So, this is going to be pretty much my final blog on Argentina. We are now sitting around Buenos Aires, packing a getting ready for our flight tomorrow. It’s a good time to ask ourselves questions like what our favorite part of the trip was. The interesting answer to that question has almost always been where we saw animals. I bring that up because one of the best “wild” places we saw with animals were the Esteros de Iberá. It is a huge wetland area between the largest two rivers in Argentina (Rio Parana, and Rio Uruguay). In many ways its hydrology is very similar to the Everglades, with the underwater flow being the most important. The main component are the many floating “islands” of vegetative material that has become the substrate for an entire habitat, including trees! We came here to see Capybara… those who know me will not be surprised that I felt compelled to see the worlds largest living rodent. They are well represented here, being one of the few places in the country where they are protected. Apparently good eating (though we sadly couldn’t find any to try) and also producing very high quality leather (which we did buy), they are hunted elsewhere, as well as raised in farms. Of course, being a wetland, it was also full of birdlife. The largest is this “Southern Screamer” a group I was unfamiliar with before coming here. These guys hang out in family groups and make a lot of noise if anything approaches too close, so they are the watchdogs of the marsh. The top predator here (other than man, as usual) is the Yacaré, or Caiman. They were hunted near to extinction at the turn of the century for leather exportation, but now are thriving here in the reserve. They were everywhere, mostly sunning to be ready to hunt at night. Apparently, their favorite food is a pirana-like fish that lives here, but the only one we saw eating was swimming around with a dead Capybara (found dead, not killed by the Caiman). Another large bird is the Jabiru, a huge stork. Not much to say except it is considered to be the main predator of young Yacarés, and it’s the tallest bird that can fly. Overall our time in the Esteros was very good, we saw Howler Monkey (terrible photos…I hate trying to take monkey photos, they are always backlit looking up into the trees!), iguana, and more Cui! Of course, it was indisputable that the best things were the capybara… we are pretty sure you can never have too many photos of unusually large rodents!

This is a non photo blog because last time I couldn’t get my photos to load and I didn’t have a blog written that didn’t need photos… so, time to write one!

One of the great things about camping and traveling by car for two weeks was we lived much more like the regular traveling Argentines, versus backpacker tourists. We visited grocery stores, gas stations, and campgrounds. We got to see how the locals act in all of these different places, and learn the subtle things you can only learn while pondering why there are over 20 different labels and varieties of yerba mate! The first thing we had to deal with was the simple act of driving in Argentina. I knew that even the U.S. State departments website declares that driving in Argentina is so hazardous, it is the most likely way to injure or kill yourself in the country! Just from walking around we had a good idea of how scary it could be. The reality was that it was not that bad. I just had to approach it as if, as one other book stated, “every other driver was out on the road to kill you.” It worked! You just drive super defensive, which is not to say the same as passive, because sometimes the only answer was to be aggressive. Needless to say, we survived unscathed, and the car did just fine as well. We really enjoyed our newfound freedom. Remember, even in El Salvador we had to rely on buses… so for us it was more than two years of not having our own car to get around in! Driving in towns and cities is always the most difficult. Argentina is no exception with some interesting peculiarities. One, though there are some signals (lights), the majority of the intersections are uncontrolled, no stop signs; you just kind of roll up to one and if you think you can make it without hitting anyone, on you go! Over time I realized that this was the reason for all of the one-way streets. It limits where you have to look, plus reduces the number of intersections with the potential for left hand turns. Once you are used to it, it all makes sense because you don’t waste so much time (or energy) stopping and starting at every intersection… I started to like it! It was only the two-way streets that needed the complication of signals. These had an interesting wrinkle as well. Whereas in the States we have a yellow light to let you know that the light is going to turn red, here they also have a yellow light to let you know that it will be turning green. This leads to a bunch of anticipation and engine revving! I’m not sure that this helps the countries statistics of auto accidents. Still it is an interesting cultural insight that Argentines have decided that this is something they need in their traffic system. Beyond the driving, the next big change in our travels was going to the grocery store to buy everything we were going to eat for the next week. We had been in to buy water and yogurts, but not the full repertoire that the stores offer. Probably the most daunting was the meat section. Argentines love their beef, but they also have their own system of cuts, including a ton of things we don’t offer at all. So, looking over the offerings and trying to decide what we could cook on a gas stove was difficult. What was a “Tapa de Asado”, a “Paleta”, or “Bola de Lomo”? We knew something about beef from eating at the steakhouses… but it seemed like the markets offered something completely different.  It was fun to try out some of the different cuts, but there is no doubt that we sometimes ate something tough and stringy, that probably should be stew meat. It was even more daunting when the pre-wrapped offerings were slim and I had to actually go over to the butchers. This is the way most Argentines would buy their meat, ordering the specific cut, and watching as they cut it. For me it was more difficult, I would have to ask for suggestions and describe our cooking situation, and then hope that the butcher wanted to be helpful and wasn’t too pressed for time. We did have lots of good beef along the way, but then, as I have said before, it is hard to get bad beef here! Another interesting grocery section was the Dulce de Leche row. Yes, a whole row for what amounts to caramel! We had become addicted to the stuff thanks to the service-included breakfasts at the hostels. Now we had to choose between multiple companies, and styles like ‘clasico’, ‘reposteria’, ‘casero’, and ‘traditional’. Again, hard to actually make a mistake, but it was disorienting just buying blindly. Still, we managed to travel for enough time to discover our favorite brand and style, and will probably be bringing a case of the stuff back with us on return! The final thing, bought frequently right at check-out were the Alfajors! These are also a national addition. The simplest description would be two softer cookies with a layer of (no surprise here) dulce de leche between them, and the whole thing dipped or coated in chocolate, sugar-glaze, or coconut… quite decadent! They run about 75 cents each and make a great snack on a bus, or a good way to top off a nice meal. Once again it became our mission to try them all and decide what we liked best. On top of the large companies offerings, there is a thriving ‘artesanial’ or hand-crafted market, with every little regional store having their own variations. These are probably the things I will take away from this trip as quintessential Argentina. Not the natural wonders, animals, or landscapes…rather the quirky cultural priorities, habits and pastimes that consistently remind me that we are not in the U.S. or El Salvador anymore!

