Friday December 18, 2009
Paint a picture. We are to leave from my cousin Trini’s place in Buenos Aires at 4:45 in the morning sharp with Ariel, a friend of Glorita’s who neither Tomas nor myself knows, but who we’ll be spending the next at least 10 hours in a car with as we head to Glorita’s wedding to a señor Diego Ferriera in the province of Cordoba. At 4:50, I get a call from Ariel informing me that he’s waiting downstairs so I rush to gather my things and hurry my little brother up and in the process leave half of what I intended to bring for the weekend. We awkwardly exchange early morning introductions with Ariel who is rocking cut off jean shorts, white flip flops, a light yellow worn t-shirt, and looks some what like a young John Belushi perhaps and I ride shot gun as I’ve slept a whole three hours and my little brother decided to go for broke and not sleep the night before. We go a few blocks and pick up two other friends of Glorita, Pilli y Ana, la Negra (why thats her nickname is still a mystery). Same awkward intros and into the blue peugeot minivan with us all. As I’m riding shotgun, I’m in charge of the maté which means preparing it and pouring boiling hot water into a leather gourd between my legs on bumpy roads at high speeds for hours on end (it actually sounds much worse than it is).
We get outside the city limits and immediately proceed to miss our exit and hence continue on to take a 30 minute short cut through a small working class town, which is essentially a make shift one constructed around the main street which people like ourselves use as a short cut to get back to the highway to Rosario and Cordoba. During this time, we listen to Liliana Herrero which is good and i get excited because its actually good and I look forward to what other new groups i might come across on the trip as i am super picky when it comes to music in general and in particular music in spanish. I think all this before i’m forced to suffer through 5 hours of for the most part pretty awful hyper dramatic argentine folk music, and drinking tons of mate kind of forces you to pay attention to whatever is going on around you (though Pilli weirdly had a Whitest Boy Alive and Sigur Ros cd that i was able to sneak in the mix ). This dilemma was accentuated by the fact that after an initial stop around 6 to get gas and hot water, we did not stop again till noon thirty due to service stations being on the wrong side of the road which was a deal breaker for Ariel and that in between Rosario and Cordoba there is maybe one gas station. We do however get stopped at multiple police check points along the way, all in Cordoba where it seems like they did an even swap with gas stations. These check points are basically two cops hanging out under a given over pass with an orange cone to signal people to slow down and stop, and pass a second long instant judgement/class/racial profile to see if they want to stop the passerbyers or not. Since Ariel looks like he came from Margaritaville and I don’t look so upstanding myself, we are stopped and questioned at half the stops and it repeatedly blows my mind how much of a bad ass Ariel chooses to be in regards to how it interacts with the police men; most people in Argentina have absolutely no respect for cops which is kind of awesome in many regards, but also kind of disconcerting in other ways. Cops are treated as things to be avoided so as to not have to pay fines or pay offs; its like playing a game of Monopoly where all the cards in the “Chance” pile are either bad or basically a waste of time. After our fourth and final police stop where Ariel gets a ticket for not having his low beam lights on during the day (which is apparently a higher crime than recreational littering, spray painting, not picking up after your dog or plowing through pedestrian cross walks when turning), we stop at a Shell to get gas and everyone minus me me me proceeds to buy prepackaged raw ham and cheese sandwiches as i go for the yogurt breakfast bar; only Ariel gets mild food poisoning.
We do a reshuffling of the seating arrangement before continuing on which positions me in the back right so I am fast asleep within 20 minutes as the landscape turns greener and Ariel begins to talk about how he is against patriotism as defined by the state because that story is written by the winners of wars and not by the true “pueblo” itself which makes little to no sense to me as Ariel can’t define what he means by that in anyway that isn’t self referential in its definition of the “pueblo”. It sounds like populist Chavista slogans as Ariel only wants a united Latin America as long as it consists only of people of the true “pueblo”. Maybe the post card of Che Guevara on his dashboard or the fake Argentine cardboard passport hanging from his rear view mirror which reads “Passaporte a la impunidad”, lists statistics relating to the effects of the Dirty War of the late 70’s/early 80’s in the country, and includes a picture of a symbolic bald eagle soaring over South America can better explain his positions. I’m super conservative when it comes to politics in Latin America now (mainly because it seems the only countries which are doing well these days in the South are those who have tried to stay as boringly in the middle as possible, and not try to continually disrupt things by cutting off exports, setting prices at super markets, or cutting off relationships with other countries because their heads of states don’t like being called fascists by other heads of states on live televisions during friendly visits).
