Ciudad Del Este (Paraguay)

South America is surprisingly well-traveled. But for some reason when people list the countries they are going to or will go to, Paraguay is conspicuously off the map. I always like the places that most people don’t go the best, so I was really looking forward to a journey to Paraguay. Anywhere that people really avoid makes me curious. It speaks of hidden treasures and friendly locals. And I usually enjoy the places the people tell me not to go the most.

The plan was to get my visa at the Paraguayan embassy in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina. Then I would go visit my friend Kevin at his Peace Corps site in Paraguay. This is one of the things I have been most excited for. Much to my dismay, the embassy in Puerto Iguazu doesn’t issue visas to Americans. I was really sad I couldn’t go and who has heard of an embassy that doesn’t issue visas?! So I had to settle for just a day trip to the much talked about and supposedly best avoided Ciudad Del Este.

Ciudad Del Este has a horrible reputation. It is infamous for being a bit of a shit-hole. It is one of two places in the country that Peace Corps Volunteers aren’t supposed to spend the night. It is known for being rough, dirty, dangerous and insidious. People equate it with cheap electronics, a huge drug smuggling system, Hamas and crime. With such a strong reputation, obviously the question was not if I would check it out for myself but when and for how long.

I was nervous crossing the border. It turned out to be with due reason. The information was conflicting. Some people said you didn’t need a visa to visit for a day, others said you did. I looked into a boat that takes you across the river, bypassing all the customs and though there was a time in my life where I would have gone just because sneaking into a country is the kind of adrenaline rush that I love, I decided against it, not that I didn’t want to, I just don’t want any reason for the State Department not to hire me if I ever want that option!

So I went the old-fashioned route. I jumped on a rickety bus, stamped out of Argentina, drove through Brazil, not a nice city in Brazil either, hid in the bathroom at customs in Paraguay, and then I was home free.

And I am glad I did, because I LOVED Paraguay. Or what little I saw of it at least. Now, it has been pointed out to me on several occasions recently that I have abysmally, in fact, freakishly low standards. This can be looked at as a good thing or a bad thing I suppose, but either way, after traveling for so long in developing countries, it seems inevitable to me if I ever want to have any fun. And I suppose I am drawn to wildness and chaos in these places that others see as lawlessness and grime.

What is it that makes us like one place over another? I write enthusiastically about Ciudad Del Este, but if one wants to go there, be warned because I have not met a SINGLE other person who has had ANYTHING good to say about it. So no plans should be made based on my reviews.

I have noticed that with everything, I seem to expect Africa. I think that when people say things are difficult, it will be on the Africa scale of difficult. Same goes for danger, dirtiness, chaos, crowds and transportation. I wrote once that Africa is a continent of superlatives and I still agree. To be honest, nothing has compared for me. Iguazu Falls would have been nothing if I had thought too much about Victoria Falls. The poverty in India that people warned me about was nothing compared to places I saw in Ethiopia. People say transportation is difficult or the market is big and crowed or anything along those lines and I expect so much worse. I wonder if my heart will always belong to Africa now.

So I was expecting chaos. But no chaos was found. I found Ciudad del Este to be clean, orderly, full of everything you could ever want, convenient and friendly. The markets are nice and clean and a shopper’s dream. Not being a shopper, I headed farther into the city which was really nice.

I found this sweet little park that was nice and clean and comfortable. It had a huge fountain. There was this great walk/bike-path along the river and wandering around the city there was so much green-space. There is a little forest and a nice lake. It is quite tranquilo. Ciudad del Este has a very undeservedly bad reputation.

Crossing the bridge into Paraguay, I got that feeling I get when I cross a lot of borders: that this is going to be my favorite country yet. I could see the little shacks by the river and maybe I just felt comfortable with it if I can say that. It was familiar. So were the rickety cafes with plastic chairs on sidewalks, hawkers and street food. I can’t explain it, but I know I want to go back to Paraguay and travel around for a while. There is something really enticing about it. And I don’t understand why travelers avoid it but I want to learn more about this place.

