The Hollow Men

Now that the skiing has become a great deal more serious and despite apathy at the beginning of the course, we are all throwing ourselves at it with a desperate vigour. This tends to mean that we have few days off and any that we do have are spent furiously honing in on the weakness in our technique (mine seem to be worryingly numerous). However, luck made a fleeting appearance this week and we snatched the opportunity to venture off into the valleys of an Argentina that shied away from the prying and polluting hands of tourism.

Having been out the previous night in a typically eventful Argentinian night on the town, I was asleep when the decision to go was made by Alex and two others. So I was awoken and hurried into the car, having my notepad and backpack hastily shoved into my uncoordinated and unresponsive hands. Precious time was saved because I had no need to dress myself, I'd conveniently fallen asleep in my clothes, and before I knew it we were blasting down the ruta cuarenta to the soundtrack of bad, Spanish electronic music. Our destination was El Bolson,the bohemian hot spot of Patagonia. I had been told it was full of 'dirty f*****g hippies' by the chefs (because I came into the restaurant one day, wearing trousers I had bought at some local festival for dirty acid fiends, they recommended I should visit this place, saying that I would find 'my kind' there. Bastards).

We had been powering along in our little bastardised 4x4 for roughly 40 minutes by the time my hunger became unbearable, so we pulled over for coffee and a sandwich at the next town we came across. Having traveled a considerable distance away from the beaten track of tourism in the local area, the next town happened to be a ramshackle collection of hastily constructed wooden shacks with roofs of corrugated iron. We circled the town and turned around in the road, suddenly noticing a gaucho who was riding his horse alongside the road. Robbie, the culturally ignorant and hyperactive australian leaned out of the window and began feverishly taking photos of him, much to his annoyance. I suggested he stopped, due to the increasingly homicidal expression on the aforementioned gaucho's face, which was twisted into a wrinkled squint (or frown, it was hard to be certain) of deep and permeating irritation. Having noticed a rather decayed sign hanging from one of the cabins, bearing the word 'restuarante' we got out and put out heads togther trying to muster up the pathetic amount of Spanish needed to order coffee and croissants.

We were welcomed in by a very affable middle aged woman, who was sweeping the porch. The place was bare, and consisted of a couple of tables and modest chairs. It was, however, kept exceptionally clean (which was reassuring!). We sat down and took in our surroundings, noticing that the whole place was festooned with balloons. I waited for the woman to come back out so that I could ask her what the cause for all the festivity was, however I was somewhat lost for words when our waiter emerged from the kitchen. The gaucho, with his leathery face, rough calloused hands and (upon seeing us) displeased expression had come out of the kitchen, still wearing his poncho and riding boots bearing the rich and overpowering smell of horse. He placed the coffee and tortas fritas (doughnuts without all the sugar) on the table, said a civil hello and then quickly asked us all where we were from. Before anyone else could answer, I quickly gave a generic answer which was along the lines of 'all over the place' so as to avoid a Falklands dispute (I know one shouldn't judge, but believe me, he seemed like the type to turf us out). This seemed to appease the old fellow and he shuffled back into the bowels of the cabin muttering darkly.

The way the restaurant worked was interesting, because as we had ordered our drinks, the woman disappeared out of the front door and after fighting her way through the flurry of excitable chickens and ferrel children, she disappeared into what I can only presume was her own home. She emerged later, with an explosion of the intrusive cockerels that he had shooed from inside her house with all the ingredients for our food and the mugs for the coffee, and then cooked them in the restaurant kitchen. I pity the poor dear if she has to go through this elaborate procedure with each order the place receives! The coffee was excellent and seemed to have an exquisitely rural taste, along with the tortas fritas, which we coated heavily in the local blackberry jam and then gorged upon hastily.

It was only now that we realised there was a young boy munching away contentedly on some gruel like substance, heavily engrossed in watching Toy Story 2 on a tv, tucked away in the corner of the place. We watched this as the dregs of our coffee were drained and our very plates licked clean. Full and refreshed we left, also finding out that the balloons were there because one of the villagers had turned a magnificent 80 years old that day and the whole community was coming together later on in the day, to give her a special celebration, which I thought was fantastic, a type of unity that you can only find in the more rural places in our increasingly impersonal and modern world. We picked our way past wooden carts and daring chickens, then heading off down the road and making our way along the beautiful winding mountain roads lined with forests, towering cliffs and streams.

As we worked our way through the Patagonian wilderness we still saw political propaganda sprayed on the occasional rock, amongst the oriental, orange tinted trees and flowing creeks which wound their way intricately amongst their roots, casting an almost oriental air of tranquility amongst the menacing atmosphere of grandeur that is ever-present with great mountain ranges. We came across a strong, fast flowing river that was accompanied by a gendarmeria, a little hut with a lethargic policemen watching the traffic pass by, lazily smoking his cigarette probably waiting to return home to his family in one of the nearby towns. We carried on, eagerly awaiting our arrival in El Bolson, conjuring elaborate descriptions of how we expected it to be as rustic lorries passed us by carrying tons of wood stolen from the local, and internationally 'protected' forests.

The buildings became less and less sporadic as we neared El Bolson, camp sites started appearing on the both sights, along with worrying amount of German businesses such as 'Schmidt Hnoss', a vivid reminder of darker times passed. This would be the first of many German encounters in Argentinian culture. It has a considerable presence here due to Argentina's part in WWII. It turns out that in order to maintain a neutral standing they sided with the Allies, as they were likely to win at the time of their choice, but at the same time gave thousands of fleeing Nazi war criminals open and unconditional passports. So, I think I am right in having a slight (and not entirely intentional) moral agenda when I meet an Argentinian of German decent. El Bolson did not exactly slap us in the face with its brilliance, by this, I mean that I could have mistaken it for any rural gaucho haven that we had passed on the long journey down here. It is a fairly small, dirty, linear town, its main street lined with dilapidated trucks, itching to be put down. We crawled down the high street in our faithful little car, peering out at the groups of gaucho youths hovering outside sad looking corner shops and dark skinned old men sat, wearing the same working overalls (on a sunday) and baseball caps, the grime of poverty shining strongly from their tanned skin.

