Why hello again. I am trying to cram in a lot of info in one big dose to update you all on our latest adventures.
We are in the very north of Argentina right now, and in about a week we will be crossing the border into Bolivia. We just finished a week of work in a very remote reserve just outside of the town of Jujuy in Argentina´s northernmost province. We planted corn, dug holes, planted beans, weeded, cooked, cleared brush, and did a smattering of other things. The region has been experiencing a serious draught, so once again our bathing practices were quite limited. We had to clean up in a ¨river¨that was a few inches deep, using a cup to pour over ourselves. One day it was 105 degrees, so you can imagine how sweaty we were getting. It was pretty gross! But we had a great time. We worked with three Swedish guys and another American, who actually went to Penn as well, as well as a girl from England. It was funny to talk about college in a small and very remote reserve in the middle of nowhere of Argentina with someone.
Anyway, our plans have changed a bit in the last few weeks. We were supposed to work in Mendoza for a month, but that fell through at the last minute, which was really annoying, but I think it was a blessing in disguise. It means more time in Bolivia and Peru, which we are super excited about. We are looking around for some more work-volunteering in those places. We are thinking of working in Pisco, where there was a huge earthquake a few years ago, and they still need many volunteers to help rebuild the entire town. So far we have one gig lined up in Bolivia. Today we are headed to some remote villages in the north of Argentina for a few days, where we will do some hiking and waterfall viewing and things like that. Then, for Christmas, we are headed to Bolivia, where we will spend the holiday in Tupiza. For any of you who have seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, the town we will be in is where they die. Luke is pretty excited about this, as am I. It is supposed to be just beautiful, with tons of outdoorsy things to do in the area. Then, we are headed to Tarija, which is a bit off to the east, where we will work for one to two weeks with a guy who provides organic produce to local restaurants. It is also Bolivian wine country (we´ve heard the wine is not so good, but still, we will try some). Last night we ate llama for the first time, and it was yummy. I think there will be much more llama to come in Bolivia, although truth be told, we have eaten almost no meat on this journey. We did split one steak since we are in Argentina, but our budgets to not allow for much meat eating.
Anyway, I will try to do some more frequent updating so I am not trying to cram in an entire country´s worth of stuff into ten minutes of writing. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season, and know that we miss and love you and are thinking about you all.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Way overdue post--El Bolson, The Mapuche, and lots of other exciting tidbits
This post is very outdated. I started writing it about a month ago and didn´t have time to finish, but here it is. I will write a new one as well.
So many things have happened since I last wrote a post. It now feels as though our adventures have really begun since leaving Chile. In the past month, we have worked at two different places, met so many amazing people, and learned a lot about a country and a people that have so much to teach us. We have so much more to learn, and we are just about bursting at the seams with enthusiasm. I know that probably sounds pretty geeky, but it´s true!
First of all, Argentina...What a country. It´s natural beauty is astounding, at least where we have been so far. When we first took the bus across the border to Los Antiguos, we were a bit disappointed. As many border towns often are, this one was fairly lame, and we were given some false information at our super crappy hostel about when the bus left for our destination (a town called El Bolson) so we got stuck in Los Antiguos for an extra day. When we finally were able to get on the 14 hour bus ride to El Bolson, we were itching to get out of there. The only bus to El Bolson got in at 2 am, which we weren´t too excited about, but we had no choice. Luckily the bus got in early, and around midnight we were dropped off on a random street corner in a town we had never been to with nowhere to stay. We had been accustomed to being in the middle of nowhere, where it´s no big deal to throw a tent down wherever. Now we found ourselves in an actual town, and we wandered around for a bit feeling lost and worried that we would not find a place to stay. Fortunately, we found this amazing place where we spent a glorious few days beginning our relationship with a town and an area which is one of the coolest places I´ve ever been. El Bolson is nestled in the valley of beautiful mountains, an area well suited to the cultivation of many things. It has tons of fruit trees, vegetables, locally made beers, cheeses, jams, etc. We were originally supposed to spend all of our time working for a group of Mapuche people who had recently reclaimed their land from the government. Our contact to do this was a woman named Blanca Rosa, who is part of WWOOF. El Bolson has an incredible craft market four times a week, and she told us to meet her there the following day and discuss plans. When we met her, we were immediately taken with her. She is about 70, and she was selling handmade windchimes made by one of her sons, and various medicinal plants from her garden, as well as home made teas. She offered that we come and work for her for a bit before heading to work with the Mapuche people. We gladly accepted her offer, and began an amazing two weeks with this very special woman. We worked in the greenhouse, her massive garden, and even did various things around her house, like painting and construction. I can´t really do her justice by describing her, but she is a firecracker of a woman who wanted to teach us all she could about plants, bioconstruction, Argentine politics, and a host of other things. She runs a hostel as well as a WWOOF operation, in addition to being a local advocate and celebrity in the field of permaculture. The local government consults her constantly on issues relating to the environment, because this is an area in which people actually care so much about how humans impact the environment. It´s the kind of place where lots of people come to WWOOF, and then they decide to live there permanently. We met an ex Wall Street banker who came to WWOOF after everything crashed, and now he lives in a Yurt in El Bolson. Needless to say, we made some great friends staying at her place.
