Heading Back Down

Alright so after Macchu Pichu we headed back to Cuzco with our french friend (there are so many french people down here by the way, a little less than half of the travelers that we´ve met have been from France, no joke). Sophia and Yanil stayed in Aguas Calientes to make some money waiting tables but it felt like the right time to all go our separate ways. After a night back in Cuzco we took a 10 hour bus to Arequipa, famous for being the most beautiful city in South America. It wasn´t all that great but we left our stuff at the bus station after buying tickets to the Peruvian border town, Tacna for later that night, and then met up with two of our Argentinian friends, Emiliano and Rama who were staying in Arequipa for a few days. We walked around the city all day, played a lot of music with these two guys (one from Columbia, one from Cuzco) throughout the day, had a really good apple pie thing, napped on the grass and read out loud, and then went to this really cool Alpaca museum where we saw the different kinds of Alpacas and Llamas used to make cloth, the different stages of sorting, cleaning and then the different natural spices, plants, urine, and BUGS (!) to dye the wool.
The ride to Tacna was uncomfortable and kinda confusing but what else is new. We crossed the border in the wee hours of the morning and got busted for bananas that we picked at Macchu Pichu and a few apples but we got the ginger back which has been a life saver with respect to the aweful Peruvian and Bolivian road work. So we spent that day in Arica, Chile which was completely grey and ugly when we arrived and turned out to be a very good feeling sunny beach town. By 9 oclock there wasn´t a cloud in the sky so we sat on the beach reading and playing guitar actually all day. We also spent a lot of time shell searching which was not hard at all. I´ve never seen a beach so full of tiny perfect colorful unsmelly shells. Also we were surrounded by (at one point) 16 great giant pelicans with incredible impressive wing spans and tolorance for standing on the same rock for hours and hours on end. It was pretty cool. We walked over to a more populated part of the beach where there was a huge blow up slide and quite an impressive playground. We also walked passed a dead seal with vultures going at it but I dont want to talk about that.
We took the bus that night to San Pedro de Atacama "directo" which turned out to be ridiculously un"directo." We stopped one: in the middle of the night to go through a check point where they kinda not really checked our bags for drugs..(we think??), two: really early in the morning when a bunch of people got off to change seats so that they didn´t have to heat the whole bus, three: at around 7 oclock to change buses altogether. Oy but we´re well practiced now and going to sleep where ever when ever what so ever.
San Pedro de Atacama is in northern Chile, in the middle of the dryest desert in the world, the Atacama Desert. Oh yeah that was yesterday. Wierd. So we played guitar on the street and made a little money, got gifted an onyx stone and met some really funny drunk homeless men. When we were playing guitar we met these two Chilean guys who we ended up spending the rest of the day and evening with. It was one of the guys birthdays so we went out into the desert, made a campfire, and drank too much Chilean wine. The birthday boy works as a chef at a fancy restaurant here in San Pedro so on top of that we had a fabulous pizza dinner acompanied by too many mojitos. We got back to the hostel, setting the alarm for early early the next morning to go....
TO THE CRAZIEST LAKES IN THE WORLD! Well that´s a little bit of an exaggeration but they were pretty frickin cool. We went with a tour and four Brasilians and got back this afternoon. We went to the first lake, Laguna Blanca which is just over the Bolivian border and had a great breakfast. Then while I was chasing a cat that looked fluffy I met this guy from Houston who had permantly terminated his college studies to go travel around the US. One day he decided he wanted to check out Tiahuana cause it was so close. And then he went a little farther (hitch hiking the whole way without any money) and a little farther and a little farther, making it all the way down to Tierra del Fuego. He´s traveling around in Bolivia now until his friend comes down in December with his boat and they´re going to go to Antarctica. Nuts. He was really nice and suprisingly normal for someone doing such a crazy trip. He definitely had his head on and it was great cause he wasn´t arrogant or annoying about it at all. Just a normal kid. After the laguna verde and natural thermal springs (perfect temperature) we headed back through the desert to Chile. We had an awesome grease fried free (which is ridiculously hard to find down here) lunch and then just chilled out in the hostel (and took a shower!).
So tomorrow we´ll walk around the desert and hopefully make our way to the Valle de Muerte and then Sunday morning we take a bus to Salta and from there we go straight down to lovely Cordoba. We´ll arrive the morning of the 26th, spend a few days in the city, a few days in the countryside and WE´RE BACK IN THE STATES!

Machu Picchu

Where do I start. Hmmm well as we´re traveling with now 5 other artensanos, our plans have been delayed...only to be delayed and delayed again, which turned out wasn´t so bad because I got sick again! I´ve been eating basically only fruit for the past few days until recently when I dared to eat meat and started feeling better. Its a gamble, do I want to feel really sick to the stomach... or really really weak from eating pears for days on end. But anyway hopefully that was the end of the sickyness. So we spent a few more days hanging out playing guitar in Cuzco, and then a crazy crazy day traveling here to Machu Picchu. It was beautiful and spectacular and awful.
We took the long crazy nuts cheap way through little towns perched on the cliffs of the Andes. Vertical farms, waterfall crossings, four meter wide roads under construction, backing up on the four meter wide road to let other busses pass kind of nuts. So that was all day. But then we got here and it felt so wonderful to be in the woods again and I can´t really imagine a more beautiful woods to be in. We walked about an hour along the train tracks towards the town, Aguas Calientes but ended up staying in a hostal along the way because I was feeling really really sick and weak and awful. Our friends had gone ahead at that point and we were walking with a Canadian girl who had been a year studying in Equador.
The next day we slept in and went to go look for our people and miraculously found them camped out by the river. The river has these huge huge white rocks all through it and a strong current. The places where it becomes waterfalls are beautiful and the mountains behind in contrast is quite a sight. So yeah we just sat around relaxing on the main plaza, drinking mate, playing cards, meeting a whole bunch of other travelers. This was yesterday...but it seems like longer ago... So last night there was a huge celebration in the town for the virgin Carmen? I think? It wasn´t too clear but there was dancing and really loud brass bands through the night...and this morning...and right now... Yessirree so we´re going to camp out tonight and head up to Machu Picchu early tomorrow morning, and make our way back to Cuzco tomorrow night. Then we´ll head down to the Atacama desert in Chile and then back to Cordoba! And then home!! Our goal is to arrive in Cordoba on the 25th and we´ll stay a few days on our friends ranch (with horses!) in the countryside, a few days with Cristina and the family in Cordoba and then fly back on the 31st! Oh yeah and there are banana, avacado, and papaya trees that you can pick fruit off of and eat! Whenever you want! For freee!!! Oh and Machu Picchu means big mountain.

