Balls and El Bolsón

Departed from Madre Tierra last Sabado, after another week of hard ass workin. More planting and construction and a little bit of texas hold em and wine out of boxes drinking. We also got to know Vida, an american who is the neighbor a farm over who is constructing a straw bale house in the shape of a shell and creating her own organic farm w-her mamma, which is totally radical. Vida and all the volunteers went out together on friday night for the opening of a local bar. We recieved complementary champagne and empañadas and also saw some bad ass drumming and dancing. And various drunken argentinean men proceeded to get upon the stage and start stripping full monty style, mostly shirts, except for one jem who stripped down to his boxers and was pumpin it out.
Stop reading here mom/small children/anyone who gets easily offended!
And then he proceeded to reach in his boxers and pull out his balls and hold them Curry to
Homer style like little birds eggs while he continued to pelvic thrust dance for a good twenty minutes-- balls and all. It was insane, and so were all the sweaty mullets and the wine bottles and fernet being passed to all of us constantly. Needless to say, Argentine style we didn´t leave until 530 am and that was only to go to a gas station and get more beer and hang out, we didn´t get back to the Finca until 7ish and then ate some leftover pizza, made tea and had a pajama party in the attic.
Sabado came and went very quickly as we got up at noon, got a tour of Vida´s radical house, and walked to hop the bus from Tunuyan to Mendoza to catch a bus from Mendoza to El Bolsón, which happened to stop in Tunuyan, which only made us angry as we could have cut out a good four hours of bus riding.


El Bolsón comes on Vida´s recommendation, she lived here for a year whilst studying organic farming and described it aptly as The Shire. It pretty much is, with jagged snow peaked mountains encasing a very green valley with rolling hills and wood carvings everywhere. El Bolsón is famous for berries, beer, and chocolate, which is alright with me. Almost a third of Argentina´s hops are grown here and we sampled a very delicious Cerveza Frambuesa with lunch today. Our hostel is also super cute, cerca de los montañas y el rio, and we´re almost the only ones there, spare a very nice Argentinean lady. And the hot ass shower and comfy warm ass bed almost killed me with pleasure last night. Tomorrow we´re going to go on a tour and learn how organic cheese, yogurt and ice cream is made and then go to El Feria, the local artesean crafts market, and tonight we might have to stop off at the local brewery for some more Frambuesa Cerveza!
Ciao!

Finca Madre Tierra

So for the past week i´ve been volunteering with WWOOF (world workers on organic farms), on a farm called Madre Tierra in Tunuyan, a small town outside of Mendoza. There is a family of four, Azuzena, Jorge and their two kids Paloma who´s 10 and ,,, Nacho who´s 5, and a butload of volunteers who crash in the dorms or in tents in the yard. There are two girls from England, Charlotte and Catie who are utterly English in every way down to the proper accents, total sweetness and then need for proteccion del sol todavia. Two girls from Quebec Gabrielle and Arienne, and Gabrielle´s bf Guiellme who´s from France. Also Corrienne who is French as well. Leah from Ireland, there was Jullian from Colombia, but he left yesterday, Marco from EEUU, and Sergio from Argentina/Israel. And yesterday a new volunteer from Germany as well. The main language spoken is always spanish, although when alone we sometimes cheat, i´ll have to admit. The cats are insane and meow all the time including this baby one which looks like a kitten but is really just a runt.
We get up around 830 every morning and eat bfast then usually work in the fields ho ing weeds or planting or hand weeding until about 1pm then have an enormous lunch and two hour siesta, then commence to work construction or other odd jobs, construction including building little houses for canning and a new dormitory out of willow branches weaved through the structure then throwing Barro, a horseshit- dirt- hay mixture to seal the branches.
The farm is in a valley that on a clear day can see the Andes mountains which are quite magnificent. They have two horses, muchos chickens, five cats, two dogs, and yeah the two exhuberant and volatile but enjoyable children. There is also a wonderful rio near el fondo of the farm with wild mint growing up the banks where little Paloma, Juli, Arienne and I went for a glorious swim before lunch on friday after a long morning of planting in the fierce sunshine. We´ve planted zapillos, or pumpkins up and down many rows, cleaned beet root and parsely, eaten a boatload of cebollas todadia, had dirty fingernails and smelly clothes, made flatbread with our caloused hands, drank hot mint tea and eaten warm potatoes, slept for two straight hours in the afternoon and climbed to the top of houses. It has been and will be a badass adventure.
Also there was a full moon the second night we were here and earlier that day Jorge, the ever wise older man o the fenca took the group out on a tour of his land and we all had a group meditation in the minty fields by the river. Which would have been totally serious if Guillme had been able to stop cracking up. That night after eating the delicous bread that we meditated over while making( not. we actually chatted throughout the proccess and were in return scolded by a fellow patronising(only bc he´s older and speaks better spanish) volunteer.) The bread we made we turned into spanish tacos as we piled them high with hot chutney and pickled onions and peppers. After devouring these by the bondfire all the volunteers were taught a full moon dance. Azuzena cleansed each of us with i think rosemary and then we all did the full moon dance-hand holding and running furiously around in a circle and running towards the fire(all while holding hands) and away from the fire together. Then a dance of two to the left an two to the right , and a spin( women hands on the woom) and a little jig. Quite an interesting and awesome way to welcome the full moon onto the Finca(Farm)
It has been chilly and it has been warm and the mosquitos have been out all the time. We´ve been eating vegetarian, a polenta,veggie, salad, homemade bread regime that is quite healthy and filling. And Azuzena makes the best sauce you´ve ever had. Also on friday we were such good volunteers all week that Azuzena made two enormously delicious pizzas dripping with savory goodness that we ate by the bondfire with exhausted enthusiasm. (But the volunteers traipse to town every so often for chocolate.)
Currently, Juli and I and Arienne a volunteer from Quebec, are in Mendoza for the weekend to take some hostel showers and drink some cold cervezas and eat some bad ass food. En Domingo we will return for another week on the farm and then who knows where to go from there.
That is all for now and will return in a week to describe more of the adventure.

