Argentina.6: La Puna

Point of reference: Salta lies at 1100 meters above sea level, about 3600 feet. The highest point on the journey described below was 4080 meters, about 13,460 feet.

For the first time since I stepped off the plane in Buenos Aires, I sweated. Rarely has that ever been so exciting, but waking up in the nicely heated hostel room with a damp shirt was a treat, given how cold Argentina's cold snap was.

My warmth was short-lived, but for the best of reasons. We were about to depart for our first venture into the great Andes, the famed spine of South America, the mountain chain that produces those tasty creamy chocolate mints.

It wasn't even 6:30 when Jessie's cell phone alarm woke us up, but I hopped out of bed and dressed quickly, gathering the few things I wanted to take in a little bag. I walked into the courtyard to make sure Chris was up, brushed my teeth, and joined the others in the lobby for breakfast. Desayuno was remarkably good, a sweet croissant (medialuna) with some sweet coffee (Argentines like sweets almost as much as beef.)

The van pulled up soon after and collected the three of us, and we were off. We met our driver, Ceasar, our guide Eugenia (whose English was pretty good compared with what I've heard in this country), and the other passengers -- Marcus from Switzerland and three Argentine women whose names I could barely understand.

At a pit stop for snacks, Eugenia began to explain our tour, first in Spanish. Those who understood the native tounge listened intently, laughing at certain points while Chris and I sat silently. I listened as well, still pretending that I could gleam something from Spanish, but soon gave up.

Eugenia switched to English and told us that we were headed through the Lerma Valley, into the Del Toro Gorge, and climbing up to 4100 meters on our way towards the Salinas Grandes, the salt flats. "If that elevation is too much," she assured us, "Ceasar will give mouth-breathing to the girls and I will give it to the boys." Did we pay extra for this trip, I wondered?

The clouds cleared and the sun began to peek its head up as we drove out the valley, whizzing by trucks and bikes alike. We turned right on a dirt road and entered the Del Toro "gorge". As Eugenia explained herself, in Argentina "gorge" was used to describe any area between two mountains. Americans would much more likely call this a canyon.

My pondering over linguistic differences ended as I realized the lush vegitation around us had virtually disappeared and we were in scrub desert broken occaisionally by cacti. We were following the route of the Tren a las Nubes, the train to the clouds, which had broken down a year and a half ago with a full load of people at 4100 meters. The train was designed originally in 1921 by an American named Richard Maury or something like that.

To climb the incredible 3000 meters of its ascent into the clouds, the train needed a lot of "tyoonels" and "sweetchbacks," Eugenia told us as we paused on the side of the road for a closer look. I love funnily accented English, it makes me feel better about not understanding the native language.

We wound farther up the side of the canyon, passing numerous hoodoos, those eeriely thin canyon formations made famous by Zion National Park in the US. Above the Lerma Valley, the desert started at 1500 meters, where we entered the habitat of los cardones, the desert cacti that gave our hostel its name. Los cardones seem identical to the saguaro cactus of the Sonoran desert in the southwestern US and northern Mexico, but when I mentioned the name to Eugenia, she had never heard of it.

Presently the rocks took on an impressive palatte of colors. Deep purples, oranges, and blue-greens appeared in clearly defined layers. The colors come from various mineral oxides -- iron, silica, copper, and others. As we marveled, Eugenia brought out her mate gourd and began that curious tradition, pouring in sugar and tea leaves and adding hot water from a thermos.

She turned to us in the front row and asked, "Have you tried the mate?" I had attempted to get mate in a cafe, but it was just a tea bag, not the full setup I had seen so many times.

"Not really," I replied, accepting the small wooden cup and taking a sip. "Muchas gracias," I said as I handed it back.

"No, you're supposed to drink the entire thing before you give it back," Chris interrupted. His Lonely Planet-derived knowledge saved me from potential embarassment, and I quickly sucked down the rest of the cup, then handed it back. It was a hearty tea, similar to the strongest green teas, but made softer by the sugar Eugenia had added.

