Sophia and I are chilling out on the roof of our hostal. It's a grey day (unlike the past two) but the streets are hot and the Spanish is flowing. Well, for Sophia anyway - my language is more of a shameful Frespanol...
So far we've been seeing the city by foot, but our tired legs are telling us that we have under-estimated the size of the city. Buenos Aires is pretty massive. Each barrio has it's own community and personality attached: leafy, posh Palermo or expenisve, glamorous Recoleta. Having said that, we walked past a great bit of graffiti yesterday telling us that even if you're leaving one barrio to go home to yours, then you've already arrived - BA is one organism.
There's colour everywhere- orange, green, blue buildings. Even parliament is pink. This is especially the case in La Boca, where we stumbled across a little village of Glastonbury-esque street performers and music. Very cool. Very Bohemian.
Paula, our kind, local portena, invited us to her place yesterday. From there, we went out to a Tango class and learnt some (really complicated!) moves. The proffesional dancers make leg crossing and backwards walking look easier than it is! Felt a bit out of place in my schoolboy daps and shorts combo next to the ladies with red-dresses, but we're told the sentiment of passion is the most important aspect. In South America, dancing is an art.
I have sampled an Argentinian steak, which brought me close to Dad's Banana and Chocolate Pancake Epiphany (p.s learnt the word for Pancake yesterday - Pancakas, or thereabouts), but there are still Empanadas to try. Luckily however, it means that lunch has been sorted for today.
There's still a lot to see - I hope all is well at home, and that the Spring weather is continuing!
My number is 1161513126. Pero no se el numero para argentina. Something like that.
Adios Amigos, Suerte!!
Lx
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!
