Eventually I extract myself from the clutches of beautiful Buenos Aires. As in Sydney, I feel like I’ve drifted into a city I could call home. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to run into some alternate version of myself happily living out her Argentine existence. (Of course, I haven’t fully considered the ramifications of surviving here on pesos as opposed to U.S. dollars, few of even those as I have.)
Because I overstayed in Buenos Aires, I skip Córdoba and head straight up on a twenty-hour bus ride to Salta, a welcoming little colonial town at the base of the Andes. A day after that, I journey to Tilcara, a tiny Andean town in northwest Argentina. On the ride from Salta, green trees become brown shrubs as we climb higher and higher. The road gradually narrows and the mountains rise up around us. The pulsing avenues of Buenos Aires slip away like a dream as we disappear inside the land. Even though my guidebook map indicates only a few marked towns along the way, the bus halts several times in desolate spots where I have to squint to see a house or two in the distance. Once it slows to a crawl and I see nothing, not a soul or dwelling anywhere. Like a ghost, a man brushes past me and out the door, shuffling off into the vast emptiness.
The people landscape changes, too. With my dark hair and eyes and leftover Sydney tan, I could almost pass as a local in Buenos Aires, populated by various European-influenced complexions, provided I didn’t actually say anything. But the middle-aged man next to me on the bus to Tilcara has darker skin and eyes whose pupils and irises melt together into singular blackness. Some of the women wear long black braids and thick, colorful skirts. Belongings are stuffed between their feet in crinkly, checkered plastic bags. The bus is way past its prime. Most of the rubber lining the windows has fallen off. Stuffing juts out of the seats.
I’m coughed up at the Tilcara bus station, in front of a small ticket booth and groups of patiently waiting families who stare straight ahead. There is no shuffling about or straining, like back home. No one looks at her watch or complains about the deplorable conditions of travel these days. It doesn’t seem like they are waiting for anything particular to happen—or not happen—they’re just waiting out the day. At one point a black car pulls up and five people cram themselves into the backseat, defying all laws of physics.
I remove my backpack from beneath the bus. Even though there are lots of bags below, mine is the only one that looks like it’s been rolled around in flour. It looks so grimy and abused that I consider the possibility that maybe it somehow fell out and has been dragging behind the bus for the last few hours. I swat at it, then strap it on my back, wheezing and light-headed, and consult my map. As the bus pulls away, the wheels ignite a thick cloud of dust that blows all over me.
Disoriented and coughing, I careen from side to side like a character in some romantic comedy about to drop a four-tiered wedding cake that has improbably wound up in her arms. I manage to remain upright, barely. I look back at the crowd, ready to make eye contact to show them that all is okay and have a group laugh over my gracelessness. I might even spin one finger around at the side of my temple, the international sign for crazy, and mouth, “Loca Americana!” But no one meets my gaze, making me now actually feel a little nuts. A lone little girl is giggling, a tiny hand covering a small mouth that is not emitting any sound. When she notices me smiling back, she buries her face shyly in her mother’s skirt.
“Hostel Malka?” I ask the agent in the ticket booth. Tilcara is so tiny that my guidebook doesn’t offer a map of the city center, and now that I’m here, I realize how silly it was to assume there might be tourist maps on offer or even a waiting cab. The sun is setting quickly, and I have no idea where to go. The agent answers me in Spanish no longer draped in an Italian accent, and I don’t understand a word. “¿Qúe?” I say helplessly.
He points toward a desolate road behind me, the kind that might plausibly lead into town or some place that is decidedly not town. But his tired gesture is all I’ve got, and my head is starting to throb. I feel like the moisture has been wrung out of me, like I need not only a long, cool drink of water but also to submerge my entire body in liquid. I’ll have to trust the directions. I’m starting to realize my utter dependence on strangers here in South America.
After a short walk, I enter what looks like the city center. I’m amazed at the unexpected spurts of joy I feel in South America at something as simple as ending up in the right place. Tiny accomplishments fill each day: finding my way to a hostel, eating something delicious that my stomach doesn’t reject three hours later, successfully conversing with a local using an eclectic set of nouns, verbs, and charade-like hand gestures.
Adobe houses and stone walls line the street. A few places have signs hanging outside, as if they might be shops, but the doors are all closed except one. It leads to a small white room that is the tourist bureau. Inside, I am profusely welcomed by a diminutive, friendly man with the look of someone who has not had a visitor in a long time. He leads me to the large map of Tilcara that covers the back wall, traces my route with his finger, then taps three points on the map—“museo, pucará, iglesia.” Words I know. Museum; pucará is the pre-Hispanic hilltop fortress I’ve just read about in my guidebook; church. He’s showing me the tourist attractions.
