On the Beach

The day I planned to leave Cabo Polonio, it is dusk, and I am still here. I have indeed made a move, but only a kilometer east from the Viejo Lobo hostel. Sitting on the beach, just after sunset, a giant moon rising pink over the sea, the rabbit so very clear until you look too closely at it. In South America they don’t have a man in the moon; they have a rabbit. El conejo en la luna. My friend Karolayn, the twenty-year-old Venezolana I lived with at Soul Guesthouse in Arequipa, showed the rabbit to me one night as we were walking home from the Metro supermercado.

In these southern latitudes, the orientation of the moon is different, shifted counter-clockwise almost ninety degrees. And so the two streaks that extend out from the right eye of the man in the north point more or less upwards down here. These are the rabbit’s ears, and the man’s mouth becomes its tail end. Once I saw it for the first time, I see it in every large moon. It feels appropriate that in this slightly different world there should be a slightly different sky.

This particular moon came as something stupendous, appearing without warning from out of the sea. So immense and not-moon-colored that it looks like a planet. I tried to take pictures, but they were so painfully inadequate that I figured I might as well write about it. Your imagination is far better than the pictures. Picture this: twenty feet down from my feet, the sand turns a slight blue-grey in the twilight; the wetter sand below a very light violet blue. Frothy waves lapping gently blue up to churning whitecaps; the expanse of water beyond a deep teal. Then, just into a baby blue sky that lacks a single cloud, a glowing rose nectarine orb, ascendant, casting hints of pink across everything below. The kind of moon that puts a sparkle in your eye and a smile on the corner of your mouth.

Last night by the fire I told Valentina, the English teacher from Montevideo, that I had been expecting something to happen by the new moon, and that now I was expecting something to happen by the full moon. Well, here it is, la luna llena, and something has indeed happened. Entirely outside of my expectations, I have been given possession of a house. Behind me, just into the dunes, is a ramshackle A-frame cabin like some dwelling from a fairy tale. For the moment, this is my house. It is as surreal as the moon.

I realize looking behind me that the other side of the world is just as striking. Above the dunes and the pine bluffs in the distance, the sky is absolutely aflame, clouds brimming in pink and gold, broad brush strokes turning to soot gray as they dissipate up into night. It is passionate. I decide I have to turn my chair sideways to see both the sunset and the moonrise.

This is the benefit of being so adrift and out here, out of any semblance of a grind. I feel free to just sit here and watch the show nature puts on at the finale of each day. To witness the beauty of the world. Of course, I could do this at home, wherever that is. But how often do I? I might see a sunset in passing and savor the sight momentarily, but unless I’m on a boat or a hike or some kind of outdoor leisure activity, there is almost always something else to do, somewhere I need to be. At this point in my life, I watch the sun set every single night. It is an implicit part of my yerba mate habit.

A young man up the beach has spent the last five minutes slowly approaching, taking photos of this state of the earth over which I’ve been waxing poetic. His behavior affirms that it is worth obsessing about. I hope his pictures are better than mine. When he finally walks past, he says “¡Que atardecer!” and I say “¡Que luna!” and this is a perfectly reasonable conversation between two humans and nothing more needs to be said.

Cabo Polonio is putting on quite a show. It feels like a welcoming party, a celebration of my decision to stay longer. This is already my favorite place in Uruguay — the question now is just how long I’ll stay. There has been a momentary change in my fortunes; whether it has significance remains to be seen. The moon is now a brilliant gold, trailing a shimmering path all the way to the top of the wet sand. In the other direction the last remnants of sunset are scattered pink ashes settling down along the horizon.

This afternoon about one o’clock, after the whole rape accusation drama which I’d been translating had died down, or at least was gone from sight of the Viejo Lobo hostel, I was trying to decide when exactly to leave. My bags were packed, sitting in a corner of the back sitting room. While coming up with various reasons to put off putting on my bags and walking to the outskirts of town to wait for the next camion, I asked Walter one more time if he had a bed for me. He directed me to Gabriel, the brooding and enigmatic Brazilian hostel chef. “Vamos a andar,” the chef eventually declared — we’re going to walk — but nothing happened, and I didn’t want to seem pushy.