El Omnibus a Mendoza

Well, just arrived in Mendoza, last day in Salta was interesting, as we were sitting in from of the Catedral in Plaza 9 de Julio, just lazily drawing and writing, a ruckus broke out with some maybe drunken guy attempting to steal crates from a strawberry stand, we had not even gaged what was going on before cops showed up to pull him off, then 30 seconds later in paraded blue camo and shield wielding riot cops to quell the situation of the fruit stealer. It was awesome and the cops here are oh so efficient.

The we hopped on a bus to Mendoza, and as on all bus rides, there are always drug checkpoints outside every province, or wherever they decide to have them, and it has happened to us before, they wake you up, ask for your passport and look for suspicious looking packages. This time no different, except the cop who asked for our passports kept saying and pointing at Juli and saying she was strange( i think, juli thinks he said scrunched, but why would he say that?) and laughing hysterically and even getting his buddy to some up so he could shine the ol flashlight and point out the ¨strange¨gringas. (or gringa, bc apparently i wasnt as strange as her? must be the long legs and the blonde hair? ahah)
Anyways, so this time they did find something. The guy sitting behind us did have several suspicious looking packages, including his backpack, a large cardboard box, and a garbage bag with a large object in it. When the unloaded all the contents onto a table outside, they were all filled with foot long tightly packed baggies of coco leaves. And in the garbage bag was a toy pastel pink plastic toilet like for toilet training, with bags of coco leaves jammed in it as well. Hillarious.
So they unloaded and weighed it all, coming to about 14.75 kilograms of coco leaves, which is like 35ish lbs of the stuff. And after posing with all the items at different angles, and lots of paperwork, they let the culprit keep ( what im guessing is the legal amount) some of the coco leaves, at least his whole backpack full and maybe a small box as well, and then they let him BACK ON THE BUS! He didn´t even look the slightest big phased from the entire situation. He was just chillin and i guess he maybe had a permit for the amount he was allowed to keep bc he kept showing them some piece of paper. But no biggie, he was even kinda smirking throughout the whole thing.
Meanwhile our cop friend kept shining his flashlight up into the bus and waving his finger bc we were watching so intently, like ah ah ah, this is cool but you cant watch. We did anyway. And i even took pix hahahaha! no flash though. im not trying to get a warning or anything, like the coco smuggler did. haha.
Madness I say. So now we´re in Mendoza, gonna chill for the weekend here, maybe do some more vineyards or some biking round, definitely checking out more of the enormous park that is only a few blocks away. And probably going again to this bomb veggie restaurant we found last night which is like the argentinean Flowers. We ate delicious spinach enchiladas, creamy potatoe quiche, mixed bean and lentil salad, Veggie empanadas, eggplant milanesa, potatoe wedges, cauliflour and broc oli(obama) w-cheese sauce. And ate some flan for postre. Muy rico y deliciosa!
And monday off to WWOOF
love to all -liz

Salta

Salta. Well we´ve been here a few days and seen a few things. Salta is a cute city in the northwest of Argentina, with a charming plaza and many day trips to be had. In Salta itself, Juli and I went to their anthropology museum and saw some really cool stuff, including the findings of a National Geographic expedition into the mountians near Salta in 1999, where they found three Incan children preserved. The museum has a ton of their artifacts and also has, get this, the kids in a cryogenically frozen/old air system and you can freaking look at them. So I feasted my eyes on an Incan sacrificial boy about 7 years old. It was insane. Then we traipsed up a thousand or so steps atop a hill that overlooks Salta and you can either walk up or gondola it, and we compromised and walked up and Gondola-ed down, I think the best choice.

