Esquel y El Bolson: Dos Mundos Distinctos (Wednesday January 5--Day 51)

I have been moving so quickly these past two weeks. In a span of three days, I went from selling windchimes in a hippie community to sleeping in a log cabin deep in the mountains to watching a small-town independent theater production. I really doubt that I fully grasped what was happening at each moment. I was numb by the beauty, overloaded by characters, and dizzy from the speed. How could I be present ¨here and now¨when I was physically in fast forward, but mentally in reverse? How can such different places and such different experiences all be real? Am I really fullfilling my goal of finding a sense of reality when every day is so different? Well all I can say is thank goodness for long bus rides and aimless wandering; without hindsight, I would never understand any of this.
Let´s take El Bolson and Esquel for example. These two towns in Northern Patagonia are only 120km apart (roughly 50 miles). But within these 120 km, there is a drastic change. As you head south from El Bolson (in Rio Negro Province) to Esquel (in Chubut), the landscape shifts as the forests deminish, the valleys widen, and the mountains become more arid. More impressively, there is a visible cultural difference between the lifestyles and priorities of each town. Two towns, so close to each other, each offer a distinct version of reality.
El Bolson is the self-proclaimed home of magic and nature. For the guidebooks, it is the ¨hippie capital¨of Argentina. Here, people live in community with themselves and with their surroundings. While in El Bolson, I stayed with a Chilean woman who has traveled around South America working with indigenous populations. When the time came to slow down and settle in a community, she chose El Bolson because everyone is ¨on the same level.¨ As she stated, ¨there is a certain mirador (a look) in everyone´s eye.¨ They share a vibrant spark, an appreciation for beauty. It really is a wonderful community. People really live here. They create from what is around them--which explains all of the artisons--and they share with those nearby. I enjoyed my time there, and I learned a lot about living passionately and sustainably in community. However, I still felt somewhat unfullfilled, as if what I was watching and what I was experiencing was predictable and ubiquitous. I found it beautiful and fascinating in the same way that all ¨hippie meccas¨are beautiful and fascinating. It is like their culture and way of life transcends politically constructed borders. I could have been on Church Street in Burlington or in Boulder, Colorado. And while I enjoy these places in small doses, I just don´t see myself settling in a community like this. Each time, I learn something new about the world and about myself, but I know I will take what I learn and apply it to a life in a different type of community.
Esquel, on the other hand, offered a completely different concept of reality--one that is much more comparable to the small town American Dream of the 1950´s than the free spirit of Haight-Ashbury. People hold jobs as construction workers, psychologists, nurses, and store owners. The clean and orderly streets are lined not by hostels and adventure stores, but by shoe shops and hair salons. People fight the mines not because it will destroy the environment (although that is part of their objection), but because it would polute the water and harm their families. The twenty-somethings have families and strolers rather than dreadlocks and bongos. The town participates economically and politically with the greater nation of Argentina, rather than spiritually and environmentally with the greater Mother Earth. And although the people of Esquel were not as welcoming as those in El Bolson, they were equally friendly; the difference is that to them I am an obvious outsider whose presense has no real bearing on their life. And despite my sundress-wearing, bear-foot walking, nature-loving persona, I feel far more comfortable and connected to a place like Esquel.
So there it is...an example of how two different places, experienced during the same week, can both offer a version of the real world. I was fortunate enough to experience them both through my own eyes and alongside the eyes of people from each place. My reflection provides an image of how each of these places are indeed real, and how I am beginning to understand which version of reality I prefer to experience.