Next, we headed into the mountains to work for the Mapuche. Again, the experience is hard to sum up, but I will try. A friend we made at Blanca Rosa´s, who had just come from working with the Mapuche, had warned us that the situation was very disorganized and a bit frustrating, but very rewarding at the same time. It proved to be such. Basically, this large extended family has a piece of land in the moutains, surrounded by beautiful lakes and trees. Rigth now, the land has one very rustic house-shack on it, in which the 85 year old matriarch of the family, Zoila, lives, sometimes alone, and sometimes with 19 year old Alexi, her great nephew. Zoila is about four feet tall, with one eye, almost no hearing, and no teeth! At first she was a bit intimidating because she gives something of a chilly reception, but by the end we were great buddies and she even gave me her shirt to take with me. It was quite touching actually.
Our main contacts, Elba, Zoila´s daughter, and Claudia, Elba´s daugther, would come every few days to work here and there, as would various other members of the family. Our job was to set up living for future volunteers. No one other than Blanca Rosa gave us any direction as to what to do. Our first order of business was to make a shelter for our tent, because every night horses, cows and oxen would come onto the land, and we were told that they would trample us in our tent, which we got a brush with the first night. It was a bit scary! In that area, it is not an animal owner´s responsibility to contain his-her animals, but rather everyone else´s responsibility to keep other´s animals off. Animals wander through the dirt roads all the time, and every night we were visited by animals in the night. Luckily after the first night we had a shelter in the trees constructed to keep us safe. Next we had to build a shack to do our cooking in, and to protect us from the rain and very intense wind. We had only an ax, a hammer, a machete, and a very shitty saw to do so. Various family members owned chain saws, but no one would leave one for us to use. Things like this proved to be a bit frustrating, but we managed to construct a make shift structure that protected us more or less. It took three days of rain to get us to get some proper walls up. There´s nothing like getting soaked to put the fire under your ass! Then we built, or rather rebuilt, an outhouse for our own use. I never thought I´d be so excited to have access to an outhouse, but man, when we finished that thing, it was pretty darn exciting. Our only way to bath at this place was to jump into a freezing cold lake (where talking Patagonian waters here), but the water was crystal clear and quite refreshing seeing as we were covered in dust at all times.
In the end it ended up being a wonderful experience. We met some incredible people and I for one refined my sawing and chopping with an ax skills...not really though. I still stink at both, but I´m working on it! They family had a big deep fried empanada lunch for us on the day before we left, and we got to meet some members of the extended family that we hadn´t met before. We got more offers for long term work, which we passed up because we were committed to work in Mendoza (which subsequently didn´t end up happening, alas, but so it goes). El Bolson and its surrounding areas were absolutely incredible and we wish we had spent more time there. If you ever have the chance to go, GO!
So many things have happened since I last wrote a post. It now feels as though our adventures have really begun since leaving Chile. In the past month, we have worked at two different places, met so many amazing people, and learned a lot about a country and a people that have so much to teach us. We have so much more to learn, and we are just about bursting at the seams with enthusiasm. I know that probably sounds pretty geeky, but it´s true!
First of all, Argentina...What a country. It´s natural beauty is astounding, at least where we have been so far. When we first took the bus across the border to Los Antiguos, we were a bit disappointed. As many border towns often are, this one was fairly lame, and we were given some false information at our super crappy hostel about when the bus left for our destination (a town called El Bolson) so we got stuck in Los Antiguos for an extra day. When we finally were able to get on the 14 hour bus ride to El Bolson, we were itching to get out of there. The only bus to El Bolson got in at 2 am, which we weren´t too excited about, but we had no choice. Luckily the bus got in early, and around midnight we were dropped off on a random street corner in a town we had never been to with nowhere to stay. We had been accustomed to being in the middle of nowhere, where it´s no big deal to throw a tent down wherever. Now we found ourselves in an actual town, and we wandered around for a bit feeling lost and worried that we would not find a place to stay. Fortunately, we found this amazing place where we spent a glorious few days beginning our relationship with a town and an area which is one of the coolest places I´ve ever been. El Bolson is nestled in the valley of beautiful mountains, an area well suited to the cultivation of many things. It has tons of fruit trees, vegetables, locally made beers, cheeses, jams, etc. We were originally supposed to spend all of our time working for a group of Mapuche people who had recently reclaimed their land from the government. Our contact to do this was a woman named Blanca Rosa, who is part of WWOOF. El Bolson has an incredible craft market four times a week, and she told us to meet her there the following day and discuss plans. When we met her, we were immediately taken with her. She is about 70, and she was selling handmade windchimes made by one of her sons, and various medicinal plants from her garden, as well as home made teas. She offered that we come and work for her for a bit before heading to work with the Mapuche people. We gladly accepted her offer, and began an amazing two weeks with this very special woman. We worked in the greenhouse, her massive garden, and even did various things around her house, like painting and construction. I can´t really do her justice by describing her, but she is a firecracker of a woman who wanted to teach us all she could about plants, bioconstruction, Argentine politics, and a host of other things. She runs a hostel as well as a WWOOF operation, in addition to being a local advocate and celebrity in the field of permaculture. The local government consults her constantly on issues relating to the environment, because this is an area in which people actually care so much about how humans impact the environment. It´s the kind of place where lots of people come to WWOOF, and then they decide to live there permanently. We met an ex Wall Street banker who came to WWOOF after everything crashed, and now he lives in a Yurt in El Bolson. Needless to say, we made some great friends staying at her place.