Also our roommates are a couple of guys from New Zealand so I´m basically just Flight of the Concords-ing it all day long.

Near to Salta is Salinas Grandes, which is this enormous expanse of Salt flats, which goes on forever kinda looking like dirt, and if you dig deep there is a water table below and these guys dig out little pools and then spoon the salt out with shovels for 30 pesos a ton, which is about 10 american dollars. Also insane. On the way to Salinas Grandes we stopped in an archeological site that pre dates the Incas, This group of inhabitants leaving in about 1440 and the Incas arriving in 1480, and the terrain is full of massive crazy mountains, enormous cacti, and sepia laden dirt.

We went up really high into themountains too, the highest point being about 4700 meters, which is like some thousands of feet which i dont know, but its high ass high. So high in fact that we were chewed on coco leaves to help ease our stomachs and prevent the altitude sickness, which it did. And mostly tasted like green tea, in a big heap in the side of yo mouth. And such a small amount so the guide put it, isn´t considered a drug, because you need so many leaves to even create a gram of cocaine, she said you don´t call someone an alchoholic if they eat grapes! so there you go Hemp haters! You aint a hippie pot head just cause you like hemp milk. Oh wait, yes you are. haha.

We also ventured to Pucamarca, a town on the world heritage list because of its ancient adobe buildings, mountains of many colors, and general awesomeness. Purples and Sepias crash with copper patinas and frosty blues. It is amazingly beautiful. The pictures cant even capture it in the slightest.

Today we went to Cafayete, a town famous for its vineyards, and drank a little wine, ate a little cheese and even had ice cream that was cabernet flavored. We also drove by some awesome rock formations and jagged, harsh and trecherous looking mountains. Similar to the grand canyon, so we´re told, but with less tourists. We went to another Garganta del Diablo, and saw many large rocks that the locals have named based on their similarity to things such as the mummy, the toad, the titanic, the nail, etc. These people love their naming of the rocks.

The best part of these trips is that we´re in a bus with like 16 people, most of them old biddies, and they just mom us the whole time, telling us to put on ice cream and being generally hillarious Argentinean elderly ladies.

We leave Salta tomorrow for Mendoza, during which we will embark on some wwoof-ing on monday of next week for a week or more depending on how it goes.
http://wwoofargentina.com/what_is_wwoof.htm

i was going to upload pix but this comp sux so ciao

Córdoba

Last and final night in Córdoba. Highlights include dinos en el museos, gelato, caminando, empanadas, una camisa nueva y mi cumpleaños de viente-tres. Wanted to blog it up about everything tonight, but just not feeling it. Suffice it to say that this is a nice little(big) town filled with students flooding the streets in white jackets, with portfolios and architecture mobils. A much loved paseo del buen pastor, una visita al museo de Ché Guevara y un a jesuitica estancia in Alta Gracia, a badass bbq anoche even with veggie options para mí, y practicos en mi español. Mucho tiempo para pensando sobre mi novio pero el no estás aquí, y esto es una lastima muy grande. Shout out to Berger-- i miss you baybe! Qué más... well we´re going up to the Oktoberfest in Villa General Belgrano tomorrow because we couldnt go today due to a one day only bus strike affecting only these types of buses. But tomorrow it´s on. And just for a little while too, because we´re going to take another omnibus later a las ocho y cuadro de la noche a Salta, un deserto en el Norte. So basically a lot o bussin with a stopover in beerland and probably going to get some empanadas too before we get on another bus.
Will write more when i´m feelin it.
Love to all, especially mi madre!

Boca Juniors and Iguazu Falls

Well, i sure feel like weve been here more than a week. Since i last wrote juli and i went to a futbol match in BA, the boca juniors who played tigre, and us and a few girls from the hostel traipsed into the seedy or so called neighborhood of boca, to buy cheap tickets and see some crazy fans in action, which we did indeed. We were right in the middle of where the die hard, ever singing, flag hanging boca juniors fans were and it was amazing. But Juli and i were both glad to be gone from BA, even though the weather was getting better, it was just not hitting the mark. Puerto Iguazuen el otro lado, es muy tranquillo y bonita y tenemos una piscina aca. We took an amazing busride that puts greyhound, and pretty much the USAs public transit to shame, semi cama which is third lowest on the rung of awesome busses gave us fully reclining seats, warm and delicios dinner, including pretty much the only vegetable id seen all week, ( this delicious spinnach feta something?), pirated and dubbed in spanish viewing of the dark night, and all in all a great ride of 18 hours or so from BA to Puerto Iguazu.

