San Martín de Los Andes

Unexpected Move, Día del Padre

Sunday June 15, 2008

It's Father's Day today in both South and North America, for some reason that celebration coincides on both continents whereas Mother's Day down here in Argentina & Chile is celebrated in October. The owner's of the house we had been renting gave me (and the rest of the family, too) an early present by calling the real estate agent on Thursday afternoon 10 days ago to announce that they were "coming for the weekend" and that they wanted the house unoccupied for their visit. The real estate agent tried to talk them out of it, but couldn't, and emailed us in the early evening telling us we had to leave Saturday - less than two days notice!

Needless to say, it was extremely shocking to read this email when we came back to the house from dinner on Thursday night. How could they legally do this? Well, since we had been paying cash every 5 or 6 days, they had been writing a new contract with each payment, and we had been naively trusting that they  - the agent and owner both - would honor the verbal agreement that we were staying until June 16. Then the owner decided to come to town for a visit, and that was that. The real estate agents couldn't dissuade the owners, and offered us a different house about a block away, but we were angry enough to decide that we didn't want to give the agency any more business (and money), and made arrangements to move back to the cabañas that we stayed in back when we first came to town.  We were due to make a payment on Thursday or Friday, and I had briefly considered going into the agency Thursday morning to pay off the remaining full 11 days of our stay. How I wished I had gotten that "little chore" out of the way!

The agency called late Friday to tell us that "they could give us until Thursday the 12th," which really didn't help much - in fact relocating so close to our final departure date would be even more of a pain. Why the sudden change in their offer? It turns out, according to them, that the owner had been trying to say he was coming for Father's Day and not the imminent weekend. Rejecting this new offer was the only reasonable choice. We had spent most of Friday packing up the house, an enormous task for Lynn considering that the "science lab" alone took several hours to put away, and now we were ready to leave.

Of course it started raining about 4am on Saturday morning, so we got to move in the rain. Fortunately, it never rained extremely hard for very long, and we managed without too much trouble - making three short trips with hastily and loosely packed contents in the truck.

It was a cold rain on moving day, Saturday the 7th. In fact, the rain was sloppy snow at times, and on the hills on either side of town, just a few dozen meters up the slope, the trees were turning white with snow.

It's beginning to look a lot like winter...

Red berries in the trees and on bushes give the neighborhood a bit of a Christmas look.

Back to the Cabañas Del Maiten. A little more cramped and a little more expensive, but it is comfortable. Once we had made the move, we could appreciate some positive aspects of the change.  The beds are comfortable, and all the kitchen, although small, is very well furnished. These cabañas are located at the edge of town, nestled up against a steep hill and at the end of a street. There is no traffic noise. There is no people noise, since the complex is virtually deserted - but that will change soon. The ski resort opens on Monday the 16th, and the locals tell us that shortly after that, tourists will inundate the town and all the hotels and cabañas will fill up.

The view to the tourist lodging complex behind ours, taken from Anna's bedroom window.

After that unpleasant and unplanned interruption in our routine, we could go back to our original plan of activities for the week - working on a list of "things we want to do before we leave..."   A lot of that activity centered around things we wanted to buy but had never gotten around to because it always seemed like there was plenty of time, and things we needed to mail from the post office before leaving town.

Tom and Anna were still able to ride bikes most every day of the week, and Anna took a few more pictures of town from the hillside overlook - now sporting the "almost winter look" just like the lake.

One of the women in Lynn's weaving class is married to a Mapuche man, and she invited Lynn to visit a weaving gathering in the Mapuche neighborhood where she lives; located up the hill not far from downtown.  A Mapuche weaving get-together is a ritual gathering with prayers and blessings - a very special and traditional cultural event.  Lynn took her camera along but didn't feel comfortable blasting the occasion with a camera flash - but she did take this picture of some of the looms.   

The sun came out for a few hours Thursday afternoon, so Lynn and I drove back up to the ski hill for one last scenic photo-shoot - and to get a feel for what the resort looked like with some snow, and what we'd be missing out on by leaving before we could ski on it!

Lago Lacár is slowly putting on its winter look.

Looking towards the west and across the landscape Parque Lanín from the parking lot of ski resort Cerro Chapelco. The first ridge line of the Andes roughly defines the border with Chile.

Then, turning around and looking at Cerro Chapelco and the ski resort.

There's barely enough snow at the base of the mountain. Last year they had a 2-meter base by opening day. This year there is barely a few inches at the bottom of the lowest elevation runs, but with the help of snow making machines and another good storm (which is scheduled for later this week), there should be excellent skiing by next weekend.

We had a long list of restaurants we wanted to visit "one more time," but we can only eat so many dinners in a limited amount of time. Thursday night we chose one of our favorites, and Lynn brought the camera - well, actually she forgot it and then I went back and got it -  so we could have some visual reminders of "La Tasca." If I recall correctly, Lynn ordered medallions of pork with a reduction of berries (salsa de frutas del bosque), Tom had deer served with sautéed vegetables in honey-malbec sauce (Ciervo "La Tasca"), I ordered the trout with in a cream sauce which also had nuts of the Araucaria tree - they are soft and meaty sort of like a chestnut (Trucha con salsa de piñones), and Anna ordered spinach soup and salad and shared everyone else's main course. Anna also ordered a piece of apple strudel which was too big for all four of us to finish off, working in concert with four forks.  

Restaurant "La Tasca." Sitting at our favorite table by the fireplace...

and the cozy interior. You can see we were the only people there at the time, but this is often the case if we go out to eat before 8:30pm.  Between 9:30 and 10:00 is when everyone else starts to show up.

Yesterday night we took our two Spanish tutors out for dinner at another favorite restaurant - an Italian pasta restaurant run by an authentic Italian couple. This place had been closed for two weeks while the owners went to Nashville, Tennessee for vacation. Of course no one needs any particular reason to visit Nashville, but their daughter lives there as well. Thank goodness they opened up again a few days before our departure. Both of our tutors are of Italian heritage, both speak Italian in addition to Spanish and English, and we all really enjoyed the authentic Italian cooking. 

So this brings us up to today. After celebrating this morning with a special Father's Day breakfast of churros, cocoa, and fresh-squeezed tangerine-grapefruit juice, we're going to celebrate again later in the day by packing up everything we have for the second time in the last 8 days.  After giving away most if not all of our miscellaneous "kitchen stuff" (spices, coffee maker, dry-goods, etc...), donating some unwanted clothing to a local charity, and after having mailed home a lot of no-longer needed school materials, maybe everything will fit easily and the process of loading the truck will go quickly and painlessly. But then there's all those new things we bought this past week (we couldn't mail them all), and my new Father's day presents which include a very nice leather jacket. Who knows if it will pack easily this time around? I can always hope. 

The TV news for Argentina the last two days has featured scenes of the national guard forcibly removing protesters from the highways along with headlines screaming about gas & diesel fuel shortages throughout the country and food shortages in Buenos Aires - primarily due to the protests that have been closing down highways. And we're about to drive off towards Buenos Aires. I drove by our former rental house this morning and it looked pretty vacant - perhaps the owners couldn't make it to town because of the travel difficulties throughout the country and we never should have had to vacate the place in the first place - at this point we don't really care. The future is our current preoccupation. When we mention our plans and travel concerns to residents here in San Martín, thy tell us not to worry and that we shouldn't have significant problems. Who can know if they'll turn out to be right? We'll just have to hope. 

-Rolf