The Polenta Files

The Polenta Trail

Well, we're home now. For your viewing pleasure, a map of the countries we visited in our journies.

Courtesy of World 66

Other side of the Pacific

Hi there, we're in Chile, po!* If you'e reading this from the East cost of Australia then jump up and down and wave - we might see you. We're internaughting from a seaside town about 470 km north of Santiago. Sadly we only have one week in this strangely long and narrow country. And yes, the cat's out of the bag.. we get back next week! Wednesday morning, cangurolandia time. We will be super happy to see all you reprobates reading this... and are likely to be ensconced over a schooner or two in Cooltown around knock-off time on Friday. 

Meanwhile...some news from this last country on the polenta** trail (in no particular order). A new president was inaugurated this week. Michelle Bachelet, joins the small number of women national leaders in the world. She has a leftist platform, and the neighbouring presidents Morales (first indigenous leader of Bolivia), Kirchner (Bolshie Argentine who told the IMF to get stuffed) and Lulu from Brazil attended the ceremony.

After arriving at 2 in the afternoon, changing our money into tens of thousands of pesos***, we found the hostal thanks to a very efficient shuttle service, had a sleep and located our Italian buddies (see photos from Bolivia). The following day, we ventured out into Santiago in the sunlight. Our first stop, coffee. Prepay for coffee, get ticket, take place at long bar standing up, give ticket to waitress. Finally getting used to this system, common to these parts. Look up. Realise a) every customer in very large cafe is male and 2) all waitresses are wearing blue skintight lycra dresses, with long sleeves but of a length that would require a bikini wax for the working week. Interesting concept. 12 noon.

Snapshot two: after reclocating to a giant rambling student sharehouse in Barrio Brazil, night fell and it was time to go to the equivalent of a O Week concert at the catholic univeristy. Our carload got a message from the rest of the gang that it had got very crowded and they were shutting the gate. No worries, we could easily skip the fence in a less busy part of campus. So cut to a couple of gringos and students who had just finished classes at same institution jumping the fence into the grounds. Only to encounter large security man with walkie talkie shouting in Spanish. Pontential problem for tired Aussies. However, large man just wants us to get off the grass, and go to concert via the bitumen road. Thats just the ultimate in lowbagging. Sneaking into a free concert.

*Gratutious reference to local accent and idiom for Chile affectionados

**By the way, the main consumption of polenta on this trip was that which I mixed myself from an instant packet at the Turtle camp. I must have been confused with Central America when I named the blog.

***Don't be fooled - a 500mL bottle of water costs 500 pesos.

Occupy. Resist. Produce.

Well here I am on my second-to-last night in Buenos Aires. This week I caught up on some European and Argentinian Art (and wished I had Miss J with me when I saw a series of stunning prints with deep ecology theme), saw some more Tango (but failed to take another lesson), and wandered around Buenos Aires Design wondering if I could fit a giant arabian lamp in my backpack.

Now I am safely ensconced in the Hotel Bauen waiting for Biz to arrive weary and with a saw larynx from talking so much for 4 days. So what is so special about this hotel that I feel compelled to mention it by name? Well I'm glad you asked. It is a premier showcase of the reclaimed business movement here in Argentina. The hotel was built for the World Cup here in the 70s, and closed shortly following the economic crash in 1997. It was actually a favourite place for meetings of the far right, in the Menem era, the president who implemented IMF policy to the letter, and pissed his entire country's prosperity up against the wall. After around of a year of meetings, the unemployed hotel staff decided to reclaim the builidng and start running the hotel themselves. It opened for busines in 2004, after being occupied, cleaned up and repaired. They now join a movement of over 200 businesses that are worker run, in various stages of their individual legal cases to win legitimate control. We found out about the movement in the inspiring doco The Take. In the last few months there was an eviction attempt and a case against them to return the hotel to its owners, which is still not settled. More detail on activities of the collective and a whole raft of supporters are on the film's news page.

Now, their salons and exhibition spaces are host to political organisers, meetings for the reclaimed business movement, and this weekend the 2nd Annual Buenos Aires Tattoo Convention. So not only do I have the warm inner glow of my accomodation budget going towards an egalitarian, grass roots org ...I am also treated to the soothing buzz of the needle on emerging from the lifts. Thats one happy little Aussie this weekend, considering new body art to commemorate the big South American adventure.

We are doomed

An old friend of mine used to wax lyrical about how he loved nothing more than picking people up from airports. All those people coming and going. Journies to be had or coming to an end, stories to be told and to be made.

I used to think that was kinda cool until I saw some recent Hugh Grant movie, actually, with him more or less saying the same thing in the opening scene.

Now I tend to think or airports as being prime examples of why the human race is doomed. Of course, there's all the malarky about air travel being unsustainable* but I think it goes deeper than that...

Take, for example, the baggage collection ritual. Why is it that everyone mobs the belt the second they arrive although their baggs may not appear for some time. It some places it can almost be like the mosh pit at a heavy metal concert. Lots of unneccesary pushing, pulling and most venemously, angst and resentment.

