Sir Charles Saint. Drake (2007-2007); he came, he saw, he ate cake

Bad news.

Last night before bed Chuck was chirping up a storm, as he still has not learned to quack. The chirp is high in pitch and makes it hard to sleep, so I brought him in bed to sleep with me. We take afternoon siestas together so I figured it would be alright.

When I woke up I found him dead underneath my back, crushed by my weight.

Just kidding. But it´s almost as bad. I think a cat ate him. Or he has run away. He wasn´t around this morning when I woke up, but there are no remains such as feathers or bones to be found anywhere. We looked all over the farm and there is no trace. Usually he sticks by my side or that of any other human, so I really don´t think he ran away. I get these horrible visions of the cat toying with him before having him for dinner. Poor guy. I kept on messing up while making biscuits this morning and my coffee tasted especially bitter.

Cats are evil. We have one that has eaten a half-grown goose before.

Christmas was wet, dark and windy, but managed to feel like Christmas [except for no presents (except for the card ma gave me)]. The cabin was full of volunteers, family and friends on Chirstmas Eve for a huge feast of a three-foot-long (I may be exaggerating) eggplant lasagna with crepes instead of pasta (not the same but decently tasty) made by us and other good eats provided by Jorge´s brother the cook. The lights went out and we talked by candlelight and went to bed early. The next day I think I made biscuits for everyone and we ate all kinds of cakes and tartas and cookies we made. We passed the rainy day relaxing and enjoying the break and eating too much in proper Christmas fashion. New Years we´ll be going to a costume party/bonfire at the other farm. I don´t know why in costumes, but I do know I need to start looking for one.

This week I get to see Spencer and Mama K in Chile during a much needed 2 or 3 week break.

A jar of sour cherry jam that Christine and Ryan made fermented on the counter last week. I took the jar, added sugar and water and let it ferment some more. Friday night we had the delicious result, a sour cherry hooch that tasted a bit like beer, a bit like champagne and mostly like a bitter wine cooler. Strong though. Put some more hair on me chest. Always more room for hair on me chest.

Lightning here is beautiful.

pic-a-tures

I can´t figure it out right now and I´m sick of the monkey box in front of me.
www.dropshots.com
username: RinconMadreTierra
password: organic

don´t go uploading silly pictures.

there´s a video or two

Merry Christmases just aren´t so merry when it´s 110F outside. In the shade. Don´t even get me started with happy new years and such. Carols praising men of snow, roasted nuts and tides of yule are not at all applicable in such an oven as the foothills of the Central Andes in the peak of summer. No wonder Santa is a slowly growing phenomenon out here.

When asked by our bossladyfriendmotherfigure Azucena to contribute a cultural tradition towards our upcoming Christmas celebration, egg nogs, bubble breads, sugar cookies and roasts were immediately ruled out for the sheer sake of comfort. And sanity. I´d prefer to start a tradition of mojitos, ice cream and watermelon. With vodka in it. Too bad we can´t drink alcohol on the ol´farm.

We´re going to make our way to a river or into the hills for cool snow melt rivers and plenty of shade for a non-traditional vegetarian barbecue. An asado gone wrong according to most Argentines. Horribly horribly wrong. But throw in friends and family and a hodge podge of volunteers and Christmas won´t be so bad afterall.

Just not the same with my own family. That´s right, it´s lil´Patch´s first Christmas away from mommy and daddy. Time to grow up I suppose. We´ll see how I hold up.

Holiday cheer aside, Sancho Panza and Chuck are doing great. Chuck follows me around like a duckling to it´s ma, squeeking up a storm when I walk too fast. In fact he usually cries whenever I leave him. It´s cute. He´s hurt a foot and limps around everywhere. I can´t find the problem, but it gives us a good excuse to call him Gimpy. He poops everywhere and I´ve recently dubbed a shirt the official Shit Shirt, which acts similarly to a burp bib. I wear it when we relax on the hammock and take naps. Sancho Panza is as fat as ever. His balls reappeared a few days ago and are large and in charge again, dragging around behind him like a heavy sack of, well, nuts. I have a feeling now that the reason they come and go is the heat. But I´m still waiting for imput guys. Testicular menstruation? Magic? I´d like to think Sancho Panza is magic.

