Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 19, 2007

(photo:  La Boca neighborhood)

It's hard to put in words why I travel, and people often ask me how I do it - logistically, how I have the fuerte (strength) and the nerve to hop on planes and go to random places. 

Well it is not always easy, and this trip, or the lead up to the trip, was excruciatingly difficult – nearly enough to cause a cancellation.  My body is still settling down from the overwhelming stress my mind inflicted on it!

Here is a snippet of my first week traveling: from Seattle to Miami and from Miami to Buenos Aires.  This is written in a small internet café in Palermo Hollywood, a trendy little trying to be like the Marina neighborhood of San Francisco or Newberry Street in Boston. 

In my writing and in the sharing of my ideas I am trying to turn myself inside out – in part to be simply me, and in part to take away the glamour of my travel.   Contrary to what you might think this is hard work I am doing.

To set the mood, here´s a quote from Hernan, a 36- year old guy running Objector Encontrados.  “All of the things are what we think about them”.  To see more on Hernan go to www.hernanreig.com.ar. 

First, the woman:  the woman in Buenos Aires are for me the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.  At least once every 5 minutes I fall in love with this most incredible moving art.  In the eloquent words of one of my great teachers, “The Argentinean woman are both beautiful and carry a deep femininity that does not seem to be present in most American woman whose femininity has been over painted and over overtly sexualized.”  These women also seem to carry a deep sadness, a longing for more, and this maybe helps to explain the role of Tango, or rather the role of a woman in the tango.

One of the great hopes of my trip was to reconnect with one of my yoga students from Miami, Belen.  She now lives in Buenos Aires and runs a boutique hotel in Palermo with her slightly older and more Gucci sister. 

To give you some perspective, when Belen would come to my classes in Miami I would have to spend an extraordinary amount of time on the other side of the room from her – both to quash my almost visually apparent nervousness and to make sure that it did not appear to the rest of the world that she was my favorite.  She of course had a boyfriend at the time, which is a major theme in my life that I am still trying to unravel and escape to this day.

Being the good yoga teacher that I was I did my best to respect Belen and the reasons she attended class, but nevertheless she touched my soul in a very deep way, and I still have an incredible warmth in my heart for her.

Belen ultimately broke up with her Miami boyfriend and moved back to Buenos Aires, later confessing her mutual interest in me only after she was at a sufficient distance to almost guarantee that nothing could happen – another theme in my life – one which I am also trying to unravel.

So here I am in Buenos Aires and after 2.5 years, and yesterday I finally reconnected with Belen – who true to form has a new and most jealous boyfriend.  The threads in my life are so …. absolutely….. consistent!   

We ate lunch at Eterna Cadencia (www.eternacadencia.com - at right), a lovely bookstore café in Palermo Hollywood.  She came in frantic and it took her an extra moment to recognize me – partly given that I have 8-10 fewer inches of hair than when she saw me last.  She was wearing one of her almost trademark long coats and surprised me with how much the last two years have turned her face from young woman into woman.  I really wasn´t sure if I would still find her attractive after the last 5 days of amazingly beautiful woman everywhere, but I did, and interestingly she does still make me nervous. 

We ate on the roof top of the bookstore – sitting on white cushions on wood benches, shaded by the branches of an overhanging tree.  Wine and fish and meat and coffee and Belen.  I used to think that things had to happen right now, but the older I get the more I understand that time allows for the gravity of things to reconnect to circle and come together again.  During our very special afternoon together I was acutely aware that this could very well be simply a lunch and nothing more, or the start of something greater, but no matter the future, it was extraordinary and I enjoyed each moment as it arose and fell away.  

Before this trip came to be I thought it would be about yoga.  I thought there would be group of people who would follow me to a lovely estancia in Patagonia – where we would practice yoga daily, share good food and wine and allow ourselves the time to slow down – away from the electronica of our lives (cell phones, and internet, etc.).  When the retreat fell apart and no one was committed to going, I had to recheck my ego and look more closely at why I thought I wanted to go to Argentina in the first place, whether it made sense to go in the wake of the retreat having been cancelled, and somehow find a theme that I could follow to give this journey its due of color and texture.  I finally decided to continue with the trip and chose to make it a search for my joy. 