Blog writing sucks

Alright well that really really sucked. I just spent all morning writing a really detailed account of everthing we had been doing but it turned out that Noah was signed into his google account when I tried to post it so everything got deleted. So sorry everyone. I´m not about to spend another three hours rewritting that because I´m really frustrated but basically

La Paz
July 3
.lots of markets, fruit venders, veggie venders, padlock venders, touristy venders, llama fetus venders
.overwhelming and beautiful
.had tea with this funny old lady who made us coca tea and talked to us for a while about how much she hates her dead sister and them peruvians
July 4
.picked a mountain and decided to walk towards it to get a view of the city
.walked through the central government plaza where there were a lot of cute kids being really uncoordinated
.walked through all the houses perched on the mountain
.600 winding steps until the base of the mountain
.saw a macaw parrot, a bunny, lots of dogs, and a duck
.had picnic, macramae, and reading material
.beautiful beautiful beautiful
.decided to go to the top top before the sun went down, noticed that a lot of the grass and bushes were burned
.at the top really sketchy broken down houses, no people, lots of trash, and immediately the dogs started freaking out at us
.wicked bad vibes, turned around right away but the dogs didn´t stop barking
.three young teenages boys started following us down, setting the path on fire as they went
.we were really freaked out, really feeling that we´d pushed our luck and starting to feel more like the dogs were trying to warn us to stay away rather than to be protective
.got down the mountain as quickly as we could which took a long time because all the rocks were loose and steep
.went to an internet cafe and found out if was fourth of July, went out to a Mexican place with some friends that we had met from California, really really good

July 5
.packed up our stuff to go to Copacabana and Lake Titicaca and ran into Sarah and Ana and her Cordobese boyfriend from my study abroad program, how cool
.so we spent a few hours with them and then went on
.Lake Titicaca is the most beautiful place I´ve ever been in my life
.stayed in a really sweet hostel on the shore, 10 minute walk from town
.we had our own cabin, bathroom, and shared kitchen for 2.80 dollars a night
.with the three other people staying there, an argentinian girl and two french guys we went to go find some wood for a fire
.amazing beautiful night sky, felt so round and encompasing
.one clear clear planet reflecting off the lake, and the milky way was stunning
.the wood we picked up was Eucalyptus so our fire smelled amazing
.Madu (the french guy) had a saxaphone, a sitar like instrument, this box thing that makes "om" sounds, and a charrango so we played a lot of music
.according to Madu Lake Titicaca is the earth´s 7th chakrah, which if i did believe that the earth is a living being would seem totally accurate, it was really really beautiful which is saying something because I dont even like water, Madu is also one of the funniest people we have ever met, he traveled for 6 years in India and wears really funny wrap around clothes, also he doesn´t walk, he prances.

July 6
.i got really really sick from an empanada that i ate in La Paz, was really sick all day
.read a lot, ate papaya and yogurt
.at night asked about going to the hospital, the woman at the hostel made me an herbal remedy instead which tasted like cilantro
.then gave me a small mug of melted spiced chocolate (clearly she´s read Harry Potter, or has seen Princess Bride)
.i felt completely better after that miraculously
.that night Noah got sick

July 7
.apparently papaya and yogurt together make your body flush everything, good to know
.chilled out the rest of the day but Noah was feeling way better by that evening cause he has a kick ass immune system
. we went to this hostel called "Sol y Luna" which we heard was really cool
. it was this Hare Krishna guy´s birthday (I still don´t know his name) and there were about 10 of us (two little kids)
.by the way there are a ton of Hare Krishna people here, there are also randomly a ton of fried chicken places
.the food was really good, home made wheat bread with humus and cake with roses petals and nuts
.everyone was really wierd like trying to be really cool and relaxed with everthing but really just so hilariously serious about everthing needing to be "chill"
.the Hare Krishna guy was the funniest, he was so up tight about being relaxed!
. we were playing music cause we had brought our guitar and he kept making everyone stop if someone who didn´t know that much about music was trying to join in, including the kids which was really funny cause they were just trying to keep rythem with the drums but didn´t really get it yet and he kept getting so mad hahaa
. it was really silly and he just could not handle anyone playing anything other than a really slow reggae beat, he just completely lost it
.i really wanted dumbledore to come in and say something really awesome and ridiculous
.then the Hare Krishna guy asked everyone to pass around an invisible key and unlock a door to whatever
. everyone said stuff like, i´m unlocking the door to...LOVE! or PEACE!
.we figured out that it was probably because since in Amherst we´re the children of hippies when you say something like "I´m unlocking the door to love" like you´re saying something really profound, its a bit like, ummm yess goood one, loovee
.it was simply ridiculous and i vow never to take myself so seriously
.i just hope it doesn´t have too much impact on the kids...

July 8
.got up early to go to the isla del sol
.INCREDIBLE, i´ve never seen nature be so sureal
.crazy colors on all sides, and the crazy pushing pulling high atitude feeling made it a nuts experience
.wow
.surrounded on all sides by the beautiful waters which had long white and black streaks of water, poofy white clouds with snow capped mountains on one side, colorful rocks jutting up out of the water on the other
.and the atitude is just crazy, its like the sky is pulling, sucking, and pushing all at the same time, no wonder the incans thought the gods were angry and wanted more blood
.we´d be walking and suddenly everthing was bright white rock, or red rocks, completely orange, yellow, even at one point turqoise
.beautiful beautiful beautiful
.saw a bunch of ruins, sacred rock "shaped like a crouching puma" where they did a lot of child sacrificing
.legond is that the sun was born on la isla del sol and then ordered that the first Incas be born
.original name Titi´kharka which means Puma Rock but the spanish heard as Titicaca
.BEAUTIFUL!! AND CRAZY LOOKING!
.bolivians have been really manipulative and never rest from trying to trick us into giving them more and more and more and more money
.ok then we just had a quiet night reading and stuff

July 9
.ran into Emiliano and this guy Rama that he´s traveling with and so we all bought tickets to Puno, Peru together also with two of the other people staying in our hostel and two of their friends, together we are five nationalities
.our party of eight got into Puno and decided to go see the floating islands in Lake Titicaca
.always see that stuff in national geographic but it was wicked cool to go into their houses and really be there
.basically the Incans came and a bunch of people fled to the lake in reed boats with their families but every eight months about the reeds would start to deteriorate and so they would just put more and more reeds on top
.their boats got bigger and bigger until they were more like small islands, then families started sharing boat/islands and yeah that´s what went down
.the ground felt like Kidsports
.went out to dinner, 4 soles each (1.50 dollars) for soup, pasta with meat sauce, tea, and really good "i have no idea what this is" desert
.got to Cuzco at 4 oclock this morning
.showered for the first time since Argentina
.wrote this blog for four and a half hours!