After about forty minutes, he said, “¿Gabriel, pronto?” and half sat up like he was going to get out of the hammock where he’d been hiding from the world since the crisis had passed. I was a little confused, and I said “si” with a shrug — sure, soon. He watched me for a minute, then shook his head like I was a disappointment to him, and laid back in the hammock. Fifteen minutes later, he asked me again “¿pronto?” and I replied, confused, “listo” — ready. Walter, who was sitting in his chair by the door as usual, called out “pronto es listo en portugues”. I realized Gabriel had been asking me if I was ready, and I was saying yes but not doing anything. To demonstrate my readiness, I got up and walked over to him. He let out a deep sigh and slowly put his feet on the ground. He lit up a joint, motioned for us to go, and started walking toward the beach, away from the center of town.

We walked for about twenty minutes east along the beach, and he explained some things. I could only understand bits and pieces in his Portuguese-heavy Spanish doused with strong accent. He has a house, una casita. I can stay there tonight. Tomorrow there will be people. It sounded good enough to me.

Near the end of the town, we walked up to one of the last structures before the beach and dunes become free of human disturbance. It was a little dilapidated A-frame, shingles falling off, a hammock hung in front of a door that doesn’t work, so you enter through the tall double french-door windows next to it. Gabriel explained that it wasn’t actually his house, but he watches it. Cuatro chicos do Montevideo are the owners, sometimes they come. Dormi aqui muto tempo.

We went in and the place was in a state of decay. The basic wooden furniture all ajar and slowly disintegrating; old dirty dishes on a countertop mixed with trash and a generous sprinkling of sand. Burned down candles everywhere. It was obviously not being well-cared-for, but it wasn’t bad; there was character in abundance.

“No ha electricidagé,” he said. “Por supuesto,” I said. “No ha agua,” he said. Mmm. This was maybe a problem. “Mas ha un poso,” he offered. “¿Poso?” “Poso,” he repeated. This was his way of explaining things when I didn’t understand. “¡Poso!” he said again, like I was an idiot, and motioned for me to follow him outside.

Out in the yard was a metal panel that he pulled aside to reveal a well. “Poso.” Inside was a bucket tied to a rope. “Ha otro dentro, ha gas para el fogo, y velas para ver,” he said, completing the orientation. A well, two buckets, gas for the stove, and candles to see — what more could a person need? He got a hammer from inside to try and mess with the door, which had obviously been nailed and screwed and re-nailed together numerous times.

I stepped back through the tall windows and looked around at the mess and the character. There was a ladder leading up to a loft, with the bottom step broken. I climbed up to look around the second level, divided into two tiny bedrooms, just large enough to fit their beds. This would do. I’ve done far worse. I came back down and looked out the open windows at the sea, maybe thirty yards away.

I leaned out and said “Voy a quedarme,” — I would stay, gracias. “Claro,” he said, giving me a look like, where else would you go? After a moment, he said that when people want to stay in Cabo Polonio, he tries to help them. He gave up on the hammering, and tossed the tool aside on the floor. “Mas una cosa” he said, and went over to the corner where there was a big black garbage bag. He held it open for me to display the most marijuana I’d ever seen in one place. Most of it looked like leaf, but it was several plants worth. “¡Fuma!” he implored, then grabbed a handful, sat down on the futon couch to roll up a joint. I saw that the coffee table was littered with dozens of roaches.

