“Donde Estoy” Parte Cinco: El Último, Finalmente! (English Only) NOTE: Part One – Four of Donde Estoy/Where Am I?, published on this website (templesandtribes.net) are all bilingual. This Part Five final installment is English only. Sorry.
Recap of Installment No. 4: I wandered around my newly adopted city muttering darkly to myself. I came upon a section of town that seemed to be like the pictures I have of the colorful capital of Cuba. But here, they spelled the capital town as “Havanna” and I was pretty sure Cubans could spell the name of their capital correctly. So I was not in Cuba. Plus, the next neighborhood over had, as a centerpiece, this big purple Washington Monument. Have I been in Washington D.C. the whole time? Nah. The story continues as follows:
English Version Only, No Spanish This Time
When I saw the big, purple dildo hoisted up in the middle of the street, I let out an audible gasp: “What kind of people live here that would think this is a good idea? This is enough to scare the passing horses I gotta get out of here.”
I half-ran, half-trotted, and half-scraped myself down the road heading to my hotel. Along the way, I started to cry with tears of confusion. Soon my face was wet with the incoherent tears of a baby who does even know why he is crying. Yet, I was not a cry baby; I was only giving out a manly, minimal cry. However, my face was a wet sponge. I halted, confused. I looked up and saw the rain come down. I saw the gentle raindrops as they kept falling on my head. I felt the warm caress of God in the drops. God herself was crying Tears of Joy for Mankind. I felt this Joy like an anointing oil as it spread from the head down through my body. Finally, I was able to take a big sigh of relief without coughing up half a lung. I smiled and knew that all would be well.
Then I looked at the horizon. My smile ran away and hid in fear. Unconsciously, I shook my head and produced the universal guttural: “Arrrrrgh.” I watched with arched brow as Beelzebub himself striding forth behind the form of the massing thunderheads he had sent as his vanguard. He was in the background but clearly visible from time to time in between the shifted clouds. All the time, he was goading on his water besotted horde. I looked around my vicinity. I saw this guy behind me taking a walk to enjoy the pleasant rain from above.
He came up and handed me a small package. “John wanted me to give this to you. He said, ‘open this in times of emergency. It’le preserve your ass.’ “

I took the package and stared down the stranger. “John? You saw John? I did not know he was still with me. I have not seen John since the time he stepped in when I tried to recreate Christmas manger scene and the Gifts of the Magi. I almost gave up trying to stage the show. I could not find anyone who had the needed qualifications to play the roles. In desperation, I turned to John the Baptist for help. John stepped in and set up his now famous Return to Virginity and Baptism Festival. Through the Festival, I found one women who did not need the Return Ritual. I also located three guys who actually thought a return to virginity would be a good idea. My casting call was then complete. Thanks to John. I had found my Three Wise .
JOHN THE BAPTIST
Men and a Virgin. Looking up at the sky, “John, it’s been so long since I heard from you.” I laughed. “Where you been, boyfriend?” I straightened up my posture and said glumly, “Sorry, Sir”
I looked back at the guy, ”Who are you?”
The man replied, “Izza no longer sure of nuttin.’ I was just walkin’ home from work. Then, this spooky dude comes outta the smoke cumin’ up from

the sidewalk, of all places. He scared the bejesus outta me. He said his name was ‘John’ and that you would know what to do in times of trouble.”
I was staring at this guy but also staring behind him at the menacing horizon. The guy looked up to follow my gaze. He also stared at the angry mob of throbbing thunderheads marching from the horizon straight to us. He saw his future in the competing lightening bolts jabbing the earth. The guy threw himself on the ground and begged for mercy.
I saw his response and it wired up my ass. I became a human megaphone. I shouted out “Rise up in the name of John the Baptist” at a volume that would annoy a jet engine. Even with John in my corner, I know that I needed more feet on the ground. I needed allies. I had to wake the dead in the Recoleta (famous crypt cemetery near my hotel) The spirits stirred from their marble coffins; pushed aside the grave stones; and came forth, out into the night. All the spirits rose except Eva in the mausoleum of her patrimonial family, the Duartes. Eva Duarte Peron helped no one but herself in her lifetime. She was damn well not going to stir to help some tourist. I prayed to John the Baptist to make the current gentle rain into a baptismal to protect us from the approaching death storm. I then asked John, and any spirit who heard my voice, to get me to the safety to my hotel before the Storm of Beelzebub was upon us.
Too late; Every schlep, every step closer to the hotel, took me deeper into dark rain and hyena winds. I pierced the veil of the mere brooding Rain of Ignorance. I went deeper into the belly of

