Turning Argentine

One of the few drawbacks to my charmed life here is that, as a WWOOFer, my fellow volunteers and companions are uniformly English-speaking foreigners like me. I’ve had great luck and met some wonderful (mostly) girls since I’ve been here, but what’s been missing from the equation is the Argentine element. We spend a lot of time with Cynthia and her family, and speak Spanish during the time we’re together, but for the rest of the time, English dominates. I haven’t minded this too much, as I feel like my Spanish has improved a ton since I arrived in Argentina, and I feel really good about my fluency at this point, but I do feel like I’ve learned more Cynthia-isms than Argentine “modismos” or slang.

Until now. Two weeks ago, Federico arrived. I was the only volunteer here for a few days, and took advantage of the opportunity to get in some solo weaving and bread-making time, and wasn’t expecting anyone new until at least the following Monday. “A boy from Buenos Aires called last night, and he’s coming today at midday,” Cynthia told me Friday morning, as we were feeding the animals and cleaning the barn. She was excited about having an Argentine volunteer for the first time. A few days later, Maria Luz, another “Portena” or Buenos Aires resident, arrived, and my immersion deepened even further. “We’re going to Argentinize you, Sarita,“ Cynthia told me.

For the first time since I’d been here, I was the only gringa around. Daily life has changed in subtle ways, and I’ve realized how comfortable I was within my little cocoon of extranjeras. Instead of the communal, ubiquitous pot of oatmeal for breakfast each morning, I make my own portion with my black tea and milk, while Fede and Maria Luz eat their bread and pass mate (mah-tay). The never-ending list of possible empanada fillings that had been a constant topic of conversation among my fellow gringas since I arrived back in November petered out,. And for the first time in months, I felt like my Spanish got worse.

Spending time with two Argentine young people, I realized, is different than spending time with Cynthia. Cynthia is used to speaking to non-native speakers with various levels of Spanish proficiency; she speaks slowly, and with a minimum of slang. Maria Luz and Fede do not. I’ve found myself asking, “Que significa?” or “Que quiere decir…?” not once a day, as I had been previously, but nearly in every conversation. It’s been challenging, being thrust into this state of immersion. I’m more tentative in my speech, often following a sentence with a self-conscious, “Would you say it like that?” It’s made me feel much farther from the fluency I’ve been working towards, and at times, it’s brought up a frustration I recall clearly from my semester abroad in Chile, but which I thought I’d passed at this point.

Taking a step back, I know that all of these feelings of inadequacy are signs of growth. My Spanish has not gotten worse, it’s just that, for the first time since my first weeks in Argentina, I’m learning a lot each day. In addition, it’s made me realize just how foreign I am, and just how tight was the cocoon I had been living in, in the formerly American-dominated Casita. Fede and Maria Luz have brought me down to earth from my food-obsessed La-la Land. Fede’s vege-anarchist philosophizing includes plans to travel for three to five years, working his way around organic farms in exchange for food and lodging, and learning first-hand, while also studying from the impressive library of books he’s carting around. His hope is to eventually teach campesinos how to produce their food sustainably and self-sufficiently. Meanwhile, he entertains the rest of us with inventive and no-holds-barred culinary creations, heavily based in rice, polenta, lentils, and whatever happens to be in the Casita (hot chocolate polenta?) and random vulgar exclamations using the few English words he knows. Maria Luz, on the other hand, is using the last weeks of summer vacation from her university studies in Biochemistry to be here and learn about gardening and cheese making. Having gone to a bilingual school her whole life, her English is impeccable, but she does her best not to use it, for our sake (a week ago, an American friend I met in Buenos Aires in November arrived, so the balance has shifted a bit).

Walking back to the Casita from Cynthia’s the other evening, I could smell something delicious in the works as I approached. I walked in to find Fede frying up ‘tortas fritas,’ a typical Argentine snack, and Maria Luz preparing to make a tarta de verduras for dinner. I had a mate in my hand even before I could sit down. Six months into my life here, I'm finally starting to become un poco Argentine.

Learning Goals

Last year, as this trip was taking shape, I realized that the central theme--the most important thread that was woven through all the ideas I had--was learning. Above all, I set out to learn about myself; having passed this far into my adult life, I had become acutely aware that I haven’t devoted nearly enough time to that exceptionally important undertaking.

