March 16, 2010
Capilla del Monte
Yesterday we visited San Marcos Sierras and Ongamira, both places in the north of Cordoba about 20 kilometers north, more or less of Capilla del Monte. Capilla del Monte means Chapel on the mountain and true to its name we saw the little chapel on our way out of town. It was very charming and reminded me of another place my friend Janice once showed me in Colorado. We took a short cut over the mountain on a dirt road rather than drive the main highway, which was a stunningly beautiful ride. The landscape is different here, somehow exotic in an indigenous kind of way. It reminded me a little of the arid landscape of New Mexico. The plants are often covered with spiky thorns and quite foreboding. Actually I had an encounter with one a few days ago when we stopped our drive to have a short break and I accidentally backed into a spike which pierced through my skirt and poked me in the butt, drawing blood. But I question this thick scrubby thorny desert-like growth as being almost the perfect kind of location a group of beings would choose to keep the idle stroller away from a place they wanted to remain hidden from view. The mountains here are much higher than the ones in Alto Paraiso though I haven’t got the figures on the altitude; I suspect it might be higher. They are without a doubt more spectacular. Cordoba is a magically beautiful place and it’s easy to see why people of great wealth and fame chose this place to build their vacation homes and take their vacations. Actually speaking of fame, we’ve been frequenting a coffee shop with wi-fi called Café Kafka and we keep seeing this man there who is the spitting image of Franz Kafka. He sits at a table under photos of Kafka and the resemblance is striking. Perhaps he is a relative, because if I’m not mistaken I think Franz Kafka has passed on?
Arriving at the foot of the mountain after crossing to the other side we entered the charming little village of San Marcos Sierra. It reminded me of Woodstock, New York in the very early days there before the growth and change came. There was a large square in the center of the village, which are called Pracas here in South America and are basically small parks for public gatherings. This one had a great playground for children. All the streets around the square had shops with great organic health foods, locally grown products of olive oil and tapenade, hand woven clothing and handbags and things of this nature. The village had a wonderful laid back feel to it, but something had Paul feeling like he didn’t feel like staying too long and he had no interest in spending time by the river another 12 kilometers outside of town which was the activity Uta was hoping for, so we continued on our way to the other side to find Ongamira, the same distance away in the other direction.
We’d been seeing signs all over Capilla del Monte with the name Ongamira and I questioned what this was before finding out it was the name of a place and the very place where Trigueirinos community is located. Our friend Mo told Uta a little about it and that it was very beautiful. Indeed it was. Winding through the mountains to reach this place was scenery more spectacular that I’ve seen anywhere. Strangely reminiscent of the rock formations of Utah, the surrounding scrub-like vegetation a little like New Mexico, the mountains like the Rockies and green rolling hills with stone walls like England’s lay lines, with a flavor uniquely exotic like Newfoundland, it was a different kind of place. In the actual village of Ongamira, if you could call it that because other than a few closed hotels and a place where you can visit caverns, there doesn’t exist an actual village, huge and unusual rock formations suddenly pop into view. It feels like another planet there. It feels like a place where an other-worldly population of beings would enter a portal to an underground world. In fact I kept seeing from different directions as we would circle through the mountains this one particular very high conical mountain that I was sure was a portal! Go ahead, call me crazy. I’m not holding anything back, but telling you these strange opinions I am having.
Well this is just a flavor of our experience. I wanted to jot down a few quick things this morning before we pack up and head out. Today we will leave to travel to San Luis, another province on the way to our final(??) destination of Patagonia. We all agree that we love this place and may indeed return to settle down here. The biggest reservation we all have is the problem with water and then there is a feeling that none of us can identify which has us question that this is the perfect place. Of course we know that the concept of perfect place doesn’t actually exist, but we are aiming close. Until next time……
March 17, 2010
San Luis, Argentina
San Francisco de Monte de Ouro to Carolina to El Trapiche….
What a bizarre day. Woke up this morning in the bedroom of Uta’s friends where we had arrived the afternoon before. I could hear the sound of the river next to the house through the open window above the bed. Along the wall were two professional sewing machines and an assortment of various building tools, including an electric lawn mower and a chain saw which filled the room. It was still dark outside even though it was close to eight am, as the sky was filled with rain clouds and still raining off and on as it had through the night. We heard Uta’s friend return to the house from his land down the road where a tent is set up in the middle of his garden where he is constructing a house. He, his mother, Uta and the baby spent the night in the tent so that Paul and I could sleep in the bed. Nick was in the kitchen preparing coffee, his workday put on hold because of the rain. This place we had arrived in was at the foot of the mountain in the province of San Luis along a river deep in a grove of mature walnut trees. The porch was filled with seedlings and plants, Bonsai trees and exotic medicinal and ornamental cacti and other edible fruits and vegetables. Before arriving at the house we toured the building site and the horta which is already filled with mature vegetables and fruits in abundance.
