A Meal of Melancholy

It is a cold, overcast Wednesday in Buenos Aires. The river breeze rustles the ivy vines in our apartment’s courtyard and the dim, early afternoon light reminds me of a December day on the Northern Prairies of the U.S. Winter has arrived in Buenos Aires and our heat has been high all morning.

It is the perfect day to while away in a café. It is excellent weather to read a book. And tonight will be a great night to swirl, sniff and sip a good glass of red wine. If only we had a patio with a view of the sprawling lights of this expansive city. If only we had six more months to explore the restaurants, bookshops, tango shows, and barrios of Buenos Aires. If only!

Instead we have 6 days. 6 days to get in our last licks of milky rich ice cream. 6 days to visit the museums we have been trying to visit since our first visit in 2003. 6 days to cross off all of those restaurants on our list of places to go and eat. 6 days in a city this big is like having one spare hour to savor the city of Madison. It is torturous. It is near impossible. It is undoable. It is rotten luck to be placed in this situation, and yet this is how we find ourselves.

Our time in the lake districts of Chile and Argentina is over. Temuco, Chile and Neuquén, Argentina were two towns on opposite sides of the Andean divide. Both of which were northern most centers of capital for the Patagonian regions. They were two sides of the same Patagonia weather coin. Both cities had their grit and their unattractive architecture. Both cities were listed in the guide books as mere blips on the ex-pat express tourist train, mere transfer points suitable only for a change of overnight buses or the exchange of a plane’s boarding pass with a rental car contract agreement. And both cities were tough to live in for a variety of reasons. Yet these cities were over 200,000 people, mega metropolises by Patagonian standards. Through time we found good food, good wine and good cafes in each town. And while we found more friends in Neuquén, we found more natural beauty in the areas around Temuco.

At night, over dinner in Buenos Aires we talk about our memories of the giant lakes south of Pucón, the looming volcanic peaks, and the wet cold weather that would sweep in off the Pacific. We smile over the asados and lemon pies that our friends in Neuquén made for us. We think back to our days in Bariloche, in the height of summer, as we hiked up dusty trails and looked out over Cerro Cathedral and Cerro Lopez and the hotel Llao Llao. We marvel at all the bus trips we took all over the lake district from Temuco to Villarrica to Puerto Montt to Osorno to San Martin de los Andes to Neuquén. We smirk at the stories of drinking water straight from the Rio Espolón and Rio Futaleufú and we describe to one another how spectacular the peaks of Torres del Paine were and how the never ending skyscape of the southern Patagonian flatlands still take our breaths away, even after all of these months.

Those days have passed. Our time in those cities, our time in Patagonia has finished. It came to a close too quickly and we moved ourselves to the city. Now, we are in the Capital Federal of Argentina. Living in the plush Palermo, with great food at our doorstep and fresh pastas just one block away, has been like living in a dream, and like all dreams the silver linings of the rain clouds carry their own twists of wonder and sorrow. We love the city and we miss the countryside. We love the opulence but we miss the lakes that stretch into the sunset. We love the comfortable kitchen chairs and the free washer and the down comforter but we miss the wind, the sky and the stars. And our love of our time in Patagonia has transmuted into a new love for our time within this cityscape. We love this city; we wish we could know what it is like to grow up in this city, to grow old in this city, to live an eternity in this city. But we find ourselves at another beginning and thus another departure and the love we feel for this city does not want to have to leave. It wants to settle and grow, just as our love for Patagonia unwillingly bundled itself into our bags and boarded the overnight bus from Cipolletti bound for Buenos Aires in early May.

As Borges might say: We live in a melancholic exile in a city we love with our blood and tears and we are on the edge of an abyss, on the verge of the world, about to be marooned. It is an impossible situation whose only viable solution is to go, to step, to venture forth, to walk. Everyday we eat melancholy for breakfast and try to have smiles for lunch but something always happens, some thing happens and we end up having the overwhelming taste of exile for dinner. Maybe it is the Argentine wine.

We will be packing up our bags within the week once again as we make the long journey home. We are sad to be leaving. We are happy to be returning home to see families and friends. We look forward to not leading an ATM existence but Argentina has taken a hold of us and we exalt one another with exaggerated what ifs while we share our meals. We both know that the worst what if is what if we had never left, but even knowing that we will look back on our time in the lake district doesn’t mean we don’t have longing to stay forever here in Buenos Aires.

There are adventures that have not been posted that we will share with you all over the course of the coming days. We also will intersperse these adventure posts with photo posts of our last walks in Buenos Aires to give you all a sense of the magical nature that these streets and the city possess.