That's really about all you can say about Iguazú... It is stunning and overwhelming to see. This will be a mainly photo blog because I am feeling blog-guilt for not posting for so long, plus, in this case the photos do as good a job as I could do with words.

Much of the falls... and note that I say plural because it is not just one fall, but rather many many over several kilometers of cliffs. Still many of them are accessed on these metal catwalks. On the particular one shown above, Katie is approaching a feature called 'Garganta del Diablo'. That leads to the question... Why are so many of the earths coolest features attributed to the Devil??

It is amazing though, and fairly throat-like... It is also the most powerful of the falls, with the majority of the water all funneled into this one chasm. The sound is visceral! I do have video... maybe I will try to post it here later.

This one is looking downstream of the 'throat'.

Some more of the falls. These you get to appreciate from both a trail at the bottom, and a catwalk along the top.

Again, sound pounding wetness!

Iguazú is not just about the falls, it also is a refuge for an interesting variety of wildlife.

This one was a bit too interested in Katie!

I saved the most spectacular for last. Here it is...a rare photo of the elusive 'Cui'! Also known as the wild version of a Guinea Pig. Cheers!

Ok, this will be a quicker entry because I’m really way behind! We are currently sitting around Buenos Aires, waiting to take our bus to Iguazú Falls. Yet this blog is to cover from our Siete Lagos tour to finish out our time camping. So mostly this will just be to show some good photos like the “Mighty Fiat” that got us to all of these locations safely, regardless of all of the crazy drivers and horrible gravel roads out there. It was a good vehicle, and of course I couldn’t help but be reminded of my wonderful driving trip though Australia with the “Mighty Ford Falcon” named Dave. So the next part of our trip was up to Parque Nacional Lanin. We were able to find a perfect campsite (free) in a native Araucana stand right next to a beautiful stretch of the Malleo River. Araucanas are those things you may know as Monkey Puzzle Trees. Very cool looking, and fossils go back to well before the dinosaurs. Here is a photo of Lanin Volcano in the dawn light from our campsite. Nice way to wake up and begin a days fishing! Here is the pool we camped near. The river is not big here, but it is very good trout habitat… the density of fish is amazing! After leaving that site we moved to another part of the park and took a good hike up to the base of the volcano. It was a nice all day hike with many spectacular views of both the volcano, and the surrounding mountains and lakes.

