In the capital, when not trying to simply survive on a bike in downtown traffic, I’ve been trying to gather my thoughts on why I’m here, and where that indeed is. I’ve been evaluating my purpose for being in Argentina, and on a broader scale, in Latin America. The past two weeks I’ve been on the road with my backpack, it’s been just what I needed to free up some brain space. I’ve travelled to the northern Túcuman, Salta and Jujuy provinces, kind of on a whim, and ended up in the most beautiful landscapes and small villages. I’ve mostly managed to avoid tourist areas (although I have to admit I purchased a llama sweater, a trendy indigenous shoulder bag, and a wollen hat), staying in small villages with no or few other travellers. As a result my Spanish has improved a lot and I’ve had great little conversations with locals, and though my vocabulary still sucks, my grammar serves me well (I’m even throwing in a bit of subjunctive and grammatical future along the way) and I’ve had few communication problems. Here in the north people are also a great deal more down to earth. They’re generally also very religious, roman catholicism is a big thing here, and without giving myself away as a non-believer I’ve slided in and out of religious events. One memorable one was waking up to the chanting of a local pilgrimage – which may or may not have coincided with the Día de los Muertos celebrations elsewhere – in San Carlos, one of the oldest colonial towns in Argentina. While I certainly stood a bit out from the crowd being the only blond (white, pale etc…) person in the crowd, people didn’t seem mind much my tagging along. It is posible that my sleepy, curious look was mistaken for devotion.. The crowd must’ve counted half the town, and followed a rose-covered statue of the local saint (I’m sorry I didn’t catch his name), carried on the four strongest backs among the villagers, and a blaring brass loudspeaker barrow blessing the procession, the town, the lady madonna, and a lot more. I’m not strong in religion, another thing I want to work on, but I’m definitely charmed by the religious pictorial overload of porcelain icons, rosaries, plastic madonnas and jesuses that come out in the dead of night on a night as this one. It was a strange, beautiful night.

The heavy old camera I brought has proven to have a defect light meter, so I haven’t been able to do the work I wanted to here, but on the positive side it may have brought me a bit closer to the people that I’ve been just me.

I’m about to change subject a bit, so I’ll move the next bit to a new post above.

]]> http://timbuktu.dk/archives/161/feed 0 http://timbuktu.dk/archives/131 http://timbuktu.dk/archives/131#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:14:44 +0000 Thomas Elsted http://timbuktu.dk/?p=131

And speaking about torture… I came across this theme park on a bike ride through northern Buenos Aires. It’s a New Testament theme park, complete with trumpet blowing angels, a full-size Golgotha and nailed Jesus. I’ll let the image and very idea speak for itself.

(I wonder what are the rides?)