It's beautiful today - about 50 F, sunny and actually windLESS - so Ginny and I are making a break for it, back to her chakra in El Huecu. There's a birthday party there tonight; her daugher Sky will be there; and Ginny is getting sick of the hotel. Or rather, being all cooped up in it. At the chakra she has her garden, can sit in her yard, hang out with Sky and Jorge. Her horses are gone - elsewhere for the winter - but it'll be enough to be out and bask in the sun. We're both feeling a little bit tentative about the drive though - only about 1 1/2 hr from Caviahue but down that same long rupio aka gravel road we headed down last time, when the car turned and rolled around all over. She'll be wearing her corset again fer sure. And this time no way in hell I'm driving. Haven't driven since, in fact, not that I won't ever again - just for now happy to stay away from extended stretches of gravel. Anyway, we're both looking forward to the change of scenery. Back by Monday!
Love, me
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Laguna Escondida
Woke up feeling very lethargic today. Though life in Caviahue is far from crazy I do think the intensity of the new routine, feelings, and thoughts rushing through my head these past few weeks finally caught up with me. Wasn't tired, just drained. So at around 4:30 when Ginny headed for her afternoon apt at the gym, I set out for a walk, in search of a nice tree or rock upon which to rest and gaze upon the lake or something else pretty. Ended up walking in the opposite direction from usual towards Volcan Copohue instead of Laguna Caviahue, and following a series of yellow arrows all the way up to Laguna Escondida. I'd forgotten about this place, which I'd noted for my to-do list during my first week here.
So it was nice to happenstancingly happen upon it, nestled unassumingly among the pine trees and rocks after a comfortable 45 minute climb, quietly catching the late afternoon sun. There was noone on the trail or at the lake but me and the silence was broken only by the sounds of hammers coming from Caviahue down below (I would guess about 90% of this town is under construction, there are so many new homes, hosterias, etc. with the highly triangulated snow-proof roofs being built per the week).
I realize I want to live in a place where happening upon random lakes is possible, where taking off from where you live for an invigorating if short walk in nature with your dog can be easily accomplished. This has been a growing realization in general over the past few months. Though having been to Laguna Escondida and back in under 2 hours and feeling entirely better and happier for it, it is now more of a pressing need.
And so, and so...?
So it was nice to happenstancingly happen upon it, nestled unassumingly among the pine trees and rocks after a comfortable 45 minute climb, quietly catching the late afternoon sun. There was noone on the trail or at the lake but me and the silence was broken only by the sounds of hammers coming from Caviahue down below (I would guess about 90% of this town is under construction, there are so many new homes, hosterias, etc. with the highly triangulated snow-proof roofs being built per the week).
I realize I want to live in a place where happening upon random lakes is possible, where taking off from where you live for an invigorating if short walk in nature with your dog can be easily accomplished. This has been a growing realization in general over the past few months. Though having been to Laguna Escondida and back in under 2 hours and feeling entirely better and happier for it, it is now more of a pressing need.
And so, and so...?
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Well, the Internet is back up and I'm sitting here now in the common living room at the Hotel Oriplata facing views of the Andes all around... light and the big open sky pouring in. The weather has taken a turn in the past two days and now it really does feel like winter is coming... lots of cold wind and rain and last night, 2000 feet higher in nearby Copohue where we went for dinner, there was even sleet. Higher still, the surrounding mountains and Volcan de Copohue are already snow capped.
And me, I am dressing warm and continuing to love every moment of my time with Ginny in Caviahue. We have by now become good friends, and fallen into a comfortable routine based mostly on gymnasio/rehab apts, meals and snacks, occassional naps and working on her book. I do my best to provide help and support wherever needed, but Ginny has such a great disposition, we also spend a lot of our time together just talking and laughing. I feel i am learning so much from her... from being here.
Today, Sunday April 18th, is the end of my second week in Caviahue... now just 2 more to go. I am still trying to run a lot to prepare for the May 1st race. Also continuing to meet such great people... everyone in tiny Caviahue has been so welcoming and nice... despite my still broken Spanish. Ginny says this place feels like Colorado 30 years ago... still so small, developing, full of good, down to earth people who love the outdoors. The number of tourists who come grows a bit each year.