So since at this point not one of us really knows the exact address or town we are going to and they are hesitant to heed my cousin Florencia’s text message with info about the wedding (which in the end was completely correct), we make a pit stop at an internet place near Cordoba to get directions from a last minute email sent by Diego Segundo the night before, and seriously, his middle name is Segundo, I’m not just making that up or claiming mine is Primero. The directions lead us to a small hotel, or better collection of cabins joined by a central events hall, in Cerro Colorado at 4 in the afternoon. When we arrive and ask about the civil ceremony which is to take place in 3 hours, we are greeted with blank stares from a cleaning lady and a large bald man with a larger gray soul patch and home made “madre” tattoo on his upper arm, along with other less clever tats. They try to call the “encargado”, which literally means the person in charge, but because we are in the middle of nowhere smack dab in the middle of the country, there cell phones are outside of any network and hence service. Thus our driver Ariel decides the thing to do in such a situation is to start drinking so we sit and Ariel and Pilly drink while I curse under my breath cause I am mister grumpy pants from the 11 hours of driving thus far and we wait for someone to get a hold of the “encargado” so we can some damn directions. We finally get hold of Chirolo el encargado after 20 minutes and two litters of Budweiser. Within those 20 minutes, Ariel, who we just met that morning, has told us all about a lady situation he is currently having regarding someone, he for some reason decides to be super vague at first, he has met a few weeks prior who has a long term boyfriend who lives in Salta, and who to Ariel’s dismay is coming to visit this week to spend time with her and return with her to Salta. He gets no sympathy from my brother or I (in fact we actively make jokes about it), but the girls are nice enough and allow him to continue with his mea culpa/bragging. Most Argentine males, myself included, just don’t get it sometimes.
The encargado eventually gets us directions to the wedding site which is about 30 kilometers away, but involves mainly unmarked dirt back roads so we have to be on top of our game so as not to get lost and make it in time to our cousin Glorita’s wedding for which we’ve literally travelled half way across the world. The situation of course calls for Ariel ordering another liter of Bud for the road because he wants something fresh in his mouth for the journey (his words not mine) and he wants to show us punk ass, capitalist Yankees (pronounced Junkees in porteño) how to drink and drive through unkept mountain roads. He is truly the man you go to during “clutch” time. Popeye goes with spinach. Ariel goes with bad American beer. Anyways while we drive I decide it would be very “clutch” of me to send our lady killing beer guzzling chubby buddy a text message from Ana’s cell phone, as he has my number saved already, pretending to be his current lady target Aimara whom he is now trying to convince to stay in Buenos Aires. The text roughly translated goes “I’m not leaving. I want to stay with you. I love you today and always”. We omit the last line mainly because Ana thinks its too unbelievable. We hit a spot with cell phone reception, send the text and wait for Ariel to receive it. He doesn’t get the text for quite some time as we are traversing the mountain and doing a bad job of holding back our laughter in the back seat. We see the screen of his cell phone light up to signal its arrival, he casually reads it and then immediately stops the car in the middle of the road and begins to respond hurriedly. He’s lost reception at this point and can’t send his reply, and in the back we are dying trying to be cool. After 10 minutes and no reception, it dawns on him that we might be fucking with him, but my little brother does an excellent job convincing him otherwise where as I’m not nearly as convincing and am basically admitting guilt though something gets lost in translation or he’d rather believe my little brother’s story to mine. Eventually he gets my drift, yells “hijos de puta” and we all laugh heartily at his expense though he takes it remarkably well which momentarily changes my view of him; my little brother asking him for a hug once we stop the car did not help the situation.
