travel update from Cordoba

Saludos a todos,
So I am here and it is now, but where? but when? well I am in Cordoba a large city in Argentina which is a large country. I arrived here two days ago from Capilla del Monte a new addition to my list of totally cool places in the world. But here and now i am in Cordoba.
Tomorrow night I will take an overnight bus to Resistencia Argentina. It is 12 hours away. It is on the border ( well very close) with Paraguay, but the nearest border crossing is at Posadas which is about 300km ( 5 hours) away. Here I can cross into Paraguay by boat or bus into the city of Encarnacion. Close to some interesting old christian jesuit ruins.
I will stay a night or two in Resistencia which is famous for its hundreds of Public Statues. There are more than 500 statues in parks, plazs and generally just distributed here and there. Or so I have been lead to believe. I will go and see for myself. Then take a bus to Posada and stay a night or not and head into Paraguay.
So my last letter was from Capilla del Monte. I moved into the house with Miguel who is an artist artisano and now a partner in a little neighborhood bar. His home is totally unique and he built it himself. It was constructed in 3 parts. He lives in a little tower with a rounded roof. the part I ws in also has a little tower but Iwas ina larger room with a fireplace.
The place is what we would call a flop house or a crash pad. It is dusty. I would guess the floor has not been mopped in years.It is what Americans in the real estate business would call "fabulous potential". You pay what you think is fair and put the money in an envelope. I was a little uncomfortable with that so we talked and agreed on 200 pesos a week ( $50 USD) I loved the place and stayed 18 days.
Staying there are also Joseph (an american) and Tanya (his wife who is argentine and paraguayan). Well actually Joseph and Tanya got married on one of the last nights I was there.It was a lovely wedding in a catholic way. later a good party with excellent band and excellent vegetarian raw food banquet. Most excellent. At the wedding I ran into a canadien guy named Devon.
It turns out that Devon is an acquaintance of mine from 5 years ago when I was travelling in Guatemala the second time, and he was living in a tree house outside of antigua. At Welcome to the earth lodge. Wow what a small world...
http://robertstravels.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html
So there were delays in Capilla in my getting to visit with Mescalito. These were finally resolved and I hd some electric cactus juice with Luis and Miguel. We began the journey (trip) at about sunset. Very pleasant night. I felt a lot of mental confusion and inability to concentrate. Lots of wandering mind. Not very halucinogenic (maybe I needed to drink more). Not how I remember my peyote experiences but memories are faulty and cactusi are different besides that was there and then and this is...
So my time came to an end there in Capilla del monte. I felt like, for the first 2 weeks that I was staying at the casa of miguel, well, i felt almost like I was on retreat. I spent almost all my time in the garden or walking around the dry riverbed by myself. It is a very big dry riverbed and I walked in one direction for 2 hours and was no where near the end...Very beautiful ravine betrween two mountains. lots of birds. and if you sit quietly and meditate after about half an hour, when you open your eyes, you get to see a lot of smaller animals, lizards and bugs who were afraid and hiding. There were quite a few days that I hardly spoke a word.
Miguel has just opened the bar and his partner took off for a month to Spain and so he was like only there to sleep. He would get home after I had gone to bed, and wake up, have a mate and go to work.
I seem to have come to a point in my life, I feel very tranquil most of the time.I wonder if I am getting to be like these old guys, who retire and just sit around looking out the window...I mean sometimes I just sit around looking out the window or looking at the river or the lake or the mountain or whatever, I just sit there in this no mind state. When I catch myself day dreaming or talking in the head, I put attention on it and it stops. What stops? "IT" stops.
Now thngs havent always been this way. "IT" never used to stop so easily. For decades it has been somehow damned near impossible for me to quiet my mind, to be quiet in my head. There are always these compulsive thoughts,or old songs, or daydreams, or fantasies, or rehearsing to say something to someone, or worries over and over worrying something in my mind like a dog with a thorn in his paw.
Well here I am, like a desperado waiting for a bus. it is 4:30pm in cordoba and I have a bus to Resistencia at 9. I am just waiting. I am just waiting quietly and contentedly.Peace and love to all who read this
Robert
"The energy of the world remains constant. The entropy of the world strives to a maximum," Clausius
"Let your love be disgraceful, crazy and wild. If you are too holy,
God will escape you." - Rumi
“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong;
and multiplies,instead of indemnifying losses.” - Thomas Jefferson

travel update from Capilla del monte argentina

Saludos a todos,
I am here now. I was in Villa General Belgrano, for a week after I left Rosario. I was there then. It is a tourist trap town in the beautiful Sierras de Cordoba. A group of low mountains in the State of Cordoba near the city of Cordoba. I expect to spend the rest of my time in Argentina in this area. I may have a few days of a week in a city called Resistancia on my way to Paraguay, but if not I will remain in this delightful region.
It is beautiful and well maintained forests and streams and lakes. Not heavily populated but this time of the year is temporada alta (high season) and the tourists/vacationers are here in force from Buenos Aires and Cordoba and Rosario, anxious to escape the hot citys for a week or two of calm cool tranquility. I liked my hostel/campground just fine in Villa Gral Belgrano. It is calle El Rincon Albergue and I would stay there again if I returned, which is unlikely as the town itself is a tourist ripoff. Every thing way overpriced. A giant outdoor gift shop and souvenir emporium. Yyeeeechhh!
I am here now. In Capilla del Monte in the Sierras de Córdoba It is a center of new age thinking and culture. My guide book calls it a center of "Mystic tourism" lots of buddha statues, prayer beads, dream catchers and incense for sale. The most famous place here in Capille del Monte is Cerro Uritorco . Cerro Uritorco is a small mountain. the name cerro actually means hill. It is famous because it is said to be magic and there have been countless Ovni (UFO) sitings there. It is said to be a portal to another dimensional world. It is said to give off "buenos ondas" (good waves)
It is a hill of extreme intelligence. Not all hills are equal. Some are just smarter than others just like humans, and this here is a smart hill. It was sacred to the indigenous people for centuries (they have, of course, all been killed off) , and now the local new age hipsters are here doing various indian ceremonies, temescals, and eating san pedro cactus. I have met quite a few of the local hep cats and now, after having been here for a week, I am moving into the home of a local cool artist/ musician named Miguel.
The home is made of mortar and stones. The roofs are not flat, but rounded. The house hasn`t got an easy to define shape, it is rather unique. The best part, is it has a very nice garden. The garden has a clear view of the magic mountain. It will be an excellent place to sit quietly and let the energy waves float off the mountain and onto me. The worst part is it has no refrigerator. No icy cold drinks. No buying more than a couple of days of food at a time.
I met a local San Pedro "expert" named Luis, and he and some of his pals invited me along to a place 10km from town called Paredones (big walls). This is one of the rare times in my travels where I truly wished I had a camera. This was one of the most beautiful walking paths ever! There are high steep multi colored walls of stone surrounding a lovely cool mountain stream which forms many natural bathing pools. Lush all around with healthy live green vegetation. Just one word to describe it...delightful.
Luis has invited me to return there with him and stay the night in a secluded cabin where he will introduce me to his friend Mescalito. Mescalito lives in the san pedro cactus of South America and he lives in the peyote cactus of North America. I may have something to learn from "father peyote" I am considering his offer. I am probably going to try it. What do you folks out there think?
Peace and love,
rambling robert

"Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies." Mark Twain
"In the Orthodox spiritual tradition, the ultimate moral question we ask is the following: Is what we are doing, is what I am doing, beautiful or not?" Carolyn Gifford
"The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach." Carl Jung