The Brits
After three nights of carne, carne and more carne, we wanted something different. Kelly and I walked to the supermarket in town and loaded our daypacks with a bunch of random fruits and vegetables we hadn’t had in a few days: tomatoes, peppers, onions. What were we going to make? Pasta! (We were cooking at a cheap hostel in South America — OF COURSE, we were going to make pasta) And in order to NOT freak out any of the Argentines back at the hostel, we also picked up a couple of chorizos which I was planning on chopping up and tossing over the penne. I had never looked forward to making pasta so much in the past.
To Bangladesh-i-tize things up a bit, Kelly scored red pepper flakes from the hostel’s staff kitchen. Now, I was absolutely enamored by Argentine cuisine, but my one huge complaint was that the entire country did not believe in any-spice-not-named-salt (even finding black pepper was tricky at some restaurants). The perfect example of this can be found in the McDonalds pechuga sandwiches. In the U.S. (or anywhere else I would imagine), chicken sandwiches come in three flavors: crispy, grilled or spicy. In Argentina, you are given the choice of crispy, grilled or HONEY MUSTARD. (Yes, it’s true. We ate at McDonalds in goddamn Argentina. Once! And that is totally besides the point.) Anyhow, when I go back — and I have serious intentions of going back for an extended stay — I’m packing heat!
It was while I was cooking this spicy pasta topped with chorizo concoction that I met Martin cooking on the stove next to me. Someone had left a couple of eggs boiling for too long, and suddenly — BOOM! — the eggs exploded. I had never witnessed such a thing in my entire life! Luckily, I had my back turned, but Martin was not so lucky. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him letting out a long, drawn out scream — “Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!” — like out of a slow-mo sequence in an action film, his hands shielding his face, the explosion of eggshells blown into smithereens inches from his cornea (luckily, he wore glasses). Everyone, including his girlfriend, rushed into the kitchen. We stared at the pot which was still rattling, now a few inches removed from the burner. The water had completely evaporated and suddenly the entire kitchen smelled of burnt Teflon. While no one fessed up to owning the now-defunct eggs, it broke the ice (yolk, shell, insert-other-egg-related-pun-here) for Martin and I to start talking.
He was a thin, scruffy looking guy in his late 20’s with short, blond hair and a full beard. He wore a red flannel shirt and was making some sort of stew. I asked if it was his specialty because it certainly looked and smelled delicious, to which he replied in a thick, British accent, “Yeah, I suppose something like that.” He was being modest which is a great quality for all cooks.
“But tonight is special,” he said. “Tonight, we’re splurging on meat.” He looked up and smiled.
“Why? Is your girlfriend vegetarian?” I indicated with my chin towards the kitchen door. She had gone back to the dining area immediate after checking that her boyfriend’s limbs were still in place. Immediately, I felt unsure of why I asked that other than that she just looked like the vegetarian-type.
“No, we’re backpackers, mate. We’re just bloody poor,” he laughed.
I saw the chunks of sausage marinating in a bubbly red sauce and immediately felt slightly guilty (but not really) that we had been eating nothing BUT meat, and the finest cuts of it we’ve ever tasted. Tonight, we were actually “downgrading” to mere chorizos.
We took our respective dishes back to the dining area. Martin’s girlfriend had set up a table next to ours but Martin gave me a “Do you mind, look?” and then brought their plates over to our table. Just like that we were friends.
He had worked at some office job (all of these people actually told me what they did, but within moments my mind reduced it down the more memorable “office job” label) and his girlfriend, Annalisa, was a lawyer in London. After talking about it for a couple of years, they finally quit their jobs together and bought a pair of around-the-world tickets. It was exciting to get confirmation that these tickets (where you start at a certain destination and purchase a number of “stops” and then complete the trip within a year by circling back to your original departure) really did exist and (regular) people actually used them. Martin and Annalisa have been traveling for over a year but had no intention of “completing” anything, however. They were planning on forfeiting their final stop so they could keep going.
“Right now, all we know is we’re going to fly out to Japan before they expire, and then somehow figure out a way to get to India. Once we get to India, I imagine we’ll want to spend a lot of time there,” Martin mused.
They had started in Vancouver for the skiing, sticking to a strict budget of 20 pounds a day for the both of them (including room and board, all meals, entertainment and excursions). When funds became low, they performed any odd jobs they could find, which they unabashedly explained, including cleaning toilets. They had just been to Ushuaia which was where we were headed next and gave us recommendations on a couple of hostels and restaurant.
“You’re really gonna like Ushuaia. It’s different from here,” Martin said, but left it vague, which was how I preferred it anyway.
Unlike them, we were flying there — a 45 minute plane ride. They had taken a bus from Buenos Aires which took three whole days on a double-decker sleeper.
“We don’t recommend it.” They both said blankly.
When I foolishly asked if they were staying in a private room at the hostel (since they were after all a couple), they laughed at the thought of it. “Oh no. That would be the fastest way to deplete your funds. But we’ve been lucky.” Martin told us how the hostel had set them up in an empty dorm room without charging them private room fees. “That happens a lot.”
I was jealous of his travel plans, of the loosenesses of it. I was in love with the serene tone of his voice. At any hostel you visit anywhere in the world, you’re going to meet Jack Kerouacs in training, tramps and hobos who’ve slept in the streets or hiked in the wilderness for hundreds of years. But Martin and Annalisa weren’t like those people. They weren’t hippies running from “The Man” or “organized society” with no aim or destination. They were just there…
And they were like me. They were like us! When I revealed that I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I found out Martin’s sister lived off of my subway stop and that the couple had been to Williamsburg and dined at Relish (a neighborhood join I frequented). They liked it. It was fine.
The great thing about backpacking and hostels in general was that anywhere else people like Martin and Annalisa would be seen as deviants engaged in outragous acts. But here, in El Calafate, they were the normal ones.
With his girlfriend slicing a green apple and offering him a piece across the table, I saw myself in his shoes. I really did.
- Next: The Americans.
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