Mate is perhaps the most fascinating of Argentina's customs. It's pretty hard to compare it to anything in the US, because we have nothing so common and so addictive as this. Drinking the tea, which is a mild stimulant, cuts across class and ethnic lines in Argentina. Virtually everyone here totes around a small gourd to hold the tea, a filtering straw to drink out of, a supply of the ground yerba mate leaves, and a thermos of hot water refilled easily even at gas stations.

Argentines drink it like it's going out of style, but it's also a communal exercise. The gourd is usually passed back and forth, from husband to wife or among all guests if you're gathered at someone's house. It's not really served in restaurants, though, so Eugenia's generosity was my rare opportunity to sample this most Argentine of rituals.

The van passes more oddly colored rocks, including a ridge striped in dark brown and white like a marble bagel. We turn suddenly and begin to climb an arroyo, topping out at 3100 meters (10,200 feet.) The barren landscape changes -- here the rocks lying on the nearby slopes are bigger, owing to the constant freezing and unfreezing at this altitude.

We paused in the town of Santa Rosa de Tastil for a bathroom break and had our first taste of the intense winds tat the Andean desert can produce. What would have otherwise been a fairly nice day turned nearly insufferable due to the constant high winds. Jessie, Chris, and I waited in the lee of a small building until it was time to get back in the van.

We turned up a small dirt road just past the town and headed to the archaeological ruins from the Tastil Indians, who had lived here from 1336 to 1449, when their city seemed to get too big for the amount of water available. Looking at this beautifully desolate land, I marveled that anyone would want to live there at all.

Yet the Tastil Indians did create a community on a mountaintop where they could easily see invaders coming, and even managed to farm on nearby slopes, as we could see from rectangular shapes on the far side of the valley blow.

Back in the van, Eugenia produced a small bag of green leaves and began to explain the Andean tradition of chewing coca leaves. "The coca leaf is not a drug," she said. "It takes 250 grams of leaves to make one gram of cocaine, and you cannot do it without adding chemistry. It is like grapes are not wine."

Eugenia showed us how to break off the little stem and stick the coca leaves in our cheeks like chewing tobacco, only without the spitting. We each grabbed a pinch of leaves and shoved them up by our gums. Coca leaves, our guide explained, are very good for staving off the effects of altitude sickness. They're also a mild stimulant and good for digestion.

The cocal leaves didn't seem to do much for me, but at the same time I experienced few side effects of altitude, despite the fact that we were gaining 10,000 feet in one day. I did feel a bit lightheaded, and Jessie dozed off briefly. Later, on the return trip, I found myself unable to fight off fatigue and fell asleep myself.

We had entered la puna -- the cold desert. Above 3500 meters, los cardones do not grow, and the desert is broad and rolling, with little but some scrub grasses to break the landscape. The winds grew more and more fierce as we passed the Abro Blanco, a high point on the road at 4080 meters -- a whopping 13,440 feet. I had never been so high in my life.

We were cruising down the National Road 40, the longest and highest road in the world, stretching the spine of the Andes. For being such an important road, it was dusty and rutted. Sand blew everywhere -- these were the famed viento blancos, or white winds, according to Eugenia.

After an hour of driving across la puna, we came upon the small mining town of San Antonio de Los Cobres. This quiet town was the site of a new government housing project, but still boasted little other than a stop on the Train to the Clouds.

We pulled up to a restaurant and ducked in out of the howling winds. Meat was the order of the day again, and Chris, Jessie, and I pulled off the trifecta -- bife, stew, and a milanese napolitano. The food was actually quite good and for a place that took in vanloads of tourists, pretty cheap at 17 pesos each.

Chris and I ventured into the town to experience the white winds for ourselves and quickly learned why they were so infamous. Dust and small rocks swirled everywhere, pelting us from all sides. Without a hood, I often had to hold my hands up to protect my head. On a side street, schoolchildren huddled under a blanket and squealed as the winds gusted. Clearly not even the natives were accustomed to this ferocity.