If you have a house, why do you sleep at the hostel? I asked. “Mas divertido en el hostel,” he said, “y no ha electricidage aqui.” I started collecting trash, and putting the scattered objects into some semblance of order, while he smoked in big puffy clouds. I got the hammer and banged on one of the questionable chairs until it held its form. “¿Sos carpintero?” he asked. “No,” I said, but you need more than a carpenter. “Claro,” he said, but it’s hard to find anything in Cabo. “Soy pintor,” I said, and his eyes widened. “¿Realmente?” he asked, and motioned for me to follow him outside. He showed me the corrugated metal roof which came all the way down to the ground and was a very faded army green. “¿Poge pintar esto?” he asked. I saw immediately that most of it could not be painted without a ladder. “¿Tenes escalara?” I asked. “Claro.”

We walked around the other side and looked at the roof. The pitch was so steep that it was almost vertical. I told him I could paint it, ciertamente, if he had tools and a ladder. Sleep here until you finish, he said by way of an offer, and dinners at the hostel. I had been coveting his cooking, which I hadn’t been able to pay for, and he knew it. I wasn’t sure if this was a good deal or not, but I wasn’t sitting on a lot of offers at the moment and didn’t feel like negotiating. “Seguro,” I said, I’ll do it, and asked him about the people who were staying there the next night. “No ha personas,” he said, and that was that. No people and no explanation.

We went back inside and he got out a box of old painting tools and a five gallon bucket of green paint, then rolled another joint, lit it, and without any notice got up and walked out. What a strange man. I followed him and said I needed my bags from the hostel. “Vamos,” he said over his shoulder, walking briskly away.

In town I first went to the market store and spent nearly the last of my pesos on food and a bag of rolling tobacco, then grabbed my bags and made the walk back to my casita. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was doing with my life, but after I had organized some things, washed the dishes, wiped down surfaces, and bagged up all the trash and old candle stubs, I felt better about it. Then, after figuring out how to work the stove and cooking a late afternoon meal of chard, garlic, eggs and cheese, I was feeling pretty damn good. I realized that I had for the moment some space of my own, something I hadn’t truly had since Arequipa, I think.

Whatever its rough edges, this was a remarkably well-situated house, face to face with the ocean. Maybe this is a place to stop, find my center, get some good writing done. Perhaps I had stumbled upon the mythical writing cabin where writing happens. My solitude was broken by a shirtless long-haired guy and a woman with slightly-graying curly hair who came right up to the doorway. The guy said he was a friend of Gabriel’s, and he’d heard I was here to do some painting. “Podes pintar mi casa, despues,” he said. Was there some future for me unfolding here in Cabo Polonio?

They both came in without asking, which didn’t bother me. I had obviously moved into a house that belongs to the people. The guy went right over to the trashbag of weed and fished around until he came out holding a stem with some buds on it. Apparently he stays here sometimes, too. The woman, a yoga teacher visiting from Montevideo, sat on the couch and kept saying how que lindo everything was. They hung out a little while and smoked and then wished me well, leaving me to my cabin. It was getting towards evening and time for me to heat water for mate. Five minutes after I sat down on the beach, this moon appeared above the waves.

✦✦

Waking up in the casita for the first time the next morning, I felt peaceful and rejuvenated. This was unquestionably my best night of sleep in Uruguay thus far. I can’t even remember the last good night of sleep. Not coincidentally, this is the first time I’ve had my own room, plus the sounds of waves and wind are a delightful soundtrack for sleeping.

The morning was drenched in sun and warm enough that after some tea I went for a brisk swim in the ocean. After a breakfast of granola and yogurt and fruit, I got to work. Painted as much of the roof I could reach up to, much of it done standing on a creaky chair, with a roller attached to a long pole. An awkward proposition.

My patron came by around two, without the crucial item. He said that the guy with the ladder had just gone into town, then directed me to various other parts of the house, more or less at ground level, that I could paint. Some back walls, the trim in front. The day before, we had only discussed painting the roof. So all afternoon I worked and got no closer to my end goal. I justified it by telling myself that he wants me to paint, and in exchange I get to stay here — it doesn’t really matter what. But in various ways he is making the job more difficult. He proceeded to lie in the hammock, smoke joints, look at his phone, and seem generally annoyed. I couldn’t tell if he was waiting for the guy or just hanging out.