I did have an interesting experience. I chatted with a guy from Lebanon for about an hour. He asked me about my wedding ring, (never travel without one, as important as a passport) and we talked for a while. Learning he was from Lebanon I asked him about the war, told him about a guy I interviewed for CBS that summer, etc. Learning I was from the US and after chatting for a while he said I must be pro-Israel being from the U.S.

I told him things weren’t that simple and that we don’t necessarily have a cohesive foreign policy that everyone agrees with, that in some places, I had been talking to Colleen about, the “Free Tibet” bumper stickers might be replaced by “Free Palestine” ones. He laughed once I explained this.

It gave me the courage to flat out ask him if he was Hamas. Now, I know I ask inappropriate questions, this is something else that has been pointed out to me recently, I tend to skip formalities and go to the things people wonder but don’t ask, and people have told me that they have been flabbergasted but I get away with it, usually because I have the voice of a 5 year old and seem harmless. He laughed and said almost the same thing.

“Things are neither black nor white either. But maybe more black than white and yes, there are many Hamas here.”

I sweated it out in the bathroom again while some people got busted on the border, but other than that, it was a very successful day in Paraguay. And I know that is a place I want to return too. I don’t know why, but I know it had potential to be one of my favorite places.

Tango (Argentina)

Argentina is enveloped in passion. I hinted at this before but it is worth saying again. The streets are colorful and bold. There are no apologies for the boldness. Soccer is a national obsession with die-hard fans. People talk in gestures. Their food is passionate, their nightlife is too. When people relax or stroll slowly, they mean it. But most passionate of all is the art. Especially tango. Tango is a great symbol for Argentina. It is bold, passionate, classic yet individual. It is beautiful and captivating.

Sometimes a whole country can be encapsulated by one person. Their essence can capture that of the place like only a metaphor can. I met Guillermo Alio on a street corner in the La Bocca neighborhood of Buenos Aires. La Bocca was my favorite place in the city, known for its colorful streets, tango, crazed soccer fans and robberies. I found it positively intoxicating.

I was reading a poem embossed on a stone wall. Alio put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head. He told me that the poem had been killed, shortened. His voice of the missing verses filled the void dribbling from the rock. I too feel passionate about the slaughter of poetry. Some words are not meant to be sliced and it seems unfair to take a poem and chop it down, like giving someone a lick from a juicy peach as it dribbles down your hand, but nothing whole to bite into. You miss the meat of what the poet was trying to convey and turn it into a sound byte.

He took Colleen and I back to his studio, a small space sandwiched between colorful buildings. The studio smelled of oil paint. Pages folded off the wall, paintings clipped to each other, maximizing every inch of space. He took out a scrap book and poured through page after page of yellowed newspaper articles. They were all about him and his performances and exhibits around the world. Time, Associated Press, New Yorker told his story, as did the mischievous glint to his eye and delicateness of his skin. I suspected that though he had to be pushing 65, this man was well-versed in passion. He carries himself with beauty, like a real artist.

Tango for me is sultry and captivating. There is some sort of passion and sexiness to it that I could never attain myself, so I can watch two people twist their legs around a dance floor with such intimacy that I cannot tear my eyes away from it though I almost feel I should look away, and feel the passion myself.

If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want to be a tango dancer in my next life. A tango dancer or a bullfighter, not because I could kill a bull, but I think of Hemmingway, “Nobody lives their life all the way up except bullfighters,” I think that could pertain to tango dancers as well.

Alio has two great passions; tango and painting. And, he has managed to unite the two. He is famous for his dancing and his art separately, but the most incredible part is the combination. He paints his dances on canvass.

In an interview with Bill Comer from the Associated Press, Alio describes the passion of tango, “The melancholy of the soul is what pure tango speaks most about. But tango also speaks of many things: of motherhood, of friendship, of sport, of neighborhood, even of the horse races. It's something very profound," says Alio. "The tango is a reflection of all within man."

So he dips his and his dancer’s feet in paint and lets them dance on the canvass. It is two art forms blending into one full of the passion of both. It’s a kind of passion soup if you will, and plenty to sustain someone without food or drink, only by satiating the soul’s desire for real fervor.