Yet if everyone just stood back a metre or two, then there would be room for everyone to see their baggage coming out and calmly walk the 1-2 metres to collect it. Come on, it's not that far! I think even my dead grandmother could hustle that distance in the time it takes for the belt to arrive. Can't we play fair, just once, in this magical place or journies and unmade stories.

Apparently not, it would seem. I sometimes shake my head at this unbecomming spectacle and marvel that we even made it this far.

Next issue: A return to positiveness (if the drugs work)

* Even if you are mostly travelling on Climate Friendly

Hostelity

Now a crustalicious one score-year and ten, I have realised an important life milestone. They are called youth hostels for a reason. I have reached an age where just can't stand loudmouthed Californians showing off their mastery of hip Chilean local lingo to the teenaged Chileans, the pintsized blonde Isreali telling me that she "loves hearing Australian English because you all sound happy even when you are upset", the trio of be-dreded guys from god knows where carrying guittars and looking for the best deal on a shared room. There's even a sullen Newzealander huddled in the corner of the tv room, surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke, logging on to messenger every hour (and possibly some comic website) who looks remarkably like The_Christian, with more colourful tatts. So I confess, while Biz is doing his bit for the talkfest with the good guys in Eurolandia (its a long story), I have booked out a whole room with four beds so I don't have to share my sleeping space with these freaks, and can do the crossword unmolested. Aunty B, off for a coffee on the plaza and to watch tango dancers, sola. I think Clive James is on to something.

Goin' down in a blaze of glory

Thanks to the miracle of international air travel, I'm back in Amsterdam on my way to a big navel gazing session in Luxembourg being held by the NPPWINGO that I occasionally moonlight for. BSharp is holding the fort in sunny, salubrious Buenos Aires while I'm freezing my butt off in a city where it doesn't even have the decency to snow. But I digress, the point of my post was...

On my way here, I had to transit through Madrid. You know, Madrid, big, smokey,full of the Spanish. Well, being 0 degrees and all, I decided to pull out the old Pakool (very cozy Afghan hat) and wrap the old Palestinian scarf on. Tres cool in certain circles I know, but hey, I'm an international man of mystery. So I order myself a café cortado and wander over to check my email and book a hotel room in Amsterdam. With the job done I spent a few idle minutes to checking my favourite blog, when suddenly the coffee and the last couple of airline meals got together in my innards and started an insurgency. So, off I trot to the can as quick as I can. Taking a wrong turn and nearly winding up in the wrong set of dunnies, I noticed a security guard was following me. Hey, I don't have any drugs or guns on me this time, I thought, as I locked myself into the thinking chamber.

Then, as the security guard availed himself of the unit right next door to mine (in a toilet block the size of a small stadium) a few things dawned on me. Firstly, I probably shouldn't have eaten that whole block of Havanna chocolate (but it was soooo good). Secondly, next week is the second anniversary of the bombing of Atocha station here in little 'ol Madrid, where more than 200 people were brutally assassinated by fundamentalist wads... And here I was, dressed as a suicide bomber (well, at least in the minds of some people anyway), running around Madrid airport with a suspicious looking backpack (given my attire, the only thing that would have looked more sus would have been some sticks of dynamite strapped to my chest) after having checked my emails in a hurried fashion.

I tried to play it cool, so, as difficult as it might sound, I exaggerated the noises of my ablutions while security boy responded in kind. Then I started foraging through my backpack looking for something to do while Security boy cooled down and put his gun back in his holster (literally and figuratively). Not even thinking for a minute, I pulled out the alarm clock and started adjusting it for the time difference (don't wanna miss my train tomorrow morning) which caused it to emit loud beeping noises similar to those which I imagine bomb detonators do. Then I realised that if nervous nelly next door had chosen that moment to fling the door open, well, let's just say that it wouldn't have looked to good. Suddenly, I understood what must have gone through Jean Charles' head seconds before a couple of lead slugs.

So I sat in the can, freezing my hairy (but now much more tanned) butt off while I waited for Security boy to figure the trail was cold and leave. I took off the Pakool and scarf, deciding that discretion beat fashion every time and slunk back out to wait for my flight. Security boy was waiting coolly on the other side. I think he was probably relieved to find nothing more than the remains of Aerolineas in-flight service when he went back into the loos to check out what I might have left behind.

Is there a moral to this story? I'm not so sure. While I'm glad that someone is paying attention out there in airport security land, it also made me think about how much we go on appearances. Jean Charles de Menezes was Brazilian, the only thing he had in common with the London bombers was the colour of his skin. The only thing I had in common with any nutbag jihadi was my choice of accessories. Of course, no nutbag jihadi is going to waltz into an airport dressed like he's on his way to the mosque for Friday prayers. They're always dressed like Yuppies or IT consultants and carry their bombs in briefcases.

And no airport security guard would ever think to bother someone dressed like that...