Friends in Argentina

MENDOZA, Argentina- I met a Japanese girl named Yumi in La Plaza Independencia today. I was walking by some artisan booths and I heard her having some trouble communicating in Spanish. So I stood next to her, trying to find a way in so I could help her out. She turned to me:

“Do you speak English?”

“Yeah, the word that you want to say is corto.”

Yumi Aoshima in Hungary

She was trying to communicate to the artisan that she wanted a short bracelet. She did have very thin wrists. In fact, every thing about her was very slight — there was almost nothing to her anywhere. She laid a face wide grin down upon me.

[adsense]

I did not know then that I would not only find myself in bed with this girl in a couple of nights but also meet up with her three times in Japan and again in Hungary over a six year period. Enter Yumi into the Travelogue.

Sometimes you meet people on the road and they pass by with the rest of the landscape — trees, sign posts, fields, cows — but sometimes you pick up someone who stays with you: their face revolves around in your mind and comes to your lips for many years, you see them again in various contexts in various places. They become not only a part of your travels but a part of the mosaic of your life.

[traveldeals]