I've also been able to see a bit more of the surrounding area ... Laguna Huacupe, the Rio and Salto Lagrio, and nearby Copahue with its volcanic thermal baths... a few days ago one of my new friends, a guy named Baldo, took me on a small road trip to see where the Mapuche live, their shack-like homes barely perceptible in the vast mountainside. The Mapuche are more or less "nomad cowboys," moving their herds of goats, cows and sheep wherever the weather is warmest, sometimes as far as 800 km away which can take about 8 days. You can see these "arroyos" (as they're called) on the roads, the men on their horses, donkies carrying their belongings, and dogs barking as the herds amble along. Everyone around here knows to drive more slowly this time of year lest they inadvertently hit a cow. Meanwhile, in the mountainside, the Mapuche houses stand deserted, awaiting their return again in the summer...
Other highlights of these past 2 weeks: attending the gaucho Fiesta Provincial del Pasto with Jorge; habitual drinking of mate; my first taste of chivo or goat (amazing!); homemade pizza dinner at Marseilla and Nestor's house; "rock picking" with Diego and Mariano; volcanic mud baths at the Caviahue banos; spotting the two largest, most brilliant, fullblown rainbows I have ever seen in just one half-rainy late afternoon; experiencing the bife de chorizo at Nito's Parilla; ... and more ... and more!!!
But I believe this update will do for now.
Lots of love,
Karen
And me, I am dressing warm and continuing to love every moment of my time with Ginny in Caviahue. We have by now become good friends, and fallen into a comfortable routine based mostly on gymnasio/rehab apts, meals and snacks, occassional naps and working on her book. I do my best to provide help and support wherever needed, but Ginny has such a great disposition, we also spend a lot of our time together just talking and laughing. I feel i am learning so much from her... from being here.
Today, Sunday April 18th, is the end of my second week in Caviahue... now just 2 more to go. I am still trying to run a lot to prepare for the May 1st race. Also continuing to meet such great people... everyone in tiny Caviahue has been so welcoming and nice... despite my still broken Spanish. Ginny says this place feels like Colorado 30 years ago... still so small, developing, full of good, down to earth people who love the outdoors. The number of tourists who come grows a bit each year.
I've also been able to see a bit more of the surrounding area ... Laguna Huacupe, the Rio and Salto Lagrio, and nearby Copahue with its volcanic thermal baths... a few days ago one of my new friends, a guy named Baldo, took me on a small road trip to see where the Mapuche live, their shack-like homes barely perceptible in the vast mountainside. The Mapuche are more or less "nomad cowboys," moving their herds of goats, cows and sheep wherever the weather is warmest, sometimes as far as 800 km away which can take about 8 days. You can see these "arroyos" (as they're called) on the roads, the men on their horses, donkies carrying their belongings, and dogs barking as the herds amble along. Everyone around here knows to drive more slowly this time of year lest they inadvertently hit a cow. Meanwhile, in the mountainside, the Mapuche houses stand deserted, awaiting their return again in the summer...
Other highlights of these past 2 weeks: attending the gaucho Fiesta Provincial del Pasto with Jorge; habitual drinking of mate; my first taste of chivo or goat (amazing!); homemade pizza dinner at Marseilla and Nestor's house; "rock picking" with Diego and Mariano; volcanic mud baths at the Caviahue banos; spotting the two largest, most brilliant, fullblown rainbows I have ever seen in just one half-rainy late afternoon; experiencing the bife de chorizo at Nito's Parilla; ... and more ... and more!!!
But I believe this update will do for now.
Lots of love,
Karen
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Drinking mate*
Ginny is teaching me to drink mate.* Once and for all. Mate is a traditional hot herbal drink drunk ceremoniously throughout South America, and very heavily, characteristically, by the Argentines. It is more ritual than beverage, passed around with a silver bombilla in a small gourd by a servador(a) who is also responsible for replenishing the hot (but not boiling!) water in the bowl as it makes its way from person to person. I saw the mate being passed for the first time on a bus in El Chalten. The driver was drinking it with his driving partner who kept passing the mate between them. When I finally got my own first taste of it in Ushuai, it was bitter and almost burned my tongue through the bombilla.
