Random Jam Session - Argentinian Style

Just up from a great sleep, but wow it's HOT here, and sleeping in a room with 5 other people and no air-conditioning is brutal. I know it's going to be freezing in Chicago this week, but feel free to imagine me sweating like a sumo wrestler in a winter coat in Austin in the summer, and that might help :)

I didn't do any writing yesterday because I was dead tired. Actually, yesterday I woke up at noon and then laid around the hostel for an hour or so before going to the bus station to buy a ticket to Cordoba (cool town between Salta and Buenos Aires), and then I slept in the main Salta park for a few hours. Yes - a very strenuous day, but let me explain why it happened.

Tuesday night was RAD - I'll just start with that. The guys who run the hostel I'm staying at here in Salta both asked me if I wanted to join a barbecue they were throwing at a sister-hostel, which is just a block and a half away. They asked for $70 pesos, which is about $10 US - not a bad deal for all-you-can-eat-and-drink. Up until Tuesday I hadn't really interacted with many people at the hostel. I was very tired from the Bolivian bus adventure when I got here, and I've been traveling non-stop since I got to South America, so I just wanted to lay low here and do my own thing. I have to say though, this hostel is my favorite so far on my trip. The two guys running it are both around 30 - very chill - and always up for a good time of drinking, hanging out, and meeting people. So I figured why not join in the barbecue, especially cause they were both nice enough to ask me. They tell me it starts around 10:30pm, but I can get there early to drink and hang out. I come out to the reception/hangout area at around 10:15pm and the dude at the counter says he's waiting for his replacement, so he won't be over for a bit, but there are a few girls that are going over and so I can join them. Two of the girls are from Rosario, which I've come to learn is more like a Detroit-type city. They are rough around the edges but very good people - very honest and straight forward. The last girl, a friend of the Rosario girls, is from Spain but now lives in Holland. She speak much better English than the Rosario girls, so it's nice to talk with her about my travels in Spain last year (Madrid, Sevilla, Grenada, Cadiz) and just nice to have a buddy for the barbecue. So we get to the other hostel, which is much bigger and a bit more chaotic, and the main guy at the front counter walks us through most of the hostel, then through a big dining room table all setup for 15-20 people for dinner, and then out to this back patio. There are about 5 guys out there hanging around this huge barbecue, and it smells delicious - sausages, veggies, bread, steak, and some other things I didn't even recognize (but still looked good). The main cook is the other of the guys who runs my hostel, so we say whatsup and he tells me to grab a drink. I ask for wine and they open up this jug of wine which looks like a classic monk-made wine in the old cartoons. It was red wine but chilled, and it tasted fantastic. So I'm hanging out in the outside barbecue area and speaking with the Spanish girl when I see everyone passing around this huge jug of something, so as it gets around to me I ask her what it is and she tells me it's Fernet and Cola. She tells me that it's the most popular drink in all of Argentina, so I should try it. Can't be rude, right? So I try it and it turns out to be pretty damn good, I must say. I'm getting comfortable here - good people and they are all laughing and having a blast. They're speaking very fast Argentinian-Spanish, but I can understand bits and pieces so I'm happy as well. BTW, Argentinian-Spanish is interesting because a lot of people don't every pronounce the letter "s". So you here a lot of "gracia" and "beuna dia" instead of "gracias" and "buenas dias". I kinda dig it.

So we hang out for a bit on the patio, passing around the Fernet and Cola, and then I head into the dinner table because dinner's about to be served. I decide to sit across a dude I've seen at my hostel a few times, and after an initial attempt at my poor Spanish I ask if he speaks English. Luckily he speaks very good English, and I find out that he works for Accenture in Buenos Aires, and he actually deals with guys from Chicago and other US cities. Nice. We had a great conversation about all things Chicago and Beunos Aires, and it was great to get tips on where I should stay when I'm there. Apparently the best neighborhood for music and culture is Palermo, so that's where I'm gonna set my sights after Cordoba. I'm thinking I want to spend about three weeks in Buenos Aires, then head to Mendoza to meet a friend for some wine country touring, and then head back to Buenos Aires (BA) afterwards. From what everyone has told me, BA is the best city to hang out in, so I'm going to plan most of my time there. My other plans are starting to form as well, which include Iguazu Falls, Florianopolis, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro. Getting really excited about this part of my trip, because it includes places I've been hearing about since I started my trip in South America.

