Los Reartes

Sorry I haven't written for a while. I think my brain got so overwhelmed with information that it just stopped receiving new information and turned to putty. We went camping last weekend with two other couples from Danny's work, and had a great time. We went to Los Reartes, near Villa General Belgrano, where we went to Oktoberfest.

For some reason the rain and cold weather are really refreshing here. It reminds me of Oregon. Don't get me wrong I don't want as much of it as Oregon has to offer, but it's refreshing every once in a while. Anyway, it rained on Saturday, so we waited until the afternoon to go, in order for the weather to clear up. We left at about 3pm. We hung out, set up, and we went shopping for our dinner.

They talked in Spanish the whole time we were on our trip, and I think that's part of what started my brain to feel overwhelmed. I felt like I got worse at my Spanish afterward. I liked learning new foods and stuff in the grocery store though. It is really fun to shop with people from Argentina because they know exactly what they want. What I mean by that is that there is a typical way of doing things here. They have specific traditions.

I have negative associations with traditions. It's a close brother of 'rituals'. I don't like rituals, I guess I just don't like rigidity. But these traditions are fun. There's a reason why they continue to stick around.

Back to the schedule. At about 9:30pm we started building the fire for the asado. I love watching the preparations for an asado. I feel like I am getting a sneak peak into something rich. We ended up eating at around 11pm underneath a open grassy roofed hut. It was so cold. One of the couples slept in their car for the night. We could tell they were not used to camping. They both brought rolling suitcases that contained about a weeks worth full of clothes, funny stuff. We were really thankful because they let us borrow their sleeping mats. All we brought was a blanket off our bed. We were a little unprepared. They were really generous and let us use some of their sleeping stuff.

The next day we laid out in the sun, had a BBQ, and played 'Truco', an Argentine card game. Two other guys came to meet up with us. We went in the river and splashed around for a while. While we were in the river we set up little stacked rocks on one big rock, and saw who could knock them over first. It was a simple game, but for some reason it was so much fun. It was a really beautiful place. Good food, good company!