Eventually he decided that the paint was too thick, and impulsively added about a half gallon of water to the half-full five gallon bucket. No-no-no I said, trying to stop him. The paint wasn’t too thick and it was way too much water to add. He just glared at me and dumped it in. Now I’ve got this watery paint that wants to drip off the roller and the wall. For the roof, this is more or less okay, though he has necessitated a second coat as it’s now a lighter color.

I’ve come to realize just how limited is Gabriel’s Spanish, and that much of the time he’s just using Portuguese words and figuring they’re the same. Often the words are very similar, just with a different way of speaking them. But sometimes they’re not even close. With his accent it’s very hard to tell what words he’s saying, let alone what language. His response when I don’t understand something is to get impatient, repeat the Portuguese word which may or may not even be similar to Spanish, at a louder volume. For example, yesterday we almost got into an argument over a word. No miming, no explanation, just repeating “pin-sare” in an increasingly animated manner. No se que es pincer. — ¡Pincer! I finally figured out it was for paintbrush. The Spanish word is cepillo or cepillo de pintura, but certainly not pincer.

It’s a strange relationship we have. We don’t really seem to like each other much or get along very well, but I have this certain respect for him. I can’t predict what he’s going to do or say, which makes him interesting, and he is an excellent cook and that goes a fair way in my book. And while he seems perpetually annoyed with me, he has also kind of taken me under his wing and is providing me a house to stay in, which he certainly doesn’t have to do. I have a feeling this isn’t going to end particularly well. Having a permanently stoned boss that really doesn’t speak the same language as you and tends toward anger is not an ideal working relationship. But the plus, the big plus, is the cabin.

To have this space, to sleep and eat and play music and write, to just be and not bother anyone — this is a luxury I have rarely enjoyed over the past year and a half. Then there is the fact that this house is directly on the beach: to be able to walk out the front door, sit a chair down in the yard and watch the waves come in is transcendent. It’s all worth it, for now.

✦✦

A second night of delicious sleep was rudely interrupted at dawn this morning with a loud crashing sound inside the cabin. My first thought was the dilapidated nature of the place — I suspected the structure was collapsing, and sprang up to escape. But when I reached the top of the steep stairs down from the loft, I saw what had made the sound. There was a long-haired youngish man lying on the ground, with the next two steps up now broken, in addition to the bottom one. I didn’t know what to say.

“Disculpe,” he managed. “¿Que pasa?” I inquired. He apologized again, sat up and groaned, said he hadn’t known I was here. I couldn’t tell if he was drunk or injured, perhaps both. I still didn’t know what to say, standing there in my boxers, and went to put some clothes on. When I came back he seemed to be recovering from his fall. I gingerly climb-jumped down and surveyed the damage. The steps would require new wood. I made a sound signifying frustration and he said he would fix it — hoy, mas tarde — said he was a friend of Gabriel’s. He seemed contrite and somehow trustworthy, despite the circumstances.

After a minute he was up and rummaging in the trash bag of ganja. It was very early in the morning, this had all been very jarring, and I decided I should go back to sleep. Told him as much, and he apologized again, then mentioned he had come to get his sunglasses that he’d left up in the loft. A veces duermo aqui, he said. I was starting to think that a lot of people slept in this cabin. I had to do a kind of pull-up to get back upstairs, and sure enough, on a little bedside table was a pair of sunglasses. I went back to the opening and tossed them down. Gracias, he said, and put them on, laid back on the couch, taking a drag on a joint. “Voy a dormir un poco,” he said. Buenas noches, I said, and went back to bed.

Later on in the morning, when I had woken up a second time, the guy was gone. I was just about getting ready to walk to town, to try and find Gabriel about the ladder and use my last pesos to buy some food, when a young man came walking up to the cabin carrying a basket covered with a cloth.