I´ve received pictures taken by a fellow volunteer of the farm. I´ll make a picture post.

January I meet up with Spencer and Mama K in Northern Chile, then I´m thinking of hitch hiking down the coast and towards Santiago by February, at which point Spencer comes to volunteer at the farm. Ma and Pops come on the 16th. Brux sometime in February or March, maybe with Robin and Eleanor in March to Mendoza then to the farm. Still waiting on donations towards our vehicular excursion.

´Tis the season, ¿no?



jus´ keep on keepin on

urination

I´ve officially opened a petting zoo featuring Sancho Panza and the newest addition to our trio in trouble, Sir Charles Saint Drake, commonly known as Chuck the F*cking Duck, Chuck, Charles, Charlie, and Duck. He is a week old, a few inches tall and is still developing muscles and coordination in his legs, making his gait uneasy and his rear end a convenient tool for balance. I think he gets bouts of vertigo for no reason and seats himself, legs straight out in front instead of underneath like a normal duck, to regain equilibrium. He lives in the bathroom where he will continue to take showers with us and smell our poops until he´s big enough to join the chickens in the coop. I´m hoping they´ll care for him and protect him from the cats and dogs and not peck him to pieces. Good luck duck. Chuck. You fncking duck.

Today Sancho Panza decided it would be a great idea to pee on my head. He was hanging out up there, as he often does, and despite the intense heat I couldn´t figure out why I was trickling some kind of liquid from my hairline. You see, I am not prone to sweating in places other than my pits, my lower back and my bumcrackhole. Especially not whilst idly reading a drab book with a plot that is anything but sweat-inducing. The little guy barely drinks any water at all but he manages to send a stream right into my eye. And to all those who have ever wondered if mouse piss stings the eye, well, yes it does.

Little dude got time out and a good scolding. I briefly considered peeing on him, you know, to even things out and to teach him a lesson, but ultimately I decided it was going perhaps a bit too far. Afterall, he is just an animal. But then again, the farm has a way of bringing out the beast in a man. Let´s just say Sancho was lucky I didn´t have to pee.

And the beat goes on, the beat goes on. Family and friends come in the late summer (February and March) and preemptive plans for peregrination are being put into place. Things to look forward to help the harder days go by quicker.

Carrotts are sprouting sprouts. Unfortunately they take months to grow.

Aforementioned drab book is being read because I have little to read in English right now. And while I realize I should be practicing my Spanish, the best homesickness cure is a good English languaged book. So it´s time for a book donation list (mainly directed towards Mom, Pops and any other siblings who have expressed interest in sending me books):

Open Veins of Latin America
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved
Leaves of Grass
a crossword puzzle book

for starters. I keep hearing about/thinking of books but I never write them down for whatever reason.



do not go gentle into that good night

hot as balls

So the past few posts were originally emails copied here for the sake of clarification, summary and, well, lack of creative drive last night. Sign up with skype and suddenly you spend two hours calling families and friends and after all that jive the last thing you want is to secrete even more verbage. I opted instead for a beer and lomo. Not the first time I chose meat over writing (refer to previous post).

So Sancho Panza´s balls have utterly disappeared. My mouse. His balls aren´t there anymore. They were huge for such a small critter and I was quite proud. They would drag on the ground while he scurried around, but last week I noticed they weren´t there anymore. They´re still not there. I don´t know what happened. He seems sad and I tell him it does not make him less of a man, but I´m not sure he believes me. The tragedy of it all is that he never got to use them before they vanished. Poor guy. If anyone has any insight to mice genitalia it would be much appreciated if you shared it with us.

