Appetite for Authenticity

I do not like tourist-driven towns, but I cannot avoid them.  They are often the base for exploring some fantastic natural wonder, ancient ruins or mind-blowing landscape.  So when I find myself in a place filled with touristy restaurants offering mediocre food at inflated prices, I aim to get myself off the beaten path.

In El Calafate, home to the thrilling glaciar Perito Moreno, I approached the Argentinean hostel employee  and asked (in my now-flowing castellano) for a restaurant suggestion.  Where would you eat, I wanted to know.

She directed me to Los Amigos, saying it was where “nosotros” ate on their days off.  So I walked the few extra blocks off the main drag, where menus in English called out to me.  I ignored the waiters passing out flyers and attempting to lure me in from the street with their pizza, pasta, carne options and went to Los Amigos, a local joint, to be sure.

I ordered the fish dish pictured above, sucked the brown butter sauce off the bones, and cleaned the plate with the the fresh bread provided at no additional cost.  I left happy and full and with enough money to buy an ice-cream cone.

Situation check: couchsurfing

I’ve been a pretty big advocate of couchsurfing ever since my first flawless experience surfing in San Francisco in October 2008.  Although I wasn’t an active member in NYC (only attending a bar gathering here and there and hosting just twice), I was looking forward to surfing throughout South America as nothing beats getting to know a place with a local, who knows the ins and outs (and speaks the language), or so I thought.

If you’ve been following my journey thus far, you know that I had an excellent beginning to the trip in Sao Paolo, where I was fortunate to be surfing in the city’s nicest and safest neighborhood.  The experience in Rio was also pleasant–for the most part.  There was the briefest awkward exchange between my host and me, wherein he asked me if he should have kissed me the night before.  I explained that it was best that we just stay friends, and although he seemed to accept my statement,  if I’m being completely honest, the vibe between us was irrevocably changed from that point forward.

When no one in Salvador was able to host me, I looked forward to hooking up with some fellow travelers and staying in a hostel.  Meeting and discovering a city with other backpackers can be just as rewarding as getting to know a place with a resident, albeit in a different way.  Additionally, oftentimes, hostel owners are keen on getting to know their guests and will go out of their way to offer travel advice, tips, restaurant suggestions.

Owner Russ of Barra Guest House in Salvador, Brazil was one of those owners.  (The free breakfast–pancakes and eggs on order, plus a spread of fresh fruit, cheeses and ham, coffee and tea–wasn’t half-bad either!)  While the hostel could have used some sprucing up (the bed linens were so worn that it was impossible to make it through an hour’s sleep without the fitted sheet coming undone on all four corners), I had a fine time exploring the city and just chilling on the beach with the other travelers I met.  Iquazu Falls entered my radar, and I gained advice on the best places to see in Chile.

Because it is easier to couchsurf in large cities where there are more members, Bolivia meant staying in hostels until La Paz.  That is until I found myself poking around on the site one day and randomly decided to contact one of the four available hosts in Tarija, Bolivia.   Overall, the good reaped from my stay in Tarija far outweighed the bad, but I will think again before I even so much as contact a member of the opposite sex with a request to surf.

After speaking with a friend and couchsurfer, I know that my story is common.  Common but unfortunate given the wonderful possibilities that a community like couchsurfing promises.

Arriving by overnight bus at 3:30 in the morning, I was quite grateful that my host Jose, who’d given me his address, answered my desperate  buzz and showed me inside to a mattress in the middle of the dining room floor.  After the vacant house in Salvador, Brazil where I stayed when I had the mumps,  the heavily blanketed mattress in front of me looked welcoming and appealing.  Before allowing me to nod off, Jose demonstrated how to make (real) coffee in the morning–a pretty big deal for a coffee-lover like myself as most of the good beans in SA are exported–and we talked about having lunch near a winery the next day.

Over our lunch, Jose and I got to talking about couchsurfing, and he told me that most people that he knows do it for sex.  Um, excuse me?  We were drinking wine and I didn’t want to make an issue of it, but I assume he meant the hope–as opposed to the expectation, a much stronger word–of sexual contact, which I still found appalling.