I just wrote a really long thing about what I´ve been doing for the last three hours and it didn´t work. Blahhh

Woops Cochabamba

I´m writing from an internet cafe in Cochabamba, the second biggest city in Bolivia. The title, second biggest sounds daunting but it´s a beautiful, lively, and sunny city. For those of you who have been to Argentina, my impression of Cochabamba has been a combination of Salta, Cordoba, and beautiful Bolivia. But I should start at the begining. How did we end up in Cochabamba, good question. Well we headed up north from Salta to Humahuaca, a pretty little town in the mountains with cobblestone streets a very sweet comfortable energy. I loved it there but we only stayed two days before heading up to the Bolivian border. As predicted, crossing the border was a pain and the border towns were really intensly depressed and a bit overwhelming. That night we headed up to Tupiza where we didn´t do much, met some cool people and pretty much just figured out a little bit more of our trip, walked around, playing music, reading and such. We were going to go to the Uyuni salt flats from Tupiza but the tours were really really expensive. So we decided not to do it and just go to the salt flats for free in the US. Not wanting to spend another day in Tupiza, we went right to the bus station to buy a ticket heading northward. So somehow we got the name Cochabama in our heads, thinking that our friend Caro had strongly suggested we go there and probably cause it´s just such a cool name. But the only bus going to Cochabamba was leaving in 20 minutes! So we ran back to the hostel, through all of our stuff into our bags, left a note for our friend and were off!! It wasn´t until hours later, deep into the Bolivian countryside that we realized that in fact Cochabamba was not the place Caro had suggested at all and that the bus ride was going to be 14 hours! Oy and Haa!! How ridiculous, but I dunno, even then it just felt like the right thing to do, it´s pretty much on the way to La Paz anyway. Somehow we didn´t freak out, probably cause it was so ridiculous, it was just too funny.
So yeah! Cochabamba Cochabamba!! The altitude hasn´t been effecting us too much and the sunshine here is beautiful. Oh man and also all of our bus rides have been georgous georgous georgous. I love mountains I really do. I don´t think I´ll be able to post pictures til I get back to Cordoba but man, the scenery here is incredible. Even the city is picturesque with colorful buses, clothes, and fruit. This morning we bought the biggest avacado I´ve ever seen, a papaya, a pineapple and some bread for breakfast. We sat in the sun, watching this little kid play with a bag of peanut shells and started feeling very very content in Bolivia. Oh yeah and also I was taking a picture of a bunch of enormous fruit and the lady selling them got really mad at me and threatened to through a papaya at me and then started laughing. It was pretty funny but they definitely weren´t happy about us being there. She was kidding... only kind of. But mostly people have been pretty nice to us. We have been ripped off but it´s not too bad cause it´s only a matter of cents to us so I go back and forth, getting pissed off about getting ripped off or not. Ok well well well, I suspose thats it! Lots and lots of hugs and kisses from me and Noah!

And so it starts again...

I will blog more often!! This last month or so I found a great group of people in Cordoba and a great music scene and there never seemed to be time to write. So basically I'm doing really great. I finished up my classes and finals on Thursday and came out here to Salta on Friday night to meet up with Noah and Mary Alice who had arrived in Salta a few days before from Talampaya. It's a beautiful city with gorgeous old buildings, orange trees, and cobblestone streets in the area around the central plaza. Today we watched the England/Germany game at our favorite empanada place and then met up with my friend Patricia from Cordoba who's doing some work up here in Salta for a few days. (And Noah's spanish is getting so much better!) After spending some time trying to tackle Noah's college stuff, we went out to a cafe on the plaza to watch the Argentina/Mexico game. Absolutely nuts. I hope you guys were all watching because it was a really intense game and Argentina totally kicked some butt. And how weird, a guy from Wales who was living one block away from me in Cordoba had just arrived in Salta today and happened to be watching the game in the same cafe as us! It gets better, we randomly ran into my friends Lola, Alex, and Sebastian from France and Belgium on the plaza! I had left them about a month ago when we all went to Talampaya and they had just taken a really long time traveling northward, only arriving today in Salta. Then we went to the feria artesenal and I bought myself some really nice nice silver earings with turquoise stones and now we´re about to go with Mary Alice to the bus terminal. Later tonight I think we're going to meet up with Lola, Alex, and Sabastian to go out to a Peña. And then tomorrow Noah and I'll head up north towards Bolivia! Here's our general itinerary until about the 25th of July:

Jujuy, Argentina -- las montanas coloradas (Humahuaca)

Tupiza, Bolivia -- three day horseback riding excursion

Uyuni, Bolivia -- salt flats (biggest in the world I think)

la laguna colorada

la laguna verde

La Paz, Bolivia -- capital

Tihunacu, Bolivia -- pre-incan ruins

Copacabana -- el lago Titcaca

la Isla del Sol

Cuzco, Peru -- kick of to....

Machu Picchu

Then we'll travel back down through Bolivia possibly going to the jungle depending how much time we have left. We'll get back on around July 25th and head back to the US on the 31st!!!

Talampaya

Alright so on Thursday night we took a bus out to La Rioja, six hours away, hung around the city for a couple of hours and went to a museum about life before and during colonization in La Rioja. We then took a bus to Villa Union, four hours away and were met at the terminal by el dueño del hostel donde nos quedamos. I liked the hostel a lot because it was more like a bed and breakfast but really cheap like a hostel. We were the only ones there and so always had the bathroom, kitchen, patio etc to ourselves which was really nice. This was a pretty tiny little town, much smaller than Amherst, a little bigger than Leverett but we set up a trip the next day to Talampaya National Park with a guide who was from France, had lived in Argentina for five years, and who also spoke English which was great. We headed out after breakfast and picked up three other people, a guy who lives in Villa Union, his sister and their friend visiting from Buenos Aires.

