I’m kind of homesick.
When we set out on our adventure this year I didn’t expect the entire trip to be sunshine and rainbows. I knew there would be times that were difficult as there are in any year. What I didn’t expect is that I would experience a time when I truly felt homesick. However, after nine months of travel, that’s exactly what I’m feeling. I miss my friends. I miss Denver. I miss the normalcy of day to day life. And I miss being able to speak to people easily! (My Spanish has improved dramatically, but I’m no where near fluency, so I still struggle on occasion with daily interactions, and it’s really tough to have an extended conversation where I don’t spend half the time saying, “umm…”.)
We’ve spent the past nearly 6 weeks now in Argentina, which I have to say has not been one of my favorite countries to visit. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with Argentina. It’s a lovely country. I think we just stayed too long in Buenos Aires, which for me is a city that is simply too large for my taste. We met another traveler in Peru who compared Buenos Aires to NYC. (I hate NYC. It’s too big, and too busy, and too crowded.) While I don’t entirely agree with his characterization, I can definitely see similarities. Buenos Aires is a big city. It’s a busy city. And while it didn’t feel crowded to me in the same ways that NYC does, it definitely has a feeling of constant motion and action. For some people I’m sure this would be perfect, but not for me.
In the month we stayed in Buenos Aires we enjoyed wonderful parrillas (restaurants specializing in grilled meat), took in a pretty incredible tango show, visited the only cemetery I’ve ever been too and though “well damn, that’s cool” (Recoleta), tried vermouth as a drink in it’s own right (pretty tasty in my opinion), visited many beautiful parks around the city, attended an asado, went to a division 2 futbol (soccer) game, and learned that the good people of Buenos Aires really like their cheese. However, as the days passed I found myself missing the things I would do at home. Simple time spent hanging out with friends. Cooking at home a lot (our kitchens this year have been of varying qualities, but never like our own kitchen). Seeing live music. Hanging out with our cat Angie. Even walking or jogging the paths near our house. At first I wouldn’t have called it homesickness, so much as a relative lack of interest in Buenos Aires, but now that we’ve been in Mendoza for a handful of days I have to be honest and say that I’m a bit travel fatigued, and definitely a bit homesick.
Even still, our trip continues to provide us with remarkable experiences. I visited my 15th country when we went to Uruguay last month, and I really liked Colonia del Sacaramento. And before we arrived in Mendoza we took a brief trip to Iguazu and visited the spectacular waterfalls there, which stands out for me as one of the most beautiful, and incredible, bits of nature I’ve ever had the pleasure to see. Really I can’t overstate how amazing it was to see the waterfalls at Iguazu.
So far, Mendoza has been quite a nice change from Buenos Aires as well. It’s a much smaller city, and much more laid back, which feels really good to me. Tomorrow we will be visiting a hot springs/water park thingy that Farrah found, and later this week we have some visits to, what I’m sure will be, remarkable wineries courtesy of our friend JC. And next week we fly to Costa Rica where we will meet my parents and spend some time in Manuel Antonio. So, there’s still plenty to look forward to.
I started this blog with the intention of trying to capture what the experience of this year was like. And so, it feels important to me to mention that there are tough parts of this adventure as well as the great ones. Right now, feels like a tough part. I have no idea how I will feel later this week or next week. Maybe I’ll get more homesick. Maybe I’ll bounce back to being excited for all the new experiences. I really can’t say. But it’s pretty likely that I’ll write another blog post about whatever happens next, so stay tuned.
EDIT: I’m not sure how I forgot to mention this, but we also had our first truly epic travel day last week. The airline we took to and from Iguazu (flybondi.com, DO NOT USE THEM) managed to fuck up our flights from Iguazu back to Buenos Aires and from there onto Mendoza so thoroughly that we had to spend an entire day in the Iguazu airport, and then spend an extra day and a half back in Buenos Aires before we were able to schedule a flight to Mendoza with another airline. Seriously, our original flight was scheduled to leave Iguazu at 1pm, and we didn’t actually leave until 8pm, and they managed to change the airport we were arriving at in the process. They also somehow managed to completely cancel our flight to Mendoza (not that we could have made our connecting flight since our first flight was delayed by 7 hours), and have offered us no explanation, compensation, or even a response to my inquiries. I’m quite certain this has done nothing to improve my mood. LOL.