Ommmm” to call it meditation. I got baptized at the age of 9, just before my first and only communion because my parents wanted me to decide whether I wanted to be a Catholic or not. I get pretty along with this religion since I shape it up as I want to. The protestants did, the Calvinists did, Henry VIII did.

I’ve been feeling really anxious and sad and tired and with a constant headache and a terrible neck pain so I thought, why not trying meditation and yoga again? I sorta mastered the scorpion position by now, and I’ve found a bit harder to meditate than in the past, so I thought of looking for some YouTube videos to help me on that, you know, guided meditation, soothing music, creation of a noble ambient.

Looking for that I remembered reading a Brian Weiss book regarding past lives regression. A lot of people call him a charlatan, but I don’t know, he’s a psychiatrist, he didn’t believe in all that himself, although he might be lying about all that to convince skeptic people, I don’t know why, but I believe him.

So I found a hypnosis exercise on YouTube that said to be the one that Brian Weiss uses with his patients. It was a woman talking. She first made you relax and visualize something then takes you to a past life through more visualizations. I did it. I didn’t have a vivid experience, maybe because my mind won’t stop for even a second, but I did feel being in a castle, at first I thought it might have been a church but it was my home. They ask you to look at your feet and the floor. It was white marble, shiny beautiful white marble and I was wearing blue or purple shoes with a jewel on them. I walked in the vast space which had really nice really antic furniture and I remember talking to an old lady that lived there about not wanting to get married to the man I was going to, but I was forced. I think I loved someone else. It kinda seems like a soap opera, but I vividly remember crying feeling so much angst. I was happy before that, and due to that marriage was never happy again in my life even though I had it all.

It is very common to think these are images you might have seen in a movie or a story you have read or maybe your own imagination. So I repeated the exercise today. This time I found a longer one guided by Brian Weiss himself. It was a bit difficult to fully relax since in the middle a storm started and the noises distracted me a bit since I was so relaxed I felt I might be in some sort of danger even though I wasn’t because I felt so vulnerable even thought Brian Weiss all the time tells you that you are safe.

At first he tells you to go through a childhood memory. He tells you a few times you can choose a happy one because the brain tends to lead you to the darkest ones. I started playing like a series of moments in my childhood and thought there was something wrong with me not being able to stick to one and remember it in fully detail, but then Weiss went on saying that it was ok if you found yourself in a series of childhood memories and I just let it happen. Remembered being in the pool with my sister on a really hot summer afternoon in February, the phone ringing and my mum telling me we had to go to the hospital really quick because my grandpa Alfonso had died. I started crying, my sister asked what was going on, I had to say I hit my knee in the pool and that was why I was crying. Then my head took me to Montevideo, Uruguay, to my other grandpa’s home, remember playing and celebrating his birthday, then I went to other memories in pools with my sister, this time they weren’t sad ones but I was sad that they were long gone. Then pools with my childhood friends.

After that Brian stops you and tells you to go further back, to the womb. I remember it being dark, I did not have the sensation of water. Weiss from time to time asks you stuff about what you are experiencing. He has this strong belief about one choosing our parents, so he asks you why did you choose your parents. Shortly before having him asking that, I felt myself as a little human being in fetal position, really worried. A voice from somewhere told me: “Don’t worry, there are going to be problems but it’s going to be alright.” I then felt somewhat relieved and Brian took me to the time of my birth. I didn’t feel myself being popped out of my mum’s vagina really, it felt like going into somewhere where there was light, yes, after being in the dark. I remember seeing something like my mum’s face from below but it was my own current face, so that was confusing. Then I felt my mum touching my little long fingers. Then I saw everything like a movie, my mum super happy to hold me, I was wearing a white wool baby thingy because it was winter, with a matching white wool hat on my head. I don’t know if that’s the way it was, but it seemed real.

