summer camp at the clay corral...

well folks i have been a bit remiss with this whole blog thing. you will have to excuse me. there is no other option. i have no excuses and do not intend to. i am fully occupied at summer camp and the days are just packed. it´s a rigorous schedule of waking in the morning and trudging off to a beautiful spot over looking the potato fields to practice my G and C tunes. ipod in one ear, fiddle at the ready, i am slowly hammering away at the world that is standard tuning on the fiddle. it is a wonderful and wild world, full of color and vitality, lacking only the ease of the open string. they do exist...mind you, but are to be used with discretion, for there are many other notes that one must utilize. it is the morning mate that provides the motivation, for the days have grown to autumn here, and the nights are cold and the days windy. one must push on, however, and i happen to be the one to fill this position. only around the time that i get hungry to i have a brief respite to rest and eat something. rushing in i scrounge what i can and fill my belly with much needed sustenance. at times, i return to the fiddle after lunch, but other times i turn to the blue beast that has six strings. she is a wild one, with a bright blue glow, often blinding the unwary. but she sings, oh how she sings! when coaxed just so, she can accompany the saddest of country song, and the loneliest of laments. depending on the weather, there are a myriad of activities: swimming in the ocean, drinking mate on the beach, going for a bike ride, napping, talking to various newcomers...you get the picture.

i was in buenos aires as well and spent a week with molly and leslie, and got to meet up with mike and alli while they were romanticizing through buenos aires en route to patagonia. it was a grand time and fun was had by all. there is a great picture that will come, though the computer i have found is not able to do such things. alas...i must move on. but times were good. i also got a chance to see the argentina national team play against venezuela for the world cup qualifying in buenos aires. i will just say that i waited seven hours starting at one in the morning, four of which were standing amidst hundreds of other rabid fans in what was a great example of the finicky nature and mayhem that is the mob mentality. i got in and got to watch the game from a fenced in, barbed wire enclosure with all these wackos and got to see maradona as head coach for a team replete with stars...messi, mascherano, tevez, aguero...it was heaven.

but buenos aires was to crazy and i headed to the beach. here i will spend my remaining week playing music and involving myself in all of the possible extracurricular activities. sorry for the lack of pictures, but i don´t have internet, and i came in to the big town to find a computer without a usb port. i will tarry away my last days and look forward to coming back to my fair country. it is a place i do miss, and i shan´t tarry too long here. as some of you know i will be heading back east for a bit this summer to work for mom and the older bro and travel around to the musical shindigs in the southern appalachians. it will be a lovely summer and i hope to see you there.

over and out

things i love about argentina

1. they absolutely love the simpsons. it´s on multiple times a day, and it´s painted all over stores and street walls. copyright folks would have a field day i tell you.

2. ice cream and empanadas are everywhere. i mean everywhere. the ice cream is pretty damn good, and with the competition we have in the states, it comes close. i would still say that we win hands down on quality of ice cream. mmmmm...... and the empanadas vary by region and city. up north they were very cheap and very tasty. mostly they either have meat, cheese, or chicken. and i mean literally just meat cheese or chicken. the chicken ones tend to not be so hot, and the cheese here leaves a little to be desired. here in the city of cordoba they have arab empanadas which are meat with onions and lemon, and are quite delectable.

3. almost every town has at least one main plaza. it´s a great way to organize a city, really, because it provides a center, and a place to congregate for folks....and a great place for ice cream stands.

4. the fashion statements here are unbelievable. first off, the mullet...it is the pinnacle of fashion sense, namely because the soccer stars have them. they come in all shapes, and complement whatever attire you desire....the business folks with suits and well groomed tops with their usually short and manicured mullets. the bohemian/hippie types with the range of unkempt mullets, usually utilizing the one stray dred or braid that literally goes down to the middle of their back. seriously, it´s pretty hilarious. secondly they have fully embraced both fanny packs and flavor savors. enough said.

5. mate....it´s a very social thing that for these folks provides something to do at all times of the day or night. it´s actually packed with good things for you, and the caffeine it contains is not as strong as in coffee beans. it´s either taken with sugar or straight, and you see folks of all ages walking around with a thermos tightly clutched under their arms....

6. the music here seems to live in 3/4 and 6/8 time instead of our standard 4/4. it provides a different feel and the dancing is often quite sexy....something about the hips and the latin flair is a bit of an explosive combo.

7. breakfast usually includes lots of bread, cookies, and mate. dinner is after10 and you don´t think about going out until 1 in the morning. lord forbid you come home before 6 in the morning. i swear, i´ve been at restaurants and bars at midnight and whole families, with little kids, are sitting down to eat....and they eat large plates of meat. usually just meat and maybe rice. i guess they start the kids off young, and for them it´s normal. i imagine it helps them sleep through the night, though.