the Storm of Intentional Harm. The angry winds were getting vengeance for some terrible slight as they chewed up the landscape. John put the Cyclone of God behind me to push against the Tempest of Hell. Slowly and inexorably, I pushed back the wrath of Beelzebub and got close to my hotel. The hotel was holdin’ on but not by much: it was shakin’ like a JiffyPop on a bunsen burner. I saw the random gale force winds mash together and interweave to create goliath-sized, upturned mittens. The gale mitts grabbed the hotel from the bottom. The winds scooped up the hotel from its moorings. The invisible hands just flung the hotel across the road. The hotel property was now an empty sand-lot baseball field.
I scanned the sky and yelled: “I declare this rain is not Beelzebub’s curse; but rather a blessing baptismal from John the Baptist himself. Not by my power; but by the power of John the Baptist I command thee: Beelzebub stop this torment upon the earth. Return my hotel to me at once or John the Baptist will … umm, he will …” I looked up to the sky and asked in a faltering voice, “John, what will you do?” The world paused and waited, listening. Suddenly a thunderclap ricocheted out of the sky letting us all know that somebody, somewhere just got their ass whooped. The rains stopped; or more accurately, hesitated to a halt. A few brave birds chirped; otherwise, all was total silence.
A minute later, the rains came down again with a fury, but only in one corner of the street. The ambient rain around me was minimal, more like a mist. At the end of the block, however, I could see and hear the death-rattle-rain but it poured down only upon now vacant land that once housed my hotel. I stared at that mini hurricane intently. I could see as the individual drops of rain coalescing into rain threads; the threads into strands; and the strands bunched together into sinews of water. Long sinews of water were falling out of the sky. That’s right: It was raining rope — thick rope, rope so thick and strong that it could have towed the Titanic away from the iceberg. The rope was falling as a solid; holding its shape like some concrete version of a colloidal strand of antimatter. The rope falling to the earth never actually hit the ground. The rope was grabbed by the invisible hands of my allies, the spirits of Recoleta Cemetery. The spirits hovered and fluttered right over the hotel foundations. The spirits brought their rope with them. The strands were being shaped by my swarm of allies working, at John’s bidding, to build a hive. The water-rope ground floor went in first; followed by the first floor water walls; and then another water floor; and more walls; and so on — like the creation of a watery wedding cake. After the sheet water roof was complete, the spirits stepped back and admired their shimmering work. The hotel was thus resurrected.
I walked up the the hotel and marveled. The front door opened. I walked right in.

I saw my favorite chair in the lobby, now it glistened with water filled arms and feet. I plopped right down. The chair provided the same soft cushion as the original chair, only a little spongier. I placed the package from John on the adjoining pulsating side water-table. I opened the box. In the box was an index card with a written message, “If you have a problem; eat one. In times of trouble, eat more. In a real crisis, tip the box to your mouth and pour.” I removed the index card and underneath found a dozen individually wrapped treats each labelled “alfajor.” With furrowed brow, I opened one wrapper. A delectable the size of a triple See’s candy spilled out into my palm. Naturally, I bit into it. The first stratigraphic layer was delicious chocolate. I thought, “Ahh, a candy.” Then, digging deeper, I got to the subcutaneous wafer below the chocolate. “Ahh, I get it — a cookie.” Then, the excavation pulled up a core sample from the delectable squishy center: delicious sponge cake. Finally, I figured it out: “it’s really a cake, of course!” I heard myself give the unsettling rebuttal, “It’s really just a fancy candy…. Or is it a cookie? …. Just maybe it does have true cake nature instead.” Then, of course, to settle this argument, I had to assay more core samples. I opened each and every delectable and gave it a autopsy in successive bites.
I got distracted by the micro-excavations and internal battle royale over the true essence of alfajores. I did not see the riverine mud flow in to the hotel lobby and splash down the lobby barreling in my direction. The mud flood covered my chair, but I did not notice. I was in an existential crisis over alfajores, as if this delectable was a metaphor for the larger world: “It’s a cake… no, it’s a chocolate covered cookie… No, you’re all wrong — it’s really a candy coated wafer….” As the mud covered me fully, I fell asleep and had a alfajor fueled vision. In this dream state I saw clearly a scruffy bearded guy dancing with a beautiful starlet who vaguely looked like Madonna. They sang several songs together. Finally, the starlet ended the vision. She burst out in a song that kaleidoscoped so many images that reflected this country. The song sounded something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEMUsC8ppU0
At the last timbre of her voice, My VisionQuest was over. I awoke fully aware of my past, present and future. I knew where I was and who I was. More importantly, I knew where I was going in my life. I was now complete as a person. Travelling has fulfilled my every need, especially the need to get rid off all my nasty surplus money. Remember that book, “Eat, Pray, Love?” I had the same basic experiences, but my book would be entitled, “Eat, Drink and Sleep it Off”