Up near the volcano’s base, we also encountered a distinct habitat zone that had a number of pretty flowering plants adapted to the dry conditions and sandy soils. Once we finished exploring Lanin, we returned to Junin de los Andes, which wins hands down as the place I’d like most to live here… or at least near Junin, having it as my town for shopping ect… Not only does it have trout on it’s street signs, but it is just so mellow compared with many of the surrounding towns like Bariloche and San Martin… too touristy! It also had one of the nicest central parks that we have seen our whole time here.

So, just finished a round of drinking mate. I’m hoping it will help me to get a blog together to post. Among the many qualities attributed to drinking mate are; increased alertness, greater mental acuity, improved digestion, and a host of other great things! Considering how much mate the Argentines drink, if these were all true they should pretty much rule the world. Still, it is a good drink. I’ll still take my coffee in the morning, but mate is not bad for the afternoon.

Well, I have been well away from the blogging sphere the last few weeks as some of you may have noticed. That’s because upon arrival to Bariloche, we quickly decided that the right thing to do was rent a car and get out into the surrounding parks and reserves. So, for the past two weeks we have been out exploring and camping. It was a super great time; a really good way to change up a trip of hostelling and eating in restaurants. It also meant that I could go fishing! Our first stop was the Rio Limay. Not far out of Bariloche but gives you a good idea of what it’s like just to the east side of the Andes. This is the drier steppe habitat, with a super clear Andes glacial melt river running through it. It is also amazing trout habitat. Now for those of you that know fish, you may have realized that it is not a trout I’m holding in that photo. It is a small landlocked salmon. The Rio Limay, along with the rio Traful and Lago Traful are one of the few areas to catch these fish. Apparently, someone at some point planted salmon in this river system… in fact in many of the river systems here, but this is one of the few that they really took off in. I was caught off guard when I pulled it out, I wasn’t sure what it was. Then I read up on the rivers later and it made sense. After camping on the Limay a few days, we drove up to Villa Angostura to start the famous “Ruta de los siete lagos” or seven lakes tour. Before starting we went hiking in Arrayanes National Park to see a larger forest of Arrayanes trees. They are present along many of the waterways, but only here form a pretty extensive forest. They make for yet another “Tolkien-esque” type of forest. The rails of the walkway, and some of the bases are made of Arrayanes too, so you can see it is a nice looking wood. The lakes of the region are all basically like mini (or even large) Lake Tahoes; beautiful super blue lakes, surrounded by forested mountains and rocky crags. The surprising thing is that they are all natural (no reservoirs), and that outside of Bariloche, thay don’t have the crowds or development that Lake Tahoe has. Most of them are within the National Park. However, a National Park here is a bit more like a national forest back home. Meaning that you will see plenty of livestock and have lots of private inholdings, including those for indigenous peoples. So they are not as pristine as they first look. It is mainly thanks to the low population pressures and poor road and trail system that helps them maintain their protection. That plus unlike the Sierras, things go from lakeside to very steep very quickly, so having trails and roads, or even houses becomes a problem. The understory of much of the forest is also quite dense. The main component of which is bamboo. I’m still at a loss to say what is native and non-native here. The park infrastructure didn’t really give out much information on species or ecosystems. I’m fairly certain that the bamboo is a native and not an invasive. You will however see lots of non-native pines, firs and doug firs… most of these are outside the parks though. We spent most of our time camping near rivers… yes so that I could fish! I will break here and do another blog to finish out the trip showing Lanin Volcano and the Araucaria trees. Cheers!

