My anticipation was high as I headed to Argentina, and Buenos Aires felt full of promise.

It was my friend Josephine’s homeland (even if she’d been gone for years). The land of tango and beauty and sophistication and Eva Peron. “It’s the Paris of Latin America” everyone told me.

I needed a change from the immense emotional processing of the recent weeks… and a new place, a vibrant and energetic city felt like it.

My 9 am flight meant a 6 am arrival at El Dorado, which meant a 5 am shuttle, and a 4 am wakeup call… which made me nervous. But I was up on time, and successfully in the shuttle, and arriving at the airport.

I found my way to the Aerolinas Counter, and then it happened… they wanted to see a return or onward ticket, for proof of leaving the country. All my digital nomad groups mentioned, this, and I knew it could happen so I was mentally prepared…. I just wasn’t actually sure where I was going next.

But I made a decision on the spot, and it seemed the next stop was gonna be Uruguay, cause that’s where I found myself purchasing a ticket to.

It was a six hour flight to Santiago, then a two hour flight to BA. I was tired and wired and excited by the time the lights of the city appeared… always my favorite moment.

Arrival & Adjusting

Immigration into Argentina was only slightly stricter than I’d experienced in Colombia and Ecuador… they wanted to know the address where I was staying and I pulled out an airbnb confirmation. Then I caught an Uber to my apartment.

My host Nicolas was wonderful, showed me the apartment and walked me to the 24 hour market around the corner so I could grab bottled water and some food for the the next morning. After being in the middle of nowhere, having three grocery stores within a block and a half felt like an amazing luxury.

I crashed and slept soundly… but woke up in the night in a panic. Somehow, I suddenly knew I’d brought the wrong kind of power adaptors. I checked the next morning and was right – Argentina uses two kinds, and my apartment had the other kind from what I’d brought.

It was Sunday.. but I found a cell phone store that had adapters. With laptop and phone plugged in, I was connected to the world, and could breathe a bit easier.

Cash, Please!

Next challenge: ATM’s weren’t working for me. I was getting error messages everywhere. Fortunately, cards were accepted, but I wanted to have some cash on me…. I got on the Western union site, and kept running into error messages there too, while trying to navigate my way through the interface in Spanish. For over a week, I had none and just prayed that my cards would be taken wherever I needed something.

And then one day, the Western Union site randomly decided to cooperate. I transferred $500 to myself and though it was raining, I threw on a sweatshirt and rushed down the street to get the cash in my hands.

But, I wasn’t prepared for the huge stacks of bills that I’d received, and my very thin passport holder that was held securely against my body (best purchase ever) wouldn’t hold a fraction of it.

I didn’t really want to carry huge stacks of bills down the street. Fortunately the sweatshirt I’d grabbed as I ran out the door meant that I could stuff the stacks of bills in the edge of my pants and cover it, while I walked the block back to my apartment without looking like too much of a target.

With money, power adaptors, and then a haircut by the wonderful Linda, who I’d found in one of my digital nomad groups, I was ready for Buenos Aires.

Alto Palermo

The Airbnb that Josephine had helped me pick out was lovely. The Alto Palermo neighborhood was tree-lined streets of tall buildings, endless interesting shops and restaurants, families out walking, kids and dogs. I loved the streets, full of so much energy and variety and different neighborhoods. I could have walked them for hours.

And: so many people! It was a major adjustment from my time in Colombia, but I was loving it. The streets and the shops and the the vibrancy. Close by two parks, I walked or ran daily and felt myself immersed in the energy.

Taking Shape

The most common question I’ve gotten on my travels is how I “decide” where to go.

It’s tough to answer because it feels much less like a decision than simply listening to my intuition and where I already know I’m going next. And even though I’m playing a bit with tracking my astrocartography lines… the adventure’s become mostly about just knowing where I’m going next — and then listening to what’s wanting to show up, in each place.

And I was starting to see what Buenos Aires was about.

Communicating in Spanish was feeling ever more important. It wasn’t just a practicality. It was a deep drive to know this interesting language and be able to think and process in it. Wanting to speed up my progress, I started weekly sessions with an online tutor and immediately loved Augustina.