I woke up and looked around. Everything was woozy and I had to focus up. I was in bed in my hotel. The bed was littered with alfajores wrappers. Standing over me was the Caesar, the bellhop who had been so helpful to me. “Sir, are you alright?” Caesar queried hesitantly.
“Of course I am okay. I just had a hard day’s night, that’s all. Why do you ask?”
“Well, you were belting out show tunes in your sleep, mostly songs from just one musical. You have quite the voice.” He handed me this business card. The card had a butterfly on the front. I turned over the card and it said: “Male Musical Revue. Showtimes at Midnight” along with a street address. I shook my head and put the card on my nightstand. I pulled off my blankets and started to get out of bed. Caesar scanned me like he was a self-serve checkout. “You will like this place. Come join us — you will fit right in.” Now I knew how the meat feels at Tip-Top Butcher Shop. Caesar reminded me of the customers parading by, staring at the sirloins behind glass cases. And while I am here, now I know how every woman in the world has felt, more times than she would like to remember. I was not concerned about Caesar. I bid him farewell with a noncommittal big tip.
I quickly took a shower and got dressed in my finest tourist tack. I went down to the lobby. Sure enough, the big huge glass doors with the gold frames were up and running. As I stepped towards the exit, one of the Recoleta spirits slide open the huge door. I stepped out into the bright July day to enjoy the beauty and bustle of:
BU AR, ARTA

n

I hope you all get to visit and enjoy Argentina. Please, if you do go, make sure you try the alfajores. The tourist packed, famous pastry shop, Havanna in the colorful Caminito District would do nicely. Or find a good local bakery and eat like a local.
NOTE: CONTEST RESULTS WILL BE PUBLISHED TOMORROW AND WE DO HAVE MULTIPLE WINNERS. YES!

“Donde Estoy” Parte Cinco: El Último, Finalmente!
Recap of Installment No. 4: I wandered around my newly adopted city muttering darkly to myself. I came upon a section of town that seemed to be like the pictures I have of the colorful capital of Cuba. But here, they spelled the capital town as “Havanna” and I was pretty sure Cubans could spell the name of their capital correctly. So I was not in Cuba. Plus, the next neighborhood over had, as a centerpiece, this big purple Washington Monument. Have I been in Washington D.C. the whole time? Nah. The story continues as follows:
English Version Only, No Spanish This Time
When I saw the big, purple dildo hoisted up in the middle of the street, I let out an audible gasp: “What kind of people live here that would think this is a good idea? This is enough to scare the passing horses I gotta get out of here.”
I half-ran, half-trotted, and half-scraped myself down the road heading to my hotel. Along the way, I started to cry with tears of confusion. Soon my face was wet with the incoherent tears of a baby who does even know why he is crying. Yet, I was not a cry baby; I was only giving out a manly, minimal cry. However, my face was a wet sponge. I halted, confused. I looked up and saw the rain come down. I saw the gentle raindrops as they kept falling on my head. I felt the warm caress of God in the drops. God herself was crying Tears of Joy for Mankind. I felt this Joy like an anointing oil as it spread from the head down through my body. Finally, I was able to take a big sigh of relief without coughing up half a lung. I smiled and knew that all would be well.
Then I looked at the horizon. My smile ran away and hid in fear. Unconsciously, I shook my head and produced the universal guttural: “Arrrrrgh.” I watched with arched brow as Beelzebub himself striding forth behind the form of the massing thunderheads he had sent as his vanguard. He was in the background but clearly visible from time to time in between the shifted clouds. All the time, he was goading on his water besotten horde. I looked around my vicinity. I saw this guy behind me taking a walk to enjoy the pleasant rain from above.
He came up and handed me a small package. “John wanted me to give this to you. He said, ‘open this in times of emergency. It’le preserve your ass.’ “
I took the package and stared down the stranger. “John? You saw John? I did not know he was still with me. I have not seen John since the time he stepped in when I tried to recreate

