On being a bad tourist.

I just got back to the farm, after five weeks of exploring Argentina, with my sister, with my parents, and on my own. I saw some incredible landscapes, met some great people, and decided that I don’t really like traveling.

Hmmmm…okay, what do I mean by that? In essence, I’ve decided to “travel” for a year, and it’s been amazing. I guess what I mean, and what I’ve known for a while, is that I don’t like so much traveling from one place to another, snapping photos, swapping travel stories with other young backpackers at hostels, whose itineraries are inevitably some version of, “Yeah, we did Colombia, then Ecuador, then Peru, then Bolivia, then up to Brazil….” a finger tracing an imaginary map in the air in front of them.

I admit, being up north in Salta, some six or seven hours from the Bolivian border, I did have thoughts of just continuing on, taking advantage of my proximity to explore the Andean land to the north for a few more weeks. I do want to spend time there someday, maybe later on in my trip. But after one or two more towns, and as many hostels, I decided otherwise. I visited a lot of different places in my five weeks: Mendoza, Cordoba, Salta, Jujuy; but each of them seemed like just an introduction. I, like most of the travelers I met, spent just a few days in each place. Accordingly, I felt like I just got a taste of the place. I walked around each town or city, stopping in interesting looking shops or restaurants, visiting plazas and taking pictures of churches. I took some day trips to nearby hiking spots and waterfalls. But I never got to know any of the places, and, with each bus I boarded, was left with an unsolvable feeling of uneasiness; I didn’t want to stay longer and continue being a tourist, but nor did I feel like I had spent enough time there. I settled on deciding that I’d have to return someday, stay for a while, and really get to know it (I know that, in most cases, this probably won‘t happen, but it gave me peace to think it, anyway).

After spending two days in Cafayate, a beautiful little wine-making desert town four hours south of Salta, I headed to the nearest city to the south, bought a bus ticket for El Bolson, and began the long journey “home” to the farm.