After a morning of visiting we headed up and over the mountain to pass by two places which we were told were very beautiful on our way to Patagonia. We changed our plans to visit Mendoza and instead head more directly south west. As we left the outskirts of San Francisco de Monte del Ouro and approached the mountain the skies were dark with rain clouds and mist which turned into heavy fog as we ascended what became a steeply winding road up the mountain. We spiraled up into the clouds for over 20 kilometers, climbing extremely high in altitude around the edge of the mountain. It was fortunate for me that that I could not see over the edge of the road because the clouds and fog were so thick, we could see only several feet in front of the car and to the guardrail (if you could call a one foot high stone curb a guard rail) on the side but not beyond to the precipice. I was just a little on edge because with several approaches you could not see beyond to where the horizon disappeared over the hood of the car. We climbed the mountain for a very long time with our little engine straining to go beyond 2nd gear literally into the clouds and well above the tree line. We knew that Carolina was at the top of the mountain and was 30 kilometers from where we began so after climbing for 15 kilometers straight up, I began to question the advice to travel this well made newly asphalted road which spiraled the mountain so far into the heavens. Stairway to Heaven kept popping into my head. Not long ago, we’d been told this road had been dirt but was recently paved for a road rally. Likely story! Why, in this province filled so far with poor villages of indigenous people was free wi-fi offered in every town square? Why did it have such perfect roads? The governor, we were told had put free wi-fi in every village and town and bought a laptop for every child in the province. Why?
When at last we arrived at the top of the mountain, we were shocked to find it open out into incredible open rolling vistas strewn with unusual rock formations and green fields dotted with beautiful horses grazing. Occasionally we saw small herds of goats including some Nubians like Tallulah and Delilah. We stopped the car to walk around and experience this fantastic place and the clouds parted and the sun came out and the vista emerged from the heavy fog we’d been in the entire time we climbed the mountain. We kept saying Wow at every turn as now that we had found the top and the sun was shining we were surrounded by a landscape more fantastic than we had yet seen. But still we had not arrived in Carolina. We continued the drive through this magical land at the top of this strange mountain until we arrived in the most bizarre town. It was perfect like Trumanville. Everything was built of stone. Flowers bloomed everywhere. The streets were paved in stone, the yards were manicured, the street lamps and electric lines were all of the latest technology. Why, would there exist a town like this in the middle of miles and miles of nothing but a long winding road to the top of a mountain which I would venture to guess is always encased in fog until you reach the top? When we reached the top of the village we stopped across from a town square where there was an old church with a placard in front proclaiming that when the 1st Jesuits arrived in 1730 they found this chapel already existing in this spot. The Jesuits, we know, were the most corruptive part of the Illuminati who appear to control the Vatican now-a-days. Whenever I see anything to do with Jesuits a red flag appears in my mind. Putting a chapel here on the highest point on the mountain to claim the spot for the Illuminati would be simply par for the course as I understand the Illuminati. The chapel was quite intriguing but what really caught my eye was the very high peak just behind the chapel on the hill with an assortment of super high tech towers like I’ve never seen before! Cell towers and satellites and strange panels of several types, kept me wondering, for what? Why here? It was Illuminati at its finest. You could feel it all over the place and it felt really creepy.
Another strange sight was a large reservoir of water not long after we’d seen a huge dam. I knew the rivers were not drying up for lack of rain! The Illuminati is privatizing all the water. They’re damming up the rivers to control the water. Just this morning Nick was telling us about the spraying of certain chemicals that disperse the rain to other locations outside of areas which remain dry without rains. We told him what we knew of HAARP, the government’s experimental weather control project and tonight I revisited their website which I had discovered and saved to my favorites to explore at another time. Reading it, I noticed a disclosure which I opened to reveal that by visiting this government site I was allowing authorization to have my computer activity monitored by the government. It freaked me out and I immediately left the site and removed it from my favorites. But I’m afraid it might be too late and maybe it’s the reason that whenever I turn on my computer lately it resets itself and removes icons and generally does a lot of things I’m not asking it to do.
Too many really fishy things today! We stopped to eat lunch while we were in Carolina and again felt this strange atmosphere of something that wasn’t quite right. There was an interesting decoration on the wall over the door to the kitchen. It was a picture of Jesus strategically placed right above a neon (but unlit) coca-cola sign! Maybe you miss the irony of it but I certainly didn’t. You don’t get much more Illuminati than Coca-cola. It’s everywhere you go, all over the world. You can’t get pure drinking water anymore but wherever you are in the world, no matter how poor you are, there’s always a coke product! And little else that isn’t a product of coke, even if it’s disguised as a health drink like a natural fruit juice. There was a puma skin stretched on the wall as well, missing the actual puma – but creepy as hell. Leaving the restaurant after lunch we were treated to the sight of another very beautiful horse who stood grazing in a stone walled pasture across the road, a backdrop of ancient stones dotting the hill behind him. Not sure that my description is adequate to portray the creepiness of this perfectly beautiful place. It was palpable in the air and both Uta and Paul felt it as strongly as I did.