He then makes you go further back, to a past life. The two times I’ve done it first thing I did was to look at my feet. This time they were a man’s feet. I was barefoot, they were big, wide, hairy man feet. I was in bed with my beautiful wife, it was like a cabin in an ancient village. She was delicate as a flower and I felt big and ugly like a troll. The first memory was me grabbing her in bed and having sweet but rough sex. I thought: “Is this supposed to be part of my past life memory or am I masturbating too much these days?” I thought that I should let it be no matter what. She seemed to be enjoying it, we had real chemistry but something felt off. Then I saw her in bed, pregnant. Then we were at home, we had three beautiful boys. Then I saw it like a movie, the image of my wife kissing another man, his features were more delicate than mine, even though he still looked masculine. One of my boys had his hair like him. I thought about probably none of my children being mine of maybe some of them were but then thought my wife had that same hair colour as well, and that I shouldn’t think of that, they were my boys no matter what. I was a pacific man, so I just let her leave me and go with that man. I felt so heartbroken ever since and tried to keep on living but I was always sad. My village was really small, few houses surrounding a round square in the middle, no grass, straw roofs, mud houses. I was a redhead but a lot of people had fair hair, my wife had olive skin. I’ve never fell in love nor was with anyone ever again. Then Brian Weiss tells you to go the death experience in that life, and I saw myself in bed, and my ex-wife crying, realizing she never stopped loving me, she was just fed up with our life. My kids were there as well, now grown-ups. I died from a heartbreak, it took long, but I never recovered my wife leaving me and I was sad all the time. I wasn’t sick, I could tell, I was heartbroken. It was nice to see me she loved me, it was hard to know that in my deathbed. After that, Brian Weiss leads you slowly and nicely to awaken, feeling your muscles again, opening your eyes, stretching if needed.

I don’t know if this was imagination, things I’ve seen in a movie, or what, I don’t really know how to feel afterwards, you are supposed to feel somewhat healed, that maybe you carried something from that life into this one, some lesson you haven’t properly learnt. I’m not sure what that is in these cases, I don’t know if I truly feel better, but Dr. Weiss says practice make the master and maybe with time I get more vivid and deeper experiences that sweep me off my little skepticism and teaches me the lessons I’ve still haven’t mastered after all this time.