I am one week into the search and so far I have filled myself up with wine and meat and gelato and coffee and spontaneous conversations with cool and diverse people.  I have attended a party on the outskirts of town where I was like a native in the jungle – with my limited Spanish and a house of 100 plus people who didn´t do any better in English than I do in Spanish, I have slept in late, I have made been to three yoga classes at three different studios.  I am sometimes in the moment and the moment is good.  I am sometimes there and it´s not so good – and so I wait for the next wave to crest.  I have found my smile again and I am not taking myself so seriously.  I am going for runs in the park and listening to REM and the B52s and Squeeze, just like I did in the 80s when I was a teenager!

Life is …. flowing.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 22, 2007

Today I leave Buenos Aires for Mendoza and one part of my trip is sealed shut.  I can never come to Buenos Aires again for the first time; it’s in my flesh and interwoven with my energy.  Like after your first sex, the fantasy and the wonderment has been transformed into knowledge, and sometimes knowledge is the antithesis of excitement.  I am not bored, but I have found a rhythm/pulse that beats in time with the culture here, a bit slower and more melancholy than my pulse back home. 

Mendoza, Argentina, April 23, 2007

(photo:  Salentein Winery)

This is a land of such incredible contradiction.  So proud on the one hand but so unwilling to give up the steadfast hold on the past (the siesta, the focus on education in the arts rather than technology and the sciences etc.), thus almost guaranteeing them a state of floundering on the world stage.

This idea came up Saturday night in Buenos Aires at a party for Farbri, a lovely mid 30s psychologist.  I was with my good friend Francisco, a Human Resources executive that works for IBM in New York, discussing the art of conversation, or rather why people don’t go deeper, especially when they can and often want to.  Put another way, if we give up the continuous dribble about the mosquito plague or the problems caused by the unseasonably persistent rains or which ice cream is the best, what is left, or going even deeper, who are we?

We spend so much of our time defining and redefining ourselves (e.g. I like this or I don’t like that, I’m a Dolce and Gabanna girl, I don’t like the mountains) that we corner ourselves from life.  We keep our plentitude of plates spinning, ala the Russian circus performers, because we’re afraid of who we’ll be and who will still find us interesting if we stop the madness.

Some say that language is the grossest form of communication, so as an experiment, go up to a friend or loved one and just place your hand on their heart and leave it there until they relax into the love that you have for them.  Let enough time pass, in silence, so that you both understand the depth of your friendship, without words.  This is some powerful shit, you, your love, the unification of energy.  Don’t always ride the crest of the wave; also dive deep down into the power and play that fuels the topical form.  Practice seeing with something other than your mind.  As described by one Zen master upon his enlightenment, ¨When I heard the temple bell ring, suddenly there was no bell and no I, just the ringing¨.

When traveling I often seek the health food stores and the yoga studios, because I think these are places of depth, of spirituality.  But on this journey, I’ve begun to really drink the unification theory cool-aid, for if everything is one, how can I not love the thief like the guru and if everything is one, then the steak and the broccoli are the same.

Here are some of the interesting people I’ve met on my journey:

Andi - a mid 20s yoga teacher with big squeezable cheeks, teaching a yoga style only recently defined in brazil that’s maybe too rigid for her Scorpio soul.  But that same soul is still healing after she watched her slightly older brother fade to 30 kilos and die after a long bought with cancer.  She knows the USA, but mostly the experimental cancer treatment circuit as she was her brother’s companion during his final year.

Francisco – (different than the one mentioned above) - an old soul trapped in a 15-year old body with clear, knowing eyes and curly black hair.  He learned his excellent English by watching American TV (so ¨Will and Grace¨ is apparently good for something).  Over mate (tea) we spoke about the recent US college tragedy, about teenage use of Mary Jane (that’s pot for you slightly older folks), and of his plan to go to medical school.  The world really needs him as a healer and he already seems to comprehend the magnitude of his responsibility.

Ilan - a 25 year old Israeli living in Los Angeles, running a small business of kiosk carts in malls.  He´s blond and good looking enough to grace the cover of any magazine, not to mention charismatic enough to find his way into the back stages of Hollywood, if he really wanted.  He arrived in the states 4 years ago speaking hardly any English and now he flows between Hebrew and English like a native American (and not the one hosts pow wows).  His gift to me was to remind me of the story of how to cook a frog – aka how to keep a woman´s interest.  Put a frog in a pot and turn up the heat so slowly that the frog never senses any danger and stays until the pot is at full boil.  Ilan reminded me that I need to let fun be the focus and apply little to no pressure on relationships; they will over time find their own rhythm and boil.