Ok, I’ve put off doing a blog for far too long! We’ve been moving slower, and relaxing more, but for some reason that didn’t translate into more time to write blog entries. So, leaving from Los Glacieres national park, we took the famed Ruta 40. Because of it’s remoteness and the variety of landscapes it passes through it has a kind of mystic about it, a little like Route 66 in the States, it even has several songs about it. The photo shows what much of our view was heading north through the Patagonian steppe. It reminded me a lot of my time driving Dave through Australia. At one point the driver of the bus pulled over because the bus had separated a mother Guanaco from her kid, and the kid was confused running alongside the bus. He decided it would be fun to catch the baby, who was probably only a few days, or even hours old, to show it off to the tourists. He was actually pretty careful but let several of us take photos of the little guy. They were very common along the entire route, which I was a bit surprised at considering all of the sheep. They must be competitors for the pasture. Still the government has protected them, and maybe people are actually going along with it. The bus was continuing on to Bariloche, but we weren’t ready to get there yet so we got off in El Bolson. Unfortunately I didn’t really find much to take photos of in El Bolson. It’s a hippy town, both Argentine, and from other parts of the world, apparently even California (as we were told several times, though we never met any). The biggest deal there was a thrice weekly crafts fair. It was more or less as you’d expect, though less tie-dye, and more micro-brews. Coming for the land of sucky beers (El Salvador) we took advantage of the beer. We also did lots of walks and bike riding around the outskirts of town. We’d hit a whole new climate zone and it was pretty mountains with pines and firs everywhere. It also is the main hop-producing region of Argentina. Next we moved south a bit to Esquel. This is interestingly enough, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid country! Yep, this is where they came when they fled the US. It looks a LOT like much of the west that they’d come from. Dry and desolate with ranches along the river valleys. Esquel is a very pretty town, quiet for the most part, though they do drive around honking their horns if there is a soccer victory or a wedding. We used it as a staging point for going up into Los Alerces national park. Los Alerces is our first real look at the true Andes, and it is no disappointment. It was beautiful dramatic landscapes with forested slopes heading quickly and steeply up to rock and glaciers. It also, conveniently enough, is the start of all of those amazing trout’s streams I had heard about! The waters, both lakes and rivers were transparent, deep and strong, and full of fish. The rivers were lined with Arrayane trees, something like looks just like a madrone, and the Alerces are the Giant Sequoias of the Southern hemisphere. Look just like them, and live to be 4,000 years… of course they are doomed due to climate change. Not the current craziness, but just the fact that the climate has been changing for the last 10,000 years, and the habitat that they were evolved for doesn’t really exist anywhere down here anymore. Ok, the last thing we did from Esquel is take the train made famous by Paul Theroux when he wrote the Old Patagonia Express. (Plus I think that Chawin wrote about it as well, but I haven’t read that yet). Anyway, it is a narrow gauge steam engine that really was still running up to 1993. Now it just runs for tourist, but it is trying to make a comeback and increase the route. It was a fun trip, and would be a really great way to travel through the Argentine steppe. It’s too bad they really don’t have more train services… I have always enjoyed traveling by trains where we could. Next stop, Bariloche!

So, the next day we went on a longer hike, but this time without the crampons, to go see the other main peak in the Fitzroy range, Cerro Fitzroy. To avoid an “out and back” hike we had a taxi take us up to a point on another river drainage and took a trail from there that would lead us up to the base camp for Fitzroy. It was a nice trail following along a pretty river under Ñire trees. The ñire, also known as the Antarctic Beech is a tree that can come in a variety of forms. Above you see it as a forest with a dense canopy and a very open understory. Quite pleasant to walk through; it also comes in forms more like shrubs, hedges, and even like the smaller high elevation lodgepoles. Our hike was really feeling like lots of the Sierra hikes we have taken, plenty of granite and smaller stunted trees. One difference you start to note here is the lack of areas that are glacially polished. You also don’t see domes, mostly just knife-edge ridges and moraines. We are here in what is early summer, so there were lots of wildflowers as well. I have already forgotten the name of these lily type flowers, but we have been seeing them on all of the trails, even down in Tierra del Fuego. Oh, as a complete aside, Cerro Fitzroy was named for the captain of the Beagle (ship that brought Darwin to the area). The indigenous name, is Chaltén. This is also the name of the village we are staying in while here, El Chaltén.

I also got to see my first real clear alpine stream. It deserves to have trout in it…but I don’t think it does. There is a large waterfall blocking migration from the larger river this is a tributary of, and I think that this freezes over pretty good for the winter. It’s still very pretty though… even without the fish! After a good steep pitch, well outside of any trail standards. We arrived at Lago de los Tres. This is as close as you can get to Fitzroy without strapping on those crampons. The lake was just starting to melt, thanks to that great weather I was talking about earlier. Nearby, you could look down on another lake that has that beautiful glacial blue color. For some reason it is called Lago Sucia, which means dirty lake… plus the adjective isn’t matching the noun it is describing…which is a no-no in Spanish, but I never did find a good answer to that one! Overall, it was a brilliant day! Good hiking, just a little too far after all of the hiking the day before. Our legs were pretty tired on the last hour or so of the way down. I figured that we ended up walking around 14 miles that day, most of it pretty easy, and we had light pack on, but still! It also worked out to be pretty cheap other than the taxi ride. Economics is starting to really mess with our ideas for the trip… but that’s a topic for another blog. Still, very hard to beat some of the great things we are seeing down here. Enjoy!

