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08/31/2007: "Goodbye Argentina"
After my four days were over I asked the hotel to call me a cab back to Col. Mouldes so I could catch the bus to Salta. I stood out front of the hotel taking in the last of the clear mountain air and the view of the lake and the pass at the dammed up end. An old beat up mini-van pulled up to the hotel and the driver got out and walked passed me into the lobby only to turn around and come right back out. It was my cab. I was a little dubious as the car looked like it had rolled down the mountain a couple of times. But the hotel had called him so I figured he was legit. I got in and he pulled away from the hotel drive and back towards the end of the peninsula and soon we were on the bridge with all the fishermen. I noticed what looked like a large turkey vulture floating just 25-30 feet above the heads of the fisher men. “que es la avion?” I asked using the word for airplane mistakenly pointing to the bird just in front of us. “El condor.” he said matter of factly. I leaned forward to get a better look and then I could see the ring of fluff around its neck and realized how big it really was. “Su pais es hermoso senor.“ I said. He careened around the switchbacks down the mountain side passing the campgrounds where I was first dumped out into this beautiful place and a couple kilometers later we were in Coronel Mouldes Centro.
A few hours in la Ciudad de Salta
I went back to Dona Lado's for coffee, cigarettes and bottled water. The young man behind the counter was the same I'd paid a few days before. This time he remembered me and asked "de donde?" More or less "Where from?" I told him I was from the States. He got a little excited and in stuttering English said he'd lived in Washington DC for a few years. We talked for a little while. I asked how he liked the states and he asked me in somewhat better English how I liked the north of Argentina? Then I asked him where and when did I catch the bus to Salta. I didn't want to catch the bus to Cafayette by accident instead. He began to talk about it...where did it stop, I'd just missed one and he wasn't exactly sure when the next one came. Then his wife came out an joined the conversation. She was sure it would be there in an hour as had said the info center lady. About the time she says this the bus turns the corner and comes to a halt just across the street. Run she seemed to be saying. "Es tu autobus a Salta!" I wish I'd made more of an effort to talk to them both three days before.I wish I’d thought to trade email with them. I wish I’d given them a card from the show with my web address on it. I didn’t even get to finish my coffee. They had me up and sprinting across the street as soon as the bus rounded the main intersection. And they both waited out front of their café until I was successfully seated on the bus.
The city of Salta was nice. I only had a few hours to spend. I’d given up the idea while at Del Dique on Cabra Corral of trying to do the Tren a las Nubes. I hadn’t made reservations and it left the station at 7:30 in the morning and didn’t return until 10 p.m..So I walked around looking at stuff. I did a watercolor of the Cabildo in the main plaza with its typical Spanish arcade and the orange trees out in front. I took photos of the famous churches and some public art and some murals. The contemporary art museum was closed. The Centro Cultural was closed but had an interesting mosaic mural on its façade made of tiles and broken glass and small sculpted faces. I thought my son would enjoy seeing it since he and his wife were working on a mosaic for a local church back in Columbus. I took a number of shots including some interesting details.
Crist had given me the name of a friend, a poet, he thought I might like to meet. I had the phone number and even tried to call once from the hotel but was somewhat glad that no one answered because I was told the Louis Victor Outes did not speak English at all. In Salta I found the scrap of paper on which Crist had written the address. So when I found myself on that side of town I figured the least I could do was try to find him. I found Bld Cordoba and the general block but couldn’t find the number. Later Crist said maybe he’d been given the apartment number rather than the address of the building it was in.
A dust storm blew in about 5:30 as the sun began to set. It got a bit chilly and the wind whipped the dust into your eyes and nose and I could taste the grit in my teeth. I went looking for someplace to eat.
