The Budapest Syndrome

A time comes within every long trip where you look at each other and say "You know, I don't want to go into another cathedral. I don't want to see another golden altar in a community where there is no food. And I'm sick of museums. I don't care about those stupid mummies. The Catholics weren't much worse than the Inkas. What a bunch of ferocious assholes. And I don't want to go out to dinner anymore. I don't want to go into another restaurant at 9:30pm and still be the first people there. And I want arugula. I want MY arugula. I'm ready to go home."

It always happens in the period of the inevitable let down after the huge lift up.

The Patagonian section of this adventure, starting in Punta Arenas, Chile, and ending up on the Estancia de las Cuevas Pintadas ten days later, was one spectacular day after another, seeing and doing interesting things every minute, seeing new worlds, listening to and thinking in Spanish. All of Chile was eye-opening and Plot and Duck could have stayed longer in any number of wonderful places there.

But once they got on that bus which took them away from the Estancia and down into the oil fields of Atlantic Coast southern Argentina, the adventure was over. It was now back to being travelers, instead of adventurers, seers instead of doers, consumers instead of learners. Tourists.

It's the Budapest Syndrome. The hotel room in Comodoro Rivadavia absolutely reeked of cigars or cigarettes. You could barely put your head on the pillow, even with the window wide open.



The hotel in Salta was so vibey and cool, with old ladies playing poker in the salons and fifties-style fancy wedding receptions being held in the ballroom on the same floor as the Plotniks' room, which looks out onto the main, tree-lined plaza, but what about all those cockroaches? Plotnik hasn't killed this many cockroaches since New York. It irritates the hell out of him. And the Budapest Syndrome makes it worse.

The Budapest Syndrome is when you've been traveling too long. It dates from when Plot, Duck and BZWZ went to Germany, Poland, Prague, Vienna and Budapest in 2000. Budapest is supposed to be one of the great cities of Europe, and it just might be, but by the time the Plotniks got there on that trip they were so sick of being tourists that nothing went right. The bad got magnified and the good was ignored. At least Plot and Duck recognize the Budapest Syndrome now for what it is.

They've got two more cool Argentine places to see. There's plenty to enjoy still, but to enjoy it Plottie has to get rid of the Budapest Syndrome and chill out.

After thinking about this a little more, it's only one thing: restaurants. Plot never wants to see another restaurant. Why should this matter?



MUSIC

And what's with the music in these countries? Why do you have to go into an astoundingly picturesque indigenous village high up in the mountains, and there's a local market arranged around the square, and a seven-colored mountain looming behind the town, and...wait, Duck, do I hear Andean pipes and guitar and charango and bombo? I do! But...wait, what song are they playing?"

"I think it's "When a Man Loves a Woman."

"Percy Sledge on charango? And what's that...Oh, God."

"Yup. 'Unchained Melody.'"

You go into a restaurant and it's the Beatles. You go into a club and the band will play their own music if you make them but really what they want to show you they know how to play is the guitar riff from "Stairway to Heaven."

The taxi driver is listening to "Imagine."

Plot and Duck have heard some fine local music in Salta, but that's the first time anywhere, except for the tango in Calafate. You just can't tango to the Beatles.

(Editor's Note: Last night, Plot did turn on Los Oscares, and he heard James Taylor sing that beautiful version of "In My Life." James Taylor can sing anything. What a classy guy.)

The one musical eye-opener for Plotnik, music-wise, was at the airport in Puerto Varas, Chile, when he asked the sales girl in an airport record store if she had anything by Victor Jara. Remember, he is the singer and writer who became a Chilean icon after he was assassinated by Pinochet's goons.

The Great PD has been a fan for a long time, and there is a connection with a Victor Jara song called "Te Recuerdo, Amanda." Plot asked the sales girl if she had a version of Victor Jara singing "Te Acuerdo, Amanda," and she didn't have one to sell but she did have her own private copy of Victor Jara singing, and she put it on the record store stereo for Plot and Duck to hear.

Oh, I see.

Like James Taylor in his own way, Victor Jara had one of those buttery but oh-so-honest voices that cuts straight to your heart without involving your brain at all. It was so lovely to hear him sing and no one in the record store said a word while his songs were on. He was such a good guitar player too. Plotnik never realized it -- he had only heard Victor Jara songs sung by different performers, but now he knows.

What a waste. Like Sam Cooke. God gives you an instrument like Sam Cooke's and when you piss it away he doesn't replace it so fast. And when somebody takes it away from you he deprives us all of that gift.

We're in Iguazu. We saw the famous falls today for an hour, going back tomorrow. Impressive but a little theme-parkey, so far. And HOT HOT HOT. But these Guarani kids stand under a tree all day, the one big kid playing a guitar with two strings missing and he doesn't play it anyway, he just bangs on it in rhythm, and they all chant something with Mama standing in the background and an upturned hat in front of them. It sounds darned good. At least it's not Percy Sledge.