I almost never buy things from the roving food-basket people you encounter on the streets all through Latin America. Now, there are the stand people, selling food at one location, however humble the stand might be, whom I’m much more likely to patronize. Then there are the itinerant wandering food-sellers. It’s just like: you’re walking around all day carrying food. You didn’t just cook that — you’re carrying it around. But when they come to your house and you’re hungry and thinking about walking a kilometer to buy some bread…

The guy was from Argentina and had empanadas and four kinds of tartas, which in this part of the world means something a lot like quiche. A savory pie. Each tarta was in its own round tin. Despite my prejudices, it all actually looked good. Seventy pesos for a large tarta slice. Two dollars. In addition to one ten dollar bill that I probably couldn’t use, I had a hundred sixty pesos on hand. This seemed in the moment to be a sound investment of almost half my cash, so I chose the jamon y queso, thanked him like he had done me a great favor, and went inside to devour my breakfast. It was better than good, a heavenly tarta, and I have zero regrets about it.

This took away some of my urgency to leave, so I made some tea, did some writing and enjoyed the feeling of being in the right and not actually doing anything. I was waiting for Gabriel, available at my post. Eventually I gathered enough motivation and put a second coat on all the parts of the house I could reach.

It feels like I’ve been in Cabo Polonio a long time, though this is only my fifth full day here. Time moves differently out on this cape, without most of the trappings of the modern world. On some level I could see just staying here. I probably could have use of this cabin for the winter and likely find some kind of work. It would be a good place to write. But in my gut, I know this is not my destination. There’s some place where I’m going to live in South America, at least for a while, and I’m ready to get there and try to make some kind of life of it. This is just somewhere in between, a strange and lovely place.

So I’m pondering leaving late tomorrow. Or the day after that. I’ve committed to painting this roof in exchange for my lodging, so until that is accomplished, I should be here. It’s not a big roof, and I could finish it in a day, provided that Gabriel gets me the ladder.

The last two nights I’ve gone in after dark to the Viejo Lobo, to collect my pay of cenas from Gabriel. Last night was a quite satisfying Corvina a la plancha, some kind of a white fish. The night before was a vegetable tarta with roasted potatoes. The dinners have been excellent, but the scene at the hostel has been rather lacking. Gabriel and Walter don’t have a lot to say after long days of working and smoking. Valentina, who I don’t believe I’ve mentioned is quite pretty, has a constellation of uninteresting guys who’ve arrived and compete for her attention. I don’t feel like competing.

Half the guests at the hostel are university students from Montevideo here for the holiday weekend. They seem so young to me. There have been lots and lots of college-aged humans that I’ve spent significant time with on this journey. Despite our age differences I was able to relate to on a deep level, have good conversations and adventures with. Some of them even became real solid friends. But when you get larger groups, and the social pressures and values that come with them, the youth really wins out. There’s so much phone-usage, bad music, general awkwardness, drinking games, drunkenness leading to drama, tears and other over-stuffed emotions.

So rather than sticking around for a second night, I went out to wander the town at night, something I hadn’t done. I haven’t had money I could spend, and it didn’t make sense to go to bars without money. But after four consecutive nights sitting by the fire at the old Lobo, I was going to see what I could see.

I set out on a little sand-path-road, lined every so often with lanterns, leading to bars lit by candles and fire pits, many of them with singers plucking away on beat up old classical guitarras. I’d sit down for a song or two, until a server would ask me what I wanted, and then carry on to the next place.