Mate is definitely an acquired taste. Children learn to drink it with a bit of sugar or honey mixed in. Ginny says it took her almost a year to get into it. But to be Argentine - especially in el campo where she has spent most of her past 25 years here working and living with the gauchos on her estancia - is to love and appreciate the mate. Beyond its plentiful nutritional qualities, mate is about the comraderie or when you drink it alone and the mood is right, the spiritual, peaceful aspect of it. As an artist, Ginny says it can also serve as a gateway to your creativity, if you are inclined that way to begin with. Or if you are a gaucho, mate can help to enhance your strength and endurance in the field.
This morning, after showing me how to prepare the mate, Ginny said a Native American prayer honoring the Four Directions: east, south, west, then north. Ginny also added a prayer to the above beings and to the inner core of the mother earth, the pachamama. Lastly, she said a prayer to her body, thanking it and telling it that she loves it and believes in it. Then we drank the mate. Under Ginny's tutelage, I think I might be learning to get into it too.
PS You can read up on the mate and see a picture of the gourd should you desire at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage)
Mate is definitely an acquired taste. Children learn to drink it with a bit of sugar or honey mixed in. Ginny says it took her almost a year to get into it. But to be Argentine - especially in el campo where she has spent most of her past 25 years here working and living with the gauchos on her estancia - is to love and appreciate the mate. Beyond its plentiful nutritional qualities, mate is about the comraderie or when you drink it alone and the mood is right, the spiritual, peaceful aspect of it. As an artist, Ginny says it can also serve as a gateway to your creativity, if you are inclined that way to begin with. Or if you are a gaucho, mate can help to enhance your strength and endurance in the field.
This morning, after showing me how to prepare the mate, Ginny said a Native American prayer honoring the Four Directions: east, south, west, then north. Ginny also added a prayer to the above beings and to the inner core of the mother earth, the pachamama. Lastly, she said a prayer to her body, thanking it and telling it that she loves it and believes in it. Then we drank the mate. Under Ginny's tutelage, I think I might be learning to get into it too.
PS You can read up on the mate and see a picture of the gourd should you desire at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage)
*Mate is properly spelled with an accent mark on the "e" which, unfortunately, I can't perform on this here lousy blogger dashboard. So please note it's not pronounced "mate" as in "checkmate." Gracias!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Hotel Oriplata, Caviahue, Patagonia, AR
Back safe and sound with Ginny at the Hotel Oriplata life has developed a really nice rhythmn all its own.
Caviahue is a tiny town, still very much in development, that sits on the banks of a beautiful - albeit, highly acidic - blue lake, the sky and the Andes all around. Many who live here divide their year between here and Buenos Aires, others are "lifers" who run the few shops, hotels, restaurants, etc that have sprung up. July will be busy for ski season but right now there's hardly anyone here at all. At the Hotel Oriplata where Ginny has been living, for example, it's really just Ginny and me going about our business. Enrique, Juana and the rest of the staff are like family to her now, as are the few close friends she's made in town since she arrived 3 months ago. She's easy to love: spirited, spunky and perpetually full of good humor - even as she struggles to overcome the trials and tribulations of her MS.
Ginny is here for her rehabilation because Caviahue has thermal/mud baths that are good for it (I'm hoping while I'm here to find out if they're good for my psoriasis too!). Our days are divided between her morning and afternoon appointments at the gymansium, and all the hours in between seem to go so fast. We've hardly started on her book, but hopefully will make some good progress this week. She's had quite a life and I'm excited for her to capture it in writing - though figuring out how to organize all the milestones, loves, losses, and anecdotes into some kind of order is going to be hard work. Right now, I just want to get as much of it down in her voice as possible before I leave.