We arrive at San Pedro del Norte, ask an old shirtless man on the street where La Estancia San Pedro Viejo is, pass a white chapel which was constructed in 1680 as an outpost for Gran Peru, and arrive at Diego’s father’s ranch which is incredible in not so many words. We walk past a small lake with park benches parked under over hanging trees at one end facing the chapel a 100 meters away across the lake, pass through a side opening in the wide single story modern home which leads us to the pristinely cut backyard with a large covered deck, distant pool with false borders (i don’t know if thats the right terminology, but basically the borders of the pool are at the exact same height as the water level so it appears very flat if that makes any sense), and a view of his ranch and the distant mountains and large rock formations where the civil ceremony will take place. We begin to exchange our hellos and from afar I mistakenly identify half of Diego’s family members as cousins of my own and get constantly weirded out as I repeatedly discover my blunder (think Seinfeld bizzaro world style). My extended Garcia-Olano family is mainly lounging around the pool or sleeping (my kind of peeps) while the Feirrara clan is hard at work taking care of what needs to be taken care of for the ceremony. As we are in Argentina and have five minutes to spare, we end up playing a small side scrimmage of futbol where I am constantly humbled for how bad I play comparatively. The match actually started to get not so friendly at one point, not out of personal conflict, but rather typical Argentine alpha male aggression, but luckily for all parties, we were called off to get ready/dressed as the civil thing was happening in an hour.
As my minivan caravan crew were all a mess after our drive and as there is no space whatsoever in the house to get ready, we decided to drive 10 minutes back into San Pedro to see if we can find a spot to take showers, etc. That turned out to be us driving up to the same old shirtless man we asked for directions from earlier and now asking this complete stranger if we could all shower at his place. He made something up about his shower not working well or something which weirdly offended the girls who couldn’t believe this complete complete stranger wouldn’t allow us all into his home, but he did give us directions to a nearby hotel which was completely booked with guests from the wedding where we ended up taking showers although at 15 pesos ( ~ 4 bucks) a pop. As we were in a rush and I was last in line, my preparation consisted of wetting my hair, brushing my teeth, and dousing myself with this travel sized cologne my dad gave me for the trip which can only be described as spicy smelling. Its not really important to the events to follow, but I figured I’d share all the same.
We all pile back into the blue mini, make a pit stop so Ariel can return the beer litter bottle he consumed while we showered to get his 2 peso deposit back, and head back to la estancia. We get there, walk at a brisk pace to the backyard again and then across this wooden swinging Indiana Jones style bridge to get to the field where the ceremony is minutes away from beginning. Its really stunning. The sun is setting and the horizon is all fiery oranges, reds and blues, and everyone is gathered near these enormous rock formations in the middle of the field to serve as witnesses. Its a relatively quick procession, everyone takes photos and congratulates the two lovebirds and we begin our return at a slow pace to the home which at this point is illuminated by outdoor high old time lamp posts which from afar are actually quite sinister looking as we can only make out shadows set against the floating lights from the darkness that has become the fields we have congregated at. Upon crossing the field and the Indiana Jones bridge again, we all chat, drink wine/champagne/coca coca cola, sit down at these white tables on the deck to eat a light fare of mainly empanadas followed by flan. Then a friend of Glorita’s from her home town of Curuzu Cuatia, which is in the province of Corrientes, gave a speech I could only half way hear and understand. It started with the standard I’m bad at speeches and ended with the “i love you guys. a round of applause for the couple !!” It was nice, but then was immediately completely upstaged by Diego’s friend Juan (who plays upright bass and signs for Tarco Trio in BA and who has started a sort of weekend eco tourism company with Diego ). He sang and played guitar to a Pepe Nuñez song which was brilliant and again gave me faith in Argentine Folk music (much like Liliana did earlier in the day before the barage of suck). After that, people mainly continued drinking champagne and talking/catching up with family and talking about how much had changed within the past year which however cliche is actually very true of this year in particular when I think about it. Something about the last year of a decade. The summer of love and political revolutions of 69, Iranian revolution of 79, Fall of the Berlin wall of 89, people losing their minds of the possibility of the Y2K bug in 99, and then Obama and everything this year. huh. This site is pretty cool if you want to check out what happened in a particular year (Do you think I’m sexy by Rod Stewart was a number one hit in 1979 just in case you were wondering)
