Dreaming of Argentina

I dreamt I was in Argentina. I have been dreaming of a return to Patagonia since I left the other side of the Andes four years ago. Like many of my dreams, all events had a startling resemblance to reality, only infinitely more surreal. Over time I often find it difficult to decipher my dreams from actuality. I don’t believe this is particularly uncommon. Sometimes I wonder if many of my childhood memories are in fact dreams plus time. It used to bother me when I would confuse pieces of my nonsensical subconscious wanderings with actual events, but not anymore. All memories are skewed recollections of what really happened anyway.

I should have written it all down the moment I woke up. That is the only way to remember. Otherwise the fleeting images fade so quickly, until there is nothing left of it at all despite how entertaining, intriguing, or bizzare. Unfortunately we do not remember any particular thing simply because it is worth remembering. Now the reverie escapes me, many important details have been forgotten with the rising sun, due to the ephemeral nature of dreams.

I met two old friends in Argentina—one a New York lawyer, and the other a professional wanderer. It felt strange to see them in such a fantastical place filled with Malbec wines, dramatic mountains, glaciers, tango, and an outstanding number of remarkably attractive people. What are the chances in reality that the three of us would meet each other here? Now everything has become a blur; a stream of random happenings and moments that run together…you know how dreams are.

I recall knowing upon my first encounter with Buenos Aires that I would have to live there one day. This city is a phenomenal fusion of color, performance, music, dancing, world-class steak and wine. Nearly every street in this city of 13 million people is lined with trees that have known it for longer than most of its residents. I wonder if such a brillant city could really exist, and if so, why I do not live there now.

Between the images of the city, I remember biking through wine country, standing stranded on an empty highway (a disagreeable situation my thumb had gotten me into), swimming in the high mountain lakes of the Andes, a Christmas with a group of international strangers in place of family, sleeping on the floor of a bus terminal, breakfast at a glacier in Patagonia, an endless ride on a peculiar, poorly maintained train from the 1960s in which going to the bathroom involved watching the tracks beneath me— hey, anything to save a peso.

Suddenly I was back in Buenos Aires. I climbed into a cab at an unpleasant morning hour and watched Eric and Ian waving goodbye; I wondered when I would see these old friends again. In reality, we all live far away and lead very separate lives in which are paths rarely cross. I sadly could not think of a time I would be seeing them in my real life. I soon felt myself in a familiar kind of hell: the Louis Armstrong International hell, the LAX hell, the Dallas Fort Worth hell. This time it cost me $400 extra to leave it. Just another international airport nightmare in the end.