New News on Nahuelito!

Buenas noches. Here in Bariloche, the rain has turned to snow. And if it's snowing here, it's certainly snowing on the mountain peaks, which has muchas personas very excited about skiing and snowboarding prospects tomorrow.

I've decided that, as exciting as Buenos Aires was, Bariloche is a fantastic place in its own right, if only because I have found ample opportunity to communicate in Castellano, and the practice has significantly helped my speaking ability. Just today, while speaking to a museum director about my interest in the legend of Nahuelito, the local lake monster, I didn't even realize until afterward that I was able to express rather concisely but accurately what my fellowship is about in a mere 45 seconds or so, which is more than I can say for my effectiveness in doing the same in English. Go figure.

In any case, the questioning was fruitful. The museum director pointed out a few slips of newspaper and handwritten letter that were tucked away in the corner of a large room of exhibits, resting around shin level so you had to squat to read them. Speaking of shins, my right fibia has finally recovered from the bruise I received a week ago. Probably the worst bruise I've had in my life, including my soccer career. I suppose I forgot to mention that before... Anyway, what was there in that forlorn corner of the museum? Well, I can finally announce that I have some new lake monster information for you!

But first, a bit of context. As always, a bit of context always helps, and I had just learned that, following in the wake of similar openings of National Parks in Australia and the United States (Yellowstone, Ayers Rock, etc.) a Senor Moreno had requested that a Parque Nacional Nahuel Luapi be created around the Bariloche region. The government assented, and around the turn of the century, Argentina had its first National Park. In fact, the museum I was romping around was created by the same Senor Moreno.

In any case, the new National Park caught the attention of one Martin Sheffield, an American who traveled to the new park in the 1920's and would then write a letter to the Buenos Aires director of zoology about a mysteriious undiscovered plesiosaur-like creature. The impressed director helped obtain government funding for a search expedition.

Much of this I had already read about from various websites before the start of the Watson year. However, the museum's analysis went a bit farther to suggest that Mr. Sheffield's letter was nothing more than an extravagant excuse for him to explore the hillside for gold (in as much as Sheffield's occupation, that much is true; Sheffield was a gold prospector). This is an interesting new lead for me, because from as much as I've read, Sheffield's ruse, if that's what it was, was an essential ingredient to the globalizing of lake monster legends - Scotland's Loch Ness would become a global tourist phenomenon just ten years later.

I was fortunate enough to enter the museum around closing time. The kind museum folk said I could return with my ticket tomorrow to explore some more, and I'm glad to have the night to mull some of this over. More information on this should be pending...

For part two of this entry, I grant you:

The Cleverest, Most-Effective, Gosh-Darned Fun Way to Have a Spanish Lesson Employing a Real-World Situation

How? Lose something, of course. That's right. I thought to myself "what better way to force myself to lean Spanish than to leave an expensive item of my inventory on the bus and then try and track it down." I think it's an absolutely brilliant idea actually. If you want an especially picante lesson, try leaving something behind for which you don't know the word of. Yep, this was my mission upon arriving in Bariloche.

Two hours after I'd arrived and was walking around downtown looking for my hostel, I decided that I should return to the bus terminal and ask if they had my .. thing... (please understand this history is 100% true and without any revision... yes... entonces...) ... I took a bus back to the terminal and explained to a man who sold tickets for the bus I had taken that I had forgotten this thing.. you know, about yea big and black and used for sleeping. I thought this might be enough to get the point across. Sure enough, the man excitedly said that he knew what I had forgotten, and that it was called a camilla. I was content to have a new word in my vocabulary, and asked if he could call ahead to the bus's final destination, to see if it would still be there, and if so, if they could bring it back to Bariloche when the bus came back. He said it wouldn't be a problem, so long as it was still in the overhead bin when the bus completed its itinerary in Ezquel. He said to come back tomorrow when the bus was scheduled to return to Bariloche.

I would then return to my hostel and learn that a camilla, in Spanish, is actually a stretcher, of the kind they use to carry trauma victims around in from ambulance to hospital. How morbidly prescient of me to think of carrying such a thing on a bus. But of course, I did not nor have I ever owned such a thing. The real word I should have said was: bolsa de dormir - a sleeping bag.

That said, I returned to the terminal not really expecting any good news. I asked the same man again if he had my "thing" and he exclaimed, "Esta!" ... that it was there but that I had to return tomorrow for it. Sure enough, I came back the next day and my faithful little bolsa de dormir had been returned. He asked that I sign a note for it, which I gladly did, printing my name, and dating it international style. With that, he handed me the sleeping bag, and I had completed my own personal test in Castellano. It was a splendid lesson that taught me more than a few new words. I recommend it whole-heartedly.

With that, I must leave you. It is time to learn how to cook again. I've purchased a pack of hot dogs on the mere principal that, not only were they the cheapest salchachillas in the grocery, but they were also happily packaged under the brand name: Barfy. I guess they make hamburger patties too. In addition, an English chap mentioned that he bought some spices branded Poo, and that there was a local children's toy store named Senor Cock. I promise you, we're not making any of this up.

Chau.