Lino - the 80 year old yoga and tai chi instructor in Mendoza who looks a bit like a cross between a very classy Argentinian businessman and yoda (from Star Wars).  Bald, well mostly, lovely wrinkled skin, soft eyes that have learned patience in this country of economic instability and a presence that seems to convey that he understands love.  Lino did for me what I often do for others, he let me sit with him, in his office, and his energy allowed me to slow down.

Hernan - a 36 year old running a small shop called Objectos Encontrados (found objects).  All of the weird art is made with what others believed to be trash.  In another time Hernan would have been Che´s right hand man, waging a silent war against normalcy.  Dating the most captivating 19-year old, Hernan´s runs his shop like Keitel´s from the movie ¨Smoke¨.  It´s a neighborhood joint with a table in front, flowing mate (the tea like drink that everyone here is addicted to); a place where customers are completely an afterthought.

I´ll leave you with this thought, perhaps the greatest challenge in travel, well really in life, is trying to figure out how to stay in the moment, how to have genuine excitement for the experience even when we’ve had hundreds or even thousands of similar experiences.  Whether it is sex or food or a sunrise, how do we continue to see it as new, for this moment has never before existed and will never exist again?

Mendoza, Argentina, May 5, 2007

(photo:  Uco Valley)

Standing at the airport in Mendoza with my Dad, after a week of wine tasting and heavy meats, we hug and say “I love you” to one another – he turns around and passes through security – likely without incident, because the most dangerous thing he's carrying is an electric razor. 

Back to the “I love you” part – this is a common Kaufman-esque goodbye, for all but Dad.  It´s not that we don´t know that he loves us, it's just that it's always implied – not stated.  So, our goodbye this time was different, for many reasons.  I initiated the words and put my hand on his heart – and he repeated the phrase back, like the way a ship and lighthouse communicate – obligatorily – but with an important weight to the exchange.  

I have many friends with less than two parents alive; I have two.  And while I normally forget that my reality is not that of many others, for some reason on this vacation with my Dad I was acutely aware of it.

During the times when he got on my nerves – like especially when I could see him in me, I stopped and took a pause and thought of my friend Cristina – and how both of her parents have passed – and how I KNOW that no matter how frustrating or embarrassing or difficult she might have found her parents to be at times, she would gladly welcomed a day of good food and wine with either or both of her folks – and not just because she loves good food and wine!

Before Dad arrived and while planning this trip I had wanted the two of us to do something together – in part so that we would have a shared experience and in part so that we were not each other's total focus. 

The idea that we came to agreement was helping out/volunteering at a winery during harvest.  I had even arranged for us to do our “time” at the bodega of Matias Mayol, the cousin of a friend of mine in Miami.  Unfortunately, as many things tend to develop in non-first world countries, the plan didn't work out AT ALL. 

Matias was never in Mendoza during our week there, the harvest was mostly over, and the quaint wine-making experience that I had envisioned (Dad and I carrying baskets of grapes and stomping them into a pulp with our bare feet) could really have never happened, at least in Mendoza, as the wineries there are mostly full of advanced technology (stainless steel tanks and and laboratories and temperature controlled cellars) much like Napa Valley and the French Countryside – not to mention that the bad case of athlete’s foot that I have would not have helped with the overall vintage quality.

But the shared experience I had wanted came from a completely different direction, our attempt at a cultural exchange – SERVAS.  SERVAS is this international organization of host families and travelers.  You apply to the organization, which both my Dad and I did.  Now this is no casual process, rather it is full of an application, two letters of recommendation, and an $85 fee. 

My Dad and I were both accepted into SERVAS, proving that their acceptance threshold is quite low!  We then emailed all of the host families in Mendoza, our destination town, to see who would have us.  The only positive response came from a gentleman named Francisco Moron.  In his moderately broken English, Francisco emailed an offer to have us stay at his home for our entire visit – and we accepted.  We were going to have a true Argentinean experience, or were we?

