A Moment in Transit

I often think of flights, buses and connections as dead space. Sure I can catch up on a good book or luxuriate in a long, uninterrupted phone call to a friend while waiting in a terminal, but I don't expect too much out of the experience.

But I may be wrong about that since, particularly when travel gets hard, it gets interesting.

On a connection in Miami the other day I was forced to cross the entire airport. Think of a horseshoe: D is on one side, J the other. There is no shortcut. Between them, travelers must exit security and wait in line once again. Time ticks away. Suffice it to say, you are practically a prize-winner if you don't get lost or miss your connections.

First I followed the signs, until there were none. I asked the only person available, a woman mopping the floor, for J terminal. "Sorry no English," she said. So I had the pleasure of asking her in Spanish.

According to her it was at the end of everything. "Go and go and keep going. But first you take the Skyride two stops." A Brazilian with his small son arrived and asked for more details, then a couple of Argentine women. As we hopped on the Skyride (which whisked us about a thousand feet), I had to convince them that the first stop wasn't ours (the benefit of not being a native Spanish speaker: I actually listen).

Then I got to talking with these two spunky Cordobans, well-dressed and tan in the opposite season, dragging their purses and heavy duty free bags through the whole airport while gushing about their visit to New Hampshire and the lakes. It turned out we had a lot in common, and that the directions were good. I'd like to think that my shepherding saved us some time. Unfortunately, we had long since lost the Brazilians, who had taken the first sky ride stop.

Fast forward twelve hours and I am in Chilean customs trying to clear a bottle of crushed red pepper to make my next flight an hour away. As with every foreign edible in a country where agricultural exports are king, it causes something akin to a Senate debate. I announce my predicament to the customs official, who happens to be listening. He then does what no customs official has ever done: he whisks my cart out of inspection, jogs down the hallway and hails us an elevator to the second floor. He doesn't stop until he has me to the ticket counter.

And no, he doesn't leave his phone number.

I'm ashamed to then find out that my flight is delayed and I will spend another hour in the airport. But the goodwill in transit has had its effect. Sometimes, when you are lucky, the real connections are still there.

Capacity for Solitude

Ah, research is the best excuse ever to go out and lift rocks and find the world. Because of it, I had stumbled onto a Patagonian estancia. Doors shut to tourism in off-season. It should have been clear. We were five hours from anywhere in any direction.

I stood at a cabin door. Two wire-haired hounds wagged and howled at my presence, not convinced I was the bad guy. The Andes were great sugarcoated humps. The white stuff came down quick now, filling the mud puddles and frosting the air.

At the other estancias I had been sent away.

A man in a black Basque beret and knotted kerchief eased open the door. He took a hard look at the truck (mud-splattered, two-wheel drive, not four), swallowed a smile and asked if I wanted to come in for maté. I did.

It was hard not to fall in love. It helped that my partner was already next to me.

Don Manuel is your quintessential gaucho. Next to him, the Marlboro man looks like the costumed underwear model he actually is. Don Manuel’s face is lined as an oak trunk, but the deep creases and scars don’t add up. He smokes. He rides all day in the sun. He probably has never used face cream. He does the work of a thirty-year old. I did the math upon learning when he did his obligatory military service and came up with the age of 57.

He had been running ranches for almost forty years, a span of time in which the world changed completely. Oil had happened, for one. Roads. Electricity. People didn’t stay on the ranch anymore. According to Don Manuel, they went to work for the municipality. Ranchers’ kids wanted mobile phone service and satellite TV. Save for tourism, ranches were ghost yards.

I asked, “Is it hard to find young gauchos?”

He took a long pull on the metal straw. “There already are none.”

“The countryside is solitary. But I have no problem being here alone for three months,” he said. At sun up, he rides out to the herd. Boring? Maybe it’s cowboy paradise: 10,000 hectares without a fence. “At 4pm I come in to cook, feed the dogs and chickens, but that’s it. All my days go by the same.”