But I guess it was that time of day when a lot of places closed down. This was something I never quite got the hang of. Seems I always wanted to eat when everybody else was taking a break. It would all open up again around 10 pm when the night life starts to crank up in many South American cities. But I would be boarding a bus to Cordoba about that time. So I eventually went back and had a sandwich and a couple of beers at the bus station. Once I got on the bus I fell asleep pretty quickly waking up several times to take a leak because of the beer. When I awoke about the 4th time it was light and we were nearing Cordoba. My time in the mountains was over and I had only about a week left in Argentina.
My last week in Cordoba
art school
El Senor a la cafe
Back in Cordoba I had a few things to resolve. I had a meeting at the Ciudad des las Artes to talk to Ana Louisa Bondone about international exchanges and an idea I had to bring students to Cordoba every summer or every other summer to paint. Both ideas seemed not only feasible but desired. After a lovely tour of the new campus with a number of students and faculty from another univsity from Missiones north of Buenos Aires Ana Louisa and I finally had some time to speak about the prospects of an exchange. She wanted me to see their new dormitories which were very contemporary three level apartments for two students at a time with a studio below, sleeping area on the second floor and living and eating area on the third as well as nice large outdoor verandas with sliding patio doors. We ended up in her office where we resolved the details as much as we could. The meeting went very well after a tour of their new campus. They had been a relatively small provincial art school before but were now merging with the Universidad de Cordoba along with the school of applied arts, ceramics, music, theater and film. The campus was along the eastern edge of la Parque Sarmiento and was in fact a campus of half dozen modern buildings with lots of open space between and around within the walled enclave. We agreed to exchange academic qualifications before trying to resolve anything else. I of course did not carry all that paperwork. So the school will have to send it in the next couple weeks once I get all parties together via email. That meeting was on the 25th of July. That evening I went to Crist’s. The three of us, Crist, Titi and I then took a cab to Marcelo and Sylvia’s hacienda further out in the burbs for asado and a reunion. We’d seen each other last 3 years ago. We said our goodbyes and I began the trek back down from the hilltop to the hotel through Parque Sarmiento.
My last meal with Crist and Titi
The evening was warm, the sky was clear and the moon was nearly full just as it had been when I first arrived in Cordoba. We were greeted at the door by the open arms of Sylvia whose smile could make the dead happy. She ushered us in and we met their two daughters. The oldest daughter has her mothers winning smile. Marcelo came in from the garage that he has turned into a kind of large family/recreation room with an asado grill vented out the roof. The room was a bit smokey as he’d just started the coals. It already smelled great. Marcelo works in the IT business and his English is excellent. This was to be a night off from the business of speaking Spanish for me. He gave us a tour of the house that ended in the wine cellar. We chose several bottles of malbec from Mendoza, grabbed some wine glasses and climbed up the iron ladder that looked like the cabin ladder in a sailboat. The trap door shut and we went into the dining area and broke open the first bottle of wine. 
Marcelo, me and Crist
It seemed the evening was over before it began and we were climbing back into the taxi under that silver moon again. The food was great! Chorizo, pollo, blood sausages, pork, and the best saved for last was Cabrito. Crist wanted cabrito. Said he hadn’t had it for a while. Cabrito is goat as in Cabra Corral (the Goat Corral where I stayed in the Andes.)
You can see it in the photo below, the whole carcass spread out on the grill with kidneys intact and some chives spread on top. Muy delicioso! After several hours of great conversation and laughing a lot Crist Titi and I left in a cab beneath that beautiful moon now further up into the Zenith. I looked for but couldn’t find the Southern Cross as we scrunched into the small cab.
I met a couple younger guys the next day across the street from the hotel in an internet café working behind the counter. I asked if I could download photos from my cameras and size them for the web and they assured me it could be done on their machines. I downloaded a small number thinking I would do some more later. Wish I’d done more at the time. Most of these photos have been Crist and Titi’s. When I was finished we talked for a little while in English about my hopes of bringing art students to Cordoba to paint in the city and the mountains. I asked if they might be interested in accompanying me and my students, should this plan come to fruition, as a kind of informal interpreter, guide, companion et al…for a fee of course. I explained that they knew the customs, the bars and dance clubs where students hang out and the language far better than I and it would be nice if my students had an introduction to someone from Cordoba who spoke their language to learn some things. And they could participate in the lessons as well if they liked. They both said that might be interesting. So we traded email and I went back to the hotel. I went back up to my room for a little while and worked on several of the watercolors I’d begun in the Andes and earlier in Cordoba. Then I came back down to wait for Maria and Raul. We were going to go to lunch.