8. the afternoon siesta....man oh man. especially in the countryside, there is not a thing open from 2-5 in the afternoon. literally. it´s the hottest part of the day, and the streets are empty and all the stores close. things get chug-a-luggin again around fivish and are bumping by 8 or 9.
it´s a beautiful thing.

9. there is a strength and vitality to the culture here that is very contagious. people are so very friendly and hospitable. i imagine it comes from not really having much luck politically for so long. there hasn´t really been much work for a while, so this crisis is not really a big deal. the only comparison i can think of is ireland. both countries have developed a culture around music and community that can come only from years of persecution. creo yo.

10. it´s kind of like being in a modern wild west. there´s no such thing as osha, or traffic laws...using your lights at night...for what reason? every intersection is a game of chicken with the crossing traffic, and every street is a rally race including buses, cars, bikes and motos....these people are crazy. it´s great though. you just have to watch out crossing the street, because the cars could give a rat´s you know what if they clipped you or flat out ran over you... you are in their way. the rules only apply so far, most easily paid off by bribes....which i guess has its downsides as well.

the future cometh!

so if you folks didn´t already realize, i´m picking up on this internet thing with quick velocity.

i now have a youtube site! it´s been a while that i´ve wanted to put something on youtube, and now i have....i´ll admit it was a bit anticlimactic. either way...i don´t know the best way to find it other than to say my name is ryanfitzpatrick81, and the two videos are called..carnaval, tucuman...ranchillos and above san isidro.

i also have more pictures on the picasa site...www.picasaweb.com/rfitz81

tucuman

so i left salta and headed for the city of santiago del estero. but....i got to tucuman and it was late and i didn´t want to head to a city and get there at night and well, blah blah blah....

so i made it to tucuman. it´s a pretty good sized city, and does quite a lot of commercial and business traffic within the country. it´s a good looking city with a beautiful main plaza and is pretty hot and humid in the summers. it´s surrounded by fields of sugar cane and is a nice green valley surrounded by mountains. i ended up calling a friend i had met up north camping and met up with him. he´s a great fellow..alejandro vaca, or la vaca...and he ended up giving me a tour on his broken down moto bike around the city. it was quite the adventure riding around on the back of something like that. no helmets, no traffic rules...it´s basically a rally race in the streets here with buses and cars and bikes and motos just weaving around each other trying to race to the next intersection to play chicken with the crossing traffic to see who goes first. there´s not really any stop signs either....

either way it was a wild weekend of discos and bbqs and swimming...there´s pictures on the site. the highlight was definitely the carnaval on sunday. it was the last day of the celebration, and it was held outside of town at a soccer stadium. they had bands playing all day and sold beer and food. the big carnaval aspect of it all was that they also sold packets of powdered paint....that you mix with water or beer and proceed to wipe it on just about anybody that walks by. it was just madness. add to that water being sprayed everywhere and fake snow...latin america is crazy. and awesome. it was a debaucherous afternoon and i was sufficiently covered in paint and a bit inebriated as well.

the lessons i learned from tucuman are...

one...i´m not 22 any more like my tucumano friends. staying out until 6 in the morning multiple nights in a row going to discos and chasing after parties...well. i guess i never really was into that, but especially not now.

two..latin america is crazy. there is a raw energy here that is unexplainable.

and now im in the central sierras of argentina in a quiet little village called la cumbre. it´s after tourist season, so it´s quite nice. getting to play lots of music and relax. and sleep.

Carnaval in Salta

well folks, i have finally left salta. it was nice to get to know the city, and i met a lot of great musicians, and ate a lot of really good ice cream...but i had about enough of the hostel i was in. the highlight was really the carnaval, and was, for the most part, why i stayed through the weekend. on friday night there was a parade with all sorts of crazy costumes, some serious dance revolution moves, and lots and lots of snow. they were selling these spray cans of snow, which really was more of a foamy soap type of thing. it was a blast, though because everybody was just spraying everybody. there are some more pictures on the picasa site, so enjoy. after, that i really didn´t do a whole lot. this country is rabid for soccer, and on saturdays and sundays, there´s soccer on pretty much all day. in the mornings they show the european leagues, and in the afternoons and evenings the argentine league. it´s pretty cool to watch the different european leagues and see the different styles of each country...it´s also way better soccer than anything we get in the states. anyway after a night of pass the pigs, a game a french fellow had, which is actually from england supposedly, and actually quite entertaining, i took off and headed south for a town called cafayate.

