The Post I Couldn't Write

I have been avoiding writing this post. I don’t have a funny story. I don’t have any clever dialog. I can’t bubble over with exuberance or culture shock. I don’t want to write this post because I don’t know how.  How can I convey a sense of complete peace?

I spent five nights in Puerto Deseado, a small fishing town on the coast in Patagonia. The town feels industrial with rugged men in boots, hats, and rain slickers. Giant metal ships come to port. The houses are unattractive and sturdy. The entire place feels practical. Puerto Deseado’s only real item of note is that Charles Darwin was fascinated with the place when the Beagle traveled through Argentina. Puerto Deseado is at the mouth of submerged estuary – a river that once ran to the sea but has become overrun by the sea so that now all of the water within its cliffs is salt and rises and falls with the tides. The river seems wide, blue and windy at high tide, but at low tide rock islands appear covered in shocking green allege and tiny white barnacles. Birds hunt in the pools left behind and sea lions bark from a raised rock in the middle of the river/sea. One entire island is overrun with penguins.

In the mornings, I drive my car into the preserve along rocky “roads” that are so rough that at one point I can go no further simply because my car is not strong enough to climb a hill. I park anywhere along the road, walk down to the coast, and the follow the exposed cliff, climbing from rock to rock. Textures are everywhere. Even the sounds of the waves and the ship horns seem to have ridges, points, and fingerprints. I take unrecognizable photos. By eleven, I am back at the only nice hotel, sitting in the café area surrounded by rough-looking lunching businessmen, all clearly involved in some industrial trade. They are smoking and I am working. Horrible translations of American bad music plays over the speakers. I hear the Spanish version of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” at least a dozen times.  I work for the most of the day and catch the last light along the river. I repeat this for five days.  I could imagine staying here for weeks in this way. My mornings smell like salt. The evenings feel like the first day of fall.  I have a desire to buy new spiral notebooks and school pencils. There is no good reason for me to be this happy, but I am happy anyway.