Beyond that, I was, and am, as you know by now, very keen on learning, in essence, “how to do all the things that people have been doing for centuries,” but which most people don’t do for themselves anymore: producing their own food, building their homes, etc. And as the months have passed, I’ve been learning a ton about myself, without even trying, and I’ve found more and more things that I want to learn how to do.

At Rincon del Sur, the opportunities for learning are unavoidable. Since establishing herself and her family here ten or eleven years ago, Cynthia has dedicated each year of her life to studying some subject, with a mentor or in a formal course, that enhances or makes possible her homemade life. The first year, she wisely chose to apprentice with a veterinarian, learning all she needed to know about raising cows and sheep and poultry, etc Since then, she has done year-long studies in cheese making, bread and pastry, beer and liquor, apiculture (beekeeping), gardening and landscape architecture, and weaving, among others. Each day our activities are varied, and often they include one of these subjects, and if any of us express interest in something she knows, she readily offers to teach us.

Which brings me to the situation I find myself in now. Having come back to this lovely little farm in northern Patagonia, with a hostess and teacher whose goal it is to teach what she knows to those who want to learn, I’m feeling overwhelmed by the possibilities, and trying to carve out more of a focused period of study while I’m here. It’s been wonderful to learn a little bit about a lot of things while I’ve been here, but when planning my return to the farm, I knew that I wanted to have a bit more of a focus, either undertaking a project of my own and seeing it through, or dedicating myself to studying one or two things, beyond just a one afternoon introduction.

Little by little, my farm school study is taking shape. Inspired by my friend Darcy’s goal-setting activities, I’ve started making lists of the things I want to do, trying to prioritize and define each study by determining a desired number of sessions or lessons in each before I leave. So far, this is what I’m working on:

1) Breadmaking, 7 sessions: I’ve fallen in love with making bread. There’s something incredibly satisfying about kneading dough that has made me seriously consider enrolling in a professional baking school when I get back to the real world. We are blessed to have homemade bread every day, and each time it comes out of the oven, it’s a little miracle to me. I don’t even eat that much of it, but I could knead dough all day long. Normally, there are four of us partaking in the making process, but yesterday I was able to finagle a solo session, start to finish, and it was heaven. I’m hoping to make that a regular happening.

2) Driving lessons, 5 sessions: While not explicitly a farm activity, learning to drive stick is something I’ve wanted to learn for years, but which was put off due to lack of necessity, especially while living in New York City and essentially not needing to drive for five years. Down here, a car with an automatic gear shift virtually doesn’t exist--Nacho told me that only handicapped people drive them. I feel kind of handicapped, myself, being 27 years old and not knowing how, so Nacho has started giving me lessons. So far, I’ve had two, and it’s going pretty well, considering I have a deserted dirt road to practice on. I’ve set out a goal of five sessions before I leave. More would be great, as I know I’ll need more practice to really feel comfortable with it, but I don‘t want to take advantage of Nacho‘s generosity.

3) Weaving, 5 sessions: Cynthia has this beautiful table loom, on which she makes elaborate table runners, belts, pouches, and wall hangings, seemingly in no time. She’s begun teaching us how to use it, and it’s become another favorite of mine. I’ve rediscovered my love for yarn crafts, in general, and relearned how to crochet the other day, after many fits and starts, and a bit of research, and am trying to get the hang of spinning the wool we’ve spent our rainy afternoons cleaning. Again, weaving sessions are group sessions at this point, but I bought some yarn this weekend to start a project of my own, so I can get some more solo loom time.

In addition to these things, Cynthia wants to set up some hydroponic growing channels, and has enlisted me, with my one summer’s experience in hydroponic growing, to help her do it. We’ve done some research together, and I’m really excited about seeing this project through. Even if I’m gone by the time the lettuce is ready for harvest, I know I’ll get to see the pictures.

One of the difficulties in pursuing these activities here is that there are three or four of us, always, and most often we’re all interested in doing and learning everything. Cynthia already spends six hours a day with us, so I don’t like to take up her time or space during our midday break or in the evenings, although she is always very gracious about letting us stay longer to finish a baking or weaving project, or to use her wireless internet. She’s always very supportive of our own personal goals and interests, though, so I’m sure she’d be willing to work something out.