Tuesday I get a duck. Duckling. No name for him yet.

Life on the farm continues as usual. Weeding, planting and mudding houses fills the day when I´m not eating or taking a siesta. 6 volunteers remain and 3 come Monday. Always a new group. It´s odd seeing so many people come and go.

Estancieras are the most badass vehicle you´ve seen. They´re the Argentine version of a Land Cruiser and only made fabricated from early on until the 70s or 80s. Fully metal, simple 6 cylinder engine and lots of cargo space. You can get one without an engine for about $1000 US and a good funcitoning engine for $500 US. Jorge knows how to install these engines and would teach me how. I want one for road tripping and travelling and am therefore officially accepting donations. Inquire here or at ptroffer@gmail.com for more information.

I´ve been mixing up andbaking bread. It started with plain wheat and has resulted in home made cinnamon rolls this morning. I´ve got a sourdough starter fermenting right now, baking session pending. To hell with modesty; I´m not so bad at it.

Sundays are beautiful but always means more work tomorrow. I should get back home and into bed.

There was a dust storm on the way here; hope it´s stopped. I got a huge chunk of something in my eye and almost ran over a dog that decided to chase me just at that moment. My bike has no brakes and the rear gear almost works like a fixed gear, but not so much. Moral is I have to back pedal but slowly just to mostly slow down rather than to stop. Except when there´s shit in my eye and a dog in front of me. Then I charge. There´s too many dogs here anyway.

When you reach a fork in the road, take it.

where´s the beef

I´ve got to make this quick, guys. There´s an asado (barbecue) planned for tonight at the neighbor´s house and when you´re living on a vegetarian and practically vegan farm and are not inclined to neither of the aforementioned lifestyles, meat begins to take a sharp priority over things like family, friends, and visits to the bathroom. I can´t say I´m proud of it, but my last piece of meat was a sad and unsatiating burger from down the street, and the one before that was an overcooked pot-roast thing at the town´s Spanish restaurant (said dry meat was not Spanish at all).

I digress.

Things are happenin out here at the base of the Andes.We finally finished the bulk of necessary planting. It will continue through the next few months, but not as much. This means more construction, which means playing with mud (mixed with horseshit and hay), which means a slight odor but an odor well worth it because of the increasingly uncomfortable heat. It´ll get up to 100 here around New Years. Absolutely no chance for a white Christmas.

Since I´ve been here the longest, they´ve put me in charge of irrigation at the farm, which loosely translates to playing with water and more mud (without the shit!). We use irrigation ditches blocked off with natural chunks of small but tightly bunched roots that soak up and block water. Problem is with rains, the walls I´ve been stacking can break, resulting in a mini flash flood. Forthis reason I´m supposed to be designing and constructing wood doors with cement holdings for the big entrances. Haven´t though yet.

But shortly after being assigned this project I was given two others which can possibly result in more enticing profits. Azucena and Jorge gave me a littleplot of land (three beds 1.5 meters by 3 or 4 meters) to grow produce to sell at the farmer´s market and store they just opened in Mendoza. They said they don´t want a share, that as long as I do the work I can keep everything. So every weeknight at 6 I stop volunteer work and work on my beds til dark. Soil needs mixing, needs manure, needs more manure, walls need constructing and shade structures need designing for spinach. I´ll also be growing carrots and beets, all three are in low supply and high demand at the market. Since I´m starting late, I´ll probably just harvest them when they´re small and sell them all as baby spinach, carrots and beets. The whole baby craze is catching on here. Project number 2 is making and selling vegetarian sushi at the two locations. We´re not sure how much demand there is, but for now I´m working with Azucena to figure out sushi combinations suited for Argentine tastes. They can´t handle spice, love all things fried and have an obsession with sauces and condiments. We´ll see what happens.