My Father and I neglected to completely factor in the fact that Francisco’s year of birth was ´23.  Well I neglected to factor this in – my Dad thought that Francisco was 23 years old – which he hasn’t been for more than half a century!

I arrived in Mendoza two days earlier than my pop and so I did a little recon – going to Francisco’s home a day early to see what our “accommodations” would be like.  What I found was a chain smoking caricature of a man – gray hair, bath robe, slippers (of course it was during the afternoon siesta).  He was like Mr. Magoo in Argentina.  And his home was derelict – even by third-world standards.  Keep in mind that I’ve traveled in India and I’ve certainly stayed in less than luxurious housing, but I knew this was going to be a stretch for my Dad!

What put our experience over the top, and literally rendered us UNABLE to stay any longer with Francisco was dinner our first night.  As a gesture of appreciation, we took Francisco out to a neighborhood parrilla (BBQ joint).  Here's the seating set up:

Empty Seat                            Francisco

Ralph (Lee's Dad)                   Lee

I came to find out that I chose seats poorly when I saw that Francisco kept about ½ of his food in his mouth, and the other ½ came across the table in my direction – in mini spurts. 

His first successful “attack” was on my water glass.  My Dad and I both saw the flying particle land IN my water, though we couldn’t identify said food because Francisco chose only food of the same color, white (fish, bread, potatoes).  Needless to say I was super-concerned for my lasagna to not get contaminated so I kept moving it more and more to the left – towards my Dad.  And I ultimately managed to get another glass of water and “protect” it with the dirty water glass and a few other empties. 

When we ultimately made it back to Francisco’s home, and my Dad and I were tucked in to our twin beds, with support like my lasagna noodles, right next to each other, we howled like kids as we remembered the events of the evening.  And we began to plan our escape to a hotel, where we remained happy and spit free for the remainder of our time in Mendoza.

I realize that this update is a bit different that the other two, but I’m feeling a bit tired from the road and so the rest will simply be logistics plus a little inspiration.

Bodegas (wineries)

(photo:  O Fournier wine cellar)

Dad and I visited 8 wineries in three days.  In case you were wondering, I (the lightweight) did most of the driving.  Please take a moment and view their websites, especially Andeluna and Salentein, so you can get a feeling for how amazing this region is.  In order of our visits:

Andeluna (www.andeluna.com)

La Azul

Salentein (www.bodegasalentein.com)

Carmelo Patti

Achaval Ferrer (www.achaval-ferrer.com)

La Garde

Clos de Los Siete (www.monteviejo.com)

O Fournier (www.ofournier.com)

This week I'll leave you with partial lyrics from one of my favorite songs, “One Step Closer to You” by Michael Franti & Spearhead.  I've been listening to it a lot this week as my love life, which seemed to be developing some steam, has instead chosen to wane with the moon.

I never knew somebody just like you

Be a friend I can call my own

Til I let go of a broken heart

I let go to an open heart

I let go of my broken dreams

I let go to the mystery

And I believe in the miracle

I believe in the spiritual

I believe in the one above

I believe in the one I love

Bariloche, Argentina, May 13, 2007

(photo:  Peninsuala Llao Llao)

I walked by Orlando and Daniel, two Americans who have been on the road for quite a long time, on my way to find the perfect hitch-hiking spot.  On their way towards Chile, they were juggling oranges (Daniel) and drinking mate (Orlando) – looking like they could care less whether they caught a ride this hour or even the next. 

I on the other hand decided that I would give myself 1-1/2 hours to find a ride towards Villa la Angostura – a sweet little town of 7,000 on the north side of the lake from Bariloche.  I had decided just this morning that I needed to travel like Che, on the cheap and with adventure as my only guideline; sleeping where ever the night found me and eating the available. 

So after 90 minutes of no one stopping, I promptly walked back to the bus station, bought a ticket for the next bus (8 pesos = $2.75) and had a double espresso in the café.  Modern travel, with credit card, bank card and wallet full of pesos, I apparently wasn´t ready for life on the cheap.

The next morning, on my way to Hotel Correntoso (www.correntoso.com - see photos below) for lunch, I again came upon Orlando and Daniel, sans oranges, but fully equipped with mate.  Apparently they had waited in the same spot for nearly 5 hours the previous day before finding transport, and their plans to be in Chile by nightfall quickly changed to a hostel in la Angostura – not even remotely anxious to see what the next day might bring. 

