The traveler
For this particular Thanksgiving Day, we will leave the worries of the world at the door and travel themeless, timeless, but not thoughtless. Here are thoughts, sights, sounds, smells, and springtime pleasures from travelers at the Puerto Limon Hostel in Buenos Aires.
The Traveler: The traveler has no safety net. At home the familiar and unchanging serve as a safety net. But the traveler needs to be in the zone, and in the flow. Otherwise he can get lost with no one to help him. He can’t bother with worry or fear. So he allows for everything and can know nothing for sure, trusting that in the end things will be as they need to be.
This is a recently published article I wrote about how the Finns stole the tango from Argentina and rebranded it to their own culture. Click on the picture to read the entire article.
Rose garden and jacaranda trees in November
In the springtime, the mind turns to love, and in Buenos Aires business picks up for the transitorios. Lunfardo, or Buenos Aires slang popular in the neighborhoods where the tango also began, had a special word for where lovers met. One characteristic of lunfardo is that it reverses the order of syllables, so that hotel becomes tel-ho. But in Spanish, the “h” is silent, so telho is pronounced as telo. On the street a telo is lunfardo slang for a transitorio, one of which is directly across the street from Puerto Limon Hostel where I have stayed for the last four months.
So what is a transitorio? It is a place where you can rent rooms by the hour in order to have sex—but it is not a whorehouse. Far from it.
A Buenos Aires “telo” or transitorio, where you can have privacy, discretion, and imagination for a reasonable price.
The lodging is provided, but not the partner.
There are a variety of rooms and suites available at different price points, all reasonable, each with a different theme and amenities. You can have Finnish sauna, Scottish showers, Jacuzzis, Roman baths, or your own private garden. Condoms and sex toys are available through convenient trap doors in the walls where such transactions can take place discreetly, without visual contact. There is an interior garage where you can pull your car up right outside your room without being seen by passersby. Cash payments are welcomed and no identification is required.
The midday traffic is mostly folks having extramarital affairs on their lunch break, and the evening traffic is mostly young women who still live at home with their parents, and who need a suitable place to take their boyfriends, lovers, or someone they met bar hopping. Transitorio’s are almost as ubiquitous as the tango itself in Buenos Aires, and carry no social stigma that I am aware of. Everyone simply sees them as providing a necessary social service.
Buenos Aires Spring
Today, I am grateful to be in Buenos Aires in springtime. There are flowers and festivals everywhere, ethnic pride without hostility, and Latin smiles.
Flowers . . .
. . . and more flowers. This Rosedal (rose garden) is across the street from the U.S. Embassy. Great place to meditate, relax, and lower blood pressure.
Festivals spring up like mushrooms, seemingly out of nowhere, every week. This one was celebrating the cultures of immigrants to Argentina from various eastern European countries like Croatia and others.
Not all dance in Buenos Aires is tango. Everyone gets into the act.
. . . and smiles, such smiles!
Craft beer festivals . . .
. . . and more smiles . . .
. . . smiles . . .
Latin America, and Buenos Aires in particular, welcome you to their land of smiles.
Today is Thanksgiving Day in America. What made you smile today?
Today, I am especially thankful for the perfect peach and the perfect pear I had for lunch. In both cases they had to be picked ripe from their trees not more than a couple days ago.
Today I gave thanks for the perfect pear and the perfect peach.
There is a very fragile window of opportunity with such fruit that lasts only a few hours, the time frame in which they pass from a state of perfect ripeness, fragrance and intensity of flavor to overripeness, mottled color, and mushy texture. Today I hit the sublime sweet spot with both. Such moments have to be savored. A metaphor for life.
Wherever we hail from, whether it is a holiday or not, every day we have reasons to be grateful. What made you smile today?
Thanks for reading and for your comments. They make me smile. And also thank you for subscribing. As most of you know, I dropped Facebook a couple months ago when it was hacked and I kept getting pornography on my timeline. I do not want to lose readers who enjoy this blog and website. So please go to the top or the bottom of this blog page (depending on your reader) and fill in the blank space that says email address, and then click on Subscribe. You will get a confirmation link in your Inbox to click. And then we can stay connected. Thanks again. John Bechtel, international freelance travel and culture writer. from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Happy Thanksgiving, John! I hope you are enjoying each moment in Latin America. Maybe I will join that adventurous lifestyle soon too! Here’s to happiness and new adventures! Patty
Thanks, Patty. Great to hear from you. For me, ironically, part of the downside of this lifestyle is that it is both addictive and lulling; it is easy to become less productive. My writing becomes even more important here because it provides an essential ingredient to my contentment and sense of purpose, something that transcends endless sightseeing. I think it’s a good thing if you can continue with some form of productive activity, and unless you are heir to vast legacy wealth, it is also a good thing to financially put some money back as well as take it out. Thanks for reading!
That is so interesting! I had no idea that was what was across the street from our hostel.. although I did make a friend who was staying there with his girlfriend. She was living with her parents and he, between apartments, at a hostel. Makes sense! I wonder if one could operate a hotel of this type in the states without the stigma..
In a small town far from Buenos Aires, I recently found myself stranded because a local bus driver forgot me and my reservation, and I had no place to stay. I explained to a local bar tender my predicament, using Google Translate to communicate. So he offered me a room for the night, and refused any payment. I found myself in a fairly rustic imitation of the telho on Chacobuco in Buenos Aires, but the sign in the room listed the hourly rates for occupancy, and there were murals painted on the stucco walls. I felt like I was in a time warp and was living in one of the dwellings of the pre-ceramic era of Peru. The mural was of an 8-foot jaguar head staring straight at me. There was piped in music, AC, and the requisite trap door in the wall where you could receive purchased goods, drinks, etc., all anonymously. Each room had its own car port, with sheets hanging from the ceiling to hide the identity of the vehicle and license plates. For better or worse, there were no surprise nocturnal visits. A partner was not one of the amenities on offer. Thanks for reading, and for commenting, Mackenzie!