Argentina (October 2005)

October 2005

Well well, hello to everybody back home and beyond. It’s been quite the journey since I last sent an update, so here’s what’s been going on...

Kevin and I are definitely settled now and into a sort of daily life routine here. It finally hit me a couple weeks ago that Argentina is home now, which is very very strange for me after 22 years in glorious Iowa City. I’m climbing and going to the gym every day and trying to get outdoors during the weekends.
I finally checked out the trail next to our house. It starts maybe three meters from our doorstep and we see mountain bikers coming down the hill all the time. I headed out last Sunday for a run--with the dogs--and it turns out it’s a giant system of mountain bike and ATV trails that go all over the hill/mountain behind our house. It was pretty incredible, I ran for about 15 minutes and hit this huge clearing that opens up into a field where there are mountains with green trees on one side and snow capped mountains on the other.
I can’t really describe how amazing it is to run through trails with mountains on either side of you and no people. I kept heading up the mountain to definitely the best view I’ve seen of the city so far (lake, city, Andes...) until I realized I had gotten lost. Luckily the dogs figured out I didn’t know where I was and led me home without much trouble, though Roco about killed me every time he wanted to run next to me.
We’ve also checked out the city a bit more and made it to Oktoberfest at the German high school here. It was really more like an elaborate German-themed kegger, but there was dancing, accordions, sawing competitions and high school girls strutting about as they do here. Watching drunk mothers trying to saw off a chunk of tree in front of their children was pure comedy.

A couple weeks ago we also managed to escape to Chile for a few days to avoid paying for Argentine Visas. We met up with my friend Melanie from the China trip and some of her friends from school in Santiago to climb an active volcano in Pucón. It was definitely an unforgettable experience: a six-plus hour exhausting ascent up a snow covered volcano, with a two to three hour descent to follow. Eight of us started at the bottom and only six made it to the top.
It was a little different than we expected, since you had to wait around for an explosion in the really deep crater to see any lava. But the sound was incredible; it was like huge waves crashing onto the beach, only it was liquid hot magma (sorry, couldn’t pass up the chance to say that). Unfortunately, not everybody survived so well the next day. Pretty much everyone was sunburned. Three kids went to the ER that night after they severely burned their corneas trying to share one pair of sunglasses. I took second-degree burns to the face, which had some unpleasant symptoms and resulted in a very uncomfortable following week. I didn’t follow a certain somebody’s advice and use sunscreen--so lesson learned.
The trip back from Pucón was a little problematic too, as Kevin and I were stranded four hours away from home in San Martin de los Andes because all the buses had already left for the day once we got there. The city is gorgeous and reminded me a lot of Vermont, but when you only want to get home and enjoy a hot shower and your own bed, we were a little irritated. Though many thanks to Sherlock for the hostel advice, which ended up being cheap and right next to the bus station. Obviously we made it back, though several days later than expected.

In other news, last weekend was the "First Annual North Patagonian Climbing Competition" at the gym where I climb. Very good time. My friend from the gym won our division, I managed to beat all the 12-year-olds that came down from San Martin (I swear this was an accomplishment, those kids were ridiculous) and I got some great photos of some of us slacklining in between rounds. The second day is in a couple weeks in San Martin, where I hope to slip into the semifinals so I can make a fool of myself :)

Otherwise, my Spanish is improving I guess. At least my ability to understand is 100 times better. The speaking is frustrating as we keep learning more intricacies about the language and I feel like I’ve been speaking some rudimentary Spanish-like language until now. It’s frustrating at times, but necessary I think to motivate me to improve. My greatest accomplishment thus far was a series of phone calls I had to make to our coordinator and then to the customer service menu of my cell phone provider and finally to a customer service rep. An hour or more all in an effort to find out the security code to hear my voicemails. I got it done, though, with my fancy language skills, but only fans of Spaceballs would truly appreciate the result.

Then this weekend Melanie is coming down from Santiago and Kevin and I are going to El Bolsón with one of professors to experience the community there, which is known for being "very in tune with nature." Basically it’s a hippie town where they have a huge art/foods fair every Saturday and they brew some good beer. So as Jeff would say, I’m going to commune with my people, throw Frisbees and talk about our dirty feet. Should be fun, and nobody but the WCTU can argue with a school-organized visit to a microbrewery.

That’s all for now, I apologize for the length. I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves wherever you might be. Keep in touch, I haven’t heard from a few of you in some time.