I’m trying to stay present and put my energy towards these efforts, as much as possible, but at the same time, I’m trying to figure out what’s up next for my adventures, with a tentative departure date from this farm set for mid-March. It’s looking like I’ll head to another farm, either in Argentina, or perhaps Brazil. I’ll be in touch about how that takes shape, and will put up some photos of my projects soon, too.

PS The photo at the top is just-baked "pan de leche" we made the other day in Cynthia's kitchen. Brioche-y goodness with pastry cream on top.

Folkdancing in Disney World

On my second night in Salta, I met up with a group of people for a social gathering organized through couch surfing.com, which is a network of people around the world who are looking for lodging on the couch or extra bed of a local, and those locals who have lodging to offer. Its also a way to meet people for a drink or a meal or an event, as we were doing that night. The group consisted of three folks from Salta--Alejandro, Valeria, and Leo, as well as Natalie, the British girl who had initiated the gathering, and Andres, a “Porteno,” or Buenos Aires resident, whom she had met on the bus. We met at a pena, which is a restaurant where customers spontaneously get up to play and sing folkloric music. It being a Sunday night, there wasn’t a whole lot of music happening, but it was fun to meet some local young folks, and Alejandro invited Natalie and I to stay at his house the following night.

When I arrived at Alejandro’s house the next evening, I found out that Natalie had just bought a bus ticket to Purmamarca, a tiny town that is the first along the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a popular route leading to the border with Bolivia, with small, traditional mountain towns set amidst dramatic desert landscape (although at this point, I had only just heard of this place, and didn’t know much about it, given my lack of travel guide). I had been wanting to go as well, so the following day (Tuesday), we set off on a four-hour bus ride to Jujuy, the northernmost province in Argentina.

I noticed part way through the bus ride that the bus was nearly full of 22-ish year-old Argentines, most likely from Buenos Aires. There weren’t any, as far as I could tell, foreign travelers, and very few older people. I thought it was interesting, as until now, I had run into young Argentine travelers, but also a good number of foreigners, as well. We arrived in Purmamarca, a town much too small to have its own bus terminal, rather dropping us off on the side of the road, and quickly found Andres, Natalie’s Porteno bus campanion, who had arrived the day before. He led us through narrow, unpaved roads, lined with low adobe buildings, to our hostel, a few blocks away. Even from this point, I could tell that the town consisted of about six blocks by six blocks, and it was then that I first noticed the stunning surroundings; dark red, and multi-colored rocky hills and rock formations rose up on all sides, providing a dramatic, panoramic backdrop for this tiny little village.

We dropped our bags at the hostel and went for a walk along a road surrounding the village. Every turn provided a new, breathtaking scene; the colors of the rocks seemed too vivid to be natural, and we stopped nearly every minute to take another picture.

While the natural beauty of the town was stunning, I was already beginning to feel a little bit unsure about other aspects of the town. Our busload of backpackers was only a portion of the total; the hippie Porteno set was everywhere throughout the town--playing hand drums in the plaza, passing around a cut-off soda bottle full of wine, sharing joints on the tops of various surrounding look-outs. I soon realized that they vastly outnumbered the “locals.”

“Local” was a relative term as well. In addition to the older, single-story adobe buildings built closer to the plaza, newer, more stylized versions made up the fringe of town, housing restaurants adorned with Andean “artesania,” and hotels with enclosed parking lots. Joaquin, the driver we hired to take us to the nearby salt flats, had grown up in Purmamarca. When Andres remarked how much the town had changed since he had been here ten years ago, Joaquin replied that the tourist boom had started around 2003. “What did people do for a living before that?“ I asked. “They used to farm the land, but by then, they couldn’t make a living anymore. They moved to the city, or to Mendoza, to work in the wine vineyards,” he said. Now, the plazas were lined with tables, piled high with “artesania,” some of it, like the thick, natural-dyed tapestries, obviously handmade and seemingly “traditional,” while other items, like the ubiquitous, brightly-colored, cheaper tapestries, bags, and llama-covered sweaters, seemed more likely to have been made in China.