On top o all this I now have a pet mouse named Sancho Panza. Those who have read don Quijtoe will recognize the name of the round bellied faithful sidekick. I´m hoping one day Sancho will be comfortable enough to travel with me in my pocket. Right now he´s scared to hell of my hand. Thanksgiving isn´t the same without turkey and football, but I managed a delicious pumpkin and apple soup (never cooked with pumpkin before), roasted fennel and sweet potatoes, and a hearty mulled apple cider. Others made three types of mashed potatoes and there was a vegetarian stuffing as well. The holiday is of course not celebrated here, but with the reasonable amount of Yankees on the farm we decided to make everyone food anyway and to describe how UnitedStateseans like to commemorate our successful survival of the first winter in the New World and the subsequnt slaughter of the natives who taught us how.

Speakingof turkey, I amreminded that said meat awaits. I am in charge of beer, another treat I´ve been missing, so I must visit the store.

I hope you´re all alive and kickin, and kickin good an hard. I miss most of you and hope your holiday was good and that the upcoming holidays continue to treat you gooder.

Until next time,your dauntless bushy bearded hoe-bearing pile of dirt an weeds,
Patch

spring has sprung

and bees swarm the acacias, the goat had a baby (another week and we´ll hopefully being making cheese) and the cabaña is lleno de volunteers. When I arrived I was one of two (the other was the aforementioned New Mexican hippy who had never done any kind of manual labor and had to ask me how to use a shovel) so very little got done. We{re seven now, which is enough to stop up the poor septic system and force us to establish a temporary compost toilet outside, which would be fine and all if I didn{t have explosive diarrhea. I{ll get into that a little later. The upside, however, is that we{ve successfully cleaned the entire huerta (almost) and are finally planting. Tomatoes, beans, melons, all kinds of squash, eggplant, fennel, chards, kale, taters, more onions (always more onions) and quite a few herbs. We´re harvesting broad beans and artichokes and in one more week the stawberries will be ready (I´ve never tasted a white strawberry that was so sweet). The cold nights, warm days and frequent winds tell my body it´s fall; but the small green leaves and pink buds instead of dead oranges, reds and yellows serve to remind me of my sub-equatorial location.

Speaking of things below equators, my bowels, as I have alluded to, have been in an uproar. Mine and two other volunteers´. Two days of some kind of flu with aches all over, mostly in the head, and a constant reminder that the bathroom is no longer a few steps away but outside and a good twenty meters off. Again, no big deal, really, but throw in a a roofless structure around said toilet and a conveniently coinciding thunderstorm and you´d much rather be pulling weeds than laying in bed all day. The thing about diarrhea is that you think you´ve gotten it all out but the minute you get back in bed the tummy starts rumbling again. In two days I ate 4 smallish rolls and a bite or two of rice. I woke up more or less ok this morning, with more or less solid stool (this, of course, is relative; let´s just say is wasn´t the Hershey squirts no more. More like jam) and trekked into town to eat a lot of medialunas (croissants) and fracturas (croissant-dough pastry with bavarian-like cream filling) washed down with my first cortado (espresso and milk) in a loooong time. So far I{ve managed to hold it all in. I´ve got my eye on a choripan (big oily grilled sausage in a roll with onions, cabbage, or other condiments) or a milanesa (fried meat sandwich with ham, cheese, egg, lettuce, onion and tomato).

Last week I got to go to Mendoza with Azucena to clean up a space inside a Chinese medicine practice that will be the first organic produce market in thee city. There is a farmer´s market, but only 6 farms in the area have certifications. There´s a beautiful courtyard with a moro tree (huge berry-yielding trees;not as sweet as our north american varieties but delicious nonetheless) and space for a sizeable herb garden, flower garden, and picnic tables where patients can wait and drink a tea or fresh juice brought from the store. It will function like a co-op space where producers pay a small portion of the rent and the employee´s paycheck and name their own prices. Not all of the producers will be certified organic, since the license costs so damn much, but if the food is pure, natural, and without chemicals it can be sold there. It´s based of a German model that apparently worked so well that these co-ops have grown as big as supermarkets. Sundays in town are great. Stores close down but restaurants open up for old men to discuss the worlds´problems over a beer or cafe while their wives chat through windows and doors at home, kids rule the sidestreets with futbol pick up games and dog-chasing, young couples manage to walk in straight lines while making out down the scooter-lined sidewalks. It´s sunny and a little breezy today, perfect for a walk. I´m gonna go take one.