Back in the restaurant, we learned some bad news. The winds were so bad that we would be unable to continue the trip to the salt flats and had to turn around. I was too blown away by what I had already seen of la puna to be disappointed.

Most of us slept on and off on the way back. We stopped at Abro Blanco for pictures and did our best not to get blown over in what must have been 80-plus mph winds. It made for funny pictures, but Eugenia gestured at us to get back in the van, fearing that Chris and I might get blown into a nearby gully.

Back in Salta, we used our 30-peso refunds towards the next day's trip to Cachi and headed off to warm places. We hopped from cafe to cafe, having drinks and munching on empanadas. The evening ended at a locals' bar where men watched Boca, the most popular Argentine soccer club, play a team from Colombia. Cerveza and empanadas filled us up enough to warrant skipping dinner, and we turned in to the hostel early, preparing for another morning.

Argentina.5: A Salta

Argentina has made the experience of taking a long bus ride as much like flying or taking a train as is possible.

After you purchase your ticket ($45 one way to go to a city 1500 miles away), you can wait for your bus in the "terminal" where a large board overhead announces the next departures. Jessie and I sidled up to the wall and rested our packs there while we waited since, as she said, "This is the only place in Buenos Aires where someone tried to rob me."

Fair enough. Some 20 minutes later, our bus popped up on the screen: "16.00 -- A. Brown -- SALTA." We walked outside to gate 29, where the bus slid in to its spot and stopped at the chocks on the ground. A baggage guy took our bags from us, tagged them, and gave us receipts as if we were checking in to a flight. The driver ripped off portions of our tickets and gestured us upstairs.

Our assigned seats were in the economy section, which still wasn't half-bad. With the bus about one-third full, it was easy to take a double seat and stretch out, which I began to do as the bus slid out of the terminal.

BA's bus station is on the edge of the nicest part of downtown, but the back of it faces one of the worst villas, or slums, in the city. We sat near that for about fifteen minutes before traffic cleared and we were on our way out of the city, gaining speed almost like a train would.

A half-hour outside the city, we stopped at another terminal and took on a few more passengers. We were visited by men selling everything possible -- empanadas, water, magazines (including porn, which one guy bought), and even pillows.

Finally, we started gaining some real ground across the plains. These were some incredibly flat and repetitive plains. The four-lane highway, divided by a grassy median, stretched out imperceptibly far in front of us. To the side, we could easily have been in the US midwest, with nothing but fields broken occasionally by lines of trees.

I read my book as the sun started to go down, burning the sky an intense orange. They turned on our movie -- Man on Fire, a Denzel Washington movie about kidnappings in Mexico. (Umm...)

Even though it was barely 7, I started to snooze. The previous night's bought with a bit of traveler's sickness had left me fatigued, and I dozed fitfully until the bus pulled off and stopped.

The drive came upstairs and announced that we would stay there for thirty minutes. Curious, I got out and stretched my legs at what was apparently a bus stop in the middle of nowhere. It was cold and incredibly dusty.

Inside, I bought a small chocolate bar and noted that it was 9pm -- we had only been going for about 5 hours. Quite a way to go. Back at the bus, the driver and a few others were examining the back with the light from their cell phones, it seemed to be some kind of electrical problem. Care to purchase a flashlight, caballeros? I reboarded the warm bus and read as long as they had the lights on.

We pulled off, and I gave up on consciousness. With my hat over my eyes I leaned the seat back and tried to doze, but had to pull out the earplugs to deal with the snoring man behind me -- coincidentally, the same one who had bought the porn. I had some odd dreams, including one where the headmaster of my old high school (bald, for some reason) was trying to get me to work there. Yikes.

The bus stopped several more times, but I woke hours later when I noticed it was light out. I sat up and looked around, as did Jessie. A man walked back with a cup in his hand, muttering ¨cafe." Excited, I walked up front and poured myself a little plastic cup of some of the sweetest coffee I've ever had. "Coffee," I informed Jessie, "but it's ridiculously sweet."

"Ooh, just the way I like it!" she cried, going forward for a cup of her own.