Anyways, after the night appeared to be winding down, a group of thirty guests walked in with candles in hand and proceeded to serenade Glorita and Diego as they danced under the covered patio alone, Glorita looking beautiful as she tends to, and Diego wearing a Panamanian hat a little too big for his head, but still pulling it off in a classy, tough guy sort of way. At that point it was nearing midnight and it was not so implicitly suggested that everyone leave because the following day at noon, everyone would be reconvening in the same estancia for the church wedding ceremony which was to take place in the old Spanish Chapel nearby. Tomas and I took our sweet time saying our good byes as the rest of our caravan gang waited impatiently as if they were in a hurry to trek through the mountainous unlit dirt roads again so that we could make it back to Cerro Colorado after 8 hours worth of drinking (Tomas and I for better or worse were part of the completely sober crew and i was making a routine guest appearance as a part of the sleepytime trio as i am often wont to).
The way back from the party is where the adventure beings.
Saturday December 19, 2009
So I’m in and out of consciousness in the front passenger side seat on the ride back to our lodging for the evening listening to Ariel drive and sing Argentine folk songs at the top of his lungs (well mind you) along with the rest of the purple teethed vino kids in the peugeot minivan (minus my little brother who although singing along in some form to songs he’s never heard, has had not a drop of the red stuff), when it occurs to me that speeding on rocky unlit roads in the night when we are kind of definitely lost and without cell phone reception doesn’t seem like a good idea. Almost immediately after coming to that realization, we go over this incline in the road that leads to a steep descent down into a large rock near my side which Ariel can not avoid as we’ve basically landed on it, and then the flapping sound commences, the state of initial denial and then the release of a few f words. The tire is f-ed. We pull over slightly and bring the minivan to a complete stop and fumble out. Ariel comes across from the front to inspect the scene and immediately goes to the back of the van and asks me to help him get the spare out. We spend a few minutes wrestling with the release mechanism as his spare is located underneath the back bumper only to realize it is flat. Its probably only around 1 in the morning. We all know there is basically nothing we can do, though my little brother keeps telling me something along the lines that maybe this is a test and that he and I could easily walk and eventually get to where we needed to get to get help, but I after thinking about it, suggest since we have no idea where we should be going nor where we are, it might make more sense to wait this one out and see where it leads us. It leads to Ariel and Marina, a new arrival to the gang, laying down behind the van staring up at the stars and talking about revolution (or so I’m told). The sisters Ana y Pilli are sitting by the side of the road rambling at one another about this and that and how i am timid, before one proceeds to pass out over the back seat and the other puts in a cd by Orozoco Barrientos which reminds me of maybe the singer of Death Cab in spanish and i actually mean that in a good way, and Tomas and I are sitting in the back of the trunk which we have opened so we can stare out into the night while we wait. The next and final song we hear before Ariel turns off the car radio is by Silvio Rodriguez and it equally impresses us. Two for two aint bad. Eventually Pilly comes back and starts talking about the music class she is taking and asks us half shoutingly without intending to if we’ll be singing at the wedding party tomorrow to which we say probably. She then asks us to sing so we sing Pseudo-Narcoleptic and a Pink Party acapella style for her and she likes it (or at least says she does) and then joins her sister in the car and also passes out.