As lovely as this place was and as fun as it had been to consider the life we could have in such a magical place (before we discovered its ties to the Illuminati or at least our strong suspicions) we were happy to leave it behind and head for the next town where we hoped to find a place to stay for the night. It too, we’d been told was a beautiful place we’d enjoy seeing. 45 kilometers further on through the mountain we arrived in another extremely unusual place. Even more like Trumanville than Carolina. Perfectly manicured lawns, very expensive homes, everything prettier than it should be, but no real town center. A river running through the town, dotted with parks and artisan’s street fairs and cabanas to stay in which at first glance look really cool but close up are cardboard cutout, plastic imitations of the real thing. The artisan’s fair, for example was filled with cheap Chinese imports, manned by poor indigenous people who bought the supposedly handcrafted items off the back of a truck.
We found an A-frame chalet to stay in after several turns around the town and then took a stroll along the river. It didn’t feel right in a way that’s hard to explain, but every one of us felt creeped out and wishing to get out of there as fast as possible. Not acting upon it until the next morning, we came back to this odd design of a house to prepare dinner and rest up for the night. A-frames may look sort of cool from the outside, but inside they’re a disaster. The lid to the toilet which is up against one wall doesn’t stay up when you sit down, because the wall it needs to rest against tilts forward. It makes taking a pee extremely challenging. You need one hand to hold up the lid! But bathrooms are a topic unto themselves when doing worldwide travel, a subject best left to another day with nothing special to report.
Friday March 19, 2010
Malargue
What a disaster of a day. Only an hour out from our starting destination which had been quite lovely, we were stopped by road patrol who detained us for 5 hours to search all the contents of our car. I won’t go into the details in this letter but suffice it to say that we were not pleased at having spent the day waiting for this process to take place. We drove on to the next town, found a place to stay for the night and re-thought the remainder of our travel plans. Deciding in the end that too many problems had been occurring, the travel had long ago ceased to be fun and that our fantasy of living in Argentina was not fulfilling itself in reality. That evening while in conversation with the woman who owned the cabana we were staying in, she reported that her driveway had undulated with the last two earthquakes which had taken place only 100 kilometers away across the mountains in Chili. She went on to say that there were 180 volcanoes between there and not much further south along the route we’d intended to travel. Feeling more or less like the way was trying to deliver a message to us, as David Icke would say when stuck, chuck, we made the decision not to continue on to our intended destination in Patagonia, but instead return to Alto Paraiso. It was a difficult decision to make but we have been much happier since making it and things are flowing with ease today as we retrace our voyage back.
We are headed now to spend a week or so visiting Capilla de Monte again while we put Uta and Olivia on a bus to spend more time with their family which was cut short to accompany us in our travels. I hate to admit that traveling without Uta by car here in Argentina would be almost impossible without her language skills. People basically stare blankly at us when we try to communicate in our Portengol (combo of Portuguese and Spanish).
Our impression of Argentina has changed dramatically during our time here from infatuation to dismay. The presence of the military is overbearing. The lack of available food for us traveling as vegetarians is daunting and the unavailability of pure drinking water is frightening. Coupled with the fact that we don’t speak or understand Spanish, this country is simply not for us. The mountains are incredibly beautiful, but the Illuminati are forcibly present in all the most beautiful places. The cost of living is incredibly low and that certainly is a positive draw. The presence of horses is a delight and the four season weather is compelling, but the country in our personal opinion has been ruined by the oppressive presence of the police as you travel the roads from place to place much too frequently. Perhaps one might find a lovely little place and stay and then not have to be confronted by them so routinely, but they have more or less chased us away.
March 20, 2010
I am considering wrapping up this public reporting of our travels to continue only a private journal as we approach what we fear to be world war three in the near future, perhaps only four months away. For anyone who wishes to receive an email attachment from me as I continue to record our experiences, please contact me directly. Seeing so much of South America first hand, especially with our friend who remembers what it was like before for comparison, we can feel a palpable difference in the changes that are taking place as more and more personal freedoms are disappearing and more control is put in place. It is alarming and saddens us a great deal. We are more than ready for the shift in consciousness to take place. Watching it happen is akin to a nightmare.
March 23, 2010
Greetings my friends and loved ones…. I’m writing again from Capilla de Monte, sitting under the very mountain where our friend reported seeing the unusual lights on many occasions. We’ll be here for some time while we wait for Uta to visit her family. I am still undecided about whether to continue posting reports from our experience. I shall give it further consideration before I make the decision. Any feedback from you who are reading this would be helpful.