There are two great places where you can lose yourself and think about everything and nothing with a thousand miles look on. I’ve been to both this week. I went with some friends to the beach this weekend. It was amazing, I’ve been missing the beach badly after returning to Buenos Aires from Mar del Plata, which was more like winter due to the weather so not so much of lying down feeling the warm sand under your skin after swimming in the Atlantic Ocean’s cool water. My friend’s house is a block away from the beach in Villa Gesell, where I haven’t been since I’m 1-year-old, literally. We were at the south of the city, the beaches are wider than in Mar del Plata where both the sea and the tents you can rent to avoid the windy weather slowly minimized the public, free, dispossessed coast to almost nothing, being unbearably crowded during the amazing month of January. The last day at Villa Gesell, a friend decided he wasn’t going to sleep after going to a club. We went to the beach to see the sunrise. The castle I built that warm afternoon was surprisingly still there, only to be almost destroyed by two waves shortly after I arrived. The tunnel I made was also there, which was even more surprising. Nobody had stepped on it, I could put my hands through both sides of the tunnel and still make them touch in the middle. The waves turned the tunnel into two pools for the castle a little afterwards. We had a smoke and looked at the violet, pink and oranges of the sky at dawn. Two guys were trying to get into some small boats every time a wave came so they didn’t have to step into the water to start paddling. They fell a few times, it was funny to watch. I decided to sleep for at least 3 hours and my friend had the keys so he came back to the house with me. I couldn’t sleep well because as he was awake like a hamster in a cage not exactly knowing what to do with himself, he kept making lots of noises, and I was feeling too lazy to go and say anything to him. Three hours later I was having breakfast, my friend’s mum gave me the news that Alberto Nisman had “committed suicide”. I’ve been reading a sci-fi short story called “Escape from Spiderhead” by George Saunders while sitting on the branch of an old pine in the garden of the house and it seemed like I was being part of a sci-fi short story myself. After breakfast I went to the beach. I started walking towards the pier which was 20 blocks away. It reminded me being under the Coney Island pier, which is larger, but being under the pier, watching the waves breaking there, made me feel the exact same. I tried to walk over the pier but there was a fee: if you had any kind of fishing gear it was $25, if you wanted to just walk around, $15, if you were a senior citizen, $5. The day was windy and cloudy and cold, it looked like it was about to rain all the time, so the pier was pretty full and the beach pretty empty except for people walking just like me.  I wasn’t willing to pay for that so I kept walking a bit past the pier. Then I started going back to my beach. Apparently the mist didn’t allow me to see clearly, or I entered some kind of time and space vortex because I could not remember any visual sign that made me notice I was getting near my beach. I saw one of the beaches, that I remembered was a few beaches before mine that was called “Sun of the South” (Sol del Sur) so I kept walking, happy to know that I was near. And walking some more. And walking. And all I could see were things I’ve never seen before during my walk. And the beaches got wider and the people fewer and the architecture of the place got more like the style of La Barra in Punta del Este, typical white wooden houses with blue roofs or low rectangular modern buildings with a sea view. I blamed myself for not taking the camera. I didn’t because I thought at some point I would go into the sea and swim for a while. I wanted to but I didn’t want to leave my stuff alone and the sea was wilder and braver that day. There was a long row of beach plastic chairs at some hotel’s beach. I sat there for a while, saw a fisherman in the distance. Didn’t know where I was, didn’t want to ask. Not that there was a lot of people who would knew around. I stared at the sea from that big plastic chair for a while and decided to keep on walking because we were returning to Buenos Aires at 2PM and didn’t want to be late. I kept on walking. Past the fisherman. Thought about asking him where I was, but didn’t want to bother him, he was enjoying his fishing. I looked back at the pier, now a black long line in the horizon surrounded by mist. I never remembered seeing it from our beach, so I thought I had to keep going yet. I didn’t remember walking that much to the pier before, but now I had the wind against me, so I assumed that made me feel like I had been walking a lot more. I started to get tired, which was rather weird to me. I’ve been walking with my feet in the water, the wet sand making it harder, maybe it was that. I kept walking. After a while I saw some kids sandboarding from a dune. Their dad waiting at the beach on a quadrycylcle. I decided to ask him. He told me he did not know exactly, but that we probably were near 160 St. My beach was back at 141 St. I had no idea how I got lost that much, I felt like a group of fairies had convinced me to dance with them and