That evening, we ate dinner at a local “pena,” a type of restaurant with live, often spontaneous entertainment, provided by guests or invited musicians who play Argentine folkloric music on guitars, a large, skin-covered drum played with a mallet, and/or a small, ukelele-esque 10-string guitar called a “charrango.” The band that played for us was great. They played a mixture of traditional songs with more contemporary ones, roused a few brave diners to get up and partake in a lesson in how to dance the traditional Argentine folkloric dance, and told us they were part of an artists’ collective from Buenos Aires.



I know my reaction is not unique, but I found myself struggling to free myself from it while I was there. Andres and Natalie didn’t seem to find fault with what I felt was a false and fetishized façade. Am I really so cynical? I asked myself more than once. After all, this town had seemingly been saved by tourism. I often thought about a similar high-altitude village in northern Chile where I lived for a week while studying abroad. It shared many characteristics with Purmamarca, but most of the thatched roofs of its adobe homes had caved in, long since abandoned by owners who had departed for the city. No more than fifty people lived there when I visited, most of them elderly. Purmamarca would certainly be suffering a similar fate by now, had it not been “discovered” by tourists, its isolation and stunning natural surroundings bolstering the appeal of whatever traditional culture still remained. Now, surely, its population had grown beyond what it had been before the agricultural economy declined. This was surely a good thing, no?

Clearly, also, what attracts us to places like Purmamarca is the opportunity to participate in, if only for a moment, a way of life that we deem to be authentic or traditional, untouched, for the most part, by the pollution of modern culture, which is largely inescapable for us. The week I spent in the village in northern Chile was the richest and most treasured time of my abroad experience. In other words, what we want is an insider’s view into the last remaining hold-outs of “traditional” life. We just don’t want to share it with anyone else.

After Purmamarca we traveled on to a larger town a bit farther north in the Quebrada, called Tilcara. It, too, had a plethora of hostels, tour operators, artesania, and young Portenos. Its bigger size diluted the tourist presence; it seemed to have a more stronger remaining local population and economy. I went along with Andres to the artisan market so he could buy some wall hangings to decorate his apartment. We went on a hike through that beautiful desert landscape to a nearby waterfall. That night, I even joined in at the bar when the hippies started dancing “folklorico.”

On being a bad tourist.

I just got back to the farm, after five weeks of exploring Argentina, with my sister, with my parents, and on my own. I saw some incredible landscapes, met some great people, and decided that I don’t really like traveling.

Hmmmm…okay, what do I mean by that? In essence, I’ve decided to “travel” for a year, and it’s been amazing. I guess what I mean, and what I’ve known for a while, is that I don’t like so much traveling from one place to another, snapping photos, swapping travel stories with other young backpackers at hostels, whose itineraries are inevitably some version of, “Yeah, we did Colombia, then Ecuador, then Peru, then Bolivia, then up to Brazil….” a finger tracing an imaginary map in the air in front of them.

I admit, being up north in Salta, some six or seven hours from the Bolivian border, I did have thoughts of just continuing on, taking advantage of my proximity to explore the Andean land to the north for a few more weeks. I do want to spend time there someday, maybe later on in my trip. But after one or two more towns, and as many hostels, I decided otherwise. I visited a lot of different places in my five weeks: Mendoza, Cordoba, Salta, Jujuy; but each of them seemed like just an introduction. I, like most of the travelers I met, spent just a few days in each place. Accordingly, I felt like I just got a taste of the place. I walked around each town or city, stopping in interesting looking shops or restaurants, visiting plazas and taking pictures of churches. I took some day trips to nearby hiking spots and waterfalls. But I never got to know any of the places, and, with each bus I boarded, was left with an unsolvable feeling of uneasiness; I didn’t want to stay longer and continue being a tourist, but nor did I feel like I had spent enough time there. I settled on deciding that I’d have to return someday, stay for a while, and really get to know it (I know that, in most cases, this probably won‘t happen, but it gave me peace to think it, anyway).

After spending two days in Cafayate, a beautiful little wine-making desert town four hours south of Salta, I headed to the nearest city to the south, bought a bus ticket for El Bolson, and began the long journey “home” to the farm.