They drove up while I was finishing a second coffee and writing in my note book. I jumped in behind Raul who was driving and he asked if I wanted carne. “Si, si, si. When in Cordoba eat what the Cordoban’s eat” I smiled. We drove over to la Canada where the best paradillas are. I’d already sampled several restaurants so Raul picked one I hadn’t eaten in. We went in, sat down and the waiter and Raul began working out the wine choice. Meanwhile I decided to have the Bife de chorizo, my favorite steak of all time. This time I skipped the veggies all together and added a small side salad. Malena asked if I would be interested in talking with the vice director of the School of Art at the Nacional University. Of course! That would be an extra that I hadn’t hoped for. She said she would try to set something up. They had already spoken and it looked like a good possibility. Possibly the morning of my last day in Cordoba. We talked about my stay, some ideas Malena had about a possible exhibition she and the director of the Contemporary Museum in Salta had discussed some time back and then generally about Argentina and its future.
After lunch we went on a small tour of la Clinica, the quarter near the maternity hospital on the south side of Cordoba. During the 70’s after the military coup med students there began an intellectual revolution that created a kind of free zone in the heart of Argentina. Contra the military dictatorship the students carved out this small part of Cordoba and it became a haven for like minded souls. Apparently la Policia and even the military left it alone for the most part. And since students came to study medicine from all over South America the word spread about what was going on in Argentina and in Cordoba specifically. It became, as I understand it, the Argentine Haight Ashbury for a time. 
the suqia river
The next morning I got a call from Louis, one of the two students I‘d met before. He was down stairs in the lobby and wanted to talk with me more. I went down to meet him and we had coffee. He said he’d looked at my work and liked it a lot…not the watercolors which didn’t interest him but the work on my site here at absolutearts.com. Those he said were spiritual. He said he like artists like Alex Grey. Grey spent some time at CCAD around the time I was beginning my studies. I met up with him again at Boston University when I was the gallery preparatory. I helped him hang a rather large piece called “Atomic Crucifixion” in a group show at the Commonwealth gallery on campus. I told Louis that I’d met him a couple times and he was excited. We talked about Grey’s paintings which often portray the human anatomy as if it was a transparent model like that kit may of us had as kids where you could build the body from the inside out to see the circulatory system, the nervous system and the bone and muscular structure. Only Grey drew his figures in various actions, praying, copulating or giving birth for instance and I wanted to make sure we were talking about the same Alex Grey. In fact Louis had a CD for which Grey had allowed use of some images for the cover and inside liner notes. Yes…it was the same Alex Grey. I ran into some of his work in New York at a friends apartment a while back as well. Seem to be running into his work everywhere these days.
Louis also wanted to talk about la Clinica days and the 60’s in the United States. I told him that I was a bit younger than those who really made a difference concerning civil rights and the Viet Nam war. In my case I waited out the draft…my number came up just as the draft was being abolished and the war was halted so I never had to deal with it other than a couple years of worry. I told him that I was very interested in it all, even tried to form a Tulsa chapter of the SDS at my high school with a friend. They sent someone down from Ann Arbor to help us explain and recruit during a rally we’d planned in Lafortune park at the end of my senior year. No one showed up…I doubt that very many of my classmates even knew who the SDS were at that time. There was only a small contingent of freaks at the time. I explained that I lost interest when things began to get violent…after all the whole point was non-violence in my mind. Louis told me a little of what he knew of the days of the dictatorship…he was very young at the time. He told me about some places where I might see some younger more contemporary artists. Then he said he had to get to work, said he would stay in touch and thanked me for the coffee. Good to his word I got an email from him about a week ago.
