iguazu falls and evita

instead of being lazy bums and sticking around buenos aires for the rest of our time in south america, we finally were motivated enough to get tickets to the falls. it was HOT, let me tell you. iguazu was as spectacular as people had told us. tons of water gushing everywhere, downwards.

at the hostel we stayed in, we shared a room with 2 kids from holland and another from canada whom we quickly became buds with. on our last day at puerto iguazu, she talked us into hopping the border to paraguay to shop for cheap electronics. why not? it turned out to be an exciting day with no mishaps (paraguay is supposedly known to be unsafe for the foreigners). she got what she went there for, an mp3 player, and we got a hammock and katherine got a cute sundress. we were even in brazil for a bizarre minute without getting stamped in or out. success!













we´re back in buenos aires now and are just hanging out till wednesday. doing some last minute shopping and touring. we just visited the recoleta cemetery where evita is buried. lots of other famous people are buried there too. but probably no one as fabulous as evita.

patience and the asian harmony theory

crap, dirtballs. i don´t think i was born with it. and this is why i think so. since arriving in south america, i´ve been stared at, pointed at and also hollered at in kung-fu language. i´m still in the midst of learning kung-fu-ese so i can´t really explain how it sounds like. well, that´s not true. kung-fu-ese, to me, sounds like the noise jackie chan makes sometimes in his movies. or chow yun-fat. or jet li. take your pick. they look the same to me.

anyways, getting hollered at in kung-fu language was bugging me. it´s funny the first time, maybe. and even then, it´s still inappropriate. but after the 20th time (4 times that day we spent in san rafael), i thought this was getting ridiculous. we arrived in puerto madryn a few days ago and on our way to the hostel, we got hollered at again. i guess this time was relatively acceptable. the kids were yelling at us in english. but, i was slightly crabby after an 18 hour bus ride and decided to take some action. so i turned around and flicked them off. i´m not sure if they were familiar with the international sign for ´leave me the hell alone or i will punch you in the face´ or if they didn´t see it but they just continued waving and screaming and walking to wherever it was they were walking. but then it occurred to me - did i really just flick off some 10 year olds? yes, i think i just did.

perito moreno

it took us so long to get there (approx 30 hours), i figured it was good to take at least a few photos...the glacier was pretty amazing once we arrived. a little cold, as one would expect, but it was a sight to behold. we saw some chunks fall off the side of the glacier and the sounds associated with that action was incredible.

living more simply

el bolson has been pretty charming. mountains, fairly good food, chill people and hippies. well, i didn´t see the hippies till we went to the craft market yesterday and that was a treat. we wanted to get tons of stuff because everything was so cool. it was probably the best craft market i´ve been to ever. we ended up buying some hippie pants that looked too comfortable to pass up plus i was in need of some new pants that fit. we also got some delicious peas, raspberries and this strawberry/milk drink that was very tasty.

we´ve been camping in el bolson and last night was by far the coldest. i couldn´t really sleep because i was a little too cold and when my feet don´t stay warm, i have trouble sleeping. anyways, morning finally came. sweet jesus. a little warmth.

katherine exited the tent only to discover that one of the backpacks was missing - mine. awesome. i´ve always wanted to start mornings looking for shit that someone took from me. katherine´s had been ransacked but was more or less there. we spent the next 2 hours looking around inside the camp site. nothing. the two guys who run the place looked outside the property. nothing (one of them thought it was dogs. but very zipper of katherine´s bag had been unzipped and dogs don´t open every zipper). two hours later we file a police report. the police officer didn´t look too hopeful. and by hopeful, i mean he said that he thought it was next to impossible. so now, an hour later, i have a police report that says i´m japanese and that i lost some things. including a black and blue bag that was muy grande.

off to perito moreno.

the elderfoos´ visit and recent activities

the elderfoos came to visit us in south america and we plushed out a bit. we visited a few vineyards in chile and one in argentina and had a bottle to drink with dinner every night. my parents introduced katherine to the asian drink, shandy (half seven-up, half blanca beer of your choice). i think she likes it a bit.