entered another dimension. I think it felt more like mermaids did it although that is not exactly what mermaids do. They don’t trick you to dance and swim with them so you enter another dimension and then you come back not knowing where you are and what you thought was 20 minutes was 80 years in the real world, they usually sing and make ships sink, but it did feel like some mermaids had tricked me into walking by the sea for like forever. I didn’t struggle, though, just went along with it. After watching one of the man’s daughter sandboarding down the dune and after that, him going for her on the quadrycycle and taking her all the way back up, which I thought was fun and practical, not for the man, though, I started to go back. A few blocks later I asked a lifeguard who told me I was on 175 Street, (so the man on the quadrycycle didn’t really know where he was either) “You must be walking since morning!”, he said and I didn’t dare to ask what time it was because I didn’t want to think that my friends were probably already really mad at me. I couldn’t believe I was that far, yet I could. I couldn’t see the pier any longer nor any building that might look like the landscape near my beach. I continued walking, afraid to not find Sunset beach once again. But after a long walk, where I thought my legs wouldn’t take it then going past that sensation regaining that strength that appears after a long time exercising when you think you can’t take it any longer and you have no idea where it comes from but you are oh so glad it did (especially now that I had to return and there was no other way), seeing lifeguards trucks going my way passing me, not giving me the chance to run and scream for a ride, I saw the sign. It read “Sunset”. I didn’t get how I could’ve missed it before. I lied down on the sand, resting my legs, with a thousand miles look staring at the sea, embracing what was left of my stay at the beach, thinking about everything and nothing all at once. I went back to the house and as I got in my friend’s mum said: “Here she is! They were about to leave you!” I looked at the clock on the house’s alarm system and it read 14:47. I thought it was around 1PM, I really lose track of time at the beach. Back in the city, I had to get together with a friend to give him back his camping gear which he lent me back in October. We met at a bar. I sat at the bar because I knew the bartender, the place was full and I prefer to sit at the bar. I gave my friend his stuff back. It was somewhat refreshing being at a bar even though the landscape was far from a beach. The next night, after a meeting that intensified the mild hangover and the lack of sleep, I called a friend as I got off the train to see if she fancied going to the bar and grab a cold one before heading back home and die on my bed. She was tired so she passed and told me to go by myself to unwind. It had been a while since I’ve been to a bar by myself, but being really hungry and really wanting a drink, I decided to go after all. As I sat at the bar, I felt relief, I felt like there was nothing I could do but just relax and put my best thousand miles look on. So I asked for half a pizza and a Fernet & Coke for myself and enjoyed the feeling of time passing by without doing anything about it, same as at the beach. I chat a bit with the bartenders, some old guy then started chatting to me nonstop, which gave me a headache and I didn’t want to be rude and he was playing smartypants and I wasn’t really up for that kind of pseudo intellectual conversation, I just wanted to be a female, classier version of Barney Gumble and enjoy what was left of my drink. So after a while I started to put my thousand miles look on straight to the bar, paying less and less attention to him little by little. I’ve told him not to ask me intellectual questions, not that night, not at a bar, not while I was enjoying a drink by myself after a long day. He, little by little, after half an hour of nonstop talking, got the message and said something like: “OK, I’ll say this and I leave you alone…” I smiled politely and said: “OK, I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m really tired and don’t want to think of these kind of stuff right now…”. He got it, he said it was fine. I don’t remember what he said, but by the time his sentence was over, I turned my head to the right (he was on my left) and there he was, a friend that have gotten back from living in Berlin for a year or so. I was glad to meet him by chance there, at the bar, such a nice place for casual encounters with people whom you haven’t seen in a long while. We had a nice chat and a drink and then he walked me to my bus stop, which passes till the early hour of 11PM. Enjoying sips of his Cynar & Tonic under the starry, summer sky on the corner, we waited for my bus for like 10 minutes enjoying a nice conversation till it arrived, both noticeably glad the bar spontaneously brought us together while I was thinking and relaxing with my thousand miles look on; same as when I sit on the sand staring at the sea, thinking, with that same look on, and a friend I haven’t seen in a long time (because he lives by the beach and I don’t) passes by and calls my name with a surprise look on his face and we have a nice small talk before he runs into the sea to catch some waves.