"Going Veg" in Argentina

One night over dinner at the Hare Krishna farm, I was talking with one of the nuns, Jai Radhi, a mature and fun-loving 17 year-old, about vegetarianism. I think the conversation began when I asked how they make the delicious, fluffy cake we had eaten the night before for a birthday celebration, without eggs. Hare Krishna don´t eat eggs, according to Jai Radhi, because its part of the menstrual cycle of the animal. Somehow this evolved into a recounting of my experience helping to kill thirty chickens last summer at a friend´s farm in Vermont. By the time I noticed the look of horror on her face, and on the faces of the two or three other devotees in the dining room, listening in, it was too late. "Sarah, you´re a criminal!" she exclaimed, not at all swayed by my argument of, "No, but it's better to come to terms with the killing of the animal than to buy a styrofoam package in the supermarket," etc. The nuns eventually forgave me (I think), but for the remainder of my stay, Jai Radhi greeted me (in English) with "Sara, Go Veg!" which always made me laugh.

I had no intention of "going veg" back then. I was willing to forgo meat during my stay at Eco Yoga Park, but this is Argentina, after all. People eat more meat here than in any country in the world. Nearly every Argentine male I've met has said he eats meat every day (and here, "carne" or meat, means beef), and often, twice a day. I'd be crazy to become a vegetarian in Argentina...right?

Well I've been here three and half months now. I don't eat steak every day; in fact, on the farm, we don't eat any meat, but a steak dinner at A Punto, a great steakhouse (or "meat restaurant," as I call it) is a favorite Saturday night ritual. Let's just say I've eaten my share of great steak since I've been here, not to mention chorizo, salchicha, morcilla (blood sausage), conejo (rabbit), cordero (lamb), and ham.

At the same time, however, I've been listening to the audio version of book that's made it more and more difficult for me to square my carnivorous ways with the reality of meat production. It's called The End of Food and it's about the industrial food system, both in the United States and abroad, and its various and major negative impacts on everything from human health, the environment, and the economies of developing nations.

There are a number of compelling facts in the book that have made me rethink my meat-eating ways. I'd say I'd spare you the details, but I'm pretty convinced that these things are important to know, whether you eat meat or night. One of them is the fact that a single hamburger patty contains meat from an average of fifty different cows, and can have meat from as many as 1,000 cows. This was given as part of the chapter about food-borne illness, and the near-impossibility of tracing the source of an outbreak of e. coli, and it made my stomach turn.

The second fact that I learned, which I'm sure I've heard before, but which really hit home this time, is that beef is incredibly inefficient to produce. It takes 20 lbs. of grain to produce one lb. of beef, versus around 5-7 lb. grain for the same amount of pork and even less for chicken. Like I said, I know I've learned about this before, and even tried out being a vegetarian for a year in college. But, as Jonathan Safran Foer explained more eloquently than I can in this article in the Times Magazine a few months ago, it's easy to "forget" what you don't really want to know, and so I did.

So I've decided to go partially veg, for now. I'm going to stop eating beef, even though I'm in Argentina, the land of beef. I know it sounds crazy, and, some may say, impossible. But I think it can be done; in fact, I've even met some full-on (albeit foreign) vegetarians here, and have eaten in some lovely vegetarian restaurants. Like I said earlier, I've had my share of delicious steaks since I've been here. I've done it, but I don't need to keep doing it. For now, I'll keep eating pork and chicken, placating my conscience with that fact about them being much more efficient, and selectively forgetting all of the reasons why maybe I shouldn't be eating them, either. Maybe when I get back to the States, I'll take Jai Radhi's advice and fully "go veg."

Soggy Days

Back in November, the other volunteers (Aily, Lucy, Anna) and I were looking for weekend hikes around El Bolson. When we asked Cynthia for recommmendations, she replied that, while there were lots of hikes around the area, most of them were "nothing special." There was one place, however, that she said is "incomparable." So we set out, one Saturday, for an overnight hike to El Cajon del Azul, a refugio, or hikers' cabin, in the mountains, five hours by foot to the west of Cynthia's farm. She was right. The hike took us deep within a narrow valley between mountains, along the Rio Azul, an unimaginably clear turquoise river, to this impossibly gorgeous, isolated farm and refugio, where Atilio, a sixty-some year-old man, had lived for thirty years.

