Why some places appeal to me more than others
Some of you have heard me mumble lately that I need to find a place to settle in for a while, six months or longer. Corrientes Province, in the northeast of Argentina, is the first place since Santiago, Chile about which I’ve entertained some thoughts of camping out for a while. (Spoiler alert: if I find a long-term stay in the Buenos Aires suburbs, I’ll stay there. There are certain things large cities offer that I can’t get anywhere else.)
Why Corrientes? Why not Bariloche in Rio Negro province, which features soaring snow-capped volcanoes, quaint chalets, and amazing birdlife?
Well, as one of my birding guides said the other day, part of the lure is that Corrientes is mostly grassland, punctuated with a few small or medium sized cities. For some of us, this type of landscape holds a lot of appeal. I grew up among rolling hills, cornfields, and cows, and although Corrientes is flatter and far hotter than my hometown of Bath, PA, there’s something about it that feels familiar. Also, where there is grassland, there are gauchos. I’ve seen more gauchos on horseback here than I have in the entire country so far.
Together with the grassland there is freshwater estuary: the newly created Esteros del Iberá reserve, which is a combination of federal, provincial, and private foundation land, takes up a considerable percentage of the province’s total area. The water in the reserve comes entirely from rainfall and so the landscape is constantly changing; there is no river or spring source.
“Iberá” is Guaraní for “place of brilliant waters,” and on a perfect late spring day, it’s easy to see how the name stuck. The estuary is home to innumerable capybara, two species of caiman (and their favorite food, piranha), and 350 species of birds, including two species of stork, great rhea, and the yetapá de collar, or “strange-tailed tyrant,” which has become the icon of the park.
Corrientes Province is separated from Brazil only by Misiones Province (my next destination) to the north and east. Summer’s coming, and the midday heat is already impressive: 101 degrees Fahrenheit here at the moment. People here wisely take their siestas seriously, and I’ve started to join them in the midday rest. Interestingly, dinner at 9 or 10 pm is starting to become part of my day; what makes this possible is making lunch the main meal. I drink maté if it’s offered to me (and it often is: it’s a social ritual that often takes the place of drinking alcohol here), and I’m a fan of the local cuisine, which includes chipá (baked cheese dumpling made with manioc flour), tiny green pumpkins perfect for stuffing, and alfajores (small three-layer sandwiches of cake or biscuit and dulce de leche, often covered in chocolate). The Brazilian dessert “Romeo and Juliet” (cheese and jam) appears here sometimes too. And the larger cities in the western part of Corrientes offer succulent fish: surubí (related to the US catfish), pacú, and, yes, piranha.
Not since Chile have I met people who are so much of their place. If you take a ride with a Correntino, they’ll tune their radio to a station that plays chamamé, an accordion-heavy type of traditional music popular with young and old. There’s a yearly chamamé competition in the regional capital (Corrientes city) as well as a chamamé museum in a small town near the Esteros del Iberá. Many people born here want to stay here or they return after they retire from their careers in Buenos Aires. And the uptick in tourism made possible by the establishment of the Esteros del Iberá have allowed many young Correntinos to make a decent living in their hometowns, which would not have been possible only 10–15 years ago. Tourism here is being given a great boost by the government, whose plan for development and business education has been the basis for many successful small businesses. One of my AirBnB hosts, who hails from near Buenos Aires, was a principal architect for some of the park buildings and pathways. He and his young family continue to live here and are likely to do so for a while. If you’re not interested in the tourist trade, it’s still possible to run a successful family farm, and the produce and meat in the stores is all local, the factory farm unheard of.
So there’s a lot to love. If I stay in Argentina I’m likely to return to Corrientes, perhaps for the chamamé competition in the fall, certainly for the spirit of the people, and the critters too.
Travelling while neurodiverse, an ongoing saga
Last week or so I did a full faceplant on a sidewalk in one of the four-horse towns I’ve been visiting lately. The sidewalks here are rife with unevenness and steps where you don’t expect them, as are Santiago’s, and I finally got waylaid by one of them.
I broke my fall with my hands, which is a mistake I made so you don’t have to. I’m VERY fortunate that I suffered only mild sprains to two fingers of my right hand and the lower part of my left hand, but for a few hours I wondered how I would manage my two 30+ pound bags as I continue to travel. Fortunately, taxi drivers and bus attendants are generally happy to help me, and I tip them for it.
“But this type of thing could happen to anyone,” some might say. “Why does that have anything to do with neurodiversity?”
Well, it does. I was assessed with autism earlier this year. I’d long suspected that I was on the spectrum, and a clinician and researcher who specializes in working with girls and women on the spectrum agreed with me and explained her findings to me. For example, I was reading the newspaper at age three (a manifestation known as hyperlexia, which is common among autists) and had some of the sensory and motor processing problems that are typical of autism as well. For a while in grade school, I would wear only clothing made of Qiana, a synthetic fabric that was popular in the seventies. There’s much more to the story, but simply put, I was one of those klutzy, nerdy kids whose hair was never quite right and to whom $10 words were simply easier to use than their 10-cent counterparts. Those “geeky kids” (Temple Grandin’s affectionate phrase) are often on the autism spectrum.
How does this relate to travelling? Many autists who move about the world often a) get their feet caught in things b) hit their heads while entering vehicles c) get their bag straps caught in ways that simply wouldn’t happen if they were trying to do it. And this can be downright dangerous when you’re travelling, especially when you’re travelling by your (female) self.
What’s been saving me during this trip from similar faceplants or worse: my core strength and the speed at which I react to things. I started exercising in my teens out of fear of being fat, and I stuck with it for the most part. That means greater core strength, which keeps me from being knocked over easily. And that core strength gets triggered in milliseconds if I sense that my foot got caught in something. When I get tired, however, or if it’s a really hot day, the foot catches get more numerous, and I’m slower on the draw in general.
How do I cope with this type of travel if I’m so, well, limited? Fact is, I’ve been coping with autism all my life whether or not I knew it at the time. The clarity of mind that comes with sobriety from alcohol and drugs is an immense help, as has been mentorship from other sober people and communication online with non-men on the autism spectrum. Mentorship in particular has helped me to learn coping skills. So, when it’s superhot outside, I stay the f**k indoors with the air conditioning on. I stay hydrated and I make sure to eat adequately. If I sense it’s going to be a bad day in Motor Skills City, I change my plans when I can do so. And I keep in mind that things are different for me. Do I still curse inwardly or outwardly when I hit my head yet again while entering a car, always in the most embarrassing circumstances? Yes, I do. But I know what it’s about now.
Next time, I’ll talk about navigating a country in my second language, and how autism gives me an unexpected edge there. But first, it’s almost time for a round of chipá and café.
