Today, I realized the sheer size of this country. Or, maybe it is more accurate to say that today I realized I will never be able to fully grasp just how HUGE this place is. I took a bus today from Cordoba to San Juan. On the map, this distance is represented by a half an inch. At best. In reality, these couple of hundred kilometers are covered in ten hours. Conceptually, this is similar to an eight hour road trip through Pennsylvania or a nine hour jaunt through Nebraska. A few towns, hoards of empty land, and an extreme change of scenery. Oh but except here...these towns are small Argentinian farming villages with cement houses and rooftop water heaters, the ¨empty land¨ consists of stretches of land for cattle grazing, and the scenery changes from the dry, arid Central Sierras to even dryer, more arid Andes (with a few mountain ranges in between). And instead of driving in my jeep blasting 90´s music, I am on a double decker traveling hotel partaking in Spanish conversations. But other than that...it´s practically the USA. Not.
The point is, Argentina is HUGE. On this on leg of my journey, covering 1-50th of the country, I´ve seen wild horses, the Air Force Academy, roadside shrines to Saints, the Vegas of Argentina (Carlos de Paz), a tractor museum (Iowa, much?), green and jagged mountains (picture the Rockies meeting the Appalachians), the movie Invictus, countless above ground cemetaries, numerous family picnics, a few dozen fields of plastic bags, a public park in a town with a population of 40, a impressive road network (thanks, military dictators!), and salt fields. Did I mention this is my third day?
And what am I thinking as the climate, land, and living conditions become seemingly more and more extreme? Am I ready for this? Can I really commit myself to this entirely? Is this what I really want? The unanimous answer...hell yes.
¨But how do we get them to be better then they think they CAN be? That is very difficult, I find. Inspiration, perhaps. How do we inspire ourselves to greatness when nothing less will do? How do we inspire everyone around us?¨ -Invictus
PS. I should mention, I am writing this in a small town´s internet cafe that is BLASTING the song ¨Get Low.¨ Brilliant.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Well, hello there.