That hiking trip was beautiful, but too short. Cajon del Azul was just the first of a series of refugios, each several hours apart, that promised to be just as spectacular as the first, but we had to return to the farm the next day. So when my sister Meredith arrived on the 26th of December, and we set off to travel for a month, the kick-off trip was a no-brainer: a four-day hiking trip into that same narrow valley. Luckily, Mer was up for it, and after buying food supplies and loading up our packs, we set off around noon on Sunday, the 27th.


On Saturday, while running errands in town, we had stopped in the office of the local "Club Andino," or mountain club. There we had registered and seen a five-day forecast, which predicted cloudy but mild weather for our hike, with chances of occasional light showers, at worst, for one of the days. On our first day, the weather was windy at times, but all-in-all pleasant--we spent the afternoon shedding layers until the last half hour or so, when, with the lowering sun, the air became chilly, and it started raining lightly. We arrived at Cajon del Azul tired but content to share a liter of homemade beer and take in the beautiful scenery.


The next morning, we woke up around 9:00, among fifteen or so other bodies sleeping on foam mattresses side by side in the loft of the refugio. After an oatmeal and apple breakfast, we began to pack up and prepare to leave for a long day of hiking. One thing I had learned about Argentines is that their sense of time is a very personal thing. We had been told by different people that the next refugio on our trip, Los Laguitos, was anywhere from six to eight hours away. In any case, we expected a long day. As we packed, Meredith offered to pay for our stay, which cost about $10 per person, since she owed me money. It was then that she discovered that her envelope of money hadn't made it into her pack, and was (hopefully) still back at the farm.

Yikes. So, this changed things. The money that I had would last us two nights, but not the three nights it would take to complete the full circuit. We'd have to cut our trip short a day by taking a path through the middle of the original circuit we had planned, bypassing Los Laguitos and spending our second night at Encanto Blanco, so that we could be close enough to hike back to Cynthia's on the third day. I went to pay Nicolas, the "refugiero" and Atilio (the owner)'s son-in-law, and asked him for advice, explaining our dilemma. He showed me on the map where to go, and then disappeared for a few minutes. When he returned, he thrust a 50 peso bill in my direction--more than enough to cover our expenses for the original three-night journey. "Take this," he said. "When you get back, you can leave the money in an envelope at the store near the trailhead." I protested, incredulous of his trust and generosity. "It'd be one thing if you were staying at a hostel in town, and were just tourists passing through. But you're staying at the house of people we know. But hurry, it's getting late and you have a long walk ahead of you!"

Indeed we did. Our moods bolstered by our good fortune, we set off around 11:00am, unconcerned about the gathering wind and occasional drizzle. We stopped to take pictures at pretty spots, walking rather leisurely, knowing that the sun doesn't set until 9:30 at this time of year. However, two or three hours into the hike, the wind had good-and-gathered, and the occasional drizzle had turned into a cold, steady rain. The turquoise Rio Azul, such a picturesque companion to our left as we set off, became a menace; every fifteen minutes or so, we'd come to an arroyo, or stream, which fed into the river. While some were tiny, and easy to cross, the rain had turned many a trickle into roaring streams, requiring treacherous, barefoot crossings, numbing our bare legs and delaying us several minutes each time. The trail was increasingly muddy, and Canio de Colihue, a bamboo-like cane, grew in endless fields, soaking my leggings with icy rainwater, and threatening to poke out an eye with trimmed tips.

Utterly soaked, we forewent lunch in favor of an earlier eventual arrival, trudging on. Conversation had ceased, and, as the hours stretched, I focused my energy on avoiding the muddiest parts of the rutted-out trail and transforming my increasingly negative mood into a more positive one. "We're never going to get there," and "This is the most miserable hike of my life," became, through sheer willpower, "At least I have legs to walk on" and, "This isn't so bad--Cambodian children had to walk through worse for much longer during the Khmer Rouge."

It was a long, cold, wet day. Towards 5:00, we began waiting anxiously for an incline; Nicolas had said that the last two hours were uphill. As tired as we were from negotiating the rutted trail, every time the trail veered upward for even a few steps, our hearts leapt with the hope that we were beginning the final stretch. Eventually, we began climbing, and though the trail became even more rutted and difficult (we later found out that a group with fifteen horses had come through the day before), our spirits picked up, and I had to fight to keep from focusing too much on the eventual warm meal and fire we'd soon enjoy.

