by John Bechtel | Aug 23, 2016 | Argentina, Buenos Aires, San Telmo, Uncategorized
As with any big city, it is the people on the street that you meet that determine the quality of your experience. Hostel Puerto Limon makes you want to stay or come back to Buenos Aires again and again.
On the way to the Tampa airport I felt some vague discomfort in my right hip that grew progressively worse. I was traveling light, with only a backpack and camera case and nothing to check through. However by the time I hobbled from the parking lot to the ticket counter to check in, I knew I was in trouble. I struck up a conversation with an American Airlines staffer who had sensed that I was in pain, and told him it had just happened and I didn’t know what it was about, but I would need help to get through security. He got me a wheelchair and asked if I wanted him to call an ambulance, and I said no, I was going to Buenos Aires.
Only later did I realize what a golden opportunity was given me to turn back at the last minute and how different my life might have become. Sometimes life comes down to just a few moments, and this was perhaps one of them. Did I experience a moment of doubt? More than a few of them. I knew of course that many people younger than me had already replaced major joints such as knees and hips, and perhaps my time had come. How did a bad joint announce itself anyway? Like this, on the way to some airport? And if this is what was happening, what was I going to do once I got to Buenos Aires? Turn right around and come back for a hip replacement operation? And if I did that, what would the chances be that I would ever resume my path of expatriation and extended travel? Was I an absurdity, attempting such foolishness, and had I just been given a sure sign that I should give the whole thing up? Yes, I wondered, but not for too long. I was going to Buenos Aires and we would let the chips fall where they may.
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by John Bechtel | Aug 19, 2016 | Argentina, Extended travel, South America
I am a 67-year-old retired businessman who has been an accidental writer all his life, and who now devotes his swan-song years to freelance travel, food, wine and cultural writing. Recently I liquidated all of my belongings except my beloved books, downsized to a backpack, and bought a plane ticket to Buenos Aires, with a two-night reservation at a hostel recommended to me by my vagabonding daughter Allison, who stayed here last year. In my first week I applied for permanent residency to be followed by dual citizenship. I write these words on my laptop from its makeshift perch atop a decaying wooden speaker that is the perfect desktop height as I sit hunched forward in the worn and tattered vinyl overstuffed chair that is ridiculously comfortable—all this in the community room of Puerto Limon where life is just beginning to stir at 7:30 a.m. Argentina time. I am preparing for months of extended travel throughout Argentina and other parts of South America, to be closely followed next summer by more of the same in the Far North of the Arctic region. I chose the hostel method of accommodation because it fosters interaction with other guests from all parts of the world; it puts me close to where I will learn the most. I seek far more than the tourist experience.
What will you do about healthcare?
In the process of getting here, some difficult questions needed to be asked and answered. At my age of course, one of the first such questions is what will I do about health care? Coming from a North American culture obsessed with longevity and denial of the inevitable, this is, or should be, of paramount importance. What will be the quality of health care in a third world nation, what will it cost without the infrastructure and safety nets provided by the world’s most recent empire? My recent health care experiences in Port Richey, FL however, were a revelation.
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