The park was beautiful and very cool. It’s the place where they’ve found the oldest dinosaur fossils firstly and secondly it’s the only place where you can see the Triassic and Jurassic periods in the rock formations. I think in other places they can tell they’re older by taking soil samples and carbon dating? Yeah? I really don't know anything about this stuff but anyway I'm pretty sure it's an impressive thing! She also explained to us what different patterns in the rock face means which I found really interesting. And then yesterday Jacob and I went to the museum of Natural Science in Cordoba which was a great review. Jacob is studying Chemical Engineering and Geology at Tufts and he basically knew everything about everything so I got to have a excellent personal tour guide. But anyway after Talampaya for six hours we headed back to make dinner, Lola taught me how to make those cool bracelets that all the traveling hippies sell on the street, we played a lot of cards and called it quits. The next day, Sunday, Rinna and I went horseback riding in Villa Union which was amazing and beautiful and really really fun. I definitely want to do more horseback riding. Our “guide” was a 15 year old who obviously didn’t care if we went galloping off. It was beautiful and I actually learned a lot! I feel comfortable galloping now, running I don’t think I’ll try... I loved it I really did but my butt hurt a whole lot afterwards. That night we got a ride back with the dueños of the hostel who, as it turns out live in Villa General Belgrano (where Cristina has, had because she just sold them, a few cottages). They have a big white van pretty really similar to Rachael’s van except with little wholes in the floor. We put down a whole lot of blankets and actually slept pretty well. It was fantastic and saved us about $30 and gained us a good night’s rest. So that was my week! It was fabulous!

So now... I like all my classes, I love going to tango, I’m feeling better about being a city girl, starting to think out our Peru Bolivia trip, and basically doing really well!! Tonight I went to a peña, which basically means anything traditionally argentinian and usually includes music, wine, and empanadas. This was a presentation of a book about the cordobese folklorico musician Chango Rodriguez who killed a man and just wrote a ton of music in jail. The other night Patricia had just taught me one of his songs and then we just happened to find out about this great free, close to home event, very cool. Also this guy Facundo Torres who is one of the big young folklorico musicians in Argentina played a bunch of his songs. Beautiful. People here play such beautiful passionate music. It’s great. Also I’ve heard a lot of songs from Brazil which I really like. Well cool. I suppose that’s all I have to say... Tomorrow, Friday I have a violin lesson and then I’m heading out to Capilla. On Saturday and Sunday, Noah and I are going to a close town called San Marco de Sierras and I’m pushing for horseback riding so lets cross our fingers its cheap!

Un Techo Para Mi Pais

It’s Monday afternoon, first day back from May break. I had quite a fantastic week. I’ll start at the beginning. Thursday kicks off the vacation (no class on friday) with a huge asado at my friend’s hostel and then night out at a club with not all tecno music! I have no idea what clubs are like in the US by the way. So the girl Nannick from Holland isn’t still there but my friend Lola was still there at that point so I’d been going there frequently. And for those who don't know, asado means 20 plus courses of meat. And some salad but not really haha. On Friday, I meet 300 other volunteers (all around 18-28 years old) at the Ciudad de las Artes (where Antonio studies cello) for “Un Techo Para Mi Pais,” a program which I didn’t know too much about before I got there other than that it was supposed to be an incredibly well done volunteer program that builds houses in Villa Miserias around South America. We were all split up into “barrios” on the outskirts of the city, the Villa Miserias. It didn’t make a difference for me to be split up because I went alone anyway, but they try to separate people who know each other so that everyone can benefit amply from the immersion part of the experience. We took collectivos which had donated their services to our barrios and then to our schools where we stayed for the weekend. Un Techo renamed our school Mafalda and put up Mafalda comic strips blown up hanging all over the school but I have no idea what the other schools were like. The 50 or so of us in Mafalda were then split into 5 families. My group was working for a mother and five children from Bolivia. There are hardly any men in the Villa Miserias either because they’re looking for work elsewhere or because they obviously found it easier to leave their children and wives than it was for the wives or the children. The other significant demographic fact is that all of the families are from Peru, Bolivia or Northern Argentina and all come to the city looking for work.

Damiana (the mother) lived in Bolivia her whole life until two years ago when she came to Argentina with her four, now five children. Here’s the crazy part, she speaks Quechua and is learning Spanish but it’s hard because there aren’t that many people who speak Quechua who can help her. Her children (ages 1 to 10) are fluent in Quechua and Spanish, I think. They're old "house" is made out of thin thin pieces of wood tied together with nails and rope and is a little bit bigger than a queen sized mattress. There’s also a sheltered space with a fire pit and another enclosed area with a hole for the bathroom. Obviously there’s no electricity.

The first day we went out there all I could think about was the incredible amount of trash everywhere. The streets were paved with broken shoes, bones, rubber, glass, and whatever other broken doodads. That first day, Saturday, we dug holes for wood pilers to raise the house off the ground. We dug three meters before we hit solid dirt, before that, we were digging through trash with some dirt mixed in, some of it disintegrating, most of it not. This is not kids playing in dirt with the animals on the farm poverty, this is kids playing in polluted, rusted, chemical traasshhh. The amount of trash was just ridiculous. These kids are playing in the dirtiest dirtiest trash without anyone to stop them and entertain them with something else because there just wasn't anything else! Trash! Anyway so that first day we put in the 12 pilers to start Damiana’s new 3 meter by 6 meter house. This doesn’t seem very big but it’s enough, enough being something the old ‘house’ didn’t even come close to. Virgenia, Damiana’s neighbor came every day to help out with everything, always coming around with juice or criollos and of course mate. Un Techo Para Mi Pais built her house last semester and as we were talking we discovered that the girl Kelsey (who lived here with Cristina last semester and who had recommended Un Techo to me so strongly) had helped build Virgenia’s house! Out of all the 300 people who could have been working with Virgenia, it was me and Kelsey. Again, Cordoba Cordoba you crazy place. So I got to send Kelsey Virgenia’s love and thanks. Cool stuff. Also Damiana's kids and all the neighbor kids were fantastic and really eager to help out digging the holes, very cute (and strong!!!). Day two we put down floor, up the walls, and started to put together the windows and the door. Day three we put up the beams, the insolation and finally the roof! Well done. It definitely wasn’t easy but it was so do-able!! They just had things done together very well, well enough so that anybody can do it and do it right without needing a million well trained volunteers to help the half million untrained volunteers. Fantastic. And so concrete, a house! A house!!