So, still impressed with glaciers, we decide to move further north and explore a more mountainous part of the park. We head up to see the Fitz Roy range of peaks, a spectacular set of mountains, that together with Torres del Paine over in Chile form the images that most people think of when they think of Patagonia. Katie, feeling particularly adventuresome decides she needs to “crampon up” and try out some Tyrolean traverses and ice climbing. We head out to Glacier Cerro Torre to let her do her thing. We have absolutely amazing luck with the weather, getting mostly crystal clear days while there. Additionally a notable lack of the famous Patagonian winds! The glacier is smaller than Perito Moreno, and in retreat versus advancing, still it is really impressive to walk around and look into crevasses and the various stress folds of the ice. It also helps to have a ton of stunning scenery to look at while you do it. Final note: Crampons are cool!

Well, time to catch up on a lot of stuff. We have been in more rural parts, no wireless internet in our dorm room! So have about a weeks worth of stuff, pretty much all dealing with our time spent in different parts of "Parque Nacional del los Glacieres". Which of course means that the first thing we went to do was see a glacier, in this case Perito Moreno, one of the worlds few advancing glaciers. This means it is still calving off into Lago de Argentina and occasionally making ice dams that hold back the water flow until they burst in a spectacular explosion of ice and sound. Unfortunately for us, we didn't witness anything like that. Still the sounds of the ice groaning and straining as it moves forward was eery. We did see some large chunks fall off into the water, but really the most impressive is just the size of the thing!

You can just sit around staring at it and not get bored. It's fascinating to think of all of the places I have been where this, ice, was the primary shaper of the environment I love. That it wasn't all that long ago, geologic time speaking, that much of the world as we know it was covered like this. Plus, looking at a real glacier like this one, you have to wonder if somewhere under all of that ice, there isn't some magical place like Yosemite valley waiting to be seen by whomever is here when it finally melts away.

So yeah, we've been in Ushuaia the last few days. The so called "End of the World". This means it's time to do a post... except that as posted just a bit ago, the Safari, Blogger interface bugs are killing me! Below is a view of Ushuaia from the sea! It is a very picturesque city, but suffers a bit from being a big port for the journey to Antarctica. The big cruise ships descend here and raise prices for us poor travelers! Just why is it all cruise ports have some rock they are hawking as a unique find, and charge outrageous prices for? No, they don't have Tanzanite here, instead it is Inca Rose or somesuch. Which of course comes from the far north of Argentina, so it is a bit like selling Real Maple Syrup in San Francisco!

In Tierra del Fuego National Park we went hiking. The main trail followed the coast dipping in and out of the forest. Its a good park with quite a few good trails. Mostly we just saw Upland Fuegan Geese (to distinguish from the Kelp Goose), rabbits... looked like two varieties, one being a small cottontail, and beaver sign... so the exotics win out again! There are also Red Fox to complete the messed up ecology.

The forests of Tierra del Fuego are very "otherworld-y", meaning that at times they look like what I'd imagine for Lothlorien, other times more like Fangorn.

Birds, birds, and more birds. The fun of cruising the Beagle Channel is endless. Actually, it did make me wonder where the word "Beagle" came from... turns out it is just from the dog breed! So yeah, the British ship that Darwin was on was named for a small dog. They think that the origin for the dog breed name may have something to do with words for things like "deep throat" and "big voice" in old french, or old english.

Watching nesting pelagic birds turned out to be way more interesting than I might have thought. Never been so interested in all of the shorebird types, but nesting colonies have a real appeal. Got to see some returning with squid to feed their young! We also saw lots of Terns, Sku, and Petrels.

These lazy guys are everywhere, but you'd feel left out if they didn't have them on the tour!