The other thing I hope to be doing is training for the 1/2 marathon I just found out happens to be taking place here in Caviahue on May 1st (!!!). What an amazing way it would be to draw this all to a close. Running a full marathon has never been a goal, but this would be my third 1/2 and running it at ~1900 meters sure would be a nice keepsake to take home from Patagonia - along with everything else! :)
Ooops I must run (haha) ... bye for now...!! xoxo
Caviahue is a tiny town, still very much in development, that sits on the banks of a beautiful - albeit, highly acidic - blue lake, the sky and the Andes all around. Many who live here divide their year between here and Buenos Aires, others are "lifers" who run the few shops, hotels, restaurants, etc that have sprung up. July will be busy for ski season but right now there's hardly anyone here at all. At the Hotel Oriplata where Ginny has been living, for example, it's really just Ginny and me going about our business. Enrique, Juana and the rest of the staff are like family to her now, as are the few close friends she's made in town since she arrived 3 months ago. She's easy to love: spirited, spunky and perpetually full of good humor - even as she struggles to overcome the trials and tribulations of her MS.
Ginny is here for her rehabilation because Caviahue has thermal/mud baths that are good for it (I'm hoping while I'm here to find out if they're good for my psoriasis too!). Our days are divided between her morning and afternoon appointments at the gymansium, and all the hours in between seem to go so fast. We've hardly started on her book, but hopefully will make some good progress this week. She's had quite a life and I'm excited for her to capture it in writing - though figuring out how to organize all the milestones, loves, losses, and anecdotes into some kind of order is going to be hard work. Right now, I just want to get as much of it down in her voice as possible before I leave.
The other thing I hope to be doing is training for the 1/2 marathon I just found out happens to be taking place here in Caviahue on May 1st (!!!). What an amazing way it would be to draw this all to a close. Running a full marathon has never been a goal, but this would be my third 1/2 and running it at ~1900 meters sure would be a nice keepsake to take home from Patagonia - along with everything else! :)
Ooops I must run (haha) ... bye for now...!! xoxo
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
We the Living
A SMALL NOTE: I wrote this the same night of the accident described below, Ginny and I still high with the cool fact of our survival. 4 days later we are still high with it - even though Ginny has since discovered her $40,000 truck was not insured. Ehem. Still, she's been greeting every morning with "hey baby, we're a walking miracle!" And maybe that's the lesson therein, something to remind myself of every day.
* *
I had my first car accident today. The car out of control, spinning spinning everywhere then, all of sudden, flipping all the way over just like in the movies, kind of accident. Crushed windshield glass like candy and Ginny and I just dangling there by our seatbelts. Our thank-you-God, lifesaving seatbelts.
Ginny’s voice sounds close and calm, but I can’t turn my head around to see her. “Karen, turn off the engine,” she says, it feels like over and over. Yes we had just stopped to fill the tank in Loncupue. I understand what she means but I can’t find the keys, barely know where the steering wheel is at. I also cannot believe we are alive, and Ginny sounds so normal like she’s asking me to roll up the window because the breeze is bothering her. I am shaking and trying to find the keys to turn the engine off, but the space around me is too small to maneuver so I focus on trying to get out of the car instead. Figure that way I can turn around get the keys out, come back around get Ginny out too.
Crawling out is hard, barely manage it through the window because it’s gotten much smaller. But I do, it’s amazing, I’m pulling my body through and nothing even hurts. How is this possible? How is this happening? And I have I killed Ginny?! I’ve definitely fucked up her car. The sun is shiny bright same as it was before we flipped like in the movies. I feel the loose gravel on my palms. The gravel that did this, made the car swerve then swerve again. It’s a long, long gravely road from Loncupue to El Huecu where we were headed to spend Easter weekend at Ginny’s chacra there. I was enjoying the scenery, the vast open Patagonia space, the late afternoon sun on the left side of my face. It was just beginning to set, casting the distant high desert mountains in shades of blue.
I was also focusing really hard on my driving because I’d just learned to drive Ginny’s S10 Chevie truck that morning. Things were going pretty well: I was driving stick! I’d made it this far, driven about an hour from Hotel Oriplata to Loncupue for money and gas, aware the whole time of the Patagonia wind. Now we were close, just another ½ hour or so away. But then the car veered suddenly off the road, and I tried to set it right, then I hit the brakes. Big mistake.
By the time I come around to Ginny’s side of the car, I am weeping. With disbelief, with regret, with shock - though not it seems with pain. Nothing appears to hurt. My sunglasses even appear to still be on my head. And Ginny is there too, by her side of the car, on her back, cell phone in hand. Is she texting someone?! Holy shit. Does this mean she is okay? I think she is laughing. Yes she is laughing. My new 61-year old friend with MS who uses a walker and sometimes a wheelchair and decided to wear her back brace right before we got in the car “just in case” has managed to pull herself out of her window and is lying on her back by the side of the gravel road and she is laughing.