Our hostel is so amazing that immediately we booked another night when we got there, and then another, and now its been 4 nights and well both be super sad to leave the glorious paradise that is the Hostel Inn of Iguazu falls. First of all, there is glorious tropical weather, a huge ass pool, with surrounding hammocks, and a ping pong table (dont be jealous sean, i haven´t even used it yet bc its so fabulously busy all the time) and is a sunbathing fantasy. Especially coming from bustling, dirty and cold BA. AHH what could go wrong.

Well i wake up after our first night there totally fucking sick. A girl at our last hostel who was sleeping above me was sick and im sure i contracted this bastard of a sickness from her. Sore throat, body aches, blech. But i pulled it together and Juli and I rocked Iguazu Falls. First we walked to la garganta del diablo, or the devil´s throat of the waterfalls which is this enormous convergence of white massive waterfalls that is insane, also insanely busy with tourists. Still feeling totally shitty, we traipsed down onto the Machuco trail, all the trails btw are filled with these, seriously R.O.U.S´s called coaties which are smallish raccoon did it with an anteater type guys that feast on the garbage of tourists and could probably valosa raptor the shit out of you if you were alone and a pack surrounded you. But anyways, we walked forever, playing 20 questions, then 20 questions movie edition, and then 7 degrees of Morgan Freeman, etc. Until we reached this gorgeous little swimming hole with a waterfall feeding into it, which juli totally swam in even though it was freezing, i was totally not feeling up for it unfortunately, but it was cool, i got to photograph.

The next day we went back again, and i still felt like shit, as did juli this time too, but her sickness had more to do with partying all night with brazillian dancers, and doing the macarena and matching drinking with various irishmen. And this time we went all over to the upper and lower points of the waterfalls, and i know it probably seems like the waterfalls would get old, but they are so enormous and so amazing that every time you see them you kinda wanna cry because of their magnamity. We even took a little boat over to this pequeña isla con una playa tambien, where you walk up some hella steep stairs for kinda a long time, but then you are really close to the falls, and it rocks. OH and we saw rainbows, it was like a my little pony wonderland i swear.

Tomorrow night we are taking another long busride to the town of Córdoba, which is vying for Argentinas 2nd city, and where there are many universities as well, and i´ve contacted some farms from wwoof to see if we can get some volunteering in towards the end of the month when we head to Mendoza, which is cerca de los Andes and is Argentina´s wine country. There is also a pseudo octoberfest close to medoza the first two weeks of october that we may try to take a day trip to as well. We will arrive in Córdoba at 4pm this Sunday, on my 23rd birthday, i can´t believe i am going to be 23 already, oh how time flies. Yes Berger, i get what you were talking about now. And then we´ll only be 4 years apart again? haha.

Las Primeras dias en Buenos Aires

Well the first few days in BA have been quite intersting. The first day we stayed up all day and traipsed to la boca, and basically just tried to stay awake, thinking we'd get a good night's sleep all night long. Well of course the hostel was having a party, and then of course we had to get peer pressured to going, where we drank wine and danced like crazy people. And as we know in BA the party doesn't get going until 1 or 2 am, so around then we took a crazy cab ride with Klaus to Club 69, where we paid 35 pesos just to get in and then i was pretty much ready to leave, me and Susan, our new friend from Holland and some other peeps left like eh 20 mins after we got there, leaving Juli and Tali and some others to party hard todo el noche. Then on friday juli and i got up, at like 11 30, had breakfast, chatted a bit, and proceeded to sleep from 130pm to 730pm. totally fucking up our un jetlag plan. And basically chilled out last night, went out to get some food, deliciosa pizza con mozarella and then slept. Today we got up early enough for free breakfast, which was cool, and then went to the Bus station to get our billetes for Iguazu falls where we'll go on monday. BA right now is just quite cold and we are looking for some sunshine and adventure, and BA isn't quite it right now. Then after wandering lost at la estacion, turns out we were at the train station not the bus station, and after going there we finally got our tickets. Then we hopped back onto the subway or Subte and went to Palermo, where there are lovely parks and museos etc. But we got lost there too, and finaly got some bread and cheese and hung out for a picnic, where we spotted a lazy cat just taking a nap in a tree garfield style. Hillarious. Then we walked through some parks and went to la jardin japones which was quite pretty and full of fat ass coy fish that are getting fed waaay too much. Manana we might to se the Boca Juniors in a little futbol match, and tonight i believe there is a fiesta de primavera en our hostel, so we'll probably chill here for that.
Chao