We also had a really great time just because all the people were so open and patient and really wanting to be there. We talked a lot about different things, about what it means to be a student, what are our rights to knowledge and our obligations to action, what it means to be independent, and how we’re independent today (all in light of Argentina’s 200th birthday on May 25th for which there was a huge hubub all over the country). We also got to play a lot of music, on and off the site and just had a really great time. We didn’t get a whole lot of sleep though thus I was pretty sick for a few days afterward. Luckily I got home and Noah came to the city for a few days! Its fabulous to have Noah around but it does wear me out just because we don’t have our own space to just hang out because it’s not really appropriate for Noah to spend the whole day here at Cristina’s house which I think is ridiculous but there you go. He got a ride to the city with some people he met in Capilla del Monte, who I didn’t get to meet because I was much too sick to go out but next time. We spent tuesday hanging out and trying to get me better but failing; wednesday we read out loud a lot, got lunch, and then walked with Lola, Alex (from France), Sebastian (from Belgium), Rinna (who’s in CCCS and from Alaska) and Jacob (from the Bahamas who goes to Tufts) to the terminal to buy tickets to a national park to the north west of Cordoba via the city La Rioja, called Valle de la Luna/Talampaya. Later that night Noah and I went out with Patricia and her sister Caro to see the Janis Joplin movie in theaters. I think I had seen all the interviews that they did and a lot of the shows but it was really awesome on the big screen with the cinema sound system. On Thursday we went and got Noah’s package from his parents and brother which was very exciting and very delicious (thank you Eckarts!!!). Then for the rest of the day we walked around trying to find a ukelele that I could carry around with me on my travels but failed. We’ll keep trying definitely. Then Noah went back to Capilla and I went to have dinner at Patricia’s house and she drove me to the bus terminal at 12:00 at night to meet up with Lola, Alex, Sebastian, Jacob, Rinna, and we went on our way!

Ok this is going to have to be finished later tonight cause I have to run to hebrew class!!

Technology

I think maybe I just have trouble writing what I'm thinking about on the computer. It does not come easily but I wanted to quickly post about my trip to San Rafael for the weekend. We went with our "speaking partners" who are argentinian students who've volunteered to give us practice speaking spanish and so that they can practice their english a bit. We rented a bus and drove over night to San Rafael which is in the provence of Mendoza to the west of Cordoba. We went white water rafting with by far the most beautiful surroundings of the four other times I've gone rafting, really great rocky mountains that made me want to go exploring so bad! I wish I could have captured it but I wasn't about to take my camera on the boat. I'm a bit tired of structured trips like that though because for instance, I don't really like white water rafting but just by coincidence I've been so many times and I just really wanted to go walk around the beautiful mountains! I love mountains! But that's ok, I'll have other opportunities. One of these weekends I want to go to Mendoza and rent a bike so I can stop and explore the Andies a bit. Oh and I figured out that I don't need to be budgeting so much! So that leaves my options a little more open for traveling. I have nine days off in May of which four will include Iguazu falls with two friends which I'm really excited about and then I don't know for the rest! Salta? I'd like to go to desert... anyway I'll figure that out later.

So after rafting we went rappelling and zip lining which was fun but of course my favorite part was the beautiful view. (I have pictures of all of this on facebook and picasa). Then on the way to the hotel we played some music on the bus which was really fun. I gotta learn some more Beatles songs, good for all occasions. Its big but I was really glad I brought my guitar. Also it meant that I got two seats to myself and got some sleep. I should have brought it to Buenos Aires instead of my computer hands down. That night we played a lot of music. I had really missed singing and harmonizing with women's voices aka ANNA I MISS YOU!! It was great and the Band was a big hit and Olivia brought her harmonicas--hit the spot. The next day, Sunday we went to a winery and went through and saw all the grape pressers and squishers and squashers. Unfortunately on the way back the drivers got lost and we couldn't find a gas station that the bus could fit in and someone pooped in the toilet on the bus so it stopped working and the downstairs smelled really bad, and we ran out of water so we finally got back to Cordoba at 3:00 in the morning. Luckily I had the earliest class and it was only at 11 but it was still annoying. Everyone was so sick of being on that bus! And to make matters very much worse the movies were horribly terribly bad and when they ran out of horribly terribly bad movies they played music videos for at least an hour. I was very ready to hitch hike home after the music videos. It was weird, such a small thing like a hundred 25 second clips of aggressively assaulting pop culture made me feel farther away from Amherst than ever. It completely 'put me off' as they would say but I went out for churipan (really good sausages with anything and everything you do and could possibly want for 10 pesos) with my friend Alexis and we had some good conversation about the crazy consumer culture in Cordoba. She's not from Amherst and agrees that things are out of hand here in a very plastic way. I've heard people say things like, "When walk out my door and see all the beautiful things in this world like our trees and our technology, I just can't imagine that there's not a God," and also "Oh I went to New York City once, it was truly beautiful. It's just so modern." I'm still processing.

On the upside last night I went to a tango lesson with a few friends (not from argentina but from Holland, Switzerland, and Brazil) and it was great! The first couple of dances were really hard but after that I was surprised how easy it was after I stopped thinking. It was really fun and only 15 pesos so like a few dollars for 3 hours! I really liked it and had a lot of fun so we're going to go to Salsa at the same place today, Thursday and I know a bunch of people who do that so I'm excited! Oh and tomorrow I'm going out to Capilla to spend the weekend with Noah and we're going to meet my friend, Reena from Alaska and an Argentinian friend of hers there and camp out on Mount Uritorco. Ok gotta run to my bus!

I'm Alive!

Posting on my blog is like remembering to catch up with an old friend I haven't called in a year. Where to start. Well so I stayed with Noah on his farm for a weekend which was great and beautiful and relaxing and wonderful and not long enough. The farm is about a two hour bus ride away and 21 pesos which is like $5. Then I went to an Argentinian birthday party (with Cristina's cousin Patricia who I've been exchanging guitar lessons with) where they were dancing....capoeira, how frickin cool. Oh and I made some friends at the park who were playing guitar and speaking english. We have a lot in common and they're all from the south so that's cool cause I haven't really spent much time with all people from Mississippi and Tennessee before. On Sunday, me and Noah celebrated our one year anniversary :), didn't celebrate 4.20 on Tuesday :(, learned a few new songs on the guitar, both of the kids got chicken pox, I found a really good pizza place, and studied my butt off for my argentinian history and latin american history midterms which I had today and did well on. I still haven't taken any tango lessons which I want to do but I need to find someone to go with!!