The events of my last day in Cordoba
I met Malena at the gallery at 11 am on my last day to take down the exhibition. She opened the backs of the frames and took the drawings and paintings from the mounts and I pulled the left over tape from the backs and organized them in two portfolios so they would fit in the bottom of my large rolling olvie colored canvas suitcase. I had pulled everything out onto the gallery floor until we were done putting the art into the folders. Then I carefully repacked everything on top so nothing would be bent or damaged. My appointment at the University was at 1:00 which then gave me about two hours to get to the airport. Malena suggested I leave the large suitcase at a small hotel next door because she had some other business in the afternoon and wouldn‘t be there when I returned. They were friends and said they would watch my bags. Then I made the hike up the hill into Nuevo Cordoba towards Parque Sarmiento. While Cordoba University had its buildings spread out through the city, the Nacional University had a large campus on the south easter edge of the parque just south of the Ciudad des los Artes where I had interviewed a few days prior. So I was familiar with the area. It took me about 45 minutes to walk up the hill, find my way to the campus and then on campus I had to ask for la Pavillon de Mexico. We were standing right across the street from it. It was a small builing built in the Spanish stucco style with tile roof a covered portico. In front was a early modern style (somewhat cubist) reclining nude in stone. There were several carved busts spread out around the building as well. I went across the street to a student center with a café looking for a bathroom to tidy up a bit, as usual I wasn’t really dressed for success. There I tucked in my shirt, gave my hair a dirty look (nothing to be done about it in that heat except fluff up the ring around my dome that my hat left) and went back to the Art Building. Inside I was recognized immediately as a non-student and taken into a room with a bunch of secretaries. .Someone asked if we wanted coffee and left to get it. I had been intercepted by the vice-director and in Spanish she introduced me to the interpreter who began asking me questions about my background so she could properly introduce me.
Then an older gentleman entered and motioned that we were going to another room where we sat around a large desk. The coffee followed almost immediately and we began to make chit chat. The interpreter explained a little about me and then introduced the gentleman as the Director of the School of Arts and Humanities. This I hadn’t expected. Through the interpreter I explained that I was flattered that he would take the time to speak with me. He explained that he had my show invitation and had read that I had exhibited in Argentina before. He asked who was the Secretary of the Ministry of Culture de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires when I exhibited at the Centro Cultural Recoleta. I explained that I had been invited by Maria Theresa Anchorena but there had been an election in the mean time and the most recent Mayor of Buenas Aires was Secretary of Culture when I actually exhibited. I couldn’t remember his name. At the mention of Maria Theresa Anchorena he was obviously impressed. Her family is very important in Argentina. They are equivilant to the Rockafellers in the U.S.. Old money I guess. But that got the ball rolling and soon we were deep into discussions about our respective curriculae, currents and trends in the arts and the kinds of problems that would have to be resolved to do an exchange. I neede the intermpreter less and less because the academic terminology was more familiar terraine.
It wasn’t until I was nearly ready to leave that he asked about my other idea…bringing students from my school to do watercolors in Cordoba and the surrounding hills…”How can we help you with this?” he asked. I was surprised because I’d already discussed possibilities with Ana Louisa Bondone at the Jose Figuoroa School of Fine Art with the Cordoba University and didn’t think that the Nacional University would be interested. I explained that housing 10 to 15 students would be among the most difficult problems to solve. He said maybe they could help, if not by housing in their dorms then with help to find inexpensive hotels or hostels in the city. “Algo mas?” he asked. I explained that I had hoped to gain access to the printmaking labs at Jose Figuaroa but if that wasn’t possible maybe they could help. He then suggested that maybe while I was in Cordoba I could do a workshop for the students of the Nacional University and possibly one of their faculty could do the same for our students. “Perfecto!” I blurted out not even realizing how much of this conversation had been carried on in only Spanish. With that we again talked about how we would trade academic credentials and policies via email over the next months and our meeting came to a close. The Director and the interpreter walked me out the back into a small decoratively tiled patio where the Director gave me his card with his email written on it, said he was pleased to meet me and wished me a safe journey home. I asked the interpreter to help me find a place to catch a cab and we talked as we walked across the campus. I thanked her for her help and she said that once we began she hardly had to help at all. She flagged down a cab and I was on my way back to the hotel next to the gallery with time to spare.
