The “No-Plan” Plan Lives On

Up until this weekend, the past week was pretty uneventful (at least as uneventful as a week in a foreign city can be, that is). Here are some updates for ya:

-There are only five of us in the house now; us girls and three Argentinian students. It's pretty quiet, and we miss the rest of la familia like crazy. But we are trying to soak up the last few days of having our own room, a kitchen to use (however small and cockroach-filled it may be), and consistent internet.

-Renae and I both racked up over 30 volunteering hours this past week from all of our different gigs, of course gaining experience and falling more and more in love with the kids each day. We are still loving it all, and even though the seven or so work hours plus two more walking/bussing back and forth every day doesn't leave time for much else, we are dreading having our last days on Friday and having to say more hard goodbye's. Especially those kids... HOW we are going to drag ourselves away from them, I have no idea.

-Two more volunteers had their last days at the community center this week; Alice then Elcio (or Elfio, as the kids think his name is) both headed back to Brazil. That leaves just four of us. It is definitely an end-of-summer feel around here! Elcio did have a pretty fun going away party though- we got to have some of the classic Cordobese drink “fernet” with coke, learn some new card games, and attempt to improve on our Portuguese since everyone around here seems to be Brazilian.

-No one probably cares about this but I have to complain for one second: there is CONSTANT construction going on in the building attached to ours, starting at 8:30 every morning and going straight until 4:00 pm. It is SO insanely loud we can't hear anything, can't talk to each other, and don't even think about sleeping. Very annoying to all of us, especially to Joaquin when he tries to study. It's hard not to laugh at him because he freeeaks out every time he walks in the door and the drills start up.

-On Sunday we woke up and decided to head out to a nature reserve called Los Chorillos, where one of the researchers Renae knows is working on a project with reptiles. We had an email from the biologist, Nico, saying to catch a bus to Tanti and then another to Flor Serrana, from where we could find the nearby reserve. This was plan enough for us so off we went. We arrived just fine in Tanti, but then were told there was no bus to Flor Serrana. They told us to take a taxi, which if you have read our last couple blogs you know is NOT in the budget. So, we looked at the map, decided it didn't look too far, and took off walking. We made it maybe twenty minutes before having to ask if we were going the right way. We flagged down a truck to ask, which happened to be a family of five heading to the same place we were. “Hop up in back!” they said, and off we went for the bumpiest, most painful truck-bed ride EVER. But, we got there in I'm sure a fourth of the time it would have taken us to walk, and the family was super nice, stopping to show us an awesome little river spot on the way. No plan plan still functioning? Yes. We walked through the park a bit, and it was GORGEOUS. The trail leads up a big mountain, from which you can see all the surrounding little sierra towns. From there we met up with Nico, who told us to head to the waterfall while it was still nice, so we hiked another half hour or so to the most gorgeous sight we've seen in a while- a huge waterfall coming down from the mountains. We got to swim, sit on a rock in the sun, and it was amazing. Afterward we spent a couple hours helping Nico and his girlfriend make traps to capture the reptiles out of tarps, dirt, string, and sticks. We were busy working, and by the time we looked at the time, it was already 8 pm! The park was closed, there was no one to drive us back out, and it was starting to get

dark. So, Renae and I took off running (literally) back down the trail. Luckily we made it out before it got too dark, hopping over the gate at the entrance just in time. Unfortunately we were still faced with the problem of how to make it back to the city, without a bus back to Tanti. We stopped at a little family-run campground to buy much needed water and cookies, and asked the older woman running it how we could possibly make it back without the bus, phone service to call a taxi, or light in which to walk. Somehow it just so happened that her son had to drive to nearby Carlos Paz later on that night, from where we could catch a bus. As always, someone was looking out for us, and we had found our ticket out of there! We spent the next couple hours sitting at a little plastic table on the family's patio, under a roof made of vines with the most delicious grapes, talking about life, travel, and the BeeGee's with the woman and her son. So, needless to say that although we were worried about ourselves for a bit there, and wondered if we'd have to sleep under a tree without food or water, everything turned out for the best and instead of learning our lesson from our lack of planning it was further cemented in our heads that this is how the best adventures come to be.

Well, that's all I've got for now; it's time to go love up on the kids for one of the last times :(
Hope everyone's doing great back home in the cold, if it helps it's been raining pretty much every day here so unfortunately we're not soaking up 100 degree weather anymore either.

Wondering how two whole Cordobese months passed without me noticing,
Jenna Flynn