There are any number of reactions one could have when the person they just met and entrusted with their car, totals it and almost kills them both in the process. Ginny’s immediate reaction is gratitude. “Thank god we are okay, can you believe we are okay?? This is the most important thing!!” she keeps asking me, hugging me. Her second reaction is laughter. And triumph. Within just a few moments of our car rolling over and nearly killing us, a few people stop along the side of the road to help us. Together, we collect our things from the car, our backpacks, our groceries. Ginny’s mate set. I’ve found my camera and am taking pictures of the car with it from all angles for the insurance company. For posterity.
Then Ginny wants me to take a picture of her. With arms raised in front of her truck like the champion in a boxing ring. Then standing by the passenger side of the car, beaming face poised over the dangling rearview mirror. Then we take one together. By now, I am smiling too.
One of the last things we pull out of Ginny’s crushed truck is a small book she had in the back seat, We The Living by Ayn Rand. The irony is far from lost on us and we decide we must each take a picture with it. We realize we could have died today but we didn’t. Our seatbelts saved us, or the roll bar on Ginny’s very well made truck saved us, or maybe God (?!) saved us.
I am still considering the significance of this, because I do believe every moment, especially the hardest, offers up something for me to learn. That's how we make sense of things. Feeling that truck spin uncontrollably then flip, and not knowing how this story would end, will go down as one of the scariest moments I’ve ever had. There wasn’t even any time for flashbacks! I know the story could have ended very differently. Thankfully, it ended up like this.
~11 pm, Saturday, April 2, 2010
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| We the Living. |
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Ginny Carrithers
A few months ago, while still in Quito, I received my weekly email listing of NYC non-profit and volunteer opportunities from Idealist.org (I signed up a long time ago when I thought it might be interesting to see what leaving the wonderful world of advertising might be like). Idealist.org lets you search ops by country, and it was more out of curiosity than anything else that I looked up Argentina, knowing I was heading there next. What came up was this:
I'm incredibly excited about both of these and finally meeting Ginny herself tomorrow - which is when I should be pulling up to the hotel after about 20+ hours of bus travel. I'm also excited to be going back to Patagonia, with its magical, magestic, almost mythical landscape. It will be the beginning of Fall so not quite ski season (which starts closer to June/July) and Ginny tells me its beautiful there this time of year. I look forward to being surrounded by the Patagonia mountains/glaciers/volcanos again.
Chao for now... see you in Caviahue :)
Love,
Karen
DESCRIPTION:
Seeking a Personal/Administrative Assistant for an exceptional 60 year old woman artist, Ginny Carrithers, living with Multiple Sclerosis, who leads a fascinating life in a spectacular region of Patagonia, Argentina. She is also still undergoing physical therapy for a back injury suffered about a year ago and, while doing so, is collecting and organizing her life’s story for publication. Ginny is self-sufficient in most aspects of daily living but needs assistance in a few specific areas relating to her art and writing projects ...
http://www.idealist.org/if/i/en/av/VolunteerOpportunity/170379-155/cSo tonight I am leaving Buenos Aires on a bus bound for northern Patagonia to spend the next few weeks with Ginny. We'll be staying at the Hotel Oriplata in the small ski town of Caviahue very close to the border with Chile. One of the projects Ginny's working on is her biography and if you visit the site of her foundation Creativity Heals at http://www.creativityheals.org/ you can read about her life, her vision and her work. The other project will be preparing for an upcoming show of her work at the hotel this July.
I'm incredibly excited about both of these and finally meeting Ginny herself tomorrow - which is when I should be pulling up to the hotel after about 20+ hours of bus travel. I'm also excited to be going back to Patagonia, with its magical, magestic, almost mythical landscape. It will be the beginning of Fall so not quite ski season (which starts closer to June/July) and Ginny tells me its beautiful there this time of year. I look forward to being surrounded by the Patagonia mountains/glaciers/volcanos again.
Chao for now... see you in Caviahue :)
Love,
Karen