Next, we headed into the mountains to work for the Mapuche. Again, the experience is hard to sum up, but I will try. A friend we made at Blanca Rosa´s, who had just come from working with the Mapuche, had warned us that the situation was very disorganized and a bit frustrating, but very rewarding at the same time. It proved to be such. Basically, this large extended family has a piece of land in the moutains, surrounded by beautiful lakes and trees. Rigth now, the land has one very rustic house-shack on it, in which the 85 year old matriarch of the family, Zoila, lives, sometimes alone, and sometimes with 19 year old Alexi, her great nephew. Zoila is about four feet tall, with one eye, almost no hearing, and no teeth! At first she was a bit intimidating because she gives something of a chilly reception, but by the end we were great buddies and she even gave me her shirt to take with me. It was quite touching actually.
Our main contacts, Elba, Zoila´s daughter, and Claudia, Elba´s daugther, would come every few days to work here and there, as would various other members of the family. Our job was to set up living for future volunteers. No one other than Blanca Rosa gave us any direction as to what to do. Our first order of business was to make a shelter for our tent, because every night horses, cows and oxen would come onto the land, and we were told that they would trample us in our tent, which we got a brush with the first night. It was a bit scary! In that area, it is not an animal owner´s responsibility to contain his-her animals, but rather everyone else´s responsibility to keep other´s animals off. Animals wander through the dirt roads all the time, and every night we were visited by animals in the night. Luckily after the first night we had a shelter in the trees constructed to keep us safe. Next we had to build a shack to do our cooking in, and to protect us from the rain and very intense wind. We had only an ax, a hammer, a machete, and a very shitty saw to do so. Various family members owned chain saws, but no one would leave one for us to use. Things like this proved to be a bit frustrating, but we managed to construct a make shift structure that protected us more or less. It took three days of rain to get us to get some proper walls up. There´s nothing like getting soaked to put the fire under your ass! Then we built, or rather rebuilt, an outhouse for our own use. I never thought I´d be so excited to have access to an outhouse, but man, when we finished that thing, it was pretty darn exciting. Our only way to bath at this place was to jump into a freezing cold lake (where talking Patagonian waters here), but the water was crystal clear and quite refreshing seeing as we were covered in dust at all times.
In the end it ended up being a wonderful experience. We met some incredible people and I for one refined my sawing and chopping with an ax skills...not really though. I still stink at both, but I´m working on it! They family had a big deep fried empanada lunch for us on the day before we left, and we got to meet some members of the extended family that we hadn´t met before. We got more offers for long term work, which we passed up because we were committed to work in Mendoza (which subsequently didn´t end up happening, alas, but so it goes). El Bolson and its surrounding areas were absolutely incredible and we wish we had spent more time there. If you ever have the chance to go, GO!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Ciao Chile y Sus Torros Locos
Barring anymore wild circumstances, this should be my last post in Chile. Sunday we are set to take off for Argentina. Our visas expire in a week, which is crazy, because we never planned to be here this long. I guess that is the beauty of this trip--that we have the flexibility and willingness to change plans as we see fit and as is necessary. A few days ago it seemed as though we might be here for considerably longer again. I will relate the following story and hope that it does not cause too much alarm.