In the same interview, he says, “The feet show what is going on in the head and heart. They are a means of expression and the world needs this dance, the tango, to understand what is within."
He tells us of one of the most influential tango dancers in the world who was his teacher before he died in a plane crash. There are endless articles about him in the loosely put together scrapbook and he is even a chapter in a textbook to teach Spanish through artists.

He seems to live life with a different lens, one that makes me think of what other lenses I can choose through which to view my life. I think passion is one of the most important things to follow or find in life. I think most of Argentina would agree.

A Lazy Day in Uruguay

Adjusting to life after Antarctica was hard, sort of like after a long camping/backpacking trip in the wilderness, full of these incredible highs and insightful experiences, raw nature and silence; how difficult it is to fit back into life in a city. I bounced from the sleepy town of Ushuaia, the end of the earth in Tierra Del Fuego and my jumping off point to Antarctica, up to Buenos Aires a city with endless life.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Buenos Aires. It is a city defined by passion. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring it from the artsy urban grunge side of San Telmo, the colorful brightness and energy of La Bocca, the regal cemetery and flowering opulence of Recoleta and the vibrancy of downtown.
Buenos Aires is electric at night. Something in the warm air seems to bring out that passion. Even during the day with its open air cafes and inviting plazas, Buenos Aires is a great place to be. I was captivated by the sultriness of Tango, the cafes with their little cookies with the coffee, huge trees covering the plazas with flowers like confetti and artsy bustle. But I needed to decompress.

It was when I was laying on the rocks next to the muddy water in Colonia, Uruguay that I first felt relaxed. Something about a beach, no matter how small or chocolate-milky the water induces relaxation. I felt the warm sun on me and listened to the guys behind me strumming their guitars and felt myself gazing blissfully up at the clouds.
It was amazing to be out of my layers of clothing, to lay on a rock and sweat. And listening to the music and being swayed by the charmingly small city of Colonia and its huge splayed trees, sprawling across every street and colorful houses I finally remembered what travel can be about, though seldom seems to be for me. I seem to worry so much about how to get where I need to go next, logistics, etc. that travel is far more work than a lot of jobs at home.
Uruguay was great to decompress and wander the streets. Each street is covered in huge willowy trees. It is amazing what a difference shade can make! Around sunset, I walked through the cobblestone streets and watched birds fly silently above the crumbling but alluring buildings.

I wandered out to the pier with my friend and sat on the stone wall to watch one of the best sunsets in my life. Sunsets are funny in that they tend to evoke memories of other great sunsets. It is sort of like a chain reaction that makes me smile when I think about whom I was with or where I was. A great sunset is a gift that should be appreciated more.
Far across the water, tiny like a toy city, we could just make out the buildings of Buenos Aires. Above them, a squished oblong sun dipped behind the land. Behind it were smeared pink, orange and yellow. It was spectacular. As the sun squeezed itself behind the buildings in sharp contrast, city and nature, the water turned from burnt-marshmallow brown to a shimmery oily blue. I could almost pretend I was at the real ocean.

Behind us were biblical clouds, a real-estate poster for heaven. They billowed pink, boasting of angels and pastels. I thought of wedding cakes and cotton candy cones. Entranced, we stayed until the first stars began to venture out into the night.

Colonia was a more gentle transition from Antarctica and a great reminder to not always be so caught up in the how of the things I am doing as what I am doing, and how wonderful life can be.

Last Day (Antarctica)

Sitting by myself on my little bench spot, looking at the endless miles of open ocean, the power of the waves that thrash our boat. I am so sad to leave. I feel like after the wildness and vast expanse, pristine serenity, awe and power I have seen in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, everything else will seem confining, even other expanses of nature.

The wind thrashes me so severely I feel like someone has grabbed me by my shoulders and is shaking me. Waves explode over the railing as we hit stormy seas. I love the raw power and strength.

There is something so sad about leaving nature and going back to civilization. I know I have been on this boat which is of course civilization, but still it’s hard. I always think of that quote about how hard it is to return after you have been touched by nature, after you have summated a mountain.

