Sunday, June 3, 2007

Adios for now

Hiking down from the Mapuche village I´d paid an early morning visit to I ran in to a pack of grazing alpaca on the rock face. I think we were all a bit startled at first. The alpaca stared at me, slowly masticating their sticks and grass, sizing me up, and I just stood there bewildered for a moment. "Oh, that´s right...I´m in the Argentine Andes...Ok then, this is fine...funny looking things...they´re in my way...seem friendly..." I walked right at the one blocking the way, he moved aside, and we all went about our business.
I´m leaving civilization tomorrow. I´ll be gone for about six weeks. This is my farewell blog. Here`s the plan. I´m catching a bus to a town north of here called Zapala where I am meeting one of my coworkers who´ll be in a truck that we´ll then drive three or so hours north in to an area called Colipilli wherein sits the ranch that I will be working on until at least mid July. I´ll be learning equestrian skills, grazing goats and sheep, building fences, learning to cook authentic asado and gaucho bread, and much more. I´ll have stories for you all in July. The crew is myself, occasionaly the owner of the place Ashley--an american from ohio--five gauchos who were born onto this ranch, and one girl from Utah who while participating in a project similar to what I`m doing some time back fell in love with the youngest of the gauchos Fabio and now lives there. She is a horse and leatherworks specialist.
Wish me luck. Take care. Come back in July. Adios.
Here´s a link to a map of Neuquen province. I´m just southeast of El Huecù.

A few salutations are also in order:
Mom and Dad, happy 25th anniversary! Well done!
Uncle Mark and Sandy, happy 1st anniversary!
And happy belated birthday to Sandy and my newest cousin Claire.

Take care friends.

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