Last week we took a trip to the "big city" of Coyhaique, where we flew into three months ago. We went to do some errands for Mary Ann before we left, and we spent a frenzied few days running around. We returned on Saturday afternoon tired from many many hours in the car on pot holed filled dirt roads, but we at least we got to see tons and tons of baby animals (piglets, lambs, goats, calves) on the side of the road throughout our drive. On Sunday we were out working on the ranch with Mary Ann when we heard the dogs barking wildly. She ran out to see what was going on. Then we heard what sounded like shouting, but we thought she was just yelling at the dogs. We had been inside of this yurt that is on the property doing some work in there. Luke ran out just to make sure everything was okay and I stayed in the yurt. A few minutes later again I heard what I thought was shouting and got concerned. This happened once before, as some of you know, about a month ago when one of the dogs viciously attacked another one. I never wrote a blog post about this, but with the crazy wind here and the large expanses of space, it's sometimes hard to tell what is legitimate shouting and what is just yelling at dogs, excitement, whatever. Anyway, I stepped out of the yurt and a bull charged right by me. I was very confused, but it happened so fast it didn't really scare me. I could tell things were not as they should be, and I ran out to see what was going on. Luke came running and told me we had to go. Mary Ann had been charged by the bull and was very hurt. One of the neighbors had been crossing her property with his animals, and a bull had gotten loose. The bull was already angry, and then the six dogs had gone up to it and surrounded it. Mary Ann tried to call off the dogs, and the bull charged her, ran her down, and plowed her into the ground. Fortunately Luke ran up and diverted its attention and the damage was not worse than it was. What ensued was a rather insane eight hours or so. Her finger was broken very badly (I won't go into too much detail, but it was really bad, as in bone sticking out) and her back was also in a lot of pain. She sent us to find the neighbor, and unkind words were exchanged, which I also won't go into. We then had to try to get her into the pick up, which was very difficult considering the back and torso problems she was experiencing, and drive an hour along pot hole filled dirt "highway" to the town of Cochrane to go to the nearest hospital. I use the word hospital loosely. The doctor there was not equipped to deal with her injuries, and we experienced an absolutely ridiculous lack of adequate medical care. Her finger looked like an accordion and you could literally see the bone, and the doctor tried to tell us it was not broken. Anyway, it was a horrible experience for her. We went and got some friends of hers in the town, and we decided that she was going to need to go to Coyhaique, which is a five hour drive (where Luke and I had just come back from) to go to the hospital there. Luke and I went back to the ranch, packed a bag for her, and waited for two hours by the gate for her friends to come back with her. When she arrived back after dark, she informed us that she was not going to Coyhaique, and was going to take her chances healing at home. This concerned Luke and I a great deal, (as well as her friends Nela and Carlos), but she was adamant. The next morning she was in tremendous pain and made the decision to go to skip Coyhaique entirely and go to Santiago. This was the right choice. We have heard from her and she is going to be fine, but she had a bad blood infection from her finger, and broken ribs that were pushing on a nerve. We offered to stay and help her for as long as she needed us to, but her sister is coming from the states.
Needless to say, it's been a crazy few days. We are taking care of the ranch until she gets back, and then she is insisting that we still head to Argentina on Sunday. So that's the plan for now.
On a lighter note, we will be spending our first spell in Argentina in the El Bolson region, working with a group of old Mapuche women who have just reclaimed some of their land and are beginning to farm. The Mapuche are the native people of this area. So far, despite joining wwoof Argentina, we will be working off the wwoof grid. We got this opportunity through a wwoof farmer that we contacted, and I think our next stop will be in Mendoza working with a small farm that is also not part of wwoof but that we got through a wwoof contact. It's interesting how this is all working out.
We have spent an incredible three months here, and we are ready for our next adventure. We are so relieved that Mary Ann is okay, and of course we gladly would have stayed as long as necessary (although this would have involved having to get an extension on our visas) but we're really excited for the next step and to move on to a new country. Chilean Patagonia is so completely isolated, and although we will still be in Patagonia for a few weeks in El Bolson, the Argentine side is completely different. We will be entering a land of phone service, internet service, mail, and possibly paved roads. The food will not consist only of torta, white bread deep friend in animal fat (which actually tastes pretty good, but you eat one piece and that about does it) and meat. Don't think this is all we've been eating here, because it's not, but there have been times when these are the options, and when we were in Coyhaique, the regional capital, our options for eating out consisted of meat, french fries, meat and french fries. The little hospedaje where we stayed included breakfast, which consisted of Nescafe, hamburger bun like giant pieces of cardboard white bread, and a slice of bologna and American cheese. This is what people eat here! I kid you not. Here we come Argentina, with your delicious food, locally brewed beer, and phone service. We're ready!
Last week we took a trip to the "big city" of Coyhaique, where we flew into three months ago. We went to do some errands for Mary Ann before we left, and we spent a frenzied few days running around. We returned on Saturday afternoon tired from many many hours in the car on pot holed filled dirt roads, but we at least we got to see tons and tons of baby animals (piglets, lambs, goats, calves) on the side of the road throughout our drive. On Sunday we were out working on the ranch with Mary Ann when we heard the dogs barking wildly. She ran out to see what was going on. Then we heard what sounded like shouting, but we thought she was just yelling at the dogs. We had been inside of this yurt that is on the property doing some work in there. Luke ran out just to make sure everything was okay and I stayed in the yurt. A few minutes later again I heard what I thought was shouting and got concerned. This happened once before, as some of you know, about a month ago when one of the dogs viciously attacked another one. I never wrote a blog post about this, but with the crazy wind here and the large expanses of space, it's sometimes hard to tell what is legitimate shouting and what is just yelling at dogs, excitement, whatever. Anyway, I stepped out of the yurt and a bull charged right by me. I was very confused, but it happened so fast it didn't really scare me. I could tell things were not as they should be, and I ran out to see what was going on. Luke came running and told me we had to go. Mary Ann had been charged by the bull and was very hurt. One of the neighbors had been crossing her property with his animals, and a bull had gotten loose. The bull was already angry, and then the six dogs had gone up to it and surrounded it. Mary Ann tried to call off the dogs, and the bull charged her, ran her down, and plowed her into the ground. Fortunately Luke ran up and diverted its attention and the damage was not worse than it was. What ensued was a rather insane eight hours or so. Her finger was broken very badly (I won't go into too much detail, but it was really bad, as in bone sticking out) and her back was also in a lot of pain. She sent us to find the neighbor, and unkind words were exchanged, which I also won't go into. We then had to try to get her into the pick up, which was very difficult considering the back and torso problems she was experiencing, and drive an hour along pot hole filled dirt "highway" to the town of Cochrane to go to the nearest hospital. I use the word hospital loosely. The doctor there was not equipped to deal with her injuries, and we experienced an absolutely ridiculous lack of adequate medical care. Her finger looked like an accordion and you could literally see the bone, and the doctor tried to tell us it was not broken. Anyway, it was a horrible experience for her. We went and got some friends of hers in the town, and we decided that she was going to need to go to Coyhaique, which is a five hour drive (where Luke and I had just come back from) to go to the hospital there. Luke and I went back to the ranch, packed a bag for her, and waited for two hours by the gate for her friends to come back with her. When she arrived back after dark, she informed us that she was not going to Coyhaique, and was going to take her chances healing at home. This concerned Luke and I a great deal, (as well as her friends Nela and Carlos), but she was adamant. The next morning she was in tremendous pain and made the decision to go to skip Coyhaique entirely and go to Santiago. This was the right choice. We have heard from her and she is going to be fine, but she had a bad blood infection from her finger, and broken ribs that were pushing on a nerve. We offered to stay and help her for as long as she needed us to, but her sister is coming from the states.