We parked the car opposite an immaculate and elaborate modern church and started heading towards the heart of El Bolson, the park. Its unhealthy looking browny green had been the only breath to break the monotony of the town's intense greyness which stole any opportunity of vibrancy and life from the people. We stumbled upon a miserable looking market arranged along the concrete path that enclosed the far side of the park, and were filled with a slight optimism that the trip had been worthwhile. Unfortunately my suspicions were soon confirmed and I was assaulted by the familiar feeling of oppression and irritation that I had found inescapable in British hippie circles. There was the usual air of fallacy that all the people were clearly aware of and were, in their usual contrived activity, desperately trying to conceal. There were the usual hopefuls sitting, strumming their guitars, singing songs about love and happiness in the town, in the vague hope that someone would give them a few pathetic pesos, whilst other dirty dreadlocked people sat behind their stalls smoking and emanating the sadness that was visible in their dull, lifeless eyes.

I walked through the market, trying to find a single thread of happiness and positivity, watched like an alien by brown couples who sat, the young men clinging to their women, pecking and nurturing the beautiful creatures, stroking their tightly curled, jet black hair, those tragically deep, piercing, Indian eyes glaring back out of their bronzed faces like dangerous jewels. I was accosted by vendors, stubbing their spliffs and emerging from their vacuous stupors leaping out, grimacing at me with yellowing teeth showing me their wares with a striking desperation. One woman, whose stall I had drifted over to because she had a certain mystical beauty flowing from her, spoke excellent English and showed me with an amazing knowledge all the stones she had, their origins, where she had found them and how they were formed. I asked her how she spoke such good English, and she replied that she had been at a good university and studied it. I wondered how the woman had ended up in this predicament, clearly impoverished, the dirt that covered her fingers contrasting starkly with the bright shining stones she was trying so very hard to sell. Filthy young children ran around with wild hair, not dissimilar to the matted fur of the motheaten dogs that were lying about the place, seemingly as depressed with their predicament as the human occupants.

We, once again, grew hungry and conveniently a waffle van was placed in front of us. The vendor seemed, from a considerable distance, distinctly un-Argentinian and indeed, it turned out he was from deepest darkest Guildford. He'd given up working for Mark's and Spencer's, claiming he was fed up of 'making ends meet'. I must admit, I found it confusing how he could possibly be doing any better working out of a van, selling fairly substandard waffles to the impoverished and the occasional and usually lost tourist. Anyway he told me how he was 'living like a king' with such vigour that it certainly seemed as if he was trying to convince himself as much as me. I got his email address, promising to read his blog and left to to his wife, their many children and the hordes of dirty urchins hanging around the other food vans. Poor sod.

We had been told that a worthwhile sight was the 'Cabeza del Indio', an interesting rock formation a few miles away from the town, up a dirt track an into the nearby mountains. Glad for an opportunity to get away from the market and its sombre inhabitants we piled into the car and drove at a rapid pace, not out of eagerness, but to get up the fierce incline of the road, whilst narrowly avoiding dirty hippies on bicycles. We parked the car and followed the signs across some sodden land into some woods, picking our way carefully along a narrow winding path and up some rickety wooden steps. Ritchie, who had accompanied us on the trip was feeling the strain of being exposed to something genuine and was clearly stressed. Earlier on he had been so bored he'd deteriorated to throwing chips at chickens and being racist to dogs, now, he'd worsened after eating too many sugary sweets and was clearly a bit overexcited. He'd ran on ahead, whooping and yelling and then started throwing rocks down at us like some kind of crazed animal. Naturally, this was quite annoying, so, after a verbal assualt, he calmed down and we left him to quietly destroy some of the more delicate parts of the cliff face as we found the 'Cabeza del Indio'. It was a clif face that had eroded in such a fashion that it resembled a face screaming out from the side of the mountain, in a deep anguish (probably why it's an Indian face, considering how they were completely butchered by the Spanish). We spent a few minutes, sat, trying to ignore Ritchie, dangling our legs over a dangerous drop whilst taking in the marvelous view. Far below us, the Rio Azul was weaving its eternal path through the low lying farmland and the attractive little houses that littered the plain, the haphazard stories and floors dangling off at a typically precarious angle.

And so we left El Bolson, feeling as though we were pulling our boots from thick mud, its vacuousness having already wrapped its spectral, parasitic fingers around our ankles in an attempt to sap the energy that we had brought with us. We left behind the gaggles of dirty people, some like that by choice, others not as lucky, passing their nameless bottles of alcohol throughout all hours of the day, putting the world to rights in a manner as repetitive as the mumblings of a self centred depressive. I was glad to be leaving, keen to distance myself from that old delusion that these people had a real reason to be exempt from a purposeful life, that there was some kind of depth to their lethargic existence, and mostly that these people were in possession of some kind of exclusive ethereal energy that they had somehow tapped into. Some kind of atmospheric passion that would keep their spirits full as they sat, their lives being drained away, like paint down a plughole, in this sad, deflated town with its graffitied walls and decaying statues culminating in the empty lake that gave out the reek of a corrupt dream, of an ideal dead and decomposing from the inside out.