What I already knew about San Pedro: The first time I went to San Pedro was the weekend before starting 1st grade in 1997. My mum was pregnant with my sister, it was our last trip as a three-membered family. My dad bought me a fishing rod made of cane with no mechanism whatsoever. I didn’t catch a thing. Nobody did except for a boy who caught a tiny fish that day.

Since I was a little girl I’ve wanted to learn how to fish. Now I can do it with a little help. In Uruguay, with my uncles in Rocha’s beaches by the breakwater and here in Argentina I always ask my dad to teach me but it’s something he does with his friends.

About San Pedro I know there’s really tasty oranges (gotta buy some) and it’s located by the Parana river (I would love to just sun bath and swim during the whole stay). The guys in my shooting group reminded me the existence of the honky-tonk festival in San Pedro where they get together and dance to country songs. It was like a month ago, but we’ll research about it. Sometimes with my dad, his girlfriend and my sister we go to the movies at a shopping mall and when we come out of the movie we see all the honkies with their cowboy suits and we go to their free honky-tonk lesson. It’s really fun. A classmate told me about some guy’s yard full of sculptures. Apparently, he’s well-known in San Pedro. Later that day I went to my dressmaker’s house to try on my belly dance dress and she told me about Monica & Cesar’s farm. They are a famous news anchor couple who several years ago bought a farm in San Pedro which you can visit as a tourist attraction. My dressmaker lives two blocks from my house and her daughter used to be a dance classmate of mine. She also told me that in San Pedro was the battle of Vuelta de Obligado, where Argentinian creoles put chains in the river so the English and French navy couldn’t pass. They succeded, so now there’s a museum and a monument.The brand new November 24th national holiday is to commemorate this battle. Preparation: On Monday at university they told us we had to have edited audiovisual material by next Monday. The final project consisted in going two or more times to a small town in Buenos Aires. First time would be to have the first impressions of the place, second (and third if necessary) would be to go with a shooting plan. We had to go ASAP and apart from shooting and taking photographs and having them revealed over the weekend, which is impossible. I’m burnt out from nearly not sleeping during the past three weeks and I’ve learnt to live with a constant, never-ending headache. Partial exam. Proofread a whole 400 pages magazine and its translations in a week. Shooting. Edition. Handing over previous project. Dissolution of previous project’s  group. Get a new group and organize a trip in an afternoon. Luckily, we agreed on timing and we leave on Thursday. I leave in a charter from Panamericana y Marquez, 15 blocks from my house in the northern outskirts of Buenos Aires, they go by bus from Retiro’s terminal, near downtown. We’ll stay at the Federal Shooting Campsite because they rent tents. These days I’ve been all around the city asking for lent camping gear to friend’s who said yes, then no, then asking another one, finding solutions. Exhaustion. The hours are way too short and Buenos Aires is too damn big. – Rent a tent (call the campsite) ✓ – Get an analog camera ✓ – Get 35mm film – Go to the office ✓ – Buy water ✓ – Go to my dance class (got there awfully late) ✓ – Call a cab for tomorrow ✓ – Laundry ✓ – Pack ✓ – Ask for a sleeping bag (Dani, Leo, D ✓) – Meet T for camera – Buy a disposable camera ✓ –  Go to D’s for sleeping bag ✓ I found an analog Kodak Brownie Fiesta camera at home. I took it to Pluscolor (photography store) and they told me the 127 Kodak film hasn’t been made for years now. This broke my heart a little bit because it’s a beautiful camera and really wanted to try it. 9:40 AM Cab arrives to take me to the charter stop. 10 AM Charter that leaves me at the campsite arrives to Panamericana and Marquez. I’m going to take a shower and try to pack and sleep. I’m taking Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” because I thought it was suitable because I was going on a kind of improvised trip as well and because I’m having a hard time getting hooked with this book except for some sporadic parts that make me laugh or some really good parts or quotes but they are pretty isolated in the whole book. I’ve been reading it for a year now, forcing myself to read it right now, really. Sorta boring. I’m about to finish it by now. I really love Kerouac but maybe that thing Truman Capote said about “On the Road” not being writing but mere typing makes a little bit of sense. The lack of sleep made me to not enjoy Seinfeld during breakfast. Panamericana and Marquez. Charter half an hour late. I hop on and one of the only two other passengers was a familiar face. What are the odds of that happening on a Thursday morning of a busy month? He is an artist I met in some exhibitions that lived for a year in 2013 in San Pedro. He told me some stuff about San Pedro and places to go like bars and the night club’s monopoly and their owners. He used to look after one of those guy’s houses while he was gone. The charter left me at the Federal Shooting campsite. I told the woman at the check-in counter that I would pay when my classmates arrived. I sat down and waited for them. The pool exploded with a large group of fifteen-year-olds that were all over the place. A group of them almost get into a ramble, another group was shaking a tree. My classmates arrived and we went to pay, the check-in counter lady got mad at me because I didn’t tell her I had a tent reserved, which was already put up at the campsite. I thought it was amazing that it had been already put up and didn’t have to take care of that myself. We left our stuff in the tent. Martin didn’t have a camera but at the campsite’s grocery store they were selling a Kodak analog camera from Brazil, 35mm film and batteries included for $70 Argentinian pesos. The film wouldn’t get hooked up to the camera mechanism. Half an hour trying to make it work. The two women at the grocery store, which I figured were mother and daughter, didn’t like us because not only we didn’t buy the camera, but we also ruined the film.