But wait up, let's get back to the evening at the barbecue. OK, so I'm talking with the guy from Accenture and we're laughing and having a great conversation. The table is almost entirely full now, mostly with girls from different parts of Argentina, all set out in little cliques. As dinner starts ending I see some guys start bringing hand drums and a guitar out to the little outside barbecue area. NICE. I've heard that the two guys running my hostel are musical, so I'm fired up to hear. They start playing Argentinian songs which many of the people know, so there's a lot of singing and hanging out. I'm itching to play either the bongos or this box drum, called a Cajon. I've seen these Cajon's in the US before and have always been intrigued. Anyway, I never really get an opportunity to play, but at about midnight they move everything inside because they don't want to annoy the neighbors. As everything moves inside I see that the bongos are now open, so I come around and sit in the chair just in front of the bongos and I grab them and get ready for the next song. It starts off with the guitar, nice and slow and rhythmic, and so I slowly start playing with the Cajon player, and then after about a minute it all clicks. We are hitting the rhythm perfectly, and I'm moving around uncontrollably and excitedly. I can see people from the dinner are now dancing and the entire dinner-room area is full of new people and everyone is laughing and singing and dancing. There is a crew of about 5-10 young guys that enter into the room and they are hilarious. Probably around 19-21 and all full of life - fired up about the music and singing their hearts out as well. One of them is apparently a very good guitarist, because he is handed the guitar very quickly and proceeds to play beautifully. He's more quiet and reserved than the guy from my hostel, who also plays very well, but he's got great technique and we have a blast playing together as well. So on it went, and I moved from bongos to Cajon (which I LOVED) to shakers and noise makers. We played music till about 3:45am, when the security guard said the police were asking us to keep it down.

So as people are dispersing I moved out to this front room with a nice balcony and couches, and the group of young kids all come out as well and we have a blast just talking and laughing and learning about each other. I find out that they have been friends since childhood, and they are all from BA. There is also a group of girls with them and it becomes apparent that they are all trying to square off with one another. Funny because none of them actually do square off. They ask a lot of questions about Chicago and the US, and I appease them with plenty of humor (most of which is just the truth about the differences between the US and Argentina). The biggest difference is their passion for soccer (futbol) and the fact that not many US people care about this sport at all. They're great kids and we have a perfect night of laughing and hanging out. They ask me about what I do and I told them that I'm focusing this year on music and art, and they ask a bit more about my band. So I tell them about No Goodbye, and they ask me if we write our own songs. So on the spot I tell them I'll sing them one of our songs, and I go into an a cappella version of Bleed for You, which is a newer song of ours and I absolutely love singing it. Somewhat intimidating singing solo for a room of about 20 people, but I just let go and it came out well. People ended up clapping along with the rhythm of the song and by the end there was a nice applause. Totally unexpected but RAD. Felt amazing. Felt like I was in the right place at the right time, with people who appreciated my music.

So on and on it went, with plenty of drinking and laughing until finally around 5:45am we called it an evening. I walk downstairs and see one of the guys who runs my hostel sitting out front on the street, and I bid him farewell, thank him for a great night, and then make the one-block walk home in the sunlight. I get home and am obviously the last one into my dorm room, and I happily pass out sweating all over myself (again, the room is insanely hot). Couldn't have been happier and more completely satisfied with my random musical night. This is what I was looking for with this trip, and it's nice to have finally found a great instance that helped my musical journey on its way.

So this explains why I didn't post anything yesterday, and why I slept until noon and then why I slept again in the park. My family will hopefully be laughing about this last detail the most, because they'll remember that when I moved to SF, directly following college, I spent a TON of time in Golden Gate Park. Almost every time I spoke with them on the phone I was either walking in the park or just hanging out in one of the gardens. I do miss Golden Gate Park.

Of course there are never any pictures of the great times when I'm living in the moment, so hopefully my writing has done some justice to a truly amazing night here in Argentina. Today I'm going to just take it easy and probably just walk around Salta for a bit - maybe get lost for a while. I saw an archeological museum yesterday that looked pretty cool, so I'll prob go check that out. Will take some pics and put them up tonight or tomorrow morning.