Then last night I went to a party at a house a block away where a bunch of international students are living, taking spanish, and working with children in the villa miserias which are basically what they sound like, towns of misery except that I think they're more like neighborhoods. Noah and I had meet two of the girls who are living in international house at the post office cause none of us could figure out where to buy stamps. One of the girls is still here but the other girl's parents flew her home a week ago after someone broke into their house and she had a seizure. They were having a party so there were about 15 people just sitting around at the table, eating, drinking, playing cards, talking. They had the door open cause it was hot and two guys walked in with guns and tied everyone up. Tied everyone up. Guns. Yes crazy. They took four lap tops and then all the cameras and cell phones. Then apparently the girl we met had a seizure and really freaked the guys out so they left. And two weeks earlier their house was broken into while no one was home and other things were taken. Oy. I haven't been robbed at all luckily but wow. It's definitely obvious when someone isn't from Argentina and really obvious when someone isn't from Latin America so a house of international students is a pretty obvious target. It's some combination of trying to wear ethnic looking or 'outside of the box' clothes (women here generally wear white or really light really tight blue jeans with really tight tank tops and then a small scarf) nice backpacks, and sometimes skin color for instance if you see a black person they are definitely not from Argentina. I wish I could tell if I look a lot like a tourist. Probably some days more than others. Noah definitely looks like a tourist but not a tourist anyone would want to rob haha.

In terms of emotional stability I've been in and out, up and down and around. In other words there is no emotional stability haha. It's weird, when I'm feeling great I honestly believe that things are getting easier and that living in Argentina is great but then when I'm feeling down I honestly believe that things haven't gotten any easier and that I haven't learned as much as I would like to have which stinks. For example right now the latter seems ridiculous. Of course it's getting easier and of course I'm learning things! I've definitely been thinking a lot about why I'm here, why my life itinerary has me in Argentina. I don't regret anything but all the reasons I wanted to come here seem so feeble compared to what this experience is, so feeble that they hardly even relate, all because of one thing: I assumed that I would understand what I was going though, that I'd be able to feel my consciousness shift, that I'd be able to compartmentalize my new thoughts and the new things I was learning, that I'd be self aware enough to understand what I was going through! Feels like I'm stopped terrapin station ha. Well we'll see what the next three months have in store. Lista.

Up down and in between

So after 1 lost bag, 1 night on an outside couch, and 1 awful stomach virus we decided to fold in our cards for going to Chile. We did have half a good time though. We went to Puente de Inca which was really cool, I'll post pictures. And took a beautiful bus ride through the Andies of which I'll also post pictures. Noah's still sick but I recovered pretty quickly after the night bus back to Cordoba where I threw up the worst of the virus. It sucked and now Noah doesn't have a cell phone or his journal or debit card (which has been canceled) or favorite bandana but of course, he's Noah so he almost immediately snapped back to his chipper happy self. Amazing. I've been feeling very high and low. These last few days mostly low but today turned out good. The social scene here is just so frustrating. I understand that I'm having a very different experience in Argentina than everyone else but I just can't connect with anyone! Its so weird. But today I was reading in the park and met some new people who I immediately clicked with. It was quite a relief, I was starting to believe that Amherst was really more of a bubble than I had thought. So I spent a lot of time with them and we'll definitely see each other soon. I hope that I just haven't been able to find my right circle of people. Maybe this is it. It'll have to wait though cause this weekend I'm going to visit Noah on his farm in Capilla! I'm really excited to have a relaxing weekend away from the city just reading and playing guitar with Noah in the country side. When I get back I'm going to start going to Yoga a few blocks away and look into taking some tango lessons :). So updatesss....hmm

IM GOING TO EARLHAM! Thats a big one.

Oh and I'm exchanging guitar lessons with Cristina's cousin Patricia whose's 26. I'm teaching her Jack Johnson and she's teaching me Samba. I love it.

Connections connections, a guy in my hebrew class knows a girl from my program, Rachael from church and another guy in hebrew class knows Jeremy Aronson because he's trying to start Ultimate frisbee here. Crazy things going on! (btw Jeremy is from Amherst, a member of the JCA, went to DC with me on Panim el Panim, was in my english class, and is also here living in Cordoba in his gap year coincidentally).

Of course! I did Passover at the Habad House which is one and a half blocks away on my street!! It was a great experience and I had a lot of fun. The food was pretty bad but I met a lot of interesting people (there were about 180 people there, pretty much all around 23 and pretty much all traveling Israelis). The seder was in Hebrew which I couldn't understand but that was ok because the Rabbi was really drunk and hilariously picking on random people and asking them what they thought the meaning was of his ridiculously long anecdotes. It was a seder to remember.

Sums it up, will try to check in more often. Thanks for tune'n in folks.

Noah's Last Cordoba Days!

Highlights:

-playing music with a brazilian band that was staying at Noah’s hostel and spending time with people from all over (Israel, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Brazil)

-the streets got flooded again and the river rose many feet

-saw Alice in Wonderland, enjoyed the effects, ending was lame

-discovered a pet store with puppies and kittens on my walk back from the Language School where I take Hebrew

-practiced my Hebrew with the people staying at Noah’s hostel, apparently all ton of the hostels in South America are filled with Israelis, I was talking to a guy from Mexico about it who had been traveling around, still don’t know why...

-huge soccer parade rally march thing, there were hundreds of people in the street, jumping and shouting, climbing on street signs and monuments in the big intersection in the middle of the city

-a person tried to rob me but i took their hand out of my bag and walked away

-I figured out how to take the bus back from school...it’s the same bus that I take in the morning haha

-had a really funny conversation about arm pit hair and it’s social implications with Cristina, we’ve been talking a lot recently

-meet some girls from the US, Australia, and France who are working with children here and live a block away from me

-talked all night with Noah, this guy from Mexico and three guys from Israel about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, they had very strong opinions

-today was a day dedicated to the Disappeared so I didn’t have any class, there was a huge march in the streets, lots of people carrying signs with pictures of Che and Evita Peron and also pictures of people who disappeared

-I’ve been reading a lot and loving it, I had forgotten how much I love being in thick of a good book, High School doesn’t really make room for such things

-Cristina’s sister, brother in law, and their three children are here from London for a month, bilingual kids with british accents are so ridiculously cute

-today I’m going to Villa Belgrano, the mountain town where Cristina has a few cottages that she rents out

-Noah goes to Capilla de Monte today to start work!!!! I’m going to visit him next weekend

Sentiments:

-focusing on being patient and smiling more

-still getting used to outside Amherst culture but am encouraged by Cristina and my small spanish class (everyone just seems so much more open and unreserved, genuine, fearless!)

