thirty something minutes

Santiago to Mendoza
LAN Airlines
February 25, 2010

Thirty something minutes across, meet tall stranger with sign, Fernando, silver car, tinted windows, drives to posada past empty broken factories, faded crayon shops; in our room---in landscaped garden behind cement walls topped with barbed wire, remote control gate, security cameras and two well fed Rottweilers---all is peaceful; other dogs (also Rottweilers behind also gates?) bark in not so distant distance, everything seems close here, even mountains; outside fence, cars, usually small, dented and old, no hubcaps (what's the point?), race past; graffiti everywhere the way it is in places people have no voice, no other way of being heard above the sound of dogs; silenced until all they can think to say is fuck off, and even that in artistic shapes and bright colours.