We caught the attention of someone further up on the bus. "Are you speaking English?" a young man asked. In his dark green military-style jacket, he was emulating some kind of clean-shaven Che Guevera.

Accustomed to being largely incomprehensible, I answered slowly. "Si."

"Where are you from?" he answered, again in perfect English.

"United States," I replied slowly, not sure if he was trying to practice English or something.

"Oh, where?"

"Washington, D.C."

"Cool. I'm from Rhode Island."

I relaxed, feeling that instant connection you get from meeting someone of the same culture in a foreign land. Our new friend had recently gotten accepted into law school and was spending his summer traveling through South America from the bottom up, starting with three months in Buenos Aires and now moving on to Salta with an eventual destination in Colombia.

We talked about the details of how he planned to get there. "I think I'm going to fly to Bogota," he said. "Apparently southern Colombia has a lot of kidnappings."

"Kind of ironic, the movie we watched last night, huh?" I noted.

"Yeah. Well, things are improving in Colombia, last year they only had one American kidnapped. That's a big improvement from several years ago, when it was like ten."

"Sweet."

We slid back into our seats for the last 140km of the trip. Now we could start to see what we came for -- the famed Andes. The terrain started rolling and the road wound through the foothills. To our right, I could see our first softly folded range of mountains, lightly draped in snow and shrouded in low-hanging clouds. It was very Gorrillas in the Mist.

For another few hours we cruised on. At one point, snow covered the tops of the trees around us. The bus was warm, but not well insulated -- my right leg was freezing next to the window. We wouldn't be able to confirm it until later, but this was the height of Argentina's cold snap. Not fun in a country that doesn't seem to believe in heat. They probably just think they can tango to keep warm, I guess.

The vegitation outside grew curious. It seemed mostly to be a dense, low forest that changed to heavy shrubbery. I noticed random prickly pears, though -- tall, treelike ones, not the wide, bushy ones I know from the American Southwest. Later was an even more unusual sight -- saguaro cacti, usually found in the driest environments. With all the vegitation around, this was by no means a dry place, so I surmised that saguaro seeds must have made their way here from the drier areas to our west.

We finally pulled into the estacion two hours late, after 22 hours on the bus. Remarkably, between sleeping, reading my book, and staring blankly at the scenery, I hadn't felt like it was a particularly long trip. No more torturous than a plane flight across the U.S.

We disembarked at the station and retrieved our bags. "You mind if I walk with you guys?" asked our Rhode Island friend. I sized him up, and with my finely honed powers of intuition, decided that he was unlikely to be an axe murderer.

"Sure. I'm Eric"

"Oh, right. I'm Chris."

Chris, eh? Sure, if that's your real name.

My mystery novel thoughts aside, Jessie set out to find us our hostel and promptly set us marching off in the wrong direction. Fifteen minutes later, we wisely deduced that we were indeed headed down on the upside and traced our steps back to the bus station.

Another fifteen minutes of walking in the chilly wind, and we found our way to Hostel de los Cardones, which for some reason had an image of a kangaroo and the words "Down Under" on it. Maybe they have shrimp on the barbie, I thought.

After checking in to our cozy room, we took our new friend "Chris" off to find some lunch. La Monumental lived up to its name. Without really letting us look at the menu, the waiter ordered steak and fries for us.

But this was no ordinary steak. Much like men have waxed eloquent about the beauty of Helen of Troy, we three could have composed sonnets in honor of this delectable slab of cow. It was grilled to perfection on the outside, pink on the inside, and muy jugosa. With just a bit of salt already on it, this Picasso of la pampa needed no A-1. Brothers and sisters, believe me when I tell you it was a holy experience made even more moving when the check came, setting us back only $7 including our drinks and tip.

Chris later explained the reason why we could get beef so cheap here -- and when I say cheap, I should point out that the mediocre bife at any old parilla runs you a measly $2. No shit they eat so much of it.