the road down to cafayate was beautiful, it´s called the quebrada de los conchas, and is full of really red earth and stone, slot canyons, and a river that runs right down the middle. anyway, i got to cafayate on a monday, and the previous week there was a huge music festival, and the town seems pretty exhausted from it. it´s a nice little town, though, and is known for its wineries....i don´t really know much about wine, but it´s a big deal here. they even have wine ice cream.....which i am not really sure about. i don´t think i really like it, though. i don´t see the need to mix wine with such an already perfect food...now fruit, on the other hand, is quite tasty with ice cream..they even have cactus ice cream....mmmmmm.....i could go on and on about this thing that i love so much. but i won´t.

last night we had an asado, or bbq, and bought a slew of meat and vegetables, 5 liters of wine for 6 bucks, and some cuban rum....and if you can believe it, i was the one who cooked everything. now it is quite an unusual thing for me to be the one who is in charge of the grill. many of you know of my past experiences with the whole not eating meat thing, and it may surprise you to hear this, but for some strange reason i end up running the bbq...not sure why, but i´m at least getting better at it. the meat here really is amazing, and the wine was good as well, and fun was had by all..

so i´m not really in a writing mood, so i´m going to stop there...

the saltanian doldrums...

So, we´ll just address the editor´s comments in a later post.....we have much more important things to accomplish at the moment. Not really much has happened here in Salta. ít´s been almost a week again. I came into town with a rough case of food poisoning...maybe the worst i´ve had. i´ll spare you the details, but i am eating real food again and loving it. i´m not sure what it was, but i was up near bolivia and the water is not as clean as it is down here. maybe it was some fruit, or some bad street empanadas, or who knows what was the culprit. either way, it doesn´t matter much.

that being said, i have resumed my previous schedule here in this beautiful city of salta. i will take the time out from my doings and walk you through a day in the life of ryan in salta. breakfast ends in the hostel at 10, so it is nice to get up before this and wolf down a bowl of cereal and some pastries with some watered down juice. not the greatest start, mind you, but it fills the belly with some calories...after this, a shower with lukewarm water. freshly dressed and clothed in the same pair of shorts and hopefully a clean shirt, i take to the streets and either busk a little on the pedestrian walkway or sit in a park and play my fiddle for a couple of hours. today i chose the park option, as i wanted to fit in a little practice, in lieu of the quasi performance setting when busking. following this i stop by the market to pick up some avocados, tomatoes, and bread for a midday meal. it´s been my lunch of choice to mix up the avocados and tomatoes with some oil and salt and eat it with bread....mmmm.....i really still am not sure about when to put an oe on the end of words or just an o.....i don´t know why dan quayle got such a hard time for that. i think it was him....? either way i´ll sit and eat and watch old american movies on the tele...today it was mad max. illl sit around for a while and drink some mate, and then pick up the guitar and play for a while in the hostel. i just got a cd of atahualpa yupanqui, an amazing guitarist...i´ve really been trying to get some fingerpicking skills under my belt.

then, if the day is hot, which they usually are, i´ll wander over to the other hostel and swim in the pool for a bit and generally lay around. that usually puts me at about 4-5ish and it is high time to come back to the hostel and sit around maybe on the internet and blog about my deep thoughts, but usually i just check my email...this is of course followed by some mate and some more guitar playing, and perhaps a nap. with myself fully rested, i´ll head to the plaza where i pick up a newspaper and sit at one of the street cafes and drink a beer with some complementary chips. it´s quite lovely, i tell you. the sitting in public on the street drinking beer watching the world go by is definitely an underutilized concept in many places. depending on the evening i´ll either head to the casona del molino, a spot much like the bar the moon and sixpence in portland, where there are at least a few musicians just sitting around drinking and playing the local music...it´s kind of like an irish pub where they just kind of sit in the corner and aren´t really performing, per se, but people usually come to listen. it´s a really great place to hang out regardless. other than that, i´ll head to the other hostel for dinner, stay here and watch another movie with the guitar, or head up to a street loaded with bars and clubs...it´s quite a scene, really...

so there you go. now you all know what i do with my time here in salta. there are some carnaval things starting tonight and tomorrow, so hopefully i´ll have something of actual human interest to post. other than that i´m leaving salta and heading south on monday or tuesday.

A brief message from the editor

The editor in chief would like to address an error made in a previous post. It was stated that salta is of comparable size to a Blacksburg or a Bellingham......this is a gross underestimate. It would be more comparable to a Richmond or Portland. We all know that Ryan is full of....well, tends to bs a little bit, but this took it too far.

Thanks and we hope you continue reading.

ed. in chief
Proofread McChecksitOver