Christmas manger scene and the Gifts of the Magi. I almost gave up trying to stage the show. I could not find anyone who had the needed qualifications to play the roles. In desperation, I turned to John the Baptist for help. John stepped in and set up his now famous Return to Virginity and Baptism Festival. Through the Festival, I found one women who did not need the Return Ritual. I also located three guys who actually thought a return to virginity would be a good idea. My casting call was then complete. Thanks to John. I had found my Three Wise Men and a Virgin.
Looking up at the sky, “John, it’s been so long since I heard from you.” I laughed. “Where you been, boyfriend?” I straightened up my posture and said glumly, “Sorry, Sir”
I looked back at the guy, ”Who are you?”
The man replied, “Izza just walkin’ home from work. Then, this spooky dude comes outta the smoke cumin’ up from
JOHN THE
BAPTIST
the sidewalk, of all places. He scared the bejesus outta me. He said his name was ‘John’ and that you would know what to do in times of trouble.”
I was staring at this guy but also staring behind him at the menacing horizon. The guy looked up to follow my gaze. He also stared at the angry mob of throbbing thunderheads marching from the horizon straight to us. He saw his future in the competing lightening bolts jabbing the earth. The guy threw himself on the ground and begged for mercy.
I saw his response and it wired up my ass. I became a human megaphone. I shouted out “Rise up in the name of John the Baptist” at a volume that would annoy a jet engine. Even with John in my corner, I know that I needed more feet on the ground . I needed allies. I had to wake the
dead in the Recoleta (famous crypt cemetery near my hotel) The spirits stirred from their marble coffins; pushed aside the grave stones and came forth. All the spirits rose except Eva in the mausoleum of her patrimonial family, the Duartes. Eva Duarte Peron helped no one but herself in her lifetime. She was damn well not going to stir to help some

tourist. I prayed to John the Baptist to make the current gentle rain into a baptismal to protect us from the approaching death storm. I then asked John, and any spirit who heard my voice, to get me to the safety to my hotel before the Storm of Beelzebub was upon us.
Too late; Every schlep, every step closer to the hotel, took me deeper into dark rain and hyena winds. I pierced the veil of the mere brooding Rain of Ignorance. I went deeper into the belly of the Storm of Intentional Harm. The angry winds were getting vengeance for some terrible slight as they chewed up the landscape. John put the Cyclone of God behind me to push against the Tempest of Hell. Slowly and inexorably, I pushed back the wrath of Beezelbub and got close to my hotel. The hotel was holdin’ on but not by much: it was shakin’ like a JiffyPop on a bunsen burner. I saw the random gale force winds mash together and interweave to create goliath-sized, upturned mittens. The gale mitts grabbed the hotel from the bottom. The winds scooped up the hotel from its moorings. The invisible hands just flung the hotel across the road.
I scanned the sky and yelled: “I declare this rain is not Beezlebub’s curse; but rather a blessing baptismal from John the Baptist himself. Not by my power; but by the power of John the Baptist I command: Beelzebub stop this torment upon the earth. Return my hotel to me at once or John the Baptist will … umm, he will …” I looked up to the sky and asked in a faltering voice, “John, what will you do?” The world paused and waited listening. Suddenly a thunderclap richoted out of the sky letting us all know that somebody, somewhere just got their ass whooped. The rains stopped; or more accurately, hesitated to a halt. A few brave birds chirped; otherwise, all was total silence.
A minute later, the rains came down again with a fury, but only in one corner of the street. The ambient rain around me was minimal, more like a mist. At the end of the block, however, I could see and hear the death-rattle-rain but it poured down upon now vacant land that once housed my hotel. I stared at that mini hurricane intently. I could see as the individual drops of rain coalescing into rain threads; the threads into strands; and the strands bunched together into sinews of water. Long sinews of water were falling out of the sky. That’s right: It was raining rope — thick rope, rope so thick and strong that it could have towed the Titanic away from the iceberg. The rope was falling as a solid; holding its shape like some concrete version of a colloidal strand of antimatter. The rope falling to the earth never actually hit the ground. The rope was grabbed by the invisible hands of my allies, the spirits of Recoleta Cemetery. The spirits hovered and fluttered right over the hotel foundations. The spirits brought their rope with them. The strands were being shaped by my swarm of allies working, at John’s bidding, to build a hive. The water-rope ground floor went in first; followed by the first floor water walls; and then another water floor; and more walls; and so on — like the creation of a watery wedding cake. After the sheet water roof was complete, the spirits stepped back and admired their shimmering work. The hotel was thus resurrected.
I walked up the the hotel and marvelled. The front door opened. I walked right in.
I saw my favorite chair in the lobby, now it glistened with water filled arms and feet. I plopped right down. The chair provided the same soft cushion as the original chair, only a little spongier. I