Our lunch was delicious and varied from the standard almuerzos I’d been eating.  Speaking of expectations, Jose expected me to pay for the majority of our meal, and while I was happy to offer him some form of gratitude for allowing me to stay with him (and his mother, a former cocaine addict, who woke up screaming each night), I didn’t appreciate the implication that I owed him.  That’s not what couchsurfing is about.  Aside from “Is it safe?” the second most popular question I’m asked regarding couchsurfing is if it is free.  My reply is always that, yes, it’s free, but it’s common to reciprocate in some way: a beer, a home-cooked meal, baked goods purchased on your morning stroll through the market.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that Jose expected plenty from me, monetarily at least, and while I value generosity and the ability to be generous, I resent the way Jose expected me to pay for our not inexpensive meal that day, a spare set of keys for his apartment later that afternoon, and a bottle of wine in the evening.

Still, he wasn’t hitting on me, and he seemed decent, if a bit insecure , so what was another few dollars? It wasn’t until late Monday night, on our walk home after hanging in the plaza, drinking and partying with some awesome guys from Argentina that Jose made his first move.  The casual arm slung over the shoulder, the attempt to pull me close and then the comment that “we could do so much together,” and I started to grow uncomfortable.  I walked on ahead, letting his arm drop and making it clear that his tentative advances were unwanted.

The following day, Jose’s bright and cheery attitude toward me had darkened somewhat, and suddenly, he went from being my personal tour guide to being completely swamped with work.  In truth, I was grateful and went on with my business, which included meeting up with the Argentina crew later that afternoon.

“Watch yourself around those guys,” Jose said.  “Maybe don’t bring your camera out,” he went on.  “You can’t trust them.”

My instincts are strong and my ability to read a situation is powerful.  My sense of when to trust and when not to trust is one of my greatest strengths, and I wasn’t worried about my safety with my new friends.  Jose stayed in (after instructing me not to come home too late and not to be loud when I returned), and I hung out for hours, practicing  my Spanish in a social, relaxed setting, and comprehending as much as I could with a group that spoke only their native language.

Sitting around Plaza Sucre, we passed a jug of cheap red wine around and took turns consulting my phrasebook when the language barrier became problematic.  Even though I was understanding about a fifth of what was spoken, I felt like I was learning in the best way possible, and it made me excited to think about hunkering down somewhere to take some classes.

Hugo, one of the Argentinian backpackers, walked me back to Jose’s at the end of the night, offering me his jacket and protection.  We agreed to meet the following day to go on to Tupiza together, and while I knew communication would be difficult, I was psyched for the challenge the journey posed.

I fell asleep fast and slept deeply but awoke with a start at around 3:30 in the morning when I heard mumbling.  My couchsurfing host, Jose, was standin by my bed–naked– asking me if he could lie down with me because he couldn’t sleep.

I was frightened and backed away from his advancing form.  “No, No!  Jose, No!” is all I remember saying, and then he was gone, back to bed.  Perhaps he’d been sleepwalking.  I’ll never know.  He acted normal the following morning, and because my bus for Tupiza didn’t leave until 8 PM, I chose not to call him out on his inappropriate actions.  Instead I locked my small backpack and went out for the day.

Still, I was undoubtedly shaken up, somewhat traumatized, exhausted and frustrated.  My distrust in Jose made me wonder for a brief moment if traveling with Hugo was a sound idea after all, but I turned back to my gut and knew it would be fine.

As it turns out, the three days in Tupiza with Hugo were some of my best days thus far.  Instead of paying $100 or more Bolivianos for a trekking tour, we found our own way up into the mountains.  Rather than getting sucked into one of the many tourist haunts during the three hour siesta where every authentic Bolivian restaurant shuts down, we purchased pan (bread), and queso (cheese) and made sandwiches  in the plaza.   Unlike Jose, who showed little patience for my fumbling language skills, Hugo listened and waited for me to get to a place where he could understand me.  He repeated himself again and again, changing his way of speaking, and offered me an impromptu lesson on the presente, pasado, and futuro uses of some common verbs when I expressed interest.

I told him I was going to take a class in La Paz and promised that my Spanish would be greatly improved when we met in his hometown of Mendoza in October.

Moving on, preparing for the next destination means saying goodbye.  I feel like I am always leaving someone or someplace.  I’m just getting to know a town or a city, finding my favorite breakfast stall in the market, and the fastest Internet cafe, and then it’s time to go.

While I am leaving by my own accord (and skipping much-vaunted tours like the Salar de Uyuni), I still struggle with embracing the new, though I almost always do.

If I trusted my gut before this trip (in deciding to do this trip, no less!), I am learning to value it more and more each day.  My negative couchsurfing experience still led me to experience Tupiza apart from the other backpackers, and for that, I am grateful.  Of course, I will continue to proceed with caution in all that I do, and I will guard my safety, but I will rely on myself.  Because I have to.  Because I said go.