Some summers a French photographer would visit who also spent time in Mongolia. His deference hinted at a great love, either for her or the way she framed his world. We poured over the beautiful albums she left. He knew the photographs by heart.

When we finished we got ready to leave. But the truck lights had been left on. And the battery was dead.

So we spent the night in a bunkhouse, bare and cold as a meat locker. I slept soundly. The next morning we drove away in blinding sun, clumps of snow sinking into the mud, bristly, stubborn grasses stood up.

I scanned the horizon. Somewhere, Don Manuel was already out there.

Stranger in my own Land

For an expat, coming back to the States you realize you've lost some sense of cultural ease. Whatever's in, you didn't know it yet. Like in L.A., where there's botox ads on the radio and the guy behind me at the checkout counter observes, "that's a lot of carbs."

But then I went back to Boulder to buy a car to travel west this summer for work.

I know Boulder. I lived here for seven years. So it doesn't take me by surprise when I call a number for a 1988 Subaru wagon and I get a guy--typical flake--saying, "Does it drive well? I imagine it would. I haven't driven it in a couple years. The women have taken over you see..."

It didn't sound promising. But I didn't have other prospects.

He told me I should just come over so I drove out to Louisville to meet him. "Oh, hello," he says.

"The car?" I ask.

"Oh. There's a car?" His creased blue eyes peer out the screen door. "Well, there is! A red car!"

I still think I am being toyed with. I enter his house, with a soothing mix of Asian art, Buddhist prayer flags and family photos. No one else is home. Can I drive the car?

"Ah. Drive the car. Of course!" Does he have the keys?

"The keys...." and he starts to putter about the kitchen, moving things. He grabs a stack of cds. Mahler, Debussy, Mozart...not here!" I start to notice things. There is a large note written in marker with a name and number that says YOUR ROOMMATE. At eye level there is a note SUBARU LEGACY IS FOR SALE, with details of the car. I start to put it together. He doesn't remember anything.

"Can we call your wife? Does she have a cell phone?"

"Oh yes! My wife. She has a cell phone. Very good."

The doorbell rings and he's off. I overhear, "here for the Subaru." Despite its age, the Subaru actually looks pretty good. I hear the man do his thing. "A car?" He might as well be helping me, stalling for time. After a look around I see a copper pot with 2 keys. LYNDA'S SUBARU they say. Bingo.

He's back. The woman went away. I will not be so easily deterred. "Shall we go for a ride?" I ask. I feel like I am kidnapping him.

"I don't see why not!" He's beaming.

I find out a few things about Jim. He used to be a physicist. He does puzzles now. He loves the flowers that fill the front yard ("You call them irises? he asks me with all seriousness). He has great affection for the car but is a calm co-passenger, even when the Subaru stalls out (my stick shift driving is kind of rusty). Unfortunately, the right joint that's faulty according to Lynda's note makes a clenching noise in any right turn that makes you think the axle will snap. Not good. Not good enough for a road trip to Wyoming.

When we get back Jim shows me his wedding picture ("at least I think that's me"). We chat a bit. I leave a note for Lynda, so at least she knows what happened today. Jim will return to his 1000 piece puzzle. "You should come back," he says.

Just when I am sure the encounter was more for me than for him, he's standing on the porch as I leave. I roll down the window to hear him. He's waving his two fists in the air, scrawny arms up at right angles."

"I SAID, ENJOY IT. LIFE!"

That night his grown daughter calls me. She's seen my note. "My father has Alzheimers. I hope he didn't bother you. He didn't make you any promises, did he?"

Not at all. In fact, I'd been thinking about the encounter all day. And I figured out what was so strange and wonderful about it. These are the kinds of encounters we make in foreign lands. Where strangers might not treat each other as such. I never have these kinds of experiences when I am back home. And maybe this time I've only had this one because the other party has lost his mind.

At least that's what they think.