Federal Shooting campsite entrance

33 Celsius degrees going up a rift. The rustic stairs they made to go up the rift didn’t make it easier.

The view paid off, which was necessary to recover energy and air after going up. After 15 minutes of walking, some photographs and the first impressions of the town, we got to the Old Shipyard, a place the visual artist Juan De Stefano recovered and turned into a place where he permanently exhibits his iron sculptures, a place where the history of the humble neighborhood Las Canaletas is preserved and passed on, where the children learn how to make clay sculptures and a place with a 100% public access to the river (San Pedro used to have a municipal beach but now every safe, beach access to the river has a price). When we got there, Juan was at his house, in front of the Old Shipyard, working, but the place was full of kids swimming and playing in the water and jumping from the pier.

Boys swimming and playing at the Old Shipyard

Boy swimming at the Old Shipyard

Juan De Stefano’s iron sculpture by the river at the Old Shipyard

I asked a girl who was previously slacklining and was now sitting by the river with a man and a guy where was Vuelta de Obligado, how to get there and where could we get something to eat. They told me where to eat by the river and that Vuelta de Obligado was 20 Km. away and we could take a bus from the terminal. I told my classmates, we thanked them and as we left, they told us they were going to Vuelta de Obligado and they could take us in their car. After a long pause, telepathic conversation, doubt and mistrust, Majo, the woman, said to us: “So, guys, do you dare?”

I thought we might either end up starring in a B Class horror movie or that it could be really good. Paranoia made me, just in case, text my mum the Chevrolet’s plate and took a picture of it with my disposable analog camera. If everything resulted in a B class horror movie, it would be like Blair Witch Project but more vintage.

We went to the Vuelta de Obligado Battle museum. The monument is like a fountain that is a semi-circular wall of water gushing giant chains. 30 Celsius degrees. The monument’s waterjets were off.

Me, all touristy with the Vuelta de Obligado Battle monument

We smoked a bit of weed in the museum’s woods and by its pier but I didn’t smoke much because I wanted to be alert… I didn’t want us to get robbed and left in the middle of nowhere just for being the stupid stoner of the movie. We left the museum around 4 PM and we went to “A lo Cacho”, a typical town bar. We had a beer that returned me to life. After a while of interacting with the locals, Majo, who was waiting in the car, demanded that we left to “The Broken Bridge”. Ruben, “A lo Cacho”‘s manager, told us while serving a glass of Tacon (herbal beverage) to the gaucho Mario, that his bar had served as location of a film that won awards in a Berlin festival.

Colo’s Chevrolet parked at A lo Cacho

El Colo having a beer, me by the bar inside.

A lo Cacho. Inside, Nico and I having a beer at the bar.

Mario, the gaucho

We went on “El Colo”‘s (one of the guys we met with Majo, whose nickname translates as “The Redhead”) white Chevrolet listening to Colombian cumbia, salsa, reggae, looking for Majo’s ex-band in that playlist. Every once in a while “el Colo” would say that there was nobody around nor any kind of signal, something that I usually think as great, now made me think we were going to die there.”El Colo” insisted that it wasn’t like in Buenos Aires (where he is originally from), though, that you could trust people in small towns. The Broken Bridge was baptized that way last year when the stream went up so much that the water broke it leaving hanging wooden beams and enormous rocks coming out of the water. We went into a private land, past the wire fence and there, surrounded by cows and horses, we went into the water. It was something beautiful after such heat. Majo was scared and thought there might be either fishes or snakes. “El Colo” said there might be Cucumelo there and we looked for it in the cows’ shit for a while with no success.

Majo, Martin, El Colo and I

El Colo by the Broken Bridge

From left to right: Nico, me, Martin, the crew.