I was feeling pretty good about my last day in town. I got my bags, tried to hail a cab in front of the gallery but none of the little yellow cabbies stopped even though they had their “libre” lights on. After about 4 or 5 cabs passed me by I decided to walk the three blocks to Avenida Maipu, a more trafficked street. There I walked a few yards down from the intersection where I saw three yellow cabs waiting for the light to turn all with their “libre” lights on. The light changed, I threw out my hand and just as the three cabbies got off the line a little lime green remis (private car) came from behind, swerved in front and began flashing his lights to let the cabbies know he had the fare. You’re not supposed to flag the remis’ on the street. The regulations are established to divide the business fairly and provide some security especially for tourists. But I’d caught a remis several times on the street, usually when there were no cabs in sight. So I didn’t think much of it as he jumped out and hefted my big suitcase into the trunk. I got in the back seat and told him I was going to la Aero Puerto.
He was good. From the moment I got in he was working it out. Before he got in the drivers seat he went up front to the hood and tried to close it several times. It had a dent on the left front above the headlight and didn’t seem to want to close properly. He asked a construction worker on the curb to slam it while he pushed in the hood latch from under the dash. That did the trick and he started it up. It seemed to sputter a little, and chugged a bit as he pulled out from the curb into traffic. He headed South on Maipu towards the river, turned left on Humberto and headed west towards the airport along the Rio Primero. I’d been half a dozen times now and knew he was taking the most efficient route so I sat back and looked out the right hand window at the river as we passed and began clicking away at all the little successes and events that had occurred on this trip.
He had a little engine trouble every once in a while but the engine seemed to recuperate after each bout. We pulled up to the intersection of Humberto and General Paz next to an off duty cop on a little Honda motercycle his semi automatic glock glaring obviously at his hip. The driver and the cop passed a couple words back and forth. I wasn’t really listening but it seemed a good thing that the cabbie and the cop were enjoying a relaxed conversation waiting for the light. Then it changed, the cabbie looked at me in the rear view mirror and took off for the airport once again. He asked “de donde?” I said “Estados Unitos…Ohio” “Ah…” he breathed. Then in rapid fire he hit me with several questions none of which I understood. I told him so and we grew quiet again. Me in my revery, him worrying about the stuttering motor. I noticed him looking at me in the rear view again and happened to pay brief attention to his foot on the accelerator. Odd I thought as he seemed to be pumping it up and down as the motor stuttered, stalled a bit and finally coughed to a stop on the river road. He cussed the traffic honking at him and I thought if he was trying to rip me off he wouldn’t be so upset about his motor dying would he? The traffic passed and it was just me and him sitting silently in his little beat up lime green remis. I couldn’t make out the amount on the meter because of the glare from the sun coming from the left hand side of the car. He got out. Opened the hood. Fiddled with something. Wiped his hands on a rag and got back in and tried to start it. It wouldn’t. He got out again and fiddled with something under the hood a second time. Still, it wouldn’t start. He asked me to do the hood thing while he played with the latch from under the dash. Well, I thought, now he has me out of the car. But he’ll have to get the engine started if he intends to drive off with my luggage. He didn’t. I got back in the back seat.