in chile, casa lapostolle and montes were the two bodegas we stopped by. both with splendid, massive buildings. casa lapostolle just won wine spectator's best wine of the year award for their 2005 clos apalta. look out for 2007 wines from that region...

in argentina, we stopped by the smaller albeit very charming la abeja vineyard. all their equipment is from the 19th century and imported from france. they make their champagne using the traditional method and is only sold at the vineyard. we got a bottle of the rose bubbly and shared it on december 14th, for the elderfoos´ 28th wedding anniversary.

we then drove across the country to buenos aires (capital federal). it was a pretty overwhelming city with lots of people, cars and pollution. i felt like i was going to die from inhaling too much second hand smoke or too much vehicle exhaust. however, we also had the best meal there since we arrived in argentina and unexpectedly at an all organic vegetarian joint in the nice, swish neighborhood of palermo. i´d like to spend more time in BA. we didn´t get to explore much of the 40+ neighborhoods it has over the 4 days we were there. one recommendation: avoid the tango bars. we went to one and it sucked.

after the elderfoos left, we headed back to life on the farm in tunuyan. that lasted for about 4 days before we decided that 10/12 hour workdays with no weekends in the heat wasn´t our thing and that traveling should commence! two days and a sixteen hour bus ride later, we´re in el bolson in the south of argentina. it´s a nice little town flanked by mountains. katherine made reservations at the best restaurant in town and we had a fabulous 3 hour long dinner accompanied by lots of wine for christmas eve dinner. in a few days, we leave for the glacier perito moreno and maybe torres del paine.

oh! current plans are to take a bus ALL the way up to mexico. colombia, here we come!

recycling

we ate at a tenedor libre today. a tenedor libre is (i guess) castellano for buffet and the only reason we dined there was because it was recommended by the farm people.

we had been looking forward to it all visit long because it was an opportunity to eat out and decided today would be a good day to go since we were leaving for chile and didn't have a place to prepare meals. at lunch, we walked in and saw that the restaurant was pretty full - usually a good sign. the rule was that you had to get at least a drink that wasn't included in the price of the buffet. fine. i could deal with that. an order of gin & tonic for me please. food was pretty sub-par but you don't go to a buffet for quality food. it's the quantity that people are after. and there was quantity so you couldn't complain.

we noticed that many tables had bread baskets and wondered why we didn't have one. the dude eating at the table next to us had been talking to us about where to visit in argentina and chile and he also had a bread basket. he eventually left once he was done with his food. the waiter man came by to clean up his table then simply shifted the bread basket that once was on that man's table to our table. still full of bread. that's how you got a bread basket.

onwards

we've been in mendoza for almost two weeks now and haven't done much more than explore the town on foot and make good use of the apartment and its kitchen. there's a central market that we've been frequenting for produce and bread and we like purchasing produce from this cute old woman who speaks english - i think she likes to show off...we visited her for the last time today and i felt a little sad at the idea that i wouldn't be buying produce from her again.

we head out tomorrow night to santiago to meet my parents.

cebada

cebada is castellano for barley. people here roast barley to make malta, a drink that reminds me of coffee.
the family grew cebada for the first time this year and katherine and i were responsible for pulling up the cebada, tying them into neat little bundles and then letting them sit around to dry. on day 3 of this operation (last friday), i decided it was a good idea to stab myself in the eye with a cebada stalk. accidentally. oh the pain.

apparently, eye doctors don´t work on friday afternoons so i went to see the eye doctor this morning after laura pulled some strings to get me an appointment. i don´t understand much castellano, but i think the doctor said i would survive. if not, i should return after a week.

my parents are coming at the end of the month!

photos

this is just a quick one with photos...








piglets!









katie, sofia and i.








laura and luis








mauricio and antonella

farm life

we decided to stay at la stala till the 11th of november which would make it a month of working and living with the erquiagas. life here has finally become less intimidating on an everyday basis and more routine. i understand basic things like ´did you sleep ok?´, ´would you like more food?´ and ´what did you do!?´. the last one is more of an ongoing joke.