Last week I got to go to Mendoza with Azucena to clean up a space inside a Chinese medicine practice that will be the first organic produce market in thee city. There is a farmer´s market, but only 6 farms in the area have certifications. There´s a beautiful courtyard with a moro tree (huge berry-yielding trees;not as sweet as our north american varieties but delicious nonetheless) and space for a sizeable herb garden, flower garden, and picnic tables where patients can wait and drink a tea or fresh juice brought from the store. It will function like a co-op space where producers pay a small portion of the rent and the employee´s paycheck and name their own prices. Not all of the producers will be certified organic, since the license costs so damn much, but if the food is pure, natural, and without chemicals it can be sold there. It´s based of a German model that apparently worked so well that these co-ops have grown as big as supermarkets.

Sundays in town are great. Stores close down but restaurants open up for old men to discuss the worlds´problems over a beer or cafe while their wives chat through windows and doors at home, kids rule the sidestreets with futbol pick up games and dog-chasing, young couples manage to walk in straight lines while making out down the scooter-lined sidewalks. It´s sunny and a little breezy today, perfect for a walk. I´m gonna go take one. Until next time.

part 3

In which our hero:

finds himself in a dusty bus terminal in the Mendocino cuts, doesn{t shower for 2 weeks, almost loses a fingernail, picks ticks from his body for the first time in over 10 years, wakes up to the sun rising over apple orchards and goes to bed with it setting over the central Andes

So you´re sitting on a dusty wall in a dusty towncalled Tunuyan on a dusty morning that couldn´t possibly be any more dustier and you realize that it is in fact drizzling and quite moist and that the summer should prove these preconceptions wrong in due time, all the while eating a salty bag of peanuts, the only food you´ve hadsince the afternoon before (and by food I mean some pizza and a lot of beer, and christ do the Argentines like salt) and a woman with blonde streaks like Rogue from X Men and trensas (those things where they wrap up parts of your hair with thread like a bracelet with shells and beads hanging from it) walks up to you and asks, Buscas algo? (literally, Looking for something?) and you´re not sure if it´s an invite for a prostitute but you realize she´s carrying a bowl of chopped fennel and suddenly you´re in a small Renault whose upholstery is made of dirt and dead leaves, suffocated by four trees she´s managed to fit in the back on top of you listening to a hippy from New Mexico tell you how her B.O. smells so much better here.

I should probably take this opportunity to clarify that Azucena looks in no way like a prostitute, but hunger and cloudy skies, not to mention road-fatigue and excessive salt consumption, will construe things, you can lay to that. Azucena is a nutrionist that focuses on natural healing methods from vegetables and herbs, as well as a farmer. Her husband Jorge is a yogi and farmer, philosopher of sorts. They´re in their tenth year of creating a natural healing retreat center at the base of the Central Andes, and are looking at a good 5 to 10 more. They lost a lot when the economy crashed in 2001 and no longer trust in the government or banks for loans, and depend entirely on Azucena´s small income, money from their produce sold at the Mendoza farmer´s market, volunteers, family and the frequent random someone-who-knows-someone-who-knows-someone-who-has-a-lot-of-dead-garlic-shoots-for-an-alternative-eco-friendly-weed-killer-and-insect-repellent . Get Jorge talking about the state of the government and world and he wont stop talking, but he manages to do so in the least intrusive way possible, fitting in at least three stories along the way per example. They have two kids, Paloma Azul (Blue Dove), 9, and Nacho (goes by Chacho),4, who are mostly beautiful but occasionally overbearing.