Just another pretty coastal shot. Just read through some of my above comments, and while accurate, I feel like they are somewhat colored by my bad experiences trying to wrestle with posting this thing! Really, this whole visit has been really good, we hit great weather, and the hiking was wonderful! Don't let my cynicism lower your opinion, it's a great place, and if you can you should come to check it out. It has a very "pioneering wilderness" feel to it. Fresh!

Looks fishy doesn't it? Yeah, but not going to plunk down the $270 to find out. I'll be waiting a few more weeks to wet a line. Have I already made too many cynical comments...well, in case I haven't, can I add that "way too rich" anglers are screwing up the world for the rest of us!!! As a side note, the $270 US also can not be split by two anglers, it is a per person fee!

Just thought this was a pretty shot to end on. Cheers until the next post. Hopefully I can have my system worked out by then!

So, using Blogger with Safari as my browser is just too much of a headache. The are so many weird issues that's its not worth listing them. Still it is making me lose a ton of time trying to post. Right now mad at both Apple and Google!! The only real work around is to spend the time d-loading Explorer (a megalithic program) which I hate to do... but I might...

We just finished a marathon bus trip of 34 hours or so to arrive in Ushuaua, on Tierra del Fuego. We are now about 54 degree south, about the same as the lower part of Alaska up north. We are only 680 odd miles from a portion of Antarctica. Because of this, there are a number of ships here that make trips there... for a mere 10 grand or so we, oh wait, one of us could go there! There are some last minute deals to fill space, those run more on the order of 5 thousand. I have seen one for as low as a little over two thousand, but you have to wonder what the accommodations are like! It'd be fun, but I think we'll have to take a pass on this trip. If we do any big splurges down here it'll be to catch a "Sea run brown".

No photos yet to post, but Ushuaia is very picturesque so I'm sure the next post will have plenty. I think we will be staying here for four or five days, if for no other reason than to recover from the bus trip, and ready for the next! It is pretty though, and there are some smaller glaciers to visit, a national park to hike around, and a boat ride on Beagle Channel. Named for the ship Darwin was on, not small floppy-eared barking canines.

So, I’m changing the style of the blog to keep up a bit with the pace of the trip. This means that many of the entries will be fairly quick and have some good photos, but maybe not a ton of content. I will still try to get some longer commentaries out there, but would prefer not to get behind events as they unfold.So, with that in mind, yesterday we went out to Punto Tumbo to see the largest colony of Magellanic Penguins on the continent. It numbers over a half million birds and is spread over many hectares. Some of the pairs walk over a kilometer inland to get to their nest. It is quite a different setting from what you might expect with penguins. It is a scrub desert, fairly rocky and poor soils. They dig holes for their nest, some fairly deep, others more of just shallow scrapes under a bush.The density is pretty impressive, once you start looking around you see penguins everywhere! They are very mellow, and of course here, fairly accustomed to people wandering about. So you can get very close, even get bit if you feel like it. We were lucky to arrive just after eggs had hatched, so we got to see all stages, eggs, small chicks, and some that were a bit larger.So, after having fun watching the awkward creatures wander, sleep, fight and mate, we left and headed off to Gaiman to meet Welsh descendents and have lots of cakes and sweet things. All of it was very good. Of course, being Argentina, some of the sweets were made with dulce de leche… that stuff is a drug! We had an alfajor (the cookies with dulce de leche between) for desert last night, didn’t need anything more, super rich!Ok, to end this, we are now waiting for our bus to Rio Gallegos, a good 17 hours on bus, woo hoo! So our Thanksgiving will be spent watching the monotonous scenery of Patagonia go by the panoramic windows of our bus! Cheers!