At that point, out of dumb luck or what have you a kid pulls up on a motto and Ariel talks with him and he says that once he gets to the town he’ll let someone at the wedding know that we are stranded and goes about his way. He stuck to his word so while every one else was passed out in the van (including my little brother at this point), i stayed seated on the back bumper and waited partially because i actually wasn’t tired after sleeping in the minivan before we rocked out, but also i was paranoid that whoever was coming to get us was also probably wasted and thus wanted to turn on the emergency lights on at the first sign of any lights coming our way as i wasn’t able to convince Ariel to just leave them on (as he was afraid that would drain the battery). It was actually very calming to look out at the night sky, stars clearly visible along a desert backdrop. Shortly thereafter Diego’s friends pulled up in a pickup singing Argentine Folk songs at the top of their lungs and helped us out by pointing out the obvious, your front tire is messed up and your spare is also not functional and as we don’t have a spare ourselves, we’ll just take all of you with us which sounded great to me. Three people sat in the front while the 8 rest of us sat in the cab. 7 of us fit great and then Ariel came in and basically laid down on top of all of us, my little brother and i get the brunt of his bulk so about 2 minutes into the ride (2 painful minutes), we both did 180s in our seating style and basically dropped Ariel to the floor as we sped off into the night.
As we were pretty far away from anywhere we needed to be, Diego’s friend literally pulled up to the first house we saw with lights on and asked the patron if all eleven of us could stay the evening. I don’t know who the man was, but he was actually happy to have us and even left to get some more mattresses so we would all fit. It was pretty amazing. The guy was older and definitely was either German himself or of German parents ( which is not uncommon in Cordoba ), and his home was that of a ranchers who additionally had a vegetable garden to the right of it. Great guy. The girls and two of Diego’s friends all slept in one room with a bath room while the rest of us, 5 in total, slept in the adjoining room. The next morning we got up, talked a little about music with Juan where he told us about TarcoTrio and this other tango band he is in, and we told him about the Eastern Sea and Peter and the Wolf, my little brother’s and my band respectively, and then we all got showered and dressed for the traditional church wedding. By that point, Ariel had woken up early to air up the spare tire and put it on (told you he was clutch ), so we left without any wait and got to the estancia soon after.
Upon arriving and doing the standard hello/how are you/kiss/handshake to everyone within a 100 yard radius ( i actually like this mind you and wish we did it more in the states ), we walked past the lake and a little further to the chapel where we met up with the people from the night before and some people who had just arrived including our cousin Florencia and my friend Julieta who I used to play folk music with while I lived in Buenos Aires almost 2 years ago. There we waited under the sun and caught up on the times some. Julieta is now teaching Spanish in South Africa to people working for the 2010 Olympics and is about to hopefully join this fusion Afrobeat / Latin band named Tucan Tucan there. Madness. My how the times change things. Two years ago we were in a band that sounded like a Spanish Fleetwood Mac to me and now she’s going to play in a band that from what I can tell sounds like the Miami Sound Machine ! Oh and our cousin Florencia is pregnant and we got to meet her mister man, who is a bit quiet, but solid and is a labor lawyer in BA. After a little bit of a wait, we heard this recording of Argentine Folk Music and then looked off and saw 5 horses carrying Glorita and her brothers (Manuel, Ramiro, Pope, Hernan) and their children (Juan Manuel, Nicanor) along with a giant flag which looked similar to the German flag, but turned out to be the flag of Curuzu Cuatia. They trotted up to the edge of the stone wall surrounding the chapel which provided a 50 meter long courtyard before its entrance, and Glorita’s father Hernan helped her down from her horse, him in a blue suit with a yellow flower in his jacket pocket and straw Panamanian hat like her brothers and she in a white and beige dress. He walked her a few meters up to a waiting Diego and then everyone proceeded inside the chapel though many including my little brother and Ariel left part way through the ceremony out of heat exhaustion. Inside we gather close, and listen the priest give the standard guilt trip / blessing and then everyone starts singing this song by the mexican duo Donato y Estefano, “Estoy Enamorado” (pardon the cheese youtube clip but it shows the words). Diego’s brothers and friends are musicians and harmonize the bejesus out of the song and it is good. The chorus roughly translated says “I’m in love and your love makes me grand. I’m in love and it does me well to love you.”. Some how that worked really well in Spanish at the point though now that I listen to it recorded I can’t stop of thinking the Robin Hood song by Bryan Adams. Equally cheese, but man does it make me want to get a blue jean jacket right now and makes me wonder how I forgot Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater where in that. wow.