We sat for a moment. I was about to suggest he call his dispatcher and have another remis sent when he asked me to “empuje”. He wanted me to help push start his cab. I should have asked him to get my bag out of the trunk then. But I thought to myself “don’t be so cynical. If he wanted to steal your junk we had a couple chances to do so already and didn’t.” I put my should strap to the black bag with my cameras and some of the watercolors I’d done along with some native jewelry I bought for my wife and got out. I intended to push from the door jamb but my bag fell to the crook of my arm and the door didn’t feel very capable of holding the weight I would be transferring to it. I should have put the starp over my head but instead I threw the bag in the back seat, closed the door, walked around to the trunk and prepared to push start his car like I’Be done for friends and strangers so many times in my life. I even remember looking down at the license plate thinking I should memorize it just in case. He signaled that he was ready, we both started to push then he jumped in and put it in gear and let of the clutch and it started right up and he smiled at me as he drove off down the road in the afternoon sun with all my stuff in his little remis. I couldn’t even remember what kind of car it was. They all start to look the same after a week or two in town.
It was like I’d been outside my body watching him set me up from the moment I got into the car. For a brief moment I thought he would stop a few yards down the road, then I rationalized that because it was a one way street that he would run around the block and come back for me. What an idiot. El Stupido! El es no returno. I came to myself. I wasn’t even upset. It was my own fault. I knew deep down that he would do it just couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. Just wanted to believe that he wouldn’t. I watched him until a larger (larger is a relative word here since all vehicles are really small in Cordoba) hid him from view. I didn’t see if he turned at the next bridge or not. Too far for my aging eyesight. I’m guessing he turned left into the neighborhood towards la Clinica. That way he had many more options about what streets to turn onto to stop and search my stuff before dumping what he didn’t want.
At that point I realized it was all gone. I looked to my left along the row of small single story Spanish style single family dwellings with wrought iron fences and dust for yards. This was not the best part of Cordoba, but certainly not the worst either. I noticed a young girl maybe 10 or 11 years old with a child in her arms sitting on the stoop of the casa just across the street. I waved at her and she smiled and waved back. I put my hand to the side of my head making a telephone sign and yelled “Ayuda! Llama la Policia por favor.” She asked “Como?” and I said it again, “llama la policia! El tengo mi maletas!” as I sprinted across the street between the traffic which had begun again. In fact he had waited until there was no traffic to get me out of the car to push. I said he was good. He assumed there were no witnesses.
The girl ran into the house and after a few short moments came back out again with the littler girl still in her arms. She began to ask me questions. “De donde?” I answered “:Estados Unitas.” I didn’t understand the rest. My Spanish seemed to disappear for the moment. Then an older woman came out of the house. She also began to ask me questions that I had a hard time hearing. Eventually I got it that she wanted to know what happened. I couldn’t think of the words for thief, stolen, robbed…then I managed to get out “todo maletas en la remis!“ and I made a sign that they had gone off down the road. The older woman, the girls mother or grandmother I guessed, seemed to understand. She said “Lo siento senor. Tomar alguna bebeda” (“would you like something to drink?”) I smiled at her and said “Gracias. Agua por favor.” She disappeared for a short while and then came back out with a large tumbler of water which I quaffed in one huge swallow. She began to say things like “Mal, mal, mal… (or bad, bad, bad) discupe mi pais… " and was looking down the road saying something that I assumed meant “Where are the police when you need them?” A man was walking up the sidewalk and she called him over and began telling him what had just happened. Next thing I knew her whole family had come out of the small dark house and they were all standing around, wringing their hands, commiserating with me and complaining that everything was gong to pot and where were the policia? Well, at least from the few words I could catch that seemed to be the gist of it.