Needless to say, it's been a crazy few days. We are taking care of the ranch until she gets back, and then she is insisting that we still head to Argentina on Sunday. So that's the plan for now.
On a lighter note, we will be spending our first spell in Argentina in the El Bolson region, working with a group of old Mapuche women who have just reclaimed some of their land and are beginning to farm. The Mapuche are the native people of this area. So far, despite joining wwoof Argentina, we will be working off the wwoof grid. We got this opportunity through a wwoof farmer that we contacted, and I think our next stop will be in Mendoza working with a small farm that is also not part of wwoof but that we got through a wwoof contact. It's interesting how this is all working out.
We have spent an incredible three months here, and we are ready for our next adventure. We are so relieved that Mary Ann is okay, and of course we gladly would have stayed as long as necessary (although this would have involved having to get an extension on our visas) but we're really excited for the next step and to move on to a new country. Chilean Patagonia is so completely isolated, and although we will still be in Patagonia for a few weeks in El Bolson, the Argentine side is completely different. We will be entering a land of phone service, internet service, mail, and possibly paved roads. The food will not consist only of torta, white bread deep friend in animal fat (which actually tastes pretty good, but you eat one piece and that about does it) and meat. Don't think this is all we've been eating here, because it's not, but there have been times when these are the options, and when we were in Coyhaique, the regional capital, our options for eating out consisted of meat, french fries, meat and french fries. The little hospedaje where we stayed included breakfast, which consisted of Nescafe, hamburger bun like giant pieces of cardboard white bread, and a slice of bologna and American cheese. This is what people eat here! I kid you not. Here we come Argentina, with your delicious food, locally brewed beer, and phone service. We're ready!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Back to Civilization?
So much has happened in the last month or so. I know it’s been a very long time since a post…possibly longer than a month. It will be difficult to describe the last few weeks, but I will try to.
Luke and I got back a few days ago from two weeks at the Sol de Mayo, a ranch that is owned by Jonathan, Mary Anne’s ex husband. The Sol de Mayo is the most remote place I have ever been and probably one of the more remote places left on earth. In order to get there, you have to drive (or ride a horse) about two hours through ranch land that winds through enchanted looking forests, past wild horses, through mud and over rickety bridges. Once you reach the end of the car journey, you take la balsa, which is a wooden raft attached to a cable that uses the current to transport people and supplies from one side of the river to the other.
We spent one night camping on the other side of the river because it was nightfall by the time we arrived. It was Luke, myself, Jonathan, and a Chilean man named David, who is our age and from Santiago, but who had recently done something similar to Luke and I and decided to leave his life there in search of something else.
The next day, our journey began. We hiked sixteen miles through deep mud, up steep hillsides, down others, and through a land that it felt like time forgot. We passed through three ranches, each of which seems to hail from another era. We stopped for lunch at a ranch belonging to Julio, who is about seventy and lives outdoors with his animals. He has no connection to the outside world, other than Jonathan and his troops passing through to get to the Sol de Mayo. At the end of our hike, we had to cross, barefoot, a river of glacial runoff, which had freezing cold water up to my waist. It was almost dark by the time we made it to the river, so needless to say it was pretty darn cold. We arrived at the Sol de Mayo after about eight hours of walking. There is no other way to get there. It sits at the edge of an ice cap, surrounded by glaciers, and the beauty and intensity of the view around us was truly stunning. There is a radio that you can use to communicate with other ranches, but other than that, you are completely cut off from the rest of the world, with no way to access anything or get out other than this same sixteen mile journey on foot. A couple of days ago (after we got back) something called a glof (glacial lake outburst flood) happened, which is when a lake drains through a glacier due to the rapid glacial melt, and the rivers and lakes in the areas flood. People’s entire ranches, animals and all, can go under water if they don’t get the news on their radios and get to higher ground in time.