-loving argentina!

Nuevos Amigos

I forgot to say that Noah and I met these people playing music on the street at the ferria del paseo del artes (which is this arts and crafts festival that happeneds every weekend on the canal). We went to a birthday party with some of the musicians, Flor and Kaim who live about 10 blocks away from me in Cofico. There were a lot of people playing folklorico and Spanish guitar which was so hard to follow the rythem on! They gave me a viola and it got easier as the night went on but the music is so different to try to jam with!! There was one guy there who spoke english and he quietly helped me out with the rythem. Everyone thought it was really funny and were like, try it again, try it again. Then they all spend a while trying to follow some fiddle songs that I played on the viola. And songs in English were really a hit. This guy was obsessed with the Rolling Stones and spent a long time trying to get me to play "Annnnnnnghhh Aaaaahhnnngghh" before I realized he was trying to say "Angiee Aaaaanngie." They requested Imagine, Let It Be, Bob Dylan songs, and this song by Jason Mraz that's on the radio a lot. They also had a marijuana tree! It was about twelve feet tall and maybe 9 feet wide and we didn't even notice for the longest time. When we did notice, the guy standing next to us, was like yeah I have four more like it at my house! Marijuana is pretty much legal here I think but I don't think it's thaat legal. Of course I think with most people here its a much more taboo topic than in Amherst, at least that's what Jeremy said.

So today I started my first classes at PECLA (basically my first classes with people outside of my program). In my Spanish class there's one guy from my program, Brian from Roosevelt Island, a guy from Turkey who's 22 and has been here for 6 months and a guy from Japan whose also 22 and is staying here with some other Japonese students. That's it! I really like it. Today we talked about the differences in our countries between woman's rights, marriage ages, religion etc and why we came to Argentina, what's different about Argentina than what we expected etc. Then in an hour I start Hebrew! I'm still not completely sure why I'm taking Hebrew but everyone keeps asking me what I'm studying in the U.S. and I always say that I want to study conflict resolution so I've been thinking more about studying abroad in Israel/Palestine which lead me to Hebrew. I could use a place to meet people outside PECLA. Alright Ping Pong calls.

Sinpo Mom Zoo Dogs Homosexuality Lynn

Ok update of the last 3 weeks:

Julia found a kitten in a box on the street and named it Sinpo. I think that when she found her she was probably one or two weeks old but definitely too young to be separated from her mother. We bought kitten food and fed her everyday with a spoon but the weekend before last her stomach started getting really big and bloated and so we gave her to a woman with a cat whose nursing, hoping for the best. It was really nice to have a kitten around and something that I could take care of. She was a very good buddy, crawling over my homework and nuzzling into my skirts so that was a bummer when I came home and she had been given away. I’m sure it’s for the best though.

So my mom arrived and after a few days in the city, my mom, Noah, Cristina and I went to the town Ville Belgrano, where Cristina has five cottages there which she rents out but is trying to sell. It was great to get out of the city but I’m actually surprised how unsick of the city I am. Usually when I stay in a city I can’t stay more than a few days before I need to head back to the hills. I guess it’s because now the city environment is the only home that I have right now. My room is great too. It’s a big help. The campus at the University’s nice too. It feels like a real campus, not just like disconnected buildings in a city of people disconnected from nature to be connected to mass media which is what it feels like somedays walking home. Campus is green and pretty well kept up. No one bothers cleaning up the graffiti in this city but on campus all the graffiti is political and you can tell someone thought about it, not just tagging their name on a wall. Its funny, all the graffiti’s in Spanish of course but I can understand most all of them cause we have the same phrases in English like, “A writer lives to write, a real writer writes to live,” and “Military intelligence is an oxymoron.” There’s this really cool one near my building of five or so women struggling to pull a rope attached to a zipper, which opens to a scene of people with their hands in the air, some carrying signs, some just dancing.

There are dogs everywhere on campus too including in the classrooms but there still all really nice, some are just more attractive than others but actually there probably all pretty much the same amount of dirty. I guess like us, some of them just wear it better. When Julie brought home Sinpo I gave her a bath and pulled off all these gross little tick like bugs that moved really fast along her skin and made lots of little black specks in her fur. It was really gross.

Oh yeah and also we went to the zoo in Cordoba which is right across the park from the University. Someone told me its all happenin a the zoo. I do believe it. I do believe it’s true. Personally I like the cats the best. Lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, pumas. I also enjoyed the gigantic spiders and the elephant. It was a good zoo.

Then last week we just had finals and exams and stressful ‘evaluations’ that determine what classes we can handle at the University. Then after our last exam on Thursday the entire program went to Buenos Aires for the weekend. We all (27 of us?) stayed in the same hotel, went on city tours and visited museums and such. There are a whole lot of churches in Argentina. I just wish my Spanish was better so I could actually talk to people here about religion. The hardest part for me about Spanish is expressing specific beliefs and values especially concerning spirituality because the only times that I completely understand what someone is saying if we’re having a real conversation is for me to recognize some of the words and then piece together what I think they’d be trying to tell me. But then what am I going to learn if I can already guess what people are going to tell me. It’s not that big of a deal just a little annoying.

