Austin360 blogs > Globe-Jotting > Archives > 2009 > May > 30 > Entry
Making vacation plans, glacially
Five months from today I will be in Rio de Janeiro — doing what, I don’t know. I like beaches for a day or two, so I’m hoping it’s not too beachy. I plan good food, museums, pubs and magnificently unwise strolls through the favelas, or slum-shanty towns, and otherwise full cultural immersion. I will not play volleyball.
My lineage is 75-percent Portuguese — presumably my surname migrated from Spain — but pathetically I know only one word in the language and it wouldn’t go over jubilantly in mixed company. I will learn a few more words, good ones, before I go. I have five months.
I don’t know what to expect in Brazil. I also hope it’s not too Mardi Gras-y, even though, of course, I’m not going during that festivity. Masks and thongs: also not my thing. I was in India during Diwali, the Festival of Lights, and it was brilliant and strange. Two worlds, two kinds of partying.
I’m more interested in the second leg of my two- or three-week trip: Argentina. I hear Buenos Aires bears many shades of Europe, that it’s the most European place in South America. That’s attractive. Museums, beer and beef. I will write a lot. I will relax, a little. I want to see the glaciers in Patagonia.
I saw glaciers in Alaska 33 years ago and still remember their crunchy, marbled blue, fat frosty jewels, cracking, popping.
Between the two countries, Brazil and Argentina, flows a grand waterfall, the name of which eludes me right now. But it’s humongous and quite a misty sight. A friend just came back from the falls. He was a changed man.
Change is better than you think.
This nest of brushed-nickel bars, rubber discs and tangled cords is my musical instrument of choice — a drum rack. This is my actual set, where I play almost nightly wearing headphones so neighbors can’t hear a thing, while I hear thunder blasting open the earth’s crust. It’s my favorite sound.
This is the electronic kit I’ve mentioned before, the not-cheap rig that replaces my great little acoustic set. Lofts are trouble when it comes to making rackets worthy of Olympus. I miss the old set, but some day I will return to a splendid spread of tom-toms, sparkling cymbals and a snare drum that could unleash a mountain of tumbling glaciers with one solid whack.
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