Tears literally spring to my eyes when I think about not only what I have just experienced, but the places I have seen the last few years. I am sad. How is it that the happiest times in my life give me the most sadness? Why can’t I be like other people, just glad that I had them, instead I am so nostalgic that I miss the past. The ending is in sight of my travels. I can’t imagine them being done, when this is my passion and has been my life for so long. But the fact that this is the last leg of my trip hits me at times. I know I need to prepare for it somehow. Another ending, the one of this Antarctica trip always reminds me of this.

There is that inevitable let down and I have to do my best not to let it get to me. Instead of being sad, I need to carry the energy I found forward and use that. I’m going to miss this wild, stormy ocean.

I don’t want to forget the enormity of what I have just experienced. I don’t want whatever resources Antarctica has touched in me to fade away.

My travels are the most important thing in the world to me, they define me in the fact that I do it alone, not taking the easy way out, without anyone else to depend on but myself and definitely not with a tour group. The experience is completely and vastly different if you do it alone as opposed to with someone else.

Most people that I know have a travel companion, but I prefer to find the strength in myself, I feel like it makes me grow and challenges me. It is not the way most people can travel and yes, it is painful at times, it is not the same kind of fun you have with another person, but to me, it is the only way to do it. The thought of knowing who I will meet or what I will be doing this time tomorrow feels like death. I love possibility. How will I ever fit into a life again at home?

I don’t want my travels to become stories or anecdotes when I get home. Somehow, I want to find a way to keep them alive, not just alive, but burning. But it is all so tenuous.

Real Loneliness (Antarctica)

I am standing on the bow of the ship, alone. Waves crash beneath me as snowflakes tangle in my eyelashes. White is all around in varying densities, a playground of shades. In places like Antarctica where the colors are few, the eye can see things it wouldn’t if it had distractions. The purity of colors are striking. The whites and blues of this continent and surrounding ocean have nuances that train the eye to see in a new way. It is like I am really seeing things for the first time.

I look at the sea of ice, splayed out before me, tinkling and crackling like a chandelier in an earthquake, popping like Rice Crispies with a stream of fresh milk. I hear the water swirling. All I can see for miles is ice, glaciers, cold rock face and snow. Every so often there is a solitary seal laying on an iceberg, maybe a single penguin, porpoising through the water.

This is real loneliness. I think Antarctica must be the loneliest place on earth, forgotten by the world, at the very end of this continent. The loneliness permeates my bones, seeps in through the space in the cells of my body. It is all encompassing and it is wonderful. I embrace loneliness. After all the solo travel I have done, I see loneliness as a friend. But this is a different kind of loneliness. It is so completely full. Complete and utter full loneliness. Beautiful loneliness. The kind that changes you but you have no idea how it changes you. You just know that somehow you will never be the same again.

I breathe in the air and feel it, frigid and full in my lungs. The snowflakes touch me then glisten away, the warmth of my body defeating them. I can’t stop smiling.

First Sighting (Antarctica)

We have spent over 2 days on the Drake Passage, infamous for being the roughest water in the world. I thought seasickness was something that happened to other people. Something that happens to the weak, but I am strong. I was wrong. Very wrong. I am ready to stand on firm ground.

But the third morning we wake up with anticipation in the air. And finally we approach land.
The first echo of land is a cloud in the distance. As illusive and imaginary as the White Continent itself. It is stronger in folklore than substance. It’s the land of penguins and ice, far away, the most remote place on earth, but now it is a cloud on the horizon.

Chunks of icebergs bob in the sea, more expected than the hardness of rock that solidifies to sight. The cliffs rise up in the mist as mysterious as the whispers and ghosts of the stories, books and photos of this place.

The dance of description pales in comparison to the freezing wind on my face, butting painfully like a frozen knife through warm butter. But the shrouded rocks glimpsed behind the clouds stand firm. I am here. The place you always hear about but never dreamed I’d venture too. Antarctica- even the word sounds foreign yet familiar on my tongue.