I can’t go into all of the happenings of those two weeks right now, but I will say that we have stumbled upon a world here that is much more complicated than it originally seemed. We worked our tails off for the next two weeks, hauling five gallon buckets of water from the flowing river for all of our water needs a few times a day, building things, taking things down, weeding, shoveling shit, and cleaning what had become a pretty disgusting place. The man who takes care of the ranch lives in squalor, and what we found when we arrived there was pretty gross, especially against the backdrop of such a beautiful place. The buildings at the ranch are quite basic. Rotting panels of wood that you can see the ground through make up the floor, and in the winters there it gets to be 0 degrees F. We were woken up by eight roosters every morning at 4, which was trying. By the time we left, the place was fairly transformed. It was a very interesting experience, albeit one fraught with certain tensions and difficulties that were beyond our control. We were offered a full time job there to live at the ranch and take care of it for as long as we wanted, and we seriously entertained the offer. The idea of having that place as something of our own for six months or so was truly tempting, but there were many factors that contributed to our ultimately turning the offer down. We feel sure about this decision, and we know it is nearing our time to move on.
We are now back at Mary Anne’s. We have stayed here longer than planned, and will probably be here for another week or so, but we really love being here with her. The spring is a very busy time here, and there is lots to do. We were out of email contact for so long that we missed our chance with a few farms in Argentina, but we are hoping to get something nailed down in the next few days. Time is flying. I can’t believe we have been gone for two and a half months. We have already seen so much, and it’s hard to describe the world we have become a part of here.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Signs of Spring and Early Morning Surprises
Just a quickie. This morning when I came in to the ranch house I was greeted by a full rabbit head and front legs staring up at me from the mouth of the smallest dog Tugboat. He looked up at me with blood all over his little beard like, what, what's the matter with this? It was a lovely scene to wake up to.
On a sad note, one of the cats has wandered off and we haven't seen her for about five days. We are fearing the worst.
Today we have a guest arriving, so are time alone is officially done. We have been spending the last few days doing lots and lots of yard work. I don't think I have raked since I was a kid raking leaves, but boy, that's what I've been doing for hours and hours for the last week. My arms are getting pretty buff! I am raking up fossilized dog poo and rabbit guts and all kinds of stuff that feels like it's been there since the mid eighties.
A few days ago we spent the day taking one of Jonathan's friends and employees, Hector, out to "La Balsa", which is the word they use for raft here. It's basically a raft they use to cross the river in order to go out to the glaciers. We had breakfast with Hector and his family in town, which was wonderful, and then spent the next three hours or so driving him and his father in law out to this raft through woods and fields and over bridges that did not look like they could hold a truck, let alone the hundred or so pounds of cargo we had in the back! It was a great day. And to top it all off, we saw pink flamingos on our way back. Yes, pink flamingos. Apparently the only native animals to this area are pumas, guanakas (which are kind of like llamas), and pink flamingos. Go figure.
That's it for now.
On a sad note, one of the cats has wandered off and we haven't seen her for about five days. We are fearing the worst.
A few days ago we spent the day taking one of Jonathan's friends and employees, Hector, out to "La Balsa", which is the word they use for raft here. It's basically a raft they use to cross the river in order to go out to the glaciers. We had breakfast with Hector and his family in town, which was wonderful, and then spent the next three hours or so driving him and his father in law out to this raft through woods and fields and over bridges that did not look like they could hold a truck, let alone the hundred or so pounds of cargo we had in the back! It was a great day. And to top it all off, we saw pink flamingos on our way back. Yes, pink flamingos. Apparently the only native animals to this area are pumas, guanakas (which are kind of like llamas), and pink flamingos. Go figure.
That's it for now.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Back in Action--Hackers in China be Damned!
So many of you may have thought that the blog was no more! This is because someone from China somehow hacked into my gmail account to try to sell stuff, and gmail detected this and disabled my account. A week ago when we came into town to check email, I was told there was suspicious activity on my account and I could not access it. Now, when you only check email once a week and it's a big activity a message like this is pretty annoying, BUT it turns out to have been for the best. Of course, the only way to fix it was by having a message sent to my phone, and of course I don't have a phone here, so it seemed quite problematic. My dear Dad helped me out in this pickle, and now all is well and I have a more complex password. Kind of freaky though! It seems like a lot of things are going wrong now that I have no way of dealing with them. Unfortunately checking email has become the most stressful part of the week. So please, send me happy emails that are not about bills that were supposed to have been cancelled but somehow were not, or insurance claims that have been rejected, or leaves of absences being rejected. Please! :)
In happier news, life here continues to putter along peacefully. We have gotten a fair amount of snow in the last few weeks, which has been lovely. The weather seemed to have been turning warm, with the other day creeping into the upper 50s, but now we're back to frosty. Fortunately that beautifully warm day was one in which Luke and I left the ranch and went hiking out near this town called Guadal. It was gorgeous, and other than me falling into a poison thorn bush, it was a great success.