Found the biggest scene in town at the Lobo Bar — so many lobos here. A good crowd of boisterous drunken folk, faces lit by bonfire, singing along to old favorites played by a three-piece band: classical guitar, harp, and a big deep hand-drum. The crowd singing was terribly out of tune but also charming. I sat down and started scheming my way to a beer. The bartender said they didn’t accept cards, which came as no surprise. I asked if there was otro manera de pagar, other than efectivo, which I didn’t have. Amazingly, he said they did accept Paypal and Venmo. This little out of the way village with no electricity is also years ahead of much of the continent. I thought I had fifty or so dollars on my Paypal balance, which I hadn’t been able to touch because they wouldn’t let me make a bank transfer from outside of the country. It was available to pay for things, but there just hadn’t been anything to pay for. Suddenly I was able to have a beer. It felt like I’d won the lottery. Not the Mega Millions, more like a modest prize on a scratch ticket, but still a winner.

The bartender asked for my email, then sent me a paypal invoice and gave me the wifi password at the bar; I logged in and confirmed it. It was just that simple. Digital imaginary money made of ones and zeros flew around between continents. After making a round of cocktails, he looked at his phone, nodded to me, then opened a liter sized bottle, gave me a glass and I was now among the elect. I could sit down at a table and as long as I had that beer, and even probably for some time after, I was entitled to stay.

Found a place on the periphery, watched drunken life happen, listened to passionate heartfelt traditional Uruguayo and Argentino folklore, hippie-style. Often drunken life is not attractive, but this sort was romantic. No one talked to me — lacking some necessity or reason, people in this country really do not talk to people they don’t know — and I made no attempt to talk to them. I had my guitar, and I kept thinking about taking it out and playing along with their songs, which were simple enough. But it never felt right. At some point the woman who’d been playing the drum got out a marionette which she made dance around the fire. It was surprisingly captivating, this little bright-colored wooden man dancing with jerky limbs, though some of the effect was lost by her leaning too far over the puppet and stumbling around a bit.

I nursed my beer for a long time, then brought the last third of it back to the Viejo Lobo. The yard was almost entirely quiet, and there was still a good fire going, so I got out my guitar and played some songs for myself. Periodically passers by would sit and listen, then go on their way. It reminded me of a side street at Burning Man, late at night. A couple cute young women sat down and asked if I could play any songs from Uruguay. Nope. One of them, Patricia, was very forward and talkative. They were from Montevideo, university students.

Patricia told me to play a song from Argentina. No puedo. Brasil?! This wasn’t going well. She couldn’t believe that a musician could not know a single song from the whole part of the world he was in. Lo siento, I said, sheepishly. Voy a aprender canciones de aqui, I pledged. Play something from your country, she said. The thing that came to mind was Take it Easy — I’m a’ runnin down the road tryin to loosen my load — a song I used to know, and started playing it and more or less remembered it as I went along.

They listened and looked at the fire, and afterwards they agreed it was que lindo. Then Patricia said they would come back tomorrow night at the same time, and I should learn a song from Uruguay. I said I would.

✦✦

Returning to my cabin from my evening mate, twilight outside but already well dark within. It is time to light some candles, heat some water on the stove. First, get said water from the well. It turns out there is an art to this. When you lower a bucket on a rope into a well, initially it will just want to sit on top of the water. A harder trick is maintaining enough light to function by candles. A constant struggle. This is why people invented torches, lanterns, gas lights and electric lights. While lovely to look at, candles just don’t produce a whole lot of light. To write, I need to have three directly in front of me. You also go through a lot of candles. The supply in this cabin is about to run out, and if I stay I’ll have to buy more. Because my peso holdings are negligible, the purchase of these candles will require going to another town to get cash from an ATM, at which point I feel like I should just leave and go on my way.

Meanwhile, I’ll go to the store tonight and see if they’ll accept my last ten American dollars. This being the lucky bill sent by my friends Andrew and Allison in New Orleans, tucked into the invitation to a wedding party celebrating their prior elopement to Sri Lanka. I received the card, hand-delivered in Arequipa by my friend Adam, approximately six months after the fact. This was my first wedding invitation that came with money.

These were the bills I took to the casino at the grand old Argentina Hotel in Piriapolis — only eight days ago; feels like a month — and doubled them playing blackjack. Twenty dollars is a big deal when you are just about out of money. At the end of the night I tried to change my pesos back for the lucky bills at the cashier, but one had already gone out into the world. It is rare that a piece of money would have such significance, but I’m at the point where I would happily trade it for food and candles.