Exporting beef here is apparently heavily taxed, which keeps meat prices ridiculously low. The beef lobby lacks the clout of my good friends in the National Beef Cattleman's Association, and politicians here are afraid of doing anything that keeps red meat out of the price range of everyday Argentinians. And so it is that they chow down so frequently on the divine bovine.

We wandered around the town of Salta (did I actually mention at any point that's where we are now?) ducking out of the cold to drink coffee and libations and booking a tour to sights in the Andes.

The famous Train to the Clouds is broken. Instead, we shall take the...er, Bus to the Clouds. Vamonos!

Argentina.4: Carne

Portenos are passionate people, and the list of their loves is long.

First and foremost, they love beef. Argentines consume more cow per capita than any other country in the world. Our lunch at the tourist trap of El Gaucho was a prime example.

They brought out a picada, or little bite before the meal began. "I think this is some kind of meat salad," Jessie said.

Not ones to rock the boat, we stuck with that theme as I ordered bife de chorizo and Jessie went for the milanese de lomo, or what we in the US would probably call chicken-friend steak.

Portenos also love American music and TV. Lucky for us, they get new movies and the exchange rate makes them a bargain during the week -- we paid 8 pesos or about $2.50 to see Piratas del Caribe 3 with subtitles.

The list of other loves in this city gets even more amusing. Buenos Aires has one of the highest concentrations of lingerie stores of any city in the world. They like to dress well, often beyond their means.

And they're huge fans of PDA. In coffee shops, movie theathers, or just anywhere on the street, portenos love to make out in public. The American shame is definitely not present here.

Apparently they also love crappy music. Walking down the sidewalk, I noticed someone had written in English, "Backstreet's back, all right!" I pulled out my Sharpie and responded, "Actually, Backstreet was never really made it to begin with."

Later, in the coffee shop, I listened to Annie Lennox covering "Dust in the Wind" while Jessie gave one of her last English lessons.

Perhaps all this lousy music drives portenos to distraction, because they spend an incredible amount of time visiting therapists.

And they love fast food. Along Avenida Santa Fe, the BA equivalent of 5th Avenue, McDonald's and Burger King appear every few blocks. And in one of the nicest malls in the city is the world's only kosher McDonald's.

Argentina.3: Pesos

The fact that Argentina's name comes from the Latin argentum, or silver, is ironic considering that half the population lives below the poverty line.

It was something that was on my mind but seemed almost incredible as Jessie and I wandered through the gardens in Palermo, the barrio where she lives.

The Rosedal and the Jardin de los Poetas are the typical idyllic city respites -- remarkably quiet and peaceful in contrast to the honking cars cruising by on the nearby aviendas. Inside these parks, rich portenos (what Buenos Aires residents are called) strolled around or sat on the grass drinking from their ever-present mugs of mate, the popular tea.

In the midst of all this is the American embassy, some kind of bizarre architectural refuge from 1970s Soviet Russia. I tried to take a picture of this monstrosity, but a nearby cop shouted, "Tsh, tsh, tsh!" which I am learning is actually an acceptable way of getting someone's attention here.

But all of this urban beauty belies the diverse socioeconomic makeup and complicated fiscal history of this fascinating nation.

In the decades after Argentina achieved independence in 1816, Argentina slowly developed strong economic ties with Europe and eventually became one of the ten richest countries in the world. Some of that fortune came as the Argentine government systematically exterminated thousands of aborigines.

The economy ran strong through the 1970s, with poverty below 7% and a strong export trade. Unfortunately, a military junta took power after overthrowing Isabel, the third wife of Juan Peron, and greatly increased the country's foreign debt.

After democracy was restored in 1983, hyperinflation soon plagued the country. President Carlos Menem, a poster child of the IMF, set a fixed-dollar exchange rate and implemented a number of privatizations and monetary reforms. While his policies made many rich, they also killed local industry and eventually slid the country into numerous fiscal crises. Poverty and unemployment skyrocketed.

In 2002, Argentina -- again, once one of the richest countries in the world -- defaulted on a massive international loan and ended its fixed-dollar exchange rate. Overnight, the value of the peso crashed and countless Argentinians saw their debts triple in value.