We are trying to begin to hammer out some plans for when we leave here. Around the 23rd of September we will be heading on a ten day trip with Jonathan Leidich, who is Mary Ann's exhusband. Anyone interested in what is going on in this area should check him out. He is a very active member of the community here, and has been involved in numerous documentaries about the area. He is the one with the guiding business. We are going out to his ranch with him for a while to help him build some fences and do other assorted ranchy tasks. This trip out to his ranch will be quite involved. We must first drive a few hours through brush and mud, then take a small balsa wood raft over to the other side of a river, then take some sort of zip line (I kid you not), then hike 13 miles, part of which involves wading through a glacial river. All the while we will be carrying all of our necessary supplies. The 13 mile hike is supposed to take around 7 hours. I am really hoping the weather will be a teensy bit warmer by the time the glacial river crossing happens. Now this place is isolation at its most isolated. Jonathan, a native of Colorado who has lived here for the past 15 years after hitchhiking down here at the age of 19, plans to move full time to this ranch in the next few years.
We finally joined WWOOF Argentina, and we are going to try to set up some farm work for about a month from now. We have been diligently (okay, somewhat diligently) studying Spanish everyday to prepare for our departure from the ranch. I am actually reading a book called Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin I believe his name is. It's an English book, but Mary Ann has it in Spanish, so I am slowly ploughing through it and doing double duty--learning about the area and increasing my Spanish vocabulary. I am learning a lot of words like woolly mammoth and brontosaurus, which might not necessarily help me in my conversational Spanish, but are interesting nonetheless. And who knows when I might encounter a Spanish speaking paleontologist.
Hopefully hackers will keep out of my life and the posts will be more frequent.
Sending happy thoughts northward. This is a picture of our backyard.
In happier news, life here continues to putter along peacefully. We have gotten a fair amount of snow in the last few weeks, which has been lovely. The weather seemed to have been turning warm, with the other day creeping into the upper 50s, but now we're back to frosty. Fortunately that beautifully warm day was one in which Luke and I left the ranch and went hiking out near this town called Guadal. It was gorgeous, and other than me falling into a poison thorn bush, it was a great success.
We are trying to begin to hammer out some plans for when we leave here. Around the 23rd of September we will be heading on a ten day trip with Jonathan Leidich, who is Mary Ann's exhusband. Anyone interested in what is going on in this area should check him out. He is a very active member of the community here, and has been involved in numerous documentaries about the area. He is the one with the guiding business. We are going out to his ranch with him for a while to help him build some fences and do other assorted ranchy tasks. This trip out to his ranch will be quite involved. We must first drive a few hours through brush and mud, then take a small balsa wood raft over to the other side of a river, then take some sort of zip line (I kid you not), then hike 13 miles, part of which involves wading through a glacial river. All the while we will be carrying all of our necessary supplies. The 13 mile hike is supposed to take around 7 hours. I am really hoping the weather will be a teensy bit warmer by the time the glacial river crossing happens. Now this place is isolation at its most isolated. Jonathan, a native of Colorado who has lived here for the past 15 years after hitchhiking down here at the age of 19, plans to move full time to this ranch in the next few years.
We finally joined WWOOF Argentina, and we are going to try to set up some farm work for about a month from now. We have been diligently (okay, somewhat diligently) studying Spanish everyday to prepare for our departure from the ranch. I am actually reading a book called Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin I believe his name is. It's an English book, but Mary Ann has it in Spanish, so I am slowly ploughing through it and doing double duty--learning about the area and increasing my Spanish vocabulary. I am learning a lot of words like woolly mammoth and brontosaurus, which might not necessarily help me in my conversational Spanish, but are interesting nonetheless. And who knows when I might encounter a Spanish speaking paleontologist.
Hopefully hackers will keep out of my life and the posts will be more frequent.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Wind at last!
This morning when I took the dogs out for their morning walk there was a full rainbow in the sky. I wished momentarily for a cell phone so I could call Luke to tell him to come out and look since I was already a ways off, but I realized that it was just one of those fleeting moments that would have to pass by.
The wind finally started blowing last night and we have electricity for a little while! Last night as we made dinner we were able to listen to music and charge the battery on the computer. That is what I miss most about not having power—the ability to listen to music whenever I want. The littlest things are so exciting now…being able to listen to a few songs, not having to wear a headlamp while making dinner, and only having the dogs wake us up one time last night! The sound of the wind sends us into a flurry of excitement, but we try not to get our hopes up because in order for us to get power the wind needs to blow at 20 km/h for 2 hours. The other day Luke accidentally knocked over the windmill and we had been really nervous about whether or not it would still work after we resurrected it. But all is well!
The temperature has been warming a bit. After a week of waking up to 20 degree weather and shivering for the first four hours of the day, hovering by the fire, the past few mornings have been much milder. I am able to compose this post at the comfort of the ranch and copy and paste it later when we go into town thanks to the wind. My mind works a little better here.
