Los fotografias, partida uno

Hello. I have gotten through my first 187 photographs from South America. I have published 39. You can see them at my Flickr account. Apparently i have a Flickr account.



The first set of photographs is of Buenos Aires. They were all taken while i was on Panda Tours' most successful, enjoyable and disastrous city bicycle excursion ever. The guide was a reincarnation of Che Guevara, except that this reincarnation is of Japanese descent, and smokes 44 cigarettes per day, all while bicycling, and this reincarnation of Che Guevara works for the touristry industry, which isn't very socialist, unfortunately. But it did mean that we were able to bicycle through the ramshackle and dangerous barrios of the downtrodden, who are probably constantly seeming to notice just how glaringly white and fortunate i am. Also, my bicycle seat was unintentionally destroyed in the wake of unintentional gravitational prowess lent by my ass, though i did not take it to mean that i am too fat, but just that Argentinian bicycles are lousy and shabby. Anyways, also on the bicycle tour were two annoying Americans and a Venezuelan whose sister can only continue to fabricate extremely sturdy backpacks if she is able to escape from beneath the oppressive canopy of Hugo Chavez, a canopy which is becoming more oppressive everyday. Also, we saw Maradona's old house. Maradona is the only man ever ordained by God to be able to play soccer with his hands.


The second set of photographs is from my first two days in the rugged wildernesses of Southern Patagonia. After Argentinian-style tribulations at the Buenos Aires domestic airport, i was certain that i would be crushed in the onslaught of a widespread cultural temper-tantrum, but, hallelujah, i was saved simply by remaining meek and standing still. I arrived in El Calafate, had an impromptu lunch with a girl from Oregon, met my tour group, and boarded a bus for El Chaltén the next morning. My group consisted of all Brazilians and Europeans. And then one from Montreal, and then me. I was the young man of the group, i am always out of place somehow. We spent two hours in El Chaltén before donning our gear and backpacks and rainsuits and beginning our hike to the first mountain camp, where we celebrated our New Years' Eve with surprised bottles of wine and sidre (cider) which had been smuggled in between changes of clothes. Someone was responsible for a toast at the top of each hour, depending on who was having New Years'. First the germans, then the spaniards, then maybe the brazilians, and then i gave a toast to the Inuit of Greenland (may their igloo closets be stuffed with eternal seal blubbers), and then Patagonia had its New Year, and then we went to bed and let Dick Clark handle the rest, if he is still functional, that poor bastard. On New Years' Day was maybe the most demanding hike of the tour. This is the reason it could be called a trek. We would walk and climb 20 kilometers to De Los Tres Lagoon, into the laps of the Mountains Chaltén (a.k.a. Mount Fitzroy) and Poincenot. My left knee formalized a lengthy set of objections on the way back down, which ultimately would not be entirely mediated until after my return to North America and a lifestyle of almost complete immobility.

This is all i will write with quills and parchment, for now.