Since then, more comptetive exchange rates have stabilized the economy -- and made it an incredibly affordable country for Americans. At three pesos per dollar, dinners have averaged $7 each on the high end for us. Even in the swank restaurants, entrees seem to be no more than $12.

We continued to see the high class side of Argentina as we visited the Recoleta, the incredibly ornate cemetary that houses piles upon piles of dead portenos. Ornate mausoleums were all packed in to a walled section of the city, right next to the area where Jessie said, "You'll see more tourists here than anywhere else in the country."

Overhearing conversations in English was the easiest way to play the spot-the-American game, which I also won when I saw a guy in the Recoleta dressed entirely in Carhartt clothes.

We left the cemetary and headed over to the feria artesenal, the weekly fair that seemed to be a combination of impressive crafts and colorful hippies. The jewelry might not have held much for me, but we enjoyed an Argentine garage band until their generator ran out of gas, ending the show.

Across the sidewalk was an even more impressive show -- Capoeria. This incredible dance-fighting routine takes place in the midst of a roda, a circle where people sing and play instruments. In time with the music, participants square off in short, fake fights where they roundhouse kick over each other's heads, spin, and do incredible flips.

Argentina.2: Caca

Jessie with Claudio and Paula.

There were a few things I was going to have to adjust to in Buenos Aires. The kissing, for example, which is a standard greeting.

Jessie's landlord was a bit taken aback when I greeted her by reaching for a handshake. Claudio, a student of Jessie's who had spent time in the U.S., was polite enough to say, "I don't know if you do the kissing thing," as he shook my hand.

It's an odd amount of affection for Americans to see, but everyone here does it, no matter what gender, no matter how well they know each other. "It's not really a kiss so much as you touch cheeks and make a kissing sound without making eye contact," Jessie explained.

When in Argentina, I suppose I had to, and as we bid good night to Claudio and his wife Paula I acted like a true Argentinian.

That day, though, Claudio y Paula took us to the Feria de Mataderos (Fair of the Slaughterhouses) in a section of the city rarely visited by tourists. The area and its eponymous soccer club are actually called Chicago because of both place's fondness for killing cows.

Along the way, Claudio relentlessly tried to teach us bad words and play little practical jokes.

I pointed out some unpleasant stuff on the ground. "Watch out for the --"

"Caca de caballo," Claudio instructed me. Not to be confused with caca de perro, which we also saw.

He seemed to delight in trying to mess with our heads, but it wasn't particularly successful given that I didn't understand a word of his Spanish and his wife constantly told us to ignore him.

But they did a great job of showing us the fair and ensuring that we sampled empanadas, tamales, and chipas there. We also saw the traditional gauchos, or Argentine cowboys (whose pants adorn college women everywhere) and their female counterparts, the chinas.

On the street, gauchos y chinas mixed with everyday folks in traditional dances from la pampa, or the plains. One of their most romantic dances involved circling your partner and teasing them with a hankerchief.

Claudio, meanwhile, still had a mischevious grin on his face. "Are you scared?" he asked me, since we were in a non-tourist area.

"Well, I would say I was scared of you, but not when you're holding Paula's purse," I retorted.

Later, on the bus, Claudio taught me more dirty Spanish words as I struggled to get used to the fact that in Buenos Aires the "ll" and "y" sound is pronounced "shh," and people here rarely use "tu es." Combine that with the fact that I had to suppress the urge to speak French, and I was confused as hell.

At dinner, we got a little inpedo off a couple bottles of 8-peso ($2.50) wine while we ate bife and lorco, a type of bean soup with pieces of pork and stomach -- yes, stomach.

I passed on eating the stomach and instead tried to concentrate on learning the difference between saying "fart" and "whore". Perhaps not the most useful words, but it's what Claudio wanted to teach us.

Argentina.1: Llegada

Eric on Jessie's balcony in the Palermo section of Buenos Aries. Photo credit: Jessie Stadd.