After the procession which was not nearly as short as the prior days and kind of kept going when you thought it was going to end (and people were literally leaving in droves because of the heat), we all walked to this area near by where they had set up all these tables under these trees near the main house and proceeded to eat, be entertained and dance from 2 til midnight. The wedding had a very God Father 2 vibe to it, the old country of Italy thing, lots of characters. Eight couples from the pueblo were brought in to dance traditional regional dances for the guests (split into two different groups, first the younger of the young couples 5 to 12 year olds and then the 13 to 18 year olds). It was nice, but i felt kind of weird at one point about it. First because i had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on and man it took forever, but also it kind of seemed like a spectacle that was forced upon the kids (who were getting paid for it, which was evident when after they finished dancing, they served as mini waiters who would bring you desert cakes and stuff). It was cute but i kept on thinking in the back of my mind “child exploitation !”, though not enough to not realize how dumb it would be of me to say or do anything about it. After the kids danced, a group of musicians from Corrientes came up and did a set of Chamame (folk music particular to the northeast of the country) including a cover of this song which talks about literally overdosing on how awesome Chamame is (talk about scared straight.. eessh). Glorita and everyone flipped there shit and went wild and sang along and danced to every song. People from Corrientes I would argue have more pride than even Texans which says a lot in itself. Near the end of there set, Glorita went up and sang a few songs and then a male friend of her’s from Mercedes went up and recited to orations he had prepared and floored everyone including myself. He was about my size/age with a beard, but had a harsh Tom Waits voice and literally was on his tippy toes at points when he spoke which included tons of hand and body gestures. After the band finished, a DJ then went on to play some bad Spanish pop hits and a little folklore and a handful of Guns and Roses weirdly.
At the point the two immediate families went off to take photos and Tomas and I followed cause we’ve got no shame. The families combined numbered 20. ridiculous. After that, we talked a bit with the oldest Garcia-Olano son Manuel about how he was doing and he told us about this foundation in Argentina which he is helping get established in Corrientes named Fundacion Conin which works to prevent malnutrition in infants because any malnutrition in someone below 2 years of age permanently stunts their mental/emotional growth. The rate of infant malnutrition in Argentina is horrifyingly high at 20% and education is already a huge issue in the country so needless to say Manuel deserves all the praise and help he can with his efforts. It started to get dark and it appeared as though a storm was on its way at that point so everyone went in to have desert and coffee, which included 8 different cakes and a lot of me sitting at a table and not talking to anybody and shoveling. After the shame passed we went to the front of the house where people where drinking Coke and Fernet (a herbal liquor here which tastes like gasoline to me), Champagne, and Red Wine and listening as people took turns singing songs on a classical guitar and being accompanied by whoever wanted to do percussion (the percussion was always way way louder than the guitar so things quickly degraded into loud singing and banging which in itself wasn’t bad given the context). Our friend Rodrigo sang for a while, then Glorita, then Tomas and I did the two songs from the night before and a Cranberries cover “All my life” we got Glorita to sing, then Julieta and then the rest of the night it was basically Juan and his buddy dualing guitars and vocals in a way that was nothing short of incredible. Seriously. it was very intelligent and complex, but more so they were just very well written songs and harmonies (no idea on the words to be honest, and i think the vast majority were covers). At that point it was probably midnight, and a lot of people had already left, but as I knew my minivan crew was going to be out till late, I went to the minivan and passed out for an hour before I was woken up by Pilli and some dude opening the minivan (i think but am not sure) with the intention of sullying it and I jumped a went back to the fiesta fiesta so as not to spoil the mood. When I arrived everyone was still in full swing, dancing and singing and eating makeshift lamb sandwiches to help with the inevitable hangover the next day. I exchanged jokes with Ramiro and Pope, took more photos and just kind of hung out until 4 when we decided to go back. This time we made it back without a hitch, got our rooms and passed out immediately before leaving town around noon the next day.
* we took a ton of photos. here are some of them