You wake up every day around 7 or 8, depending on how hot the day will be to a sun shooting bits of morning through an apple orchard outside your window. A breakfast of bread, butter, homemade jam, a mate or tea and you´re out onthe huerta, hoe or shovel in hand to clear weeds (Jorge´s foot is broken and they´re behind schedule. Just now weeding and planting seeds.) or lay said dead garlic shoots or some other odd job. A lot of natural construction with trees of all sizes we cut down ourselves, sequestered glass bottles for light, clay, metal wire and a live roof with dirt and weeds. A saw, some pliers and a hand-drill make up your quiver of tools. Eat a huge lunch of anything vegetarian around noon or 1, a long siesta and back to work from 4 or 5 until you can´t see no more. If it´s hot enough you jump into the nearby stream to cool off at the end of the day, watching the sun fall behind clouds rolling over the Central Andes. Dinner´s usually leftovers from lunch or some pasta. Read for about ten minutes and fall sleep with your face in your book, dirt in your nails, weeds in your hair and a beautiful stink all about you.

I must admit I do agree with the hippy from NEw Mexico. My B.O. smells incredible here. COuld be change of diet (no meat, minimal minimal dairy, no booze, a few eggs), of atmosphere, who knows. But suddenly two weeks without a proper shower, maybe a sponge bath or two along the way or a jump into the river, is no big deal.

Oh I got a cooking apprenticeship in a vegetarian restaurant in the nearby city of Mendoza for the month of December. He closes for January but says I can come back if I want. For work, he´ll give me a hostel room to stay in, meals all day and an allowance for other necessities. Awesome food, buffet style which seems kind of corny but a talented cook and one of those large jolly types. Could be a good experience. Or an experience nonetheless.

I guess that´s all I can remember I was going to write. My time´s up and I´m out of pesos. Turns out I have a beautiful niece named Kyleigh who was born the Saturday before last. I hope everyone around the fires in So Cal are safe and well. Write me with questions or news or with anything. I can´t check email often, but I can manage.

post-inaugural transmission, originally an email, couldn´t find the first

Chapter 2
in which our hero:
is eaten by bugs--is almost eaten by the devil himself--sips whiskey on a bus--quotes Eleanor Roosevelt--is run over by the Japanese--poops in a shower--realizes that, alas, tuna does not go well with everything