this weekend, i had karate chopped lunch. the family raises rabbits for consumption and the easiest way to slaughter them is apparently to karate chop them in the back of their heads and quickly clean up with a very sharp knife. it wasn´t disturbing but i won´t be raising rabbits in my home. they´re not worth the work. and also, the idea of rabbit feet for luck has become a little bit morbid for me.

we got baby pigs! on the 27th and 28th. we had been waiting for them for a week or so and then they finally arrived. it was like a real life discovery channel documentary. apparently pigs just poop out their little ones which makes human births seem so much more complicated than they need to be. so far 3 pigs have given birth to a total of 28 piglets (i think they have designated sex days here). there were a total of 32 piglets but some of them got aplastado which is castellano for ´plastered´ which also means they got sat on by their mothers and died. they´re way cute. not the dead ones. pictures to follow.

we cleaned out the bunny and chicken houses today which isn´t the most glamorous of tasks. i wear boots of the rubber variety and rake out poop and other unwanted materials. katherine awaits with a shovel to transfer waste material into a cart headed for the compost heap. we´ve done this once before and that time would have been worse if i didn´t get pelted in the face with rabbit pee today. i´m not sure how it happened but i thought i was going to die. emotionally. good thing it was only a single drop otherwise i really would have died.

learning more spanish in the meantime and thinking of heading off the farm in november to tour the country.

tunuyan

life here has been pretty rough, i have to admit. i´m in some internet cafe in clothes that i´ve been wearing for the past 3-4 days (i know, not my style). i not only look dirty, i am dirty. to prove that i´m not actually whining, my pants have spots of pig food on them.

tasks at the farm include feeding the pigs (you probably already got that one), feeding the chickens, weeding a lot (since it´s an organic garden, weeds (and the next door neighbors who apparently steal water) are our nemesis), working in the small vineyard, planting seeds and other tasks of the season. currently, it´s important to trim down the oregano bushes to make way for more oregano. they cut their oregano bushes up to 3 times in the summer then dry it for sale or for their own consumption.

i´m trying to learn spanish but currently that´s going pretty slowly and is leaving me feeling a little silly and disconnected. communication with everyone except katherine has been reduced to a series of grunts and shrugs which i have to say, is a little demoralizing and frustrating at best. i miss life where i had time to myself, space to myself, tasks that i assigned to myself and where i understood most things.

not all is bad...i´m learning a lot about self sufficiency and i can tell that luis and laura have intelligently chosen to live life off the grid for most part and to take a chance living life as simply as possible. luis was in construction before and built the house where his family lives. they have an indoor and outdoor oven and they´re both firewood powered. the indoor oven is set up to heat up the house as well. the outdoor oven is used in the warmer months. we shower 2-3 times a week when they fire up the furnace that makes hot water possible. they recently constructed an outdoor composting toilet. they compost with scraps from the kitchen but also with pig and cow manure and i´m sure many other things. weeds go to the cows, chickens or rabbits. everything is set up with a lot of thought and everything is reused whenever possible. they´re so far ahead of the curve here in argentina, that i´m constantly amazed whenever i understand.

we eat with the family everyday and laura is a wonderful cook. we´ve had plenty of salads from the garden, cheese made from the milk that the cows produce, eggs from the chickens, bread made from scratch, a variety of meat products from the pigs that they raise, sauces and preserves made with last year´s fruit and vegetables etc. two weeks ago, i had the most delicious raw asparagus of my life (sweet, delicious and tender) - they grow around the property.

all 4 kids are terrific and sweet - mauricio, antontella, nicolas and sofia. thirteen, 14, 16 and 18 respectively. they help in various ways when they´re around. antonella can identify most vegetables growing in the garden and has taken us under her wing, explaining everything in painful detail whenever she can.

last weekend, we travelled an hour north to visit laura´s mother in mendoza. we also visited a friend of luis´, armando. armando has been making wines for the past 15 years and his malbec was delicious and sweet. magical.

i´m looking forward to (hopefully) a time when i can communicate better. otherwise, life in rural argentina is very simple, low key and full of learning. oh, and one more detail...we can see the andes from their backyard.