I did talk to Cristina about the war on terrorism after 9/11 and the dirty war in Argentina. She says that a lot of people here think that the US government had a part in 9/11 or at least knew about the attacks beforehand and that of course everyone knows that the CIA prompted, backed, and funded the military in the dirty war in Argentina and Chile. So why do people here still idolize the US? On the topic of homosexuality, Cristina felt more conservatively. I asked her how she would feel if her son Martin came to her and told her he was gay and she said that she would like to meet whoever he was with and respect his 'decision' but would feel guilty for not being a good enough mother. She said people would say, "Oh, yes his parents were divorced and he has many siblings so his parents couldn't pay enough attention to his upbringing" and so on. Although I'm no expert I told her that in my town people think that it's not a choice and not a glitch but simply happens in the brain when the mother produces a lot of female hormones when she's pregnant. I told her I didn't know exactly how it worked with the chemical attraction and all but that I thought it wasn't a choice someone made but part of a person's chemical make up and just as deserving of human rights. She said she didn't know but was interested and open about this outlook. She also thought that gay people should respect other people's opinions on the matter more and be more private. For example, she doesn't care if two men 'decide' to be gay but she doesn't want her children to see two men holding hands in the street and think it's an appropriate life decision. It was a very interesting conversation. I was to reiterate that Cristina was very open to knew ideas about homosexuality and was interested to hear about them too. She kept saying "I don't know but I feel..." Well in Spanish but just so I don't portray Cristina falsely. She's very sweet but is a woman who knows what she wants!

Ok gotta go to dinner. 10 oclock!! Right now I'm at a resort with Lynn and Noah which is amazing and beautiful. I'll post some pictures on Flickr, but it's right on the lake and looks out across to the town and mountains. Very very nice. Oooh and theres a warm pool and a regular pool anndd a hot tub!

Nueva vida

As Noah and I decided that other day, the first week was the trippiest, most bizarre experience. It´s particularly bizarre because the way of life is so normal for everyone else, if that makes sense. There´s nothing about the way things are here that I can pull out and say, this is what I´m confused about, but the most major adjustments for me a have been getting used to the consumer culture of the city, living with people who don´t know me, who I can´t easily communicate with, and who I want to like me, finishing dinner at 11 and then having to go to wake up at 7:30 (not like GCC haha) and of course the Spanish. My classes are completely in Spanish which is difficult but it´s mostly frustrating because the other students are a lot more advanced in Spanish than I am and I´m a bit overwhelmed with Spanish just to catch up on. I´m almost at the point where I can ask questions that are still relevant to the other students. It kinda stinks but at least my biggest problem is something that I can change.
It was interesting coming back to Cordoba from Jonathan and Victoria´s wedding Buenos Aires. Being a tourist in Rigoletta is so vastly different from being a student in Cordoba. I´m glad I´m doing it this way. I guess I've never really traveled without being a tourist. My summer in Mexico was the closest but the only Mexicans who I spent time with were clase alta teenagers who spoke English fluently and owned their own personal houses, beaches, and towns. It was interesting but still not even vaguely similar to living in the city here. Parts of the city are beautiful, old and well kept up but others have 3-foot wide sidewalks and buildings plastered with billboards of naked white blond women, huge adds for milkshakes, candy, and strip clubs. I see both of these sides of the city on my walk back from school.
The part of the culture that I can´t stop thinking about is influence of the US media on the culture here. Everyone here watches MTV reality shows, Friends, 24, High School Musical, as well as the US news so there´s a lot of mixed information about what the US is really like. Yeah all the way from MTV to Fox news. I was talking to Cristina about the US stereotype and she said, fat, goes to grocery store and needs to buy everything, and never cooks but only opens cans and packages for meals. It´s interesting that food´s what it comes down too. If I had to guess the US stereotype Argentinians think of I´d say, wealthy, dramatic and clueless. It´s interesting too because of course people know about things like Watergate and 9/11 but of US news people also know all about thing like Columbine and Virginia Tech, and yet I know barely anything about Argentine history. I feel bad but people seem to expect me not to know anything about their current events or history. Everyone always asks me how I like Obama and how he´s doing. I never really know what to say, I mean I like to think that he´s doing well and that I like him. He´s a big hit here.
Speaking of cultural influences, the other day we went of a tour of Jesuit churches outside the city in a town called Jesus Maria. From what I understand Cordoba has a very strong Jesuit presence from early on. The city of Cordoba was founded in 1573 and the Jesuits founded the University of Cordoba (the college I´m studying at) forty years later. The city became a center of education and learning as the Jesuits opened more and more schools. Today I think there are 10 colleges and universities here, 10% student kind of like Amherst. So I forget when but at some point the King of Spain decided that the Jesuits had too much educational influence in Argentina and so he exiled the Jesuits just like that. So that´s pretty much the story. The buildings were of course beautiful, white and pink with deep red round roof tiles.

First Days

Patricia picked Noah and I up at the airport after 3 days of us trying to get to Argentina. We had gotten to Bradley to find that our plane had been canceled for mechanical reasons so that night we stayed in a hotel and planned to fly out the next day. The next day however I was very sick and having trouble breathing so that plane was also rescheduled. We finally flew out even though I was still sick to Atlanta, to Santiago and finally to Cordoba. Cristina is my host mom but since it's the dead of summer here she was on a short vacation, so her friend Patricia who is an English translator picked us up and helped us get adjusted. The first day was rough because we were super tired from the ridiculous plane ride and blown away by the realization that we really were going to be here in Argentina, away from friends and family, at the mercy of the foreign Argentine way of life for six months. For the first two or three days I felt very anxious, nervous, and worried about not being able to adjust or feel settled. My first day of school freaked me out a lot because all the other students in my program are majors and minors in Spanish and so they actually can speak only in Spanish like we're supposed to.

I love my house and my host family. Cristina lives with her two kids in a beautiful house very close to the center of the city. The neighborhood is really nice. You turn onto a street an suddenly everyone has their own lawns and nice stucco houses. My room is on the second floor where there's another guest room, a bathroom, computer, and door to the roof deck. Noah and my room are very very comforting in these first few days. The sounds that come into my room over the balcony make my experiences so far feel more exciting and less scary for some reason. I like the way all my clothes look packed into the closest. Even music sounds better than normal in my room with the heat pouring in through the open doors that open to the balcony. The heat is extreme here and makes me tired but there's so much to do every day and so much to take in that I keep pushing and pushing myself until I pass out. I still haven't gotten used to the whole siesta deal but Cristina insists that I come home immediately after school and take a nap.

I've been getting out of school at 2:30 and walking the 15 blocks to Noah's hostel which is in a great spot. Then we walk around or play bananagrams or rummy before we walk back to Cristina's house. Noah then walks back to his hostel when I go to sleep. It's about a 15 minute walk. It's great having Noah here. Being together makes things feel more like an adventure. I'd be totally freaked out without someone to experience this with. Sometimes I'm very frustrated with the Spanish and the transitioning but five minutes later I'm so happy to be here and live out this chapter of my life in Argentina.