Majo, El Colo, me sun bathing at the Broken Bridge

We went back to “A lo Cacho”. I was wrecked. We haven’t eaten anything all day. Majo and “El Colo” played pool. Ruben told me the ravioli with stew was $95 Argentinian pesos. “El Colo” had recently told me that San Pedro’s restaurants were expensive as if we were in Las Cañitas (posh Buenos Aires neighborhood) even if it was just a small lousy canteen. When I heard that price my eyebrows spontaneously went up in awe and said: “What?!”. Ruben then answered: I can make it $90 for you, with that face, you can do whatever you want…” I felt flattered till I realized my beauty was worth $5 pesos. “El Colo” asked for a Pappo’s song, another one asked later for a Rolling Stone’s song and afterwards was Amy Winehouse’s turn. I decided to pay that much for the ravioli because I needed to regain strength and if I needed to run or escape I was going to need it (I wasn’t really trusting yet… especially after hearing one of the locals say: “The guys keep on shooting?” and some stuff that were unintelligible and “El Colo” said: “Yeah… The perfect crime.”).

El Colo and Majo playing pool at A lo Cacho

Nico, Pedro, Ruben and I

The stars in the road looked amazingly beautiful and bright. Either lying by the water stream with my face all covered in mud (great clay facial mask for free) or sunbathing in the field or on the car looking at the stars, I was so relaxed that I thought that it didn’t matter if “El Colo” grabbed an axe and cut me in two or some kind of exaggerated, dramatic, bloody death like that because in that moment, I was happy. “El Colo” and Majo talked about stopping by the road at night to have Mate (Argentinian infusion). I wanted to take a shower (and live) so I said no. They took us to the campsite and we agreed on going to a bar called Viento Sur at night. The shower had an amazing water pressure so it felt like a massage session. Martin forgot the adaptor to charge the camera’s battery. I went to the check-in counter, a bungalow next to the campsite, the restaurant int front of the campsite called “Riviera”, and to the Howard Johnson hotel next to the restaurant. Nobody had an adaptor. We called “El Colo” At Viento Sur we were able to charge the battery for a while. It was 11 PM of a Thursday night so there were a few groups of young people and a group of thirty-somethings with a baby. My classmates ate fries. Majo came by and we had a beer. I wanted to sleep, we had to wake up early to return the tent at 9 AM. Day 2 We arranged with Juan De Stefano that we would meet at the Old Shipyard at 12:30 because it was closed the day before. We took a different way, Martin bought his disposable camera at last and we arrived, followed by three beautiful dogs that came along with us in our adventure to a ship that was at the Malvinas (Falklands for English speakers) war, now a museum. One of the dogs got to the ship with a hurt leg because getting there, a big dog came out of a house and bit it. It broke my heart to watch everything not being able of doing anything because I’m super scared of big dogs, especially when they are barking and biting, and everybody in San Pedro leave their dogs out, so this things happen. I was scared of some dog every two blocks. The other two dogs jumped into the river when we got to the ship, the hurt one couldn’t. We went to take a look at the ship. I love ships so I really enjoyed it. When we came out, only one dog remained waiting for us.

One of the dogs about to go into the water.

The ship, once at the Malvinas war, now a museum.

I’m on a boat

Cartography and window reflex

After the ship we finally went to the Old Shipyard to talk to Juan. He told us about his neighborhood, Las Canaletas, the Old Shipyard, the river, the gutters that give the name to the neighborhood (Las Canaletas means “The Gutters” in English…It’s a bit funny that this is an under-priviledged neighborhood and it’s named like that, but it doesn’t sound as bad in Spanish), the children and drugs, he also talked to us about the sculptor Fernando García Curten and another artist, Yayo Altoaguirre that was born just hours away from Juan and he thinks it’s curious that both of them are artists.There were kids making clay sculptures: a pipe, a parrot, etc.

