Later on this evening we'll be pulling out of the Cordoba Omnibus Station to start a 16hour bus ride to Santiago. However, we'll be going over the Andes under the morning sun, and I've got my ipod ready to provide a soundtrack to stunning views. Our tactic for surviving this has been to eat lots of ginger, drink fizzy water, and go out dancing the night before for optimum sleep deprivation on the bus.
We went to see a Salsa band yesterday, and quickly learnt a couple of other people's moves, after being told that the British are rubbish dancers! The music was fast, feverish and you couldn't help but join in.
On one of our last few nights in Buenos Aires (we were very sad to leave both the city and our eclectic group of amigos at the Hostel) we went to see a spectacular Tango show. It was a very beautiful form of acrobatics: the costumes, live music, spins and lifts made us want to uproot all of our plans and stay in Buenos Aires to master the dance. Just walking along San Telmo market on Sunday, street artists would invite locals to join them for a spontaneous exchange on the cobbled streets.
Paula suggested we go to an Afro-Carribean gig too, which we went to without hesitation on Thursday night. The Drums and the Clarinet got faster and faster throughout the evening, as did the crowd despite the humid evening and the 'intimately sized' venue.
Another musical evenings was Groovestock at a place really close to our hostel. It was a line-up of local bands all playing cool Indie music and each with their own dedicated team of hard core groupies. They had flyers, flags, mosh-pit-starters, t-shirts, and people to sing along louder than the main dude. A Senor at San Telmo market who had a stall dedicated to selling horse riding equipment told us about how in Argentina, you have to find your passion and spend your life working on it. His is horses- and these guys' one was their band.
This Senor's stall was really interesting, he could have kitted out a little group of horse-back travellers. However, I was most interested in the 'Don't Touch The Guns' sign because after carrying our backpacks around our arm muscles are getting in to serious shape!
Wish us luck tonight :)
Chao x
I’m working on the organic farm. We change our tasks every day, for example I have helped to build a manure house (not a house for manure but a house made out of manure!), weeding, hoeing (I never knew how much the land in Argentina needed to be hoed! One day, I hoepe we will have hoed enough…), chopping and washing up. It’s all pretty hard work, actually, but it does keep us warm. As we are only eating vegan meals, there is a lot of grating, peeling and mashing to be done, and they make so much food. Every meal preparation feels like we’re about to feed five thousand people. Eating is considered a spiritual meditation and act of thanks to Krishna, so the meals are always arranged beautifully and no food is ever wasted. It’s a very efficient farm, whatever is left over is fed to the various animals that live along side us. Only two of the six dogs that live here were invited – the others just turned up – and neither of the two chickens nor the two cockerels. The dogs are all very sweet and a constant source of entertainment/warmth, the cockerels on the other hand have no concept of time and crow at midnight, or at three in the afternoon.
Yoga classes are everyday and often quite hard work, but again they warm us up. After not really feeling like I can roll out a yoga mat in a ten-bed hostal dorm room for the past three months, I’m embarrassingly unflexible, but little and often every day is the best way to improve, they say! The mediation classes are really nice, sometimes the mother taking the class will sing or play an instrument, and sometimes we just lie in quiet. I’m loving this detox. No wine, meat or dairy products for two weeks is doing me good!
The farm is in the Argentinian country side just outside of Buenos Aires. It’s as flat as a pancake in every direction, apart from the rows and rows of trees around each field. It’s a peaceful and tranquil place- you can see all the stars and every corner of the sky- and it's also horse country! I walked past a field of about thirty horses yesterday, and we forever see gauchos riding their steeds over to their friends’ house if they need to have a word about a dog.
I originally planned to stay here for three weeks, but on account of the blistering cold I’m leaving early. Back to BA, back to pastries and coffee!