We are overwhelmed with the number of eggs we have to eat on any given day. My already high cholesterol is sure to take a beating from these weeks of trying to incorporate eggs into nearly every meal. I am learning things I had not expected to learn here due to our need to experiment with limited food. We make our own nut milk, and our major “vegetable” source comes from lentils that we sprout in mass quantities. It is slim pickings in terms of what is available to purchase, and to buy anything we must drive an hour into town. I have been baking fresh bread and homemade tortillas.
We both spend time each day studying Spanish, and things are coming along in that respect. The Spanish they speak here in Patagonia is almost like it’s own dialect. When people speak to me in town I only catch about 50 percent of what they are saying. It reminds me of being in Sicily and not knowing what they heck people were talking about even though my Italian was pretty good (much better than my Spanish is now). Here, our interactions with other Spanish speakers are so rare as well that it isn’t such an issue, but we need to make an effort to improve our Spanish so that when we hit the road we’ll be in good shape.
I hope that the warm summer days and nights are finding everyone well. It’s hard to imagine summer right now as I look out the window at snow capped mountains!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
One week out
We've been here at the ranch for a little over one week, and things are beginning to settle into a routine of sorts. Mary Ann (the caretaker of the ranch) just left two days ago, so Luke and I are making it work with the six dogs now. We are both a bit surprised at how much of our responsibilities entail the care of these six dogs. It feels like we are caring for six two year olds. Today as we attempted to leave the ranch to go to town to do some emailing, four of the dogs chased us down the road, and Luke, forever a softie, let them all in. We sleep in a little room that is separate from the main house of the ranch, and now that Mary Ann is gone we were instructed to leave a low window open in the night so the dogs could go out as they needed. We tried that the first night, and the dogs barked incessantly outside throughout the night until Luke finally shut the window and closed them in. When I went in the main house in the morning to make a fire, I was greeted by piles of poop and vomit! It was a bit of a frustrating first morning on our own. Last night we tried for round two, and once again, at about three in the morning, incessant barking ensued. We just dealt with it, opting for lack of sleep over poop and vomit again! We're really hoping the pooches are just adjusting to life without mama.
Having natural light entirely dictate your activities has its enchantments. Now at around six o'clock we must begin lighting candles, get our headlamps within reach, and make sure that a fire is burning in the wood stove in order to do the cooking for the evening. The days have been surprisingly warm, but as soon as the sun drops behind the mountains, which happens around 5, the temperature plummets. This morning we awoke to a thick frost on the ground.
Life is peaceful here, and so simple. It's a throw back to another time period without any of the amenities that we take for granted every day. I've thought a lot about this since we got here, how we run the water while doing the dishes, the energy we use to run the refrigerator in the dead of winter when we could keep so many things outside. Here there is a refrigerator that sits outside unplugged. It's cold enough that there is no need for power. I don't know that I would want to live a life like this indefinitely, but it feels good to gain some perspective on the things that we consume and use up without too much thought. Although as I type this post and my fingers are numb with the cold, I wouldn't mind some heat!
Jon, who is a guide here, has offered to take us out into glacier territory when they return from the north in a month or so. Our days are tied to the ranch now, so we are both excited about the opportunity to be able to get out and experience some of the wildness of this territory. It's amazing that there are still parts of the world that are as untouched by civilization as this place is here. The only reason we even have access to the internet is because Jon has it for his guiding business. He is the only person in the town who has it, and there is no phone reception here! You need to drive an hour to use the phone, and after that it's another seven hours until the next town. The "highway" is a dirt road filled with potholes that are so bad people here need to change their shocks twice a year!
My fingers are frozen and Luke is awaiting the computer, so it's hasta luego for now.
Having natural light entirely dictate your activities has its enchantments. Now at around six o'clock we must begin lighting candles, get our headlamps within reach, and make sure that a fire is burning in the wood stove in order to do the cooking for the evening. The days have been surprisingly warm, but as soon as the sun drops behind the mountains, which happens around 5, the temperature plummets. This morning we awoke to a thick frost on the ground.
Life is peaceful here, and so simple. It's a throw back to another time period without any of the amenities that we take for granted every day. I've thought a lot about this since we got here, how we run the water while doing the dishes, the energy we use to run the refrigerator in the dead of winter when we could keep so many things outside. Here there is a refrigerator that sits outside unplugged. It's cold enough that there is no need for power. I don't know that I would want to live a life like this indefinitely, but it feels good to gain some perspective on the things that we consume and use up without too much thought. Although as I type this post and my fingers are numb with the cold, I wouldn't mind some heat!
Jon, who is a guide here, has offered to take us out into glacier territory when they return from the north in a month or so. Our days are tied to the ranch now, so we are both excited about the opportunity to be able to get out and experience some of the wildness of this territory. It's amazing that there are still parts of the world that are as untouched by civilization as this place is here. The only reason we even have access to the internet is because Jon has it for his guiding business. He is the only person in the town who has it, and there is no phone reception here! You need to drive an hour to use the phone, and after that it's another seven hours until the next town. The "highway" is a dirt road filled with potholes that are so bad people here need to change their shocks twice a year!
My fingers are frozen and Luke is awaiting the computer, so it's hasta luego for now.
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