The last two hours of climbing stretched into three, but at last, the woods began to open up, and a mist-covered lake appeared to our left. Still not wanting to get my hopes up, I held out believing we had arrived until I saw the log cabin in the distance on the lake shore, chimney smoke mixing with the fog-choked air. We practically ran the last five hundred meters, bursting through the door of Los Laguitos Refugio like two drowned rats. Not having anticipated the downpour, our packs and 90% of their contents were soaked through. We stripped down, changing into whatever clothes had managed to stay dry. Lorena, the "refugiera," helped us to hang everything above the roaring wood stove and made us mate and tea. It was 8:00.

That night, we lay in the loft listening to the rain on the roof and praying that tomorrow morning would never come. Having discovered that our third destination required an even steeper climb, and would almost certainly be covered in snow from the current storm, we had decided to take the trail back the way we came. The prospect of doing it all over again, this time sliding down the two-hour incline, crossing streams even more swollen from the continued rain, was far from appealing, though it was our only option.

The next morning, after putting it off for as long as possible, we got up and began to prepare ourselves for another rainy long day. This time, we covered feet with plastic bags, and stuffed them inside our packs to keep our freshly dried clothes from getting wet again. We set off around 10:00, expecting the worst, but the rain had stopped, and miraculously, the streams that had been so formidable yesterday we crossed almost without issue (Meredith took a plunge that submerged the entire lower half of her body!). We passed the day pleasantly, enjoying sunshine and a real lunch break, and reached our destination, another cozy cabin an hour called Retamal forty minutes from Cajon del Azul, in seven hours.

The following day, we set off even earlier, and were back at Cynthia's by 2:00, spurred on by the prospect of ice cream in town later that day. Although the hiking trip hadn't gone exactly as planned, it was certainly an adventure well-worth the icy feet.

I guess this thing won't write itself...

Man, a neglected blog is the worst! The longer it goes unwritten, the harder it is to write. I've started composing blog posts three or four times, but clearly, haven't been able to finish one. Until now! Armed with a brand-new tiny little laptop that my parents brought down as a Christmas parents (Thanks Mom and Dad!!), I'm determined to get on the ball with this blog thing.

So, much has happened since the last installment. In a nutshell, we had Christmas at the farm, which was interesting and different, and fun. Christmas is celebrated here on the night of December 24th, with a big dinner, which is often made up of cold dishes, since its the middle of the summer. I won't describe all of them in detail, but let's just say that there was a lot of canned tuna, mayonnaise, and stuffed, rolled, and boiled foods involved. Here's a picture of the dinner:

I contributed a "special" dish my family eats on Christmas and Thanksgiving—a molded tomato soup-cream cheese-mayonnaise “salad” with radishes, celery, and green onions. While my siblings and I grew up loving this wobbly, salmon-colored appetizer, extended family and friends with whom we’ve shared our holiday meals usually take a polite sliver and fumble over inquiries about the contents and origin of the dish. I was psyched to attempt it using homemade cream cheese, mayonnaise, and vegetables from the garden, and to see what the family and other volunteers thought of it. Plus, given the 1960s theme of the meal, and Argentines' obvious fondness for mayonnaise and gelatin, my odd little addition had never been so "at home."

We sat down to eat around 10:00, and were still at the table when midnight struck. We toasted with pineapple-flavored sparkling wine, and then exchanged gifts. Cynthia had made each of us chicas (volunteers) a personal "Pan Dulce," the Argentine, much-better version of a fruitcake. It's like an Italian "panetone," and Cynthia's is really good. Jenny, Kat, and I (the December volunteers), had made a book for Cynthia, Nacho, Fede, and Sol, filled with recipes, photos, pictures, and poems. It came out really well, and it was great to see their reactions to it.

So that was Christmas! On the day of the 25th, we went down and did the animal chores in the morning, so Cynthia could sleep in, and I spent the rest of the rainy, chilly day in front of the wood stove, reading and journaling. It was cozy and quiet. Which was perfect, because the next few days were anything but!

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