Despite the 99% DEET that my insect repellent consists of, the mosquitos still find ways to tear my skin to shreds. If you miss one dime-sized patch, they find that spot and bite it a good thirteen or so times. Needless to say, I´m itchy.
I´m sitting out a sub-tropical thunderstorm in a hostel in Puerto Iguazu, at the border between Paraguay, Brasil y Argentina. It´s about 90 F with at least 172% humidity. Today I saw the world famous Iguazu falls, and peered into the throat of the devil (Garganta del Diablo, the world´s third tallest?) I cannot begin to describe the power, magnitude and energy that the Iguazu falls emit. In all, there are about 15 big ones and innumerable smaller guys. I hiked around for 6 hours taking it all in. I took a boat to an island in the middle of the Iguazu River and had lunch with a two-foot long lizard. I named him Chacho. I took his picture.
Eleanor Roosevelt, upon witnessing la Garganta for the first time, is reported to have said something along the lines of ¨Poor, poor Niagra¨. I´ve seen Death Valley, the Grand Canyon, you know, the major US natural wonders but nothing--nothing--compares to what I saw today. Granted, I had to wrestle my way through unheeding tourists grasping desperately for that special shot to show friends and coworkers back home. I thought I was going to be run over by a Japanese stampede. I also had to wrestle my food from the caotes, a smallish racoon-like rodent who are so accustomed to tourists at this point that they literally come up to you and steal your food.
I took a bus here, and I gotta say, the Argentines have public transportation figured out. For a reasonable price, I had a sleaper-chair bed thing like the ones in first class that you curse at upon deboarding a trans-continental flight in coach. They threw in two meals, complete with wine and either champagne or a whiskey for dessert. Guess which one I chose. The 17 hours felt like 4. I´ve forgiven them for playing a shotty Jennifer Love-Hewitt movie. Buenos Aires was a trip. It was weird and exciting and overwhelming and great being back in a big city. But I had good people to show me around. Buenos Aires is about 3 or 4 times as large as Madrid, but it looks and feels almost exactly the same. I had to take a retreat to a suburb called Tigre that is situated on a delta, cut by an intricate web of canals and rivers. I stayed in a modest cabin on stilts, took a hike, talked to the owners about their hydroponic garden, and listen to frogs on the front porch at night. It felt like the South (USA). Tomorrow I head 20 or so hours south-west to Cordoba for a layover to Mendoza, 10 hours west of Cordoba at the foothills of the Andes. From there a 1 hour bus takes me to Tunuyan, where my first farm will be waiting to pick me up. I´ll be getting a yoga lesson every day, plus a wide range of vegetarian fare. No booze, no drugs, no meat, just good health. A detox wouldnt hurt I suppose. Most showers here in Argentina are not in stalls or baths. A typical bathroom is covered in tile and has a sink, toilet, bidet (biday? budet? the european but-cleaner thing), and a showerhead sticking out of one of the walls. The whole bathroom gets wet and you´re free to brush your teeth in the sink, walk around (size permitting), use the toilet--and yes, I have definitely tried this--drop a deuce! Number two! While showering! It´s incredible, honestly. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone and letting a few extra go while you´re at it, if you catch my drift...Alright, so enough potty talk. I suppose that´s about it and my minutes are almost up. I am doing very well and no need to worry, I haven´t done anything stupid yet, except for adding tuna to a salami sandwhich today. They don´t go well together at all.

I took a bus here, and I gotta say, the Argentines have public transportation figured out. For a reasonable price, I had a sleaper-chair bed thing like the ones in first class that you curse at upon deboarding a trans-continental flight in coach. They threw in two meals, complete with wine and either champagne or a whiskey for dessert. Guess which one I chose. The 17 hours felt like 4. I´ve forgiven them for playing a shotty Jennifer Love-Hewitt movie.
Buenos Aires was a trip. It was weird and exciting and overwhelming and great being back in a big city. But I had good people to show me around. Buenos Aires is about 3 or 4 times as large as Madrid, but it looks and feels almost exactly the same. I had to take a retreat to a suburb called Tigre that is situated on a delta, cut by an intricate web of canals and rivers. I stayed in a modest cabin on stilts, took a hike, talked to the owners about their hydroponic garden, and listen to frogs on the front porch at night. It felt like the South (USA).
Tomorrow I head 20 or so hours south-west to Cordoba for a layover to Mendoza, 10 hours west of Cordoba at the foothills of the Andes. From there a 1 hour bus takes me to Tunuyan, where my first farm will be waiting to pick me up. I´ll be getting a yoga lesson every day, plus a wide range of vegetarian fare. No booze, no drugs, no meat, just good health. A detox wouldnt hurt I suppose.
Most showers here in Argentina are not in stalls or baths. A typical bathroom is covered in tile and has a sink, toilet, bidet (biday? budet? the european but-cleaner thing), and a showerhead sticking out of one of the walls. The whole bathroom gets wet and you´re free to brush your teeth in the sink, walk around (size permitting), use the toilet--and yes, I have definitely tried this--drop a deuce! Number two! While showering! It´s incredible, honestly. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone and letting a few extra go while you´re at it, if you catch my drift...
Alright, so enough potty talk. I suppose that´s about it and my minutes are almost up. I am doing very well and no need to worry, I haven´t done anything stupid yet, except for adding tuna to a salami sandwhich today. They don´t go well together at all.
I love you all. You´ll here from me again soon enough.