Ostinatto

I don't like to sit in one place for too long. I think it's a step towards complacency and homesickness. I am going to be away for as long as I can handle and I need to be vigilant for things that effect my ability to do so. Even writing this blog makes me somewhat melancholic and I don't like that.

So for this reason I like to move hostels every week or so, even if I plan on staying in the same city. Meeting people and forming crews is nice, it sucks to see them all go on and still be stuck in the same place, waiting for someone else to make friends with. Seems too much like allowing others to direct your state of mind and I don't like that. So it was convenient that most of the Back in BA 'crew' left at roughly the same time, including me.



I decided I would head back towards the city, but not too close. So I decided on San Telmo, a busy part of BA but not as hectic as the microcentro. San Telmo has a lot of European influence in its architecture. Defensa is a cobblestone street that has gigantic markets every Sunday, rimmed by terracotta tiled rooftops and delicate redbrick walls. The ones where the grout has all fallen out but somehow the bricks are still holding up an entire building.

The Defensa markets, San Telmo

Alise, from Back in Ba, had recommended that I go to Ostinatto, right near the corner of Chile and Chacabuco. So I headed there, sin reserva, como siempre.

The girl at the front desk was the most adorable thing I have ever seen. Most porteños are wankers. Generic big city folk who think everyone but them is stupid. This girl was polite and cheery and had a voice that could melt helium. It was like talking directly to one of those gifs of kittens and puppies doing cute things with their paws. I managed to do the full check in without speaking any english, of which I was proud but looking back she was just being accommodating.

As soon as I walked into my room I could smell the musky waft of homegrown tobacco and homegrown homegrown. 'Nice' I thought to myself. Taking a peek out to the little balcony, from where I assumed the smell was issuing, I was greeted by an ancient old frenchman. Tiny and hunched, with white hair and wrinkles on the wrinkles on his wrinkles, he was bent over a very well rolled spliff.

"Como anda?" He grinned at me, as friendly as he was toothless. I could hardly talk Spanish and neither could he, but I can't speak French and he couldn't speak English, and as such our exchanges were somewhat restricted and broken, but an extended hand holding a joint is the international symbol of peace so we got along famously.

Ostinatto had a bar downstairs, which I would come to frequent. The guy behind the bar was Sebastian, an energetic, open and ultra-friendly hombre with long shaggy beach hair and a solid grasp on his place in the universe, whether he considered this consciously or not.

Ostinatto was a factory for stories and my memory is fresher here so I am going to start recounting events and concepts more individually in their own posts. Incoming, make room.