Just those few minutes watching/passing/meeting again those two goofballs taught me a lot about how travel can be and how often I miss the experience in favor of the destination.  So this last week to ten days has been about favoring the experience over the checklist of places seen.  And some days have found me doing absolutely nothing – if you were to have tracked me with Lojack – with nary a move throughout the day – and some of those days have been the most fulfilling. 

Is travel about people or places?  According to my new friend James DeAngelo (rapper, movie director, nyc high school biology teacher) sitting to my right, travel is ONLY about the people, and if you happen to see cool stuff along the way – BONUS.

Over the weekend I traveled down to El Bolson, a weird hippy town about 120 km south of Bariloche.  I traveled to El Bolson with my new friend Charlotte, a strikingly beautiful 19-year old French girl/woman.  I had met Charlotte 5 days earlier and wanted to spend more time with her because she has a better handle on the “experience” than I, and I knew I had much to learn. 

Charlotte is the product of a French movie producer and a beautiful female actress from his movie set for whom he had left his previous wife.  Ahh the French. 

We traveled by bus the 2 hours, both having to pee from the first kilometer and knowing that we had the two full hours of pain to endure.  This is a subject not often spoken about, but peeing on the road, figuratively, becomes really important.  Seasoned travelers learn to “dry” themselves out before and on long journeys to avoid the inevitable and progressively excruciating problem of no bathroom and long bus rides.  But as they say, there is some solace in suffering with others, or something like that but more eloquent.   

Part of my desire to visit El Bolson was to find Mary Brain, an English healer recommended to me by my friend Kyle who owns a ranch in the area.  Charlotte and I went to the Saturday market, which is a bit like Berkeley in the 60s, only with large mountains in the background.  After at least two tours of the market, which is a mélange of macramé bracelets and femo fairies, we stopped at the stall of a man who looked like he would know Mary.  Long grey hair popping up through the neck gaitor he wore on his head and deeply piercing blue eyes, “Jethro” looked like our way into the healing world.

"Mary is dead", he says.

According to Jethro, after a long battle with Cancer or something of that sort, Mary died three weeks earlier.  Right on that spot where we chatted the community had a big event to celebrate her life/recognize her death.

The reason I wanted to meet Mary was that I am in need of healing, we all are.  I need someone to shift my energy so that things flow better with life - we all do. 

That night at the hostel (www.elpueblitohostel.com.ar) I met a lovely woman from Las Vegas.  As I was roasting chestnuts by the open fire, seriously, she came up and started to chat with me.  Her energy was wildly ungrounded and her sadness showed all the way to her surface.

Within 15 minutes we were on the couch, her head in my lap, and me stroking her hair and leading her through a process to change her energy.  An hour or two later, her energy had calmed, her mind had slowed and her breathing was peaceful.  I lifted her head from my lap, kissed her on the forehead and went to bed. 

Then began the next part in the process for her, something she relayed to me in the morning.  For the next hour she wept sporadically and uncontrollably; partly in the living room of the hostel and partly in the bathroom to avoid having to explain to anyone what was going on (though she had no idea either).  The culmination was a scrunching/tightening of her body into a tiny ball – holding it with all her might, and then letting go – and making her way to bed.

In the morning I saw a totally different woman, light and beautiful, grounded and warm.   She kissed me on the cheek and proceeded to describe her experience – after I left her on the couch (the above).  In my journal, after her name, she wrote the following:

“Chick you met in El Bolson from Las Vegas who you set free.  Gracias.”

For those of you wondering, this was not my first experience leading someone though a transformation/change in energy.  It is happening more and more often in my life.

We are all healers, and we are all in need of healing. 

When we are willing to let go into the moment, to be fully who we are and not who we imagine we should have been or could one day be, then we are all healers – able to be in the flow and to share the secrets of the universe with all of those around us.

Seattle, Washington, June 1, 2007

(illustration:  Pike Place Market)

I thought I would spend this, my last writing on Argentina, to go over many of the interesting differences I noticed between the USA and this magical S. American land.  I planned to talk about the dulce de leche craze, the locals passion for and identification with the “Boca Jrs.” soccer team, and the adept skill with which the Argentineans can barbeque.  But what struck me most upon my return to the States was a realization of how much slower the pace of life was in Argentina, as least outside of the big city.