Gabriel never came at all today. By three o’clock I had painted a second coat on everything I could reach. There was no more work I could do, but I didn’t feel free to go do something else. I wasn’t sure the logic of “you didn’t bring me the ladder, so I couldn’t do the work” would hold up with my patron, and I decided to go seek him out. He was easy to find, in the hammock in front of the Viejo Lobo, cuddling with his girlfriend and smoking joints. It’s what he’s almost always doing during the day. “…La escalera?” “Si, si,” he said, I’m coming after this and that, which were incomprehensible words. He seemed entirely unbothered about it. I asked him if I should wait, and he shrugged.

I hung around for a bit and then said hasta luego, and walked down to the beach. It was a warm-ish day, and I considered swimming, but realized that I was going to feel guilty if I wasn’t waiting for Gabriel, as he had said he was coming, even though I knew he wasn’t, and there wouldn’t be time to get much work done before dark anyway. Sat there thinking and pondering, and realized the error of my ways.

I was trying to get things done in never never land, completely out of synch with the place. Gabriel didn’t really care about the roof painting. I did. What he didn’t understand is that I’ve been drifting about aimlessly for a month and he’d given me a purpose. He was the kind of guy who just said things, while if I said I was going to do something, I was going to do my best to do it. It was all clear. I honored my sense of responsibility and walked back to the hostel.

Gabriel wasn’t in the yard, but now Walter was. He said Gabriel was up in his room, wink wink. Alright. It was four thirty and he was in bed with his girl. He was not bringing a ladder. I’d had enough. I had an impulse, one of those that come suddenly sometimes when you are traveling a long while. It was time to go. At least to start the wheels in motion. The path forward was now clear in my head. I asked Walter if I could use the wifi, cinco minutos, and with a nod he granted me special permission. Ever since my high-stakes translation work, I’ve been afforded VIP status at this hostel I’m no longer staying at. I went into the back room where the signal is strongest, and tried to book a bus ticket for tomorrow.

A plan had crystallized. I’d take the job in Salta, in the north of Argentina where things made more sense than here. The job was supposed to start May 1st, and I could make it there in time. I’d leave Neverland tomorrow, Pasqua — Easter Sunday — and take a bus all the way back to Montevideo. No point stopping at some other beach in between. Spend a night, probably two, back in the capital at the Contraluz, get everything together and shipshape to return to Argentina. Take a ferry over mid-week, spend a night in Buenos Aires. Perhaps the stars will align and I can take the train north to Córdoba. By the weekend, I can be in Salta, ready to start teaching. The idea was enlivening.

First steps were to reach out to the school in Salta and confirm the position was still available. Simultaneously, book a bus ticket to Montevideo tomorrow. I’d go there either way — time to get back to reality. I sent Cecilia who runs the school a message on Whatsapp, and tried to buy the ticket. I couldn’t manage it. Either the buses were full or an error message would come up when I’d try to pay for an open seat. Error ha ocurrido. Each time the message would come up I’d practice rolling my r’s. There are a lot of them in that short sentence. My rolling r’s are like an engine that won’t start: it will turn over once, maybe twice, but can never really get rolling. When I began this journey, I had no rolled r at all, so I am at least making progress.

No ticket. I would have to take the camion to the bus station tomorrow just to find out if there was a seat available. On Easter, the last day of Semana Santa, when everyone would be leaving. There was a cama dormitorio available at the Contraluz, but I didn’t want to pay for a bed if I didn’t know I could get there. No ticket, no reservation, no ladder. And I had spent way more than five minutes on the wifi.

Outside Gabriel was still nowhere to be seen. Estoy libre, free to make something of the last of this day. If I was leaving tomorrow, I was going to leave the roof painting unfinished, so I figured I might as well do whatever I could today. There was one more section of the house that could theoretically be painted without a ladder. Walked back out to the casita, in a stiff wind blowing down the shore from Brazil.