Journey to the White Continent (Antarctica)

Departing from Ushuaia, in Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina, the end of the earth, I get on the Polar Star. It is a smallish ship, bound for Antarctica, via the Drake Passage and Beagle Channel.
Our days were kept full by a lecture program. The boat I am on is full of experts in several fields which made things really interesting and a great way to learn as I visit this beautiful continent.

The ship is an expedition ship. We are one of the very few boats that will cross the Polar Circle. Most boats play around the peninsula, but we will go farther than almost anyone does that isn’t a scientist. I love being on the ocean despite my seasickness. I spend endless hours, hypnotized, staring at the waves.

Everyone on the boat is very amicable. They are super well traveled. I am the youngest on the ship, but not by much, there is a shocking number of us last minute backpackers that jumped on for a discounted price. Still, most of the people are triple my age. They have been everywhere. At first I was in awe at how much they have all traveled, but by the end of my trip I realized that yes, I am extremely humbled by the places they have been, but they have done almost all of them on tours, which is a different experience. Still, it is a lot of fun. I quickly settled in to a nice little crew of us, mostly Dutch. I don’t know if it is because the group I was hanging out with happens to be very tall, the next person being about 5’ 11’’, but there were an extraordinary number of short jokes aimed at me. Even the staff joined in. I don’t mind, and I am used to it, but it was an unprecedented number.

Most of the people on the boat are smart. And they are opinionated. And we spend so much time together that people seem to argue for argument’s sake. Also our conversations are strange. Mundane. People take many more chances on jokes here than they do at home and as a result there are a lot more misses than hits but it is all rather entertaining. I find myself flitting from group to group, but returning to my core group, and seeking out alone time.

Still, one American, Patrick, touched me when he said, “I am really happy that you are traveling so much. You are always so happy, bubbly and genuinely friendly and nice to everyone that I like knowing you are out there in the world representing our country like that.” Aw.

Getting to land took 2 ½ days, but once we arrived we were able to do zodiac landings at least twice a day every day. We crossed the Polar Circle and went so far south that we may have done a first landing, though it is hard to tell. It was a first for all the crew at least.

It is surreal to wander around colonies of penguins, so close I have to watch to not step on them. We had Humpback Whales approach our boats as well as Minkeys. It was when a Humpback got so close to our zodiac that I almost cried it was so stunning. It was awe-inspiring to watch its fluke disappear into the water. It really felt like a gift.

We saw loads of Weddell Seals, Fur Seals, Elephant Seals, Leopard Seals, Gentoo and Adelie Penguins, Albatross and more. Penguins feed their young by regurgitating in their mouths. I saw that at close range a lot and it still didn’t put me off my dinner.

Also incredible were the ice formations. There is something so humbling about watching calving glaciers, hearing the thunder echo through, reverberating through still, silent bays. The floating ice is incredible too. It is never monotonous. There is sea ice, ice bergs, brash ice, glaciers all varying in colors and textures. Often the ice spreads out under the berg in this surreal blue that looks like the painted bottom of a swimming pool. Wind relentlessly carves the ice into shapes that the finest artists couldn’t create.

When we land, we usually are able to go off by ourselves so I find myself at the water’s edge, watching penguins work up the courage to jump in or rocketing through the water, just reflecting on how incredible it is to be here. I am so lucky.

The peninsula is full of mountains. They are massive, absolutely massive. Some are white peaks but there is so much stunning rock face. The bays and inlets sometimes have water that is so smooth it looks like a photograph while at other times it is full of white caps.

We visited an English and a Ukrainian science station. Both seemed to come out of the 50’s. On our last day before we headed back we went to Deception Island, one of the South Shetland Islands. It is a black sand beach, a ghost town from the whaling days, full of seals now. There is something completely surreal about being on a black sand beach, surrounded by waves with the snow falling down on you.

It was one of those trips that I never wanted to end. That I worry nothing will be so immense, wild and raw as what I just saw, that my craving to be in nature will never be satiated after this. I don’t know how to fit back into the world after being somewhere so isolated, powerful and extreme. But it was one of the best experiences of my life.