Juan De Stefano

One of Juan’s sculpture

Juan De Stefano’s sculpture

Iron sculptures outside of the Old Shipyard

Typical house of Las Canaletas neighborhood

Typical house of the humble neighborhood Las Canaletas

Then Juan left and we went to swim in the river. There were many families with kids by the river, I covered myself in clay from the bottom of the river once again and the guys rested by the river for a while. I couldn’t sit because of the clay. A group of boys asked us to take a picture of them jumping from the pier.

Boy jumping off the pier

We decided to go to García Curten’s. His house works as a museum as well. We arrived 10 minutes early so I sat on the threshold and waited.

Above: “Arts Workshop” Below: “Museum House Fernando García Curten”

A few minutes later I heard the door and see a bare-chested old man putting his shirt on and surprised to see me sitting there. He told me to wait and he left to put his t-shirt on.

Fernando García Curten, going inside to put his shirt on.

He then made us come in.

Fernando García Curten, still surprised after finding me by chance sitting on his threshold and inviting us in after putting his shirt on.

In the garden, under the shade of the trees, his 3-year-old grand daughter, newly arrived with her mum from Buenos Aires, was cooling herself off in a pink-plastic-baby bathtub. We walked past the garden towards the workshop where the sculptures and collages were exhibited.

Fernando García Curten’s grand daughter

Flyer

García Curten’s sculptures exhibited permanently at his workshop.

Later, we talked to him for a while. He had a black tee-shirt which sleeves he had cut off, black sunglasses and he was smoking his pipe. He told us his daughter and grand daughter had arrived earlier that day and they put the girl in the bathtub because it was too hot. While I was taking a look at his art in the workshop, I heard in the background, as I was writting in the guestbook:

– Dad! – No, grandpa… He then told us that he stopped making sculptures ten years ago because he doesn´t have enough energy for that anymore, so now he just draws and makes collages, that he doesn’t sell his work because nobody goes to San Pedro to buy art, that a lot of people doesn’t give him a good feedback about his work because he says they don’t like the obscurity and dramatism of it: “They don’t want to take a look in the mirror”. That the problem is old age as he discovered five years ago when the doctor found something serious that, as he repeated it several times I wanted to ask but I didn’t dare. He also told us that small towns are cruel to artists, personages, freaks, that he had only sold at a good price when he’s lives in Belgium and in Europe in general, that Ernesto Sábato told him: “They are going to kill you here (San Pedro)” and that he now feels it’s true. Last but not least, he said that to the young people that visit him he tells them to persist, and that more than bravery, they must have courage. That art is something that is not done for pleasure but for necessity and that he is really tired.

Fernando García Curten smoking his pipe with his sunglasses on. What not to love about this man?

Old Geezah

After we left García Curten’s house, we had an ensaimada, a pasty from Mallorca, now typical from San Pedro as well due to a large colony from there in San Pedro, filled with party cream (the original) or dulce de leche.

World’s biggest ensaimada, June 22nd, 2003.

I walked the guys to the bus terminal and then walked by the shore to the campsite. I’ve got 40 minutes left till the charter came to pick me up. I enjoyed for the first time the so well advertised pool of the campsite. Five lengths of the 10 Mt. poolthat costed me a lot of effort and air as ever before. I talked a little bit to the manager and the lifeguard. I took a shower and 15 minutes later the charter arrived. Never such better timing. I always love to look out the window during a roadtrip but it was so hard not to fall asleep. A really attractive woman hopped on the charter that, due to her looks, I supposed she wasn’t from here. Later someone called her on the phone and I confirmed she was, in fact, Colombian and I enjoyed the accent coming from the seat behind mine while looking at the road and falling asleep from time to time. The charter left me on Thames street by the highway and I walked three blocks towards the Subway that’s near my house for the first time and ordered the 30 Cm. sandwich. I have hardly eaten during the trip. I walked with my huge backpack on my shoulders the six blocks that separated me from home, I was happy to be back. At last, I lied down in front of the telly to die and enjoy an unsavory meatball Subway with tomato, lettuce, onion, jalapeño pepper, green bell pepper, sweet onion sauce, spicy sauce, and yet, still unsavory.