My guide walks me to the edge of the road to point me in the direction of my hostel, then sends me off with an encouraging nod. I cut directly through the center of a plaza filled with vendors, an oasis of green grass and plump trees resembling old photos I’ve seen of 1970s San Francisco street markets. Some of the women are older and have the darker skin and hair of Andean peoples, but there are also young people with dreadlocks and tie-dyed T-shirts who look like they just finished touring with the Grateful Dead. Many of them are knitting or painting in their stalls. Few people seem to be shopping, though; there are far more sellers than buyers.
At the other end of the plaza, I take a left onto a deserted street minus a Scraps-scrawny dog who limps hopefully after me. It’s as if all the color in Tilcara has been drained into the center plaza, leaving the surrounding houses pale and dusty. Row after row of faded pink, white, and beige little abodes populate the quiet street that ends in a short but steep ascent up to my hostel. I huff and pant. I suck in big, greedy mouthfuls of thin air. Halfway up the hill, I drop my pack onto the dirt and collapse atop it. Just sitting there is an effort. It feels like a weight is pressing down on my chest; a hand is squeezing my throbbing lungs.
By the time I reach my room, my burgeoning headache is so overpowering that I have to lie down. The top bunk is free, although I would have chosen a lower one this time because the mattress is only a few inches from the ceiling. I slither across the covers, scraping my shoulder on the wall. I cover my face with a sweatshirt and hum softly, trying not to consider whether I am having an aneurysm.
When I open my eyes a few minutes later, there is another person in the room. For some reason, the hostel has decided to put two single beds in this room, along with one bunk bed, so he is sitting comfortably upright across from me, reading a book.
“Oh, hi,” I say.
“Hi to you,” he says.
I imagine how I must have looked in my coffin/bed, prostrate and humming. Assuming he might understandably be concerned about sleeping in the same room as a crazy person, I attempt an explanation. “I’m Rachel. I don’t normally lie down in the middle of the day and sing, but I have this terrible headache.”
He grins deeply, three layers of smile lines bunching outward toward each ear. He looks strikingly like the Grinch who stole Christmas. He’s not green, and he isn’t bad-looking either, but his wide face is definitively grooved and sly.
“I’m Hans,” he says, clearly more interested in whatever he is reading. Then he glances up, as if he’s decided that I deserve a few more minutes of his time. “If you have this headache, it could be from the height. You should get some coca from the woman who runs the hostel.”
“Thanks,” I say gratefully, realizing that I am being introduced to altitude sickness at the rather wimpy height of 2,461 meters (about eight thousand feet). I walk to the main office cradling my throbbing head.
Inside is a bookcase with a “two-for-one” sign. This is often how the book-bartering system works in hostels, sometimes insisting on a trade of three or even four books for a measly one in return, but I’m in too much pain to be annoyed about it. I ring a bell. The owner appears, and I point to my temple and explain my situation through gritted teeth.
“Hola. Estoy enferma. Aquí. Por favor.” This impressive linguistic feat translates as: “Hi. I’m sick. Here. Please.”
“You need coca,” she pronounces. She pats my shoulder and hands me a bagful of green leaves. I look around nervously. Since it doesn’t look like a setup (not that I have any real idea what a setup looks like, other than from watching cop shows on TV), I let her steer me toward the kitchen, where I am instructed to put the leaves in hot water. “Drink,” she commands. “All of it.”
Half-blind, I stumble back across the grounds. In a heap on the hallway floor, I sip my tea, and within minutes my headache vanishes completely. With it, a heavy fog lifts from my brain and body—similar to the effect of my morning cup of coffee. I can breathe again. I marvel at the magical green dregs at the bottom of my cup.
I assumed I had misheard Hans when he suggested the coca. I expected to be handed some Tylenol or laughed at and told no one gets sick at this piddling altitude. But coca leaves really exist. They jump from the description in my guidebook into my hands. Historically, the relationship between Andean people and coca was a straightforward one. It’s presently complicated by the creation of cocaine, whose biggest customer is the United States, but coca leaves have been consumed by South Americans for thousands of years. They combat altitude sickness, increase blood circulation (crucial at heights), and lower cholesterol. They were once traded as currency and are still used in social exchanges. Two men might greet each other by offering their coca pouches, exchanging leaves as a gesture of goodwill.
~~The Good Girl’s Guide To Getting Lost : A Memoir Of Three Continents, Two Friends, And One Unexpected Adventure -by- Rachel Friedman
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