The Puertaños, as they’re called, are the folks who inhabit the city of Buenos Aires and the surrounding areas.  In this, the second largest South American country (second only to Brazil), nearly 50% of the population lives in and around the Big City.  So time in Argentina is really a story of two countries, Buenos Aires and everything else.  I’m much more interested in the everything else, because for me cities are cities.

Cities:  you walk down the street and people busy text messaging constantly bump into you.  People gaze at their watches incessantly, but oblivious to the sun as it makes its way across the sky westward.  Go to Paris, London, New York, Mumbai, and even Buenos Aires and you’ll find the same.  People rushing to get, well, I’m not sure to where they’re rushing, because there is only the present moment.  So I guess that many of them are at risk of sleep walking right through their lives, in a hurry to get to, … their coffin.  So sad.

On this trip I found incredible inspiration from Ken Wilber’s “No Boundary”.  In this book Wilber explains how there is no past and no future, only the present moment.  He describes that the past is always and only a recollection in the present moment.  According to Wilber, the future goes something like that as well; for it never really happens, rather it is our anticipation of it, which is a series of thoughts that also only happen in the present moment, that we think of as “future”. 

So, to where are you rushing when there is nothing but this exact moment and this exact experience?  Ya got me.

Dinner last Saturday night at the “House of Nanking” in San Francisco’s Chinatown strongly convinced me of how truly fucked up our culture has become (excuse my French).  From the door, to the food, to the check, to the departure, 30 minutes.   We’re like the Foie Gras geese, quickly stuffing ourselves with experience after experience, but nearly incapable of savoring the moment. 

During the 8 days I spent in Mendoza, Argentina with my Dad, we regularly enjoyed two to three hour meals.  When we sat down at a restaurant the table was ours for the night.  Truthfully, there were many times during those 8 days that we left our table only to walk past people who had been seated before us, and there were many times when my Dad and I were feeling numb in the ass from not having had sufficient experience just sitting.  So sad.  It’s so sad that our culture is at risk of losing the art of simple conversation with family and friends over coffee or wine or food or music in the park.

I recently read an article about how Americans, with more and more to accomplish is less and less time, are more caffeinated than ever before.  There are 11 year old kids drinking Rock Star energy drinks and washing down No Doz pills with coffee in order to finish their homework.  I say bullshit.  Enough.  Enough of this frustration that what we have isn’t enough and enough of this striving to become something other that what we are, which is already perfect. 

Now I can already hear you thinking that if we stop striving the world will fall into stagnation and likely turmoil.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that we stop striving to make ourselves better, the world better; I’m just suggesting that we do it with more focus on being present.  That we make advances in medicine and philosophy and social welfare because we are more steeped in the each experience and that we use our greater awareness to do good work.  Please no more of this yuppie (“Yuppie” by the way is in MS Word’s spellchecker – which in and of itself should be a wake-up call) amnesia brought on by incessantly checking your stock portfolio and sending text messages and scheduling way more in  a day than you can ever possibly accomplish and then kicking yourself at the end of the day for having fallen short.

Please, if my trip might have any influence on your lives, let it inspire you to have friends over to your homes for leisurely dinner parties.  Let it inspire you to take off early from work, to watch the sunset from your favorite spot or to find a favorite spot if you don’t already have one.  Let it inspire you to take a sabbatical from your chosen life, to gain better perspective, to see if you are using your ever so precious time wisely. 

Take a deep breath and slow down.

I’ve had the pleasure of teaching yoga to some of the wealthiest people in the world, CEOs of billion dollar corporations, a former Ms. America, celebrities – people with lives that many of you aspire to.  But before you totally convince yourself of their greener grass, let me suggest that, based on my experience, their lives might not be all you imagine.  While I can guarantee you that they’re not hungry, are they happy? 

Happiness exists in the moment.  Happiness exists for those who can appreciate the moment.  Happiness is for those who accept the moment for what it is, for those not constantly contrasting their reality against some totally made up and impossible expectation or anticipation of life.  Happiness is in a full breath.  Happiness is in a warm smile.  Happiness is in a deep hug.  Happiness is a cold shower.  You chose happiness – it doesn’t choose you.