placed the package from John on the adjoining pulsating side water-table. I opened the box. In the box was an index card with a written message, “If you have a problem; eat one. In times of trouble, eat more. In a real crisis, tip the box to your mouth and pour.” I removed the index card and underneath found a dozen individually wrapped treats each labelled “alfajor.” With furrowed brow, I opened one wrapper. A delectable the size of a triple See’s candy spilled out into my palm. Naturally, I bit into it. The first stratigraphic layer was delicious chocolate. I thought, “Ahh, a candy.” Then, digging deeper, I got to the subcutaneous wafer below the chocolate. “Ahh, I get it — a cookie.” Then, the excavation pulled up a core sample from the delectable’s squishy center: delicious sponge cake. Finally, I figured it out: “it’s really a cake, of course!” I heard myself give the unsettling rebuttal, “It’s really just a fancy candy…. Or is it a cookie? …. Just maybe it does have true cake nature instead.” Then, of course, to settle this argument, I had to assay more core samples. I opened each and every delectable and gave it a autopsy in successive bites.
I got distracted by the micro-excavations and internal battle royale over the true essence of alfajores. I did not see the riverine mud flow in to the hotel lobby and splash down the lobby barreling in my direction. The mud flood covered my chair, but I did not notice. I was in an existential crisis over alfajores, as if this delectable was a metaphor for the larger world: “It’s a cake… no, it’s a chocolate covered cookie… No, you’re all wrong — it’s really a candy coated wafer….” As the mud covered me fully, I fell asleep and had a alfajor fueled vision. In this dream state I saw clearly a scruffy bearded guy dancing with a beautiful starlet who vaguely looked like Madonna. They sang several songs together. Finally, the starlet ended the vision. She burst out in a song that kaleidoscoped so much about this country. The song sounded something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEMUsC8ppU0
At the last timbre of her voice, My VisionQuest was over. I awoke fully aware of my past, present and future. I knew where I was and who I was. More importantly, I knew where I was going in my life. I was now complete as a person. Travelling has fulfilled my every need, especially the need to get rid off all my nasty surplus money. Remember that book, “Eat, Pray, Love?” I had the same basic experiences, but my book would be entitled, “Eat, Drink and Sleep it Off”
I woke up and looked around. Everything was woozy and I had to focus up. I was in bed in my hotel. The bed was littered with alfajores wrappers. Standing over me was the Caesar, the bellhop who had been so helpful to me. “Sir, are you alright?” Caesar queried hesitantly.
“Of course I am okay. I just had a hard day’s night, that’s all. Why do you ask?”
“Well, you were belting out show tunes in your sleep, mostly songs from just one musical. You have quite the voice.” He handed me this business card. The card had a butterfly on the front. I turned over the card and it said: “Male Musical Revue. Showtimes at Midnight” along with a

street address. I shook my head and put the card on my nightstand. I pulled off my blankets and started to get out of bed. Caesar scanned me like he was a self-serve checkout. “You will like this place. Come join us — you will fit right in.” Now I knew how the meat feels at Tip-Top Butcher Shop. Caesar reminded me of the customers parading by, staring at the sirloins behind glass cases. And while I am here, now I know how every woman in the world has felt, more times than she would like to remember. I was not concerned about Caesar. I bid him farewell with a noncommittal big tip.
I quickly took a shower and got dressed in my finest tourist tack. I went down to the lobby. Sure enough, the big huge glass doors with the gold frames were up and running. As I stepped towards the exit, one of the Recoleta spirits slide open the huge door. I stepped out into the bright July day to enjoy the beauty and bustle of:
BU AR, ARTA