I'm in the country now. No longer Buenos Aires, no Capital Federal. The bus was a tall double-decker. Three hundred fifty pesos. We originally wanted to take the train, which was, at the cheapest seat, eighty pesos, and at a rather nice seat, one hundred pesos, but as luck would have it the trains were completely booked until September. Mes pelotas.
The bus was nice though. We had seats on the upper deck, and they were big captain seats with a good recline and arm rests and a padded board that came down in front for your legs, so that it was quite easy to sleep through the morning and noon.
I woke up on the road. Nice elevated. It was green on both sides like the 101, but flatter, much flatter with the horizon stretching way out on either side, more like the 5. The sky was restless like it wanted to rain, and it did for a bit, but only just. It's uncanny. The seven hour ride. Small country towns. Sprawling rows of fields, and old trucks and tractors chugging along on dirt roads off the highway. It's very similar. In California all the towns are in Spanish too. Just about all of them up the coast and through the Salinas river valley - Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo, San Jose, and finally Santa Cruz.
The town of Villa Maria. Small, but not too small. It's a two square town, one on that expansion tip, with new universities and new buildings and new homes across the river and such.
We arrived late, but not too late on Thursday. After sunset. Before dinner. Walter picked us up from the bus station and told us a little of his town, not much, pretty much everything I'd just said. The rest was in spanish to Guada, but it was more than enough for me. I've become accustomed to observation here in Argentina. Trading on expression. The Quiet American.
It's easy to get lost in your thoughts when you don't understand a damned thing and you stop stringing to listen. It's letting go, and it's nice. Outside on the concrete porch in this walled grassy compound. Lounge chairs. Yerba mate and sugar cookies for breakfast. The spanish out here in the country sounds like a song in my ears when I'm writing, telling an unknown story. Digging in the dirt with no treasure map.
That's messy syntax, that's what that is, but then again, that year in California was anything but well-structured. Hardly clean-cut. And the weather here, and the wild and the sounds of the birds and the sun remind me so much of Santa Cruz.
Guess I'd better start writing.
