Losing Things (my mind?)

So here we are. In Buenos Aires. Again. Hmm... how did we get here? Trust me, I'll get to it.

But first, let's talk about travel. Inevitably, somewhere on the road, you will lose something. Maybe it will amount to nothing, like the 3 toothbrushes I've forgotten in various places in 3 different countries, or perhaps it's worth a little more, like the $30 quick-dry towel (i highly recommend these!) that we left on a bus in Puerto Iguazu. Watching Ally chase after the bus while I watched the stuff was heart-wrenching, and the steadily graying towel we borrowed from a hotel is not much of a replacement.

The point is, it WILL happen. The sheer amount of stuff you bring with you actually stirs the most basic stuff of the universe and creates a new Murphy's Law: As soon as you need something, you will find out you've left it in the last city you were in. So far, the total has been relatively low (knock on EVERY piece of wood I can find). We still have the essentials, although I'm down half a pair of pants (don't ask), we have both lost or broken sunglasses, we no longer have our bag o' soap and shampoo, and I'm pretty sure having ants eat half our tent counts as losing it.

It occurs to me though that this steady loss must be dealt with in a constructive manner, in large part because it occurs mentally as well. We've lost our innocence and our bright-eyed outlook on the world of travel; sometimes, the road can be too long. Sometimes, you just want to be in a comfortable place, in a familiar bed, with familiar food. And sometimes you don't realize how much that all means to you until you've been traveling for awhile. Perhaps this is a passing phase of the trip, but it leaves us both with less energy and almost constantly slightly enervated at the thought of visiting so many more cities. The novelty we felt at every moment of the trip has definitely left us to visit with other, fresher travelers, which simply means we yearn to stay for a long time in just one place, preferrably Buenos Aires.

But we've also lost things that have a direct positive effect on us: we've certainly lost unhealthy weight, and our new svelte selves have more energy and more control over our appetites. We've also parted with a large part of our culutural assumptions, making room for the infinite possibilities we have encountered in each new place we visit. Finally, we've lost many aversions: to bugs, long bus rides, blood sausage (sam only), speaking in languages we don't fully understand. In all, we can look back on our trip, even at this point, and say that our losses have been great gains in many ways.

And most recently, we've lost our passports, credit cards, cash, driver's licenses, and so forth. Yes, we've been robbed. Don't worry, no one was hurt, it was totally non-confrontational and we only found out about it after the fact. Thus, we trucked it back from Mendoza to Buenos Aires to get replacement passports at the embassy (took all of 1.5 hours, kudos, State Dept!) and have a bus back to Santiago tomorrow for our flight to Colombia. Ally promises me that she'll be going into more detail about the situation, but suffice it to say, we haven't lost our love for the Argentinian people.

And we feel like through this blog, we have not lost touch with any of you.

Love you all,
Sam