So, yesterday was the first of many excursions that we will be doing in the next few weeks. Excursions are the bane of many backpacker type travelers because they are not cheap! On the other hand, if you want to see stuff, you pretty much have to cough up the sheckles. Yesterday we went to visit Reserva Faunistica Peninsula Valdez. It is in the calm shallow waters here that the Southern Right Whale population comes to breed and raise their young. Well, if you are going to spend money to see whales, you pretty much can’t go wrong on this trip. You are guaranteed to see them, the only question is how close. For us the answer was very close. We started off with just a few whales, close enough for pictures, but still a bit far off. In no time though we had whales and their calves on every side of the boat, as well as going under it! Now from living in California, I’ve seen plenty of grey whales, some pretty close, but never anything like this. We saw spyhopping, tail slapping, and full on breaching. Most of it right by the boat where you get a real appreciation for their size. We also got a pretty good feel for the size difference between calves and moms, and watching the mom’s giving them “exercises” to practice breathing ect… We also learned a bit more about them because of the guides we had, another plus for excursions. Overall, the whole thing met or exceeded our expectations! We saw other wildlife during the trip as well. Things like guanacos, rheas, and maras, all of which I will talk about in a future blog, hopefully by then I will have some better pictures. I we post one photo of the penguins though. We stopped off at a small colony nest site of Magellenic penguins. These we will see in much greater numbers on our next excursion, so I’ll post more then! One last word on excursions; they are a necessary evil in certain areas. In our case they are a given for much of the first part of the trip. That affects our perspective of how expensive the trip is. Right now, Argentina definitely feels expensive to us and we are starting to tone down from our decadence of the first few days and look for strategies to keep things cheaper. It will be awhile however before we really know how far our money can take us. We have to bull through the first part, and get to where we have a more relaxed pace over in the Andes, and then see how the flow of money is. A ver. It is one of the major differences between travel and vacations though. In vacations you usually have more money then time, so it’s all about time management. For travel though, you have more time then money, so to do the things you want to do, everything becomes a trade off where money is the important factor.

So, time to change themes and write about our travels in Argentina. I reserve the right to post a blog or two about our El Salvador experiences as well, I’m still working on at least one dealing with our final day in site. For now though, let move on to the first impressions of Argentina.

Wow! I mean it would be hard to pick a more different place in Latin America! For impressions from driving in on the Airport, we both noticed how clean it was! This is definitely enhanced by having arrived from El Salvador. As much as I love El Salvador and it’s people, the trash there is a constant eyesore. Here, though not spotless, it is very clean. Walking around the city there were trashcans conveniently located pretty much everywhere, and people used them. Another nice thing was the Jacarandas, or at least I’m almost positive that’s what they are. They are acacia family trees, but with solid purple flowers, all in bloom and very abundant. In fact a description of BA wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the trees. They have a ton of street trees, and it really makes the city a much nicer place to be, more shade, and more alive seeming. We did notice a lack of squirrels though. Not sure if this is because of the high numbers of feral cats in the parks, or because squirrels actually aren’t down here for some reason. We arrived very early, getting to our hotel around seven in the morning. Of course, no room was available yet, so we had to go out and walk around to kill some time. We walked over to a neighborhood named San Telmo. It is famous for having lots of antiques and a little park that becomes a street market on Sundays complete with Tango dancing expositions! There we found a little café and got two cups of coffee and 6 of what they call media lunas. These are small croissant things coated with sugar glaze in this case, pretty good stuff! After going back to the room and getting settled in, we went out to do what I’d guess most travelers do on arrival to Argentina, go look for beef! We went to what passed for a non-touristy “parrilla” which means grill or BBQ, but down here it just means a restaurant that specializes in beef, and meat products! We took a seat at a small table and looked over the extensive menu. Not really sure what to do we decided to go safe and order a cut we knew we liked, “bife de chorizo” which it more or less a T-bone steak. We also ordered a salad and some red wine. The house wine for $2 a half carafe seemed like pretty good swill to me!  The salad was good as well. It came in a common bowl so that we could share it, and it had a little bit of everything, which meant things like potato chunks, beet chunks, and egg. The steak were amazing, really more like ribeye cuts back home, but a bit larger, including more of the sirloin, more impressively, they were about twice as thick as any cut I have had back home! It was a lot of meat! It also came with bread, which would probably seem like nothing special if you came from back home, but coming from El Salvador it was amazing! So, after that we waddled back to our hotel and let ourselves take a nap. We’d been up most of the night before on the plane, so we needed it. We got back up in the late afternoon and did a couple of tasks. The big one was going a getting our bus ticket to head south. That took a good bite out of our account. Argentina is not cheap! It may not be super expensive but it is easy to spend money here. For now at least we aren’t skimping on the food side of things. That night for dinner we got a “lomito completo” which is a huge steak sandwich with lettuce, tomato, ham and egg on it. Once again we were stuffed with meat! The next morning we got up and had breakfast at the hotel. Most of the hotels include breakfast as part of your stay. They offered a variety of fruits but most importantly “dulce de leche” to spread on your toast. To me it’s like spreading candy (very good candy) on your toast! It very, very good creamy carmel, and it’s everywhere in the land of sweets down here. We had it in a thing called an “alfajor” which is two cookies with a layer of dulce de leche between them like a cookie sandwich. We also had it to accompany our coffee later in the day as a bit dollop on a tiny cookie, all covered in chocolate! It was great, but terribly rich! The guidebook claims that per capita Argentines consume more sweets than anyone else in the world. Given the whole dulce de leche fixation, I believe it! The following are some photos from the Sunday Antiques market in San Telmo. Note the antique bolos and stirrups.

