Rio Gallegos

I was just interviewed by the local TV news in this gritty industrial port city in the far South of Patagonia. The interviewer was a squat man with a the thickest black mustache I've ever seen. Maybe this mustache is the reason he is a newscaster - the Patagonian version of Anchorman.

He would ask a question, then put the microphone under my chin and stare at me over his mustache sympathetically nodding along as I tripped and stumbled over my ten words of Spanish.

The funny thing was, I didn't understand a single question. The topic was tourism, but that's the only clue I had.

The microphone would come into my face, the mustache would turn in my direction and I'd just say - Gracias - Me Gusto Patagonia! Me Gusto Rio Gallegos! Sometimes I livened it up a little by listing the names of places in town I had visited, or the names of towns where I'm going next.

Both the cameraman and the Anchorman took it all very seriously. "Gracias, Senor Patterson," they said at the end, then shook my hand politely, got back in their van and drove away, leaving me wondering for the umpteenth time - what the heck am I doing here?

Here's a link to a music review I posted on Matador from Buenos Aires a couple days ago - Shit Soul Tango!