Finally the police showed up in one of their little Ford or Toyota 4x4’s with odd gray and florescent orange camo designs on the sides. The young officer first spoke with the mother, then tried to ask me what happened. I apologized for my bad Spanish and then the little girl stepped up with the child still in her arms. I heard the little girl explain quite calmly and with efficiency what had happened. I could catch bits and pieces of it “El hombre empuje la remis…disaperar con maletas…I asked “Como se dice en Espanola “robber?“ “Robbero…ladron” She turned to me and said. That’s when I realized she had seen it happen without knowing what she‘d seen until I came to ask for her help. 
dos borrachos
Eventually another little 4x4 pulled up with two more police officers. These took my passport which I still had in my neck pouch along with my credit cards, my other ID and my money. At some point after many of the same questions they put me inside the back seat…the criminals seat with the doors locked and the windows up. There were no handles in the criminals seat so I couldn’t even say goodbye to the little girl who had helped me so much. I realized that I hadn’t asked their names and now I couldn’t since I was effectively cordoned off from them. I tried to memorize the house number painted on a board nailed to one of those gnarly pimply borracho trees by the gate. But I never managed to get a chance to write it down so it is gone. Eventually we drove away with the little girl waving sadly to me. We drove to the precinct by way of every little side street in la Clinica. . I knew where we were. I sort of remembered the precinct building from several walks I’d taken and the tour of la Clinica that lovely sunny afternoon a couple days before with Malena and Raul. It finally dawned on me they were looking for my bags. We arrived at the precinct and I was introduced to another, older, higher ranking officer. He was very competent. He introduced himself and began asking all the same questions everyone else had asked already. When I didn’t understand something he slowed down and tried another tact. But by then I had the gist of it and grasped that he wanted to know the hotel that called the remis for me. I sighed and said “no hotel…en la calle.” He too sighed and I’m sure he said something like you should never hail a remis on the street. “Lo se, lo se…yo el studpido tourista” I said shaking my head while looking at my shoes. He smiled sadly and shook his head as well. “Su bolettas?”
“Como?” I asked. Then it dawned on me that he wanted to know about my airline tickets. “No bolettas o pappelas. Electronico bolettas.” He wasn’t sure what that meant so I acted like I was typing at a computer and said “Es facile…mi presenta la passeporta a la agente en la Aero Puerto…click, click, click…Su bolettas senior. Muchos gracias seniora” and I stuck the pretend boarding passes into my coat pocket.
“Ah” he smiled. “Electronico--verdad. Claro!” Good we finally settled that one. Then “Su avion?” he said pointing to his watch. I looked at him blanly for amoment then it just came out of my mouth…“en uno hora.” “Bueno” and he disappeared for a little while in the back room. When he came back out to the bench where I was sitting he had another officer with him and I followed them out to one of the little 4x4’s. We got in and drove down every back street on the way to the airport…once again, I assume we were looking for my baggage. While we were driving I checked my watch in between drawing pictures in my little sketch book which was in my back pocket of the driver from memory, the remis with all the dents…! go figure. I could remember every dent but not the car number or the license number. The officer smiled and said “Bueno!” He turned and asked “Tu artiste?” I said yes and tried to explain that the artwork from my exhibition was in the suitcase and the shoulder bag. He seemed to understand and asked what gallery. I told him and wrote down the address and phone number from the card in my pocket. And then I drew a small cartoon of me pushing the remis with the driver inside waving at me and saying “Sucker“ out the window. At this the officer began to laugh and showed the guy driving who also laughed. We all had a good laugh. I needed one at that point.
He got me to the airport a half hour before my plane took off for Santiago. He stayed with me until I was up to the counter explaining to the agent about my stolen baggage. He tapped me on the shoulder, handed me his business card with his email address and name, shook my hand, apologized for my trouble and wished me luck. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what he said. Then he was gone and people were staring at me. I held up my hands to show that I didn’t have on handcuffs and they all looked away somewhat guilty. 
variation on the cartoon I did for the Police
I ran into another bunch of dove hunters heading back to the Midwest as I was preparing to board the plane. I needed to speak English and get some of this off my chest. A nice guy, a farmer from Indiana, can’t remember his name now, bought me a beer when we got to Santiago. At some point he smiled and said “The up side of having your luggage stolen in a foreign country is not having to deal with customs or baggage claims on your way home. “
