Seven Oaks Magazine.

Rachel Marcuse is currently working for The Working World, an economic democracy not-for-profit based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This is the second of several dispatches from her work and travel in South America.

I left my work at La Base/The Working World to do some travelling during the quieter holiday time of December and January.

First, I took a 22-hour bus ride to Bariloche from Buenos Aires, which was actually, surprisingly, not entirely unpleasant. The service is a little like an airplane, but with better seats! The variation in landscapes was quite amazing going there. For a while it looked like the BC interior and then turned into a Swiss Alps/Whistler cross. So, the views have been pretty, but not entirely unfamiliar. While looking out the window, I did get to listen to awesome 80s music (there´s a major 80s revival here right now -- like Montreal a couple of years ago).

Bariloche itself is quite ¨cheta¨ (sort of Porteno snobby). During the winter, Bariloche is a ski resort and in summer (now), a place for trekking, white water rafting, etc. Food is double the usual price. But, there is still poverty and as soon as you leave the town centre things of course become much poorer.

Bariloche is quite similar to Whistler village, which is not great from my perspective, but I did walk around a provincial park and along a road for 4 hours by myself in the rain, which made me feel pretty hardcore. Then, I realized the bus back only came every three hours. This made me feel even more hardcore. But, also, cold.

I rented a car with some Israelis and a guy from the Netherlands and we drove to Ël Bolson¨ -- ¨the Berkeley of South America¨ -- which was pleasant, but the town was much less hippy-ish and interesting than expected. As one woman I met put it, ¨you probably need to hang out for a while and get stoned with the locals.¨ I did eat some trout-filled pasta and eat Dulce de Leche ice cream, however.

¨Tranquilo¨ Mendoza

After a couple of days, the cold felt too much like Vancouver and I took a 20-hour bus to Mendoza, the wine district of Argentina. This bus was slightly less comfortable, but still vastly superior to Greyhound and we did play bingo so it wasn’t all bad.

My first day in Mendoza, I attempted to go to a museum and an art gallery but both were closed for siesta. As a result, I walked to the edge of the town to go to the ¨Serpentarium¨. That´s right, the ¨serpentarium¨. It wasn’t great, but I did get to meet a giant turtle named ¨Jorge.¨And - just so everyone’s clear – it’s false that garlic scares away snakes.

Later, I did a ¨bikes and wine¨ tour of the wineries around Mendoza. The slogan of the bike rental company is ¨I got to drink and drive!” Cute. It was good but excruciatingly hot. Maybe the most interesting part, however, was taking the bus out to the vineyards, or ¨bodegas¨. Again, the rural-urban divide is astonishing in terms of poverty and inequality. However, it’s all really very close together, in terms of geographic proximity. I saw, for instance, a shantytown beside a new gated community development. In fact, I have learned that the levels of inequality in Argentina are increasing faster than those of Brazil, which is generally considered to have the most income inequality in the world.

Travelling with gringos

The majority of people I met in Bariloche ranged from decent to cool. The hostels are so social, one never needs to be alone -- and one probably can’t be even if she wants to. However, I’ve been shocked to find that my limited Spanish is actually better than that of most others I’ve met so far (is it just a symptom of Western privilege that people feel like they don’t have to try?). On the plus side, this does make it easier for me to make Spanish-speaking friends, as they’re often shocked and impressed when I can (sort of) understand them.

Also, the people around me are spending an incredible amount of money. As the peso was pegged to the US dollar before the financial crisis of 2002, Argentina was an expensive country for Westerners. Now, the rate is about 1:3, with, of course, the US dollar winning out. So, while things are cheap for us privileged folk, they certainly ad up.

While people in Bariloche were pretty cool, Mendoza´s different -- probably because people come more to party than to hike. It was there that I had my first experience with the really ugly gringo part of travelling. I listened in on a bunch of guys from the UK, for instance. Not that I don’t like to party, but as ¨fucking chicks¨ and doing ¨really good coke¨ in Bolivia isn’t really my main priority, I didn’t feel like I had a lot to get out of the conversation. I also learned from these wankers that Bolivia is, ¨a shit hole -- they all stare at gringos with expressionless faces". Awesome.

These jerks aside, the people I’ve met are generally somewhat progressive -- or at least ¨liberal¨-- although there seems to be very little awareness of Western privilege.

Read Dispatch #1 here.

Photos by Rachel Marcuse in Argentina can be viewed here, and she can be contacted at rachelmarcuse@yahoo.com.