Am I a Hippy?

I awake to confusion. I slip on my shoes and run outside to ask the steward in muddled Spanish "Where is the city?" and then just plain "where?" while pointing down, not having the wherewithal to simply ask "where am I?" Resistencia. I’m here but not sure what kind of place I ended up.

Trusting my Lonely Planet map, but not sure why, I walk at least a kilometer or two down the road towards a mythical campground. Not satisfied that I’m getting any closer to anything of the sort, I turn back. A couple lingering on their porch ask me where I’m going. They direct me to the appropriate colectivo, public bus. Then they ask me if I’m a hippy. "No hippy." They survey my body for jewelry and agree. Not wanting to get lost again I take a taxi to the campground in Parque 2 de Febrero.

The park has a playground and a pond, picnic tables, stray dogs, bathrooms that look like army barracks but smell like the zoo. Shower curtains are torn away, the toilets are clogged and seatless and camphor is spread liberally. The shower will have to wait for my next destination. Here, I wash up in the sink.

And there are hippies from Brazil. They are busy shelling pods from the trees, gathering in drum circles, smoking pot and playing Marley nonstop. A circus bus is parked with hoops for affixed to the side. A small tent is pitched there with circus stripes. I set up my tent and walk into town in the hear to find a bus ticket to Salta.

I find a restaurant giving homage to Charlie Chaplin and eat a decent enough pollo naranja. I take a colectivo to the omnibus terminal. A wall of black cloud gathers that is so ominous and green that I scan it for funnel clouds. Dust blows across the highway. A mule and buggy driver gallop at full speed towards home. I collect my ticket and hop on the first colectivo I can find into town. It pours with a vengeance. The water drips through cracks in the bus and through the ceiling onto the driver.

We drive through newly formed rivers on the road and when we reach the town square, I get off. I huddle under a magazine kiosco along with two giggling schoolgirls. As cars pass, the water comes in waves across the road and drains into a hole in the sidewalk. Dozens of cockroaches emerge from the hole and a few misguided ones attempt to find a new home somewhere up my leg.

I follow a disjointed route back to my camp trying to bypass the standing pools of water covering the roads. My tent is intact, but holding a couple of inches of water. My sleeping bag is drenched, my clothes stayed dry in the backpack. Overall, I made out well. I was camped next to a pond and had visions of my tadpole shaped tent going back to its home.

A Czech hippy, M, shares a common predicament. Like me, he skipped putting up the tent fly which may have prevented the water intrusion. He’s been touring the north of Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia for the last 8 months and farmed organically through the WOOF program in Ireland the four years previous to that. He’s more than happy to give me advice about my next destination, the Salta and Jujuy provinces in northwest Argentina, a beautiful and not as intensely touristed region. He felt uneasy in Paraguay, though, sensing that the people there were mistrustful and closed, brutalized by years of dictatorship.

I walk the downtown which is bustling the night before Dia de la Madre and the cooks are gathering whole carnicerias of meat on the grills for that night’s parilla that will begin late in the evening. I go back and flop on top of my soggy sleeping bag for much needed sleep. More rain and club music invade my bed, but I sleep surprisingly well.