As the day melted down to dusk, the light turning long and gold-tinged, I climbed out of the loft window to the little wood-and-canvas canopy roof above the door. In a blustery wind, clutching a bucket of watery paint. From here I could cover the top of the “a” in the A-frame, the eaves and a window frame, as long as the roof didn’t break on this rickety old building. The supports for this roof were driftwood logs; absolutely not designed to hold my weight. I’d held off painting this exactly because it was a bad idea. But here I was, crouching like a cat, trying to spread my weight.

One hand holding on to something flimsy, the other the paintbrush, one knee clinging to the beam closest to the house, the other bracing the paint bucket. The structure shifted and creaked, but did not break. In twenty minutes I did all I could reach and climbed back in. By all rights I should have fallen, broken the structure and a leg, poured paint all over the place. We get so outraged when things go wrong, but overlook all the stupid chances we take and get away with.

We’ll see what Gabriel says when I tell him I’m leaving. I played out the argument in my head while painting. Maybe he won’t care but in my version he was angry. Perhaps to avoid this, I decided I wasn’t going to eat dinner at the hostel. It would be in bad faith to eat and not tell him that I’m leaving, and I’m not ready for the conversation yet.

Found the lee of a dune on the way down to the beach to take my yerba mate out of the wind, which had only grown stronger. Savored the bitterness of my beverage, the tonic of it; cradled the gourd in both hands for the warmth. Just another sunset on the beach, nowhere to go, nothing to do. Cabo Polonio. People occasionally strolled past, not making eye contact. I sang some songs a cappella to keep myself company.

I kept thinking about an email I got from my Dad yesterday. He wrote something like “I hope this doesn’t sound like judgement, but… it seems like you’re on a vacation that’s gone on too long. Or a surreal version of a vacation without money…I hope you enjoy every little thing.” It was a strange email to receive. I couldn’t really tell what he was trying to say, but it didn’t feel in the least like I was on vacation. A vacation is when you have a settled life: a place to live, a job; and you go somewhere for a short time to get away. Then when when the vacation is over, you go back. I don’t have any of those things. When you’re on a journey that goes long enough, it just becomes life. My Dad didn’t understand. He was right about the surreal part, at least.

When I think about today, it is so far from a vacation. Waking up to the guy breaking the stairs, waiting all day for Gabriel to bring the ladder, trying to figure out how to spend my last pesos, holding off on lunch as long as possible to see if I could make it to dinner. Sitting here looking out the open windows at the blackness that I know is the sea, the sound of the waves mixed with a howling wind. Huddling in this brokedown dirty cabin, barely able to write by dwindling candlelight, not knowing if I can get a bus out of here tomorrow, wondering how upset my namesake will be that I am leaving without painting the roof. Sigh. Not a vacation.

I think it was just the word that was so off the mark. If he’d said “journey” or “adventure” I’d have thought he was on point. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive, but it doesn’t help when you lead off by saying “I don’t want this to sound like judgement…”. The truth is that vacation is the last thing I want to be on. When you’re nearly broke you don’t crave vacation; you want work. What I want more than anything is a home, at least a temporary one, a job, students to teach, friends. A life vaguely resembling normality, a normal that just happens to be in South America.

I lasted until seven to have my lunch/dinner of the food I bought this afternoon with my last ninety pesos. Some fresh rolls, salami, cheese and cucumber. It was an excellent sandwich dinner, and hunger is the best sauce. The guy who broke the stairs this morning never came back to fix them. Entropy is winning. I’m going to walk down the beach to town with low expectations. I’m mainly just going to sit by the warmth of the fire in front of the Viejo Lobo. Which isn’t a bad reason to go somewhere. Maybe the cute girls from Montevideo will come by again. I don’t have the song from Uruguay I promised, but I will think of something.