Yes, the toilet does flush backwards, but as everyone had said, it's just not that interesting.

I suppose I had expected something a bit more dramatic once I went south of the Equator, but no such luck. The world wasn't upside down, gravity didn't feel any difference. The only noticeable thing is that it was almost winter and fairly cold -- 10 degrees C, as the airport monitor told me (1180 mb atmospheric pressure, for those who care.)

At the airport, I eagerly headed to the toilet after passing through customs and headed into a stall. Carefully scrutinizing the pattern of the flush, I did detect that the final swirl headed in a counterclockwise direction. It was true!

Of course, this was no old-school American slow-flushing toilet. It sucked the water down quickly, leaving me staring at it as I tried to follow the path of the water. No dramatic turns here, just a can that wanted to take care of business quickly.

So here I was, down in the other hemisphere for the first time. I sat in the waiting area, pulled out my jacket, and scribbled in my journal as I waited for Jessie to show up. My flight was early and immigration took about 10 minutes, so I was plenty early.

The flight was uneventful -- I watched Bridge to Terabithia (careful, it's depressing) and popped a couple Benadryl to put myself to sleep while we fought turbulence over the Caribbean.

The flight seemed to be dominated by Argentinians, who honestly look like and dress like Europeans. As Jessie said, I probably wouldn't stand out too much -- possibly with the exception of my random National Parks Conservation Assocation hat I've been wearing to try to tame this beast of a hairdo.

What's most interesting for me is to be on a vacation with no agenda and little to worry about. Unlike my previous famous vacations, I'm not rushing off to meet a kayaking expedition or to climb some Alps. I'm just here to hang out and do whatever Jessie and I can think of.

I assure you the next entries will be more interesting.

Truckin'

"Come on, let's get this square peg into that round hole!"

Given the complexity of my hare-brained moving and travel schemes, it was a pretty minor problem.

Still, I had to confront the sad truth that I just wasn't going to sell this couch -- and that we had to put it back in the truck and lift it again.

Six years after becoming the owner of a wonderfully comfortable leather sofabed, I was sure it was time to free myself of my heaviest possessions and move to my new home in Colorado with a much less cumbersome collection of stuff.

So it was that I found myself with my good friend Jeff trying to get this heavy piece of furniture through the door of my friend Steve's apartment in Springfield, New Jersey. Steve had promised me a handsome sum for the couch, and I had arranged to get it in my rented truck and haul it up there for the equivalent of my plane ticket to Argentina.

"You told me it was 34 inches! It's clearly 35 inches!"

Steve was yelling in exasperation, and I was dumbfoundedly trying to figure out what on earth I was going to do with this thing. "We just have to rotate it all the way over --"

"It's not going to work! It's an inch too much!"

Well, that was depressing. We gave it the old college try, in Steve's words, when Jeff called it a square peg.

Putting it back in the truck was pretty annoying, as was Jeff and I lifting it out of the truck and into my parents' basement by ourselves. I was amazed we managed to pull that off given that five people were involved in originally putting it in the truck.

In the end, though, I got all my stuff in my parents' house. I was free.

Homeless, in a sense. I was going back to my apartment for another four nights and sleeping on a borrowed air mattress under a borrowed blanket. After that, it's couches and hotels for the next three months.

It felt liberating, but odd. My routines had been my rock for six years. No matter what, I always had my bed and couch and TV where they were and the job I kept going to.

It's time to move on, though. Time to explore. Time to try -- and possibly fail -- to move more furniture. The symbolism hit me over the head like the couch did one of the times I picked it up.

Setting up the Blog

DISPATCH: Washington, DC, Capitol Hill

Move over, DailyKos, I'm throwing down a new way for people to waste time at work.

That was a very DC thing to say. I had to, I'm still here. Soon I'll probably be quoting Silent Spring or something, but we'll worry about that when the time comes.

Get ready for the running tales of my international adventures, most of which will probably involve me completely mangling Spanish.

In the meantime, moving sucks and I'm bad at it.

Peace.