And there was the interesting experience of simply coming to a new place, and feeling unfamiliar.. and then feeling familiar. And then feeling at home. This was starting to become an amazing pattern that would unfold– to feel a place change from unfamiliar, to home.

Realizing I could feel at home anywhere in the world. Anywhere on the planet.

Full Days

As always, work was busy. I’d work long hours from my studio apartment with the courtyard view of the trees, and sometimes from the deck on the roof.

Meanwhile, I’d also set the intention to connect with new friends in this new place. A couple posts in local nomad groups, introducing myself, had resulted in invitations galore, and my inbox was flooded with messages.

Having no shortage of dates and friends made Buenos Aires a good place to get over any lingering feelings of sadness, and I found my calendar quickly full.

And the synchronicities unfolding… I’d been watching the rollerbladers in the park with longing, and then amazingly, my new friend Axel had an extra pair of skates in my size. We soared around the botanical gardens in Palermo, feeling the night air and watching the sunset. I met new friends for drinks and coffee and English/ Spanish practice, and found some meetup group of expats and nomads, and lots of friends both natives and nomads.

And then I met Maria, who I clicked with immediately. She was working on her thesis in Hispanic Linguistics, gathering data from various cities, about how native speakers actually spoke.

In a series of fun day we roamed around the city, talking about her research which I found fascinating, exploring the markets, eating Greek food and walking through the city.

And so the journey and experience of Buenos Aires was taking shape…. in the people I met, in walking through the tree-lined streets full of endlessly interesting shops and restaurants, in the parks full of joggers and rollerbladers and pop-up salsa classes, in the friendliness I encountered as I practiced my Spanish and immersed myself in thinking in another language.

Buenos Aires – the journey

And I began to realize what was coming through….

• This whole travel journey’s even more about the people more than the places
• Feeling at home in a new place is an amazing experience
• Language and communicating is fascinating
• I belong on this planet and I get to explore it all

Meanwhile, if possible, things got even more busy. On top of an intensely full work schedule, I found myself diving into an Akashic Records Immersion, and a Somatic EMDR training.

and yet even as my days got busier, time continued to expand as I felt into each moment and showed up ever more present to the vibrancy and the energy around me.

Home

I texted Maria, who I knew was packing up to move to a new apartment…. “do you need help?”

“Yes!!! she wrote back. “there’s lots of stuff!!”

I walked the 15 minutes to Maria’s place, down Bulnes avenue, past more amazing neighborhoods of shops on the treelined streets and towering buildings. Why had I never explored this neighborhood? I hadn’t been in this direction yet. So much to explore.

Maria was moving just a couple blocks, and we managed to carry everything over to the new place in two trips suitcases, bags of food, a bicycle, and Maui the black cat.

Maui wasn’t happy about the move, and immediately hid under the bed.

But I loved Maria’s new apartment. It had a gorgeous balcony and view and a rooftop deck and pool, and we went to the top floor. And after a couple mishaps taking the wrong stairs and finding ourselves in dusty storage areas, we made our way to the roof and the cool night air, and took in the view from 12 stories up….an endless sea of buildings full of story and history and mystery and promise, and the clouds backlit by the bright light of the just-peaked-full-moon.

Settled

There’s always that moment when everything finally, suddenly settles.

When things have been turbulent or uncertain, or unfamiliar, and then there’ll be that moment when it all reorganizes and lands.

Was it helping a friend moved that made it feel like I was at home, here, now?

And as I walked back to my apartment, down Bulnes Avenue, feeling the cool night air, past the shops and the multitude of restaurants that came to life in the late evening, feeling the energy, feeling this beautiful city, something clicked into place and I was right where I needed to be.

I slept deeply, soundly, dreaming… fragments and wisps and depths of emotion and color and richness, dreams that I woke up in the night and quite couldn’t remember.

But when I woke in the morning, I remembered just one tiny piece.

In my dream, I’d been talking to someone.

And I was telling them that the risks I take in this life are all “risks into joy”.