El grupo paria

If I remember correctly, it was Lucas that I met first. He was lying in the top bunk when I came back from god only knows where, and as I entered the room, he sat up.

“Sorry to wake you,” I whispered as I sat down on my bed to organize my belongings.

“Nah, I was already awake.” He replied sitting up on one elbow, “Che, where are you from and why do you speak Spanish so well?”

I, of course, assumed he wanted what my mother told all men want, but I was in the mood to talk (when am I not?), so I laughed and asked him which version of the story he wanted, the abridged or unabridged one. He said he had time on his hands, so I told him the whole thing. I guess he didn´t really know what he was gettinghimself into when he first told me to go ahead and tell him the long version, but when I finished my life´s story, he nodded, climbed down off the bunk, told me he hoped to see me later and went into the bathroom to shower.

Later on that night, as I checked out my prospects for travel partners or potential friends for the week, I noticed there were two groups: the Israelis and the group from Buenos (Porteños). I saw Lucas among them, and thought about going over to sit with him and his Porteño friends. But they were all in the middle of making asado, which consists of grilling large quantities of meat, so you can imagine my hesitation. Plus, there was that voice in my head nagging me about Lucas´s intentions and anyway, I had to get up early the next day to go on the Tronador trip. So I called it an early night and hit the hay. That’s not to say that I was able to fall asleep when I went downstairs at midnight since the Porteños were just beginning to grill and it would be hours before dinner was actually ready. It had to have been 5 in the morning when they finally called it quits. So, when I got up the next day at 7:30 in the morning, sure, I tried to be quiet, but not that quiet. After all, what comes around goes around, right?

The next night as I waited for 11:30 to roll around, the obvious hour to get together with people for drinks, I saw Lucas and company once again. They had just come in from the balcony with pizzas and I stood by the doorway unsure about whether or not I should join them. After all, they were obviously life long friends and why would they want some silly Yankee at their table, just because she spoke Spanish.

Who exactly it was among them that told me to sit down and eat some pizza, I am not sure, but one of them finally spoke to me. I think they took pity on my pathetic expression, but whatever the reason, I wasn´t about to say no. Not even because I had eaten already. Of course, I told them that, but that didn’t matter in the least.

Seconds later, I had a slice of pizza and coca-cola and fernet, a liquorice flavored liquor very popular among Argentineans, and of course the group was dying to know where I was from and why I spoke Spanish so well.

Lucas held up his hand to me as if to say, “Let me do the talking.” And promptly launched into an abridged story of my life, Argentinean style. Once the collective laughter had died down, I figured it was my turn to question them, so I inquired about how they had all decided to come to Bariloche for their vacation.

“Somos parias,” explained Ricky, the others nodding their agreement.

“¿Parias?” I inquired, wracking the dictionary in my brain and coming up blank. This was a new word for me.

“Parias. Parias are people that don´t quite fit in. Actually, we all met yesterday here in the hostal. All of us ended up here in Bariloche alone and mostly unexpectedly, and found this group of misfits to spend some time with.”

“Yesterday?” I was incredulous. Just last night had been the night I watched them cooking up an asado as I headed for bed, as if they had been friends their whole lives.

“That’s how parias are,” Mariana explained, “Why don’t you join us tonight out for a beer? See if you might be a paria too.”

But, I couldn’t meet them out. I already had plans, so I wrote down my number and email in case we didn’t see each other and went out to find my new friends from the Tronador excursion earlier that day.

About mid way through the night, around 2 in the morning, I saw them saunter into Wilkenneys, a definite motley crew. There was Ricky, the business man in Bariloche because his work truck had broken down and stranded him there; Santi, the hippie, a chef who´s trip to Bariloche had been purchased last minute by a friend of his so he could go on vacation. Mariana, the teacher in the group on summer vacation, had come with a couple of colleagues that apparently didn´t see eye to eye. Ruben was the young, shy one in the group, in Bariloche a week earlier than his his friends with the look of a lost puppy. And then there was of course, Lucas, the one sure to pull a practical joke on you at some point in the evening, who had searched high and low in vain for someone to vacation with, but when no one was free, decided, "what the heck, I´m going anyway." They stopped by my table to say hello, but then went off to find a spot for themselves.

Later, on my way to the bathroom, there they were standing in a group cracking each other up. I never returned to my table.

Several Guinness and many hours later as we stood on the balcony of the Hostal Backpacker Nomad watching the sun come up over the lake, I thought to myself, “Here they are. I’ve found my travel group for the week . . . el grupo paria.”

I have to say that the rest of the week was a bit of a blur. After each late night, someone would usually remark, “Mañana arrancamos temprano.”

But perhaps, going out to dinner at midnight or Santi cooking fajitas at one in the morning prevented us from really getting up early to get to know the city of Bariloche and all it had to offer.

Yet, despite our late starts, we did manage to have a few daytime adventures as well. I believe the one most representative of them would have to be our trip to Campenario, one of the local mountains with some of the “best” views of Bariloche.

Of course, by the time we actually got to the mountain, it was already 6 p.m. and the cable car transporting people up to the top ran only to 6:30 so we had no other choice but to walk up. That was fine by me, since my preferred method of travel is usually the one involving a walk or a hike, but I had forgotten my hiking shoes and was in my flip flops. Come to think of it, so were Lucas and Santi. Ricky was the only one that had wear appropriate shoes. But since the park ranger told us it was only a 30 minute walk, we figured we could do it in flip flops and off we went to find the trail.

Lucas led us up the dusty, steep trail along side the cable car, and immediately I knew something was wrong. I tried to convince them as we slipped and slid and fell in the dust on the side of the mountain that there was no way that this was the trail, but to no avail. By then, Lucas had broken one of his flip flops and Santi and I were laughing so hard, we could barely pull ourselves any higher on the trail. We had been “hiking” a little over ten minutes and less than 50 meters when we heard from down below, “¡Chicos, esto NO es el sendero!”

Of course it wasn’t the trail. . . how could it have been a trail that takes only 30 minutes to reach the top, recommended for families and whoever decides not to take the cable car as a leisurly hike.

We nearly died laughing then, the other visitors and rangers down below, looking up at us in our complete stupidity, shaking their heads. But now that we knew that this wasn´t the trail, we had another, bigger, problem; how to get down. Santi immediately began to slide down the mountain, followed close behind by Richard, luckily stopping themselves on a tree in the middle of the “path.” Lucas, following their example, flip flops in hand, flew by me and nearly right by Santi and Ricky as well, at a velocity that could not have felt good on his poor bare feet. Luckily for him, Santi was quick with a hand out to stop him from breaking his neck.

I was another story. I was not about to break my leg, my face or even my flip flops getting down the mountain and despite Santi´s insistence that he could catch me as I ran down, I sat down on my butt and did the old "slip on down," kicking up clouds of dust as I slid.

So there we were, 30 minutes later, covered in dust, a broken flip flop and no closer to the top . . . complete parias.

After a few more false starts and three or four breaks to fix Lucas’s flip flops, take some silly picures and enjoy the scenery, we did finally make it to the vista point and it was well worth the effort as we stood up on the tower at the top of the mountain, looking out over dozens of lakes, islands and mountains that dotted the horizon.

We set the timer on Santi´s camera to capture the moment and as the camera went click, a desire to punch the air matrix style kicked in, and so in the spirit of the strangeness of the day, I did. And wouldn’t you know it, when we looked at the photo, there was Santi jumping high into the air, Ricky, in a karate pose and Lucas looking like Jackie Chan, definite paria style.