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As seen on craigslist. I now conduct tours of Buenos Aires. And, because everyone needs an awesome company name, I’ll be:

3 Lefts Make a Right Tours

Though it isn’t the 30 pages that I promised Diva, here is an excerpt from my travel diary:

The air in Chilecito was crisp and we walked around the town checking in and asking about various things: where to eat, where to look for property, where to buy artesanias, what we could visit and how. I’m not big on visiting things and I was very happy to just chill out and join Juan and Lysa as they explored the neighborhoods looking at plots of land. We walked up and down the streets, until we came to a very cheerful looking Cemetery. Lisa was a bit worried about living right by the cemetery because of the spirits. “You shouldn’t worry so much about the spirits from the cemetery,” I said, “It’s the spirits from outside the cemetery that you should watch out for” I joked.

CEMETARY SUBURBIA

The cemetery was kitschy: no graves, only tombs painted all kinds of colors with brass ornaments and other gaudy accouterments. In the center of the cemetery is a completely unnecessary overlarge 40 foot cross. As I explored the place, looking for photo opportunities, I heard voices of visiting relatives. I felt strange taking pictures of peoples’ intimate things. I tried to avoid the visitors because I imagined I might be a little worried if I saw someone taking a picture of my mother’s grave. It gave me a weird feeling to gawk at the finery of the dead, especially as I was taking my photos ironically. As it was, the disembodied voices were always just around the corner, but never “caught me in the act”.

THE BENT CAST IRON GATE

Far in the back was a bent cast iron gate, a thing out of place in this garish world of pink houses. Through the gate, I could see only a wasteland of rocks and dirt, which I found out later was an ancient incan burial ground. From where we stood it looked desolate, as if the tombs were beautiful shops in which the spirits work and at night they go home to the slums in which they really live. Or perhaps there are neighborhoods of spirits and we are in the nice rich neighborhood, looking out at the wasteland of poverty like a twisted mirror of the world of the living.

CEMETERY MAIDEN

“This place is dead,” Lysa half jokes, and she and Juan start leaving through the central path. I follow a bit behind and as I reach the central cross I find three young women standing by it. They cannot be more than 18 years old.

“I can’t check out the 18 year old girls in a cemetery.” I think. “That’s just wrong.”

As I approach I lower my eyes respectfully. And with the look of the Recoleta cemetary’s cats they wait for me, watching my every movement with interest lazy. Just as I pass, one says, “Chau” in a seductive voice. “Chau” I mumble as I stumble off. I had the most distinct impression that these maidens of the cemetery were just that, and I walked away without looking back.

Last week I took a vacation to La Rioja, to a town called Chilecito. It was my first vacation within Argentina since I went to Mendoza over a year ago. Even that was just for the Semana Santa long weekend. Overall it was very cold. And it snowed a little. It was really nice for a change from the humid Buenos Aires weather.

FREEZING

The place is untouched to all tourists except backpackers on their way to somewhere else. The reason for the trip is that a friend of mine is looking into buying land to move there to get away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

CHILECITO

Though land in Chilecito is quite cheap (she’s looking at spending about $2000 dollars) there are some complications. The first item, which could theoritically be good or bad, is that everybody knows everybody and, in a strange Twin Peaks kind of way, they’re all in eachothers business. As La Riojas doesn’t produce many professionals like (doctors, engineers, etc.) these guys come from outside and form a bit of a ruling clique. This means that the folks who own the land are not locals but rather are from Cordoba, Mendoza and the like. Each time we went to a restaurant or confiteria to meet someone about seeing a house or advice on a property we would see a group of 8-10 older men talking easily around a big table. The person we were going to meet was invariably meeting with others we would see later. I am not used to this small town process and I distrust it.

This is made altogether more sketchy by the nature of the second complication which is that, like most provinces in Argentina, about 70% of the land does not have acceptable paperwork of ownership. And it is precisely this kind of land that sells for the $2000. People told us stories about how, because the paperwork is disorganized sometimes folks sell the same land to two different people because of the way things are filed. I’m used to a system where there’s a kind of a process. There’s a law that says you have to pay lawyers an amount to verify such and such a claim and there are consequents if people cheat. Here it’s not so much the case. It’s a free country: wide open.

CHILECITO BOASTS AN ABANDONED MINE