This is the bus we left Buenos Aires in. Quite a difference from El Sal buses!

So, what does that mean? Certainly not that everything went perfectly, because that’s not consistent with my experiences here. No the perfect Salvador week is all of the good things about El Salvador wrapped up with those things that epitomize the true experience. So for us, this last week has come pretty close to the perfect week. We had a despidida (goodbye party) with the school on Tuesday, school graduation on Wednesday, instituto graduation on Thursday, Friday to clean house, Saturday the new volunteer arriving, Sunday to show the volunteer around, and Monday the big despidida with my association. That was the plan anyway, and it mostly all happened that way, but it was in the details that Salvador showed through.First the despidida with the school. It was in the afternoon, and Don Israel had told Katie that she didn’t really need to say anything, or prepare a speech because that was more for the graduation the next day. We went over to the school at 3, which was when they told us to be there, and of course they were all frantically still decorating and setting up for tomorrow. We joined in helping to make crepe paper dangly things and set the chairs up. Finally around four-thirty we broke for the meal. It was the usual chicken, rice and salad that is the ubiquitous choice for “special occasions”. We ate with all of the teachers, and the members of the ACE (parents who are in charge of the school, contracts ect…). There were also a fair number of students as well.Don Israel got up and gave a nice speech thanking Katie for her time here, then the president of the ACE, Don Javier, also got up and thanked us both for our contributions to the community and especially the kids. Finally Don Israel asked if Katie wanted to say something. So of course we had to, though we hadn’t really prepared. I don’t remember what Katie said, but I know that I quoted my boss, Rolando, talking about how hard it is to say things from the heart, emotional things, in your non-native tongue. Bottom line is we got something out to them and thanked them for our time here as well. Then Don Israel asked if anyone else wanted to say something. Carmen’s mom got up and gave us a very nice blessing, followed by Belgi and several others recounting stories of our time here. There were several requests for us not to go, but to stay. The final one was the toughest, Yensi, a five year old, stood up and in front of all of those people told us how much she’d miss us, and that we hoped we be safe on our way home. It was just the start of the sad!The next day was graduation. This time we knew we’d be talking, and had written a few things down. I won’t go into a lot of details. Just that Katie nearly couldn’t get through her speech due to tears. Plus when Don Israel gave us our plaques thanking us for our time spent in the school and in the community, Peluche, the chucho, followed us across the stage to get his own thanks as well! The people all thought it was hilarious. After we were invited to eat with both of the graduating classes. So first we had a good beef lunch with ninth grade, then immediately followed with the chicken meal in the Kinder class. We weren’t the only ones “aprovecharing” the two meals, Don Israel and several parents ate both too. We talked to lots of people who always had to mention that we were leaving and that they’d miss us, and we should just stay. Overall a nice , but emotionally trying day. The next day we had the instituto graduation. Here our friends Magdalena, Karina and Claudia were all graduating. It was a kind of full circle thing because on one of the first days that we were in site, so long ago, we watched them graduate from ninth grade… didn’t even know who they were then! Now it is all different and we have to be sure to take photos for each of them. We don’t have to say anything though, which is a nice break. Afterwards we are invited to just about every house for food! We do indeed eat a ton of food, and have lots of sad conversations, but it is also very nice because everyone is so appreciative that we came, and they are glad we are taking pictures too. Lots of hugs all around!The last thing I will mention in this blog is the time with our family. I’m saving the big final day despidida for it’s own blog, partly cause this one is already long, and partly because those photos are still on the camera. Our family was really great this last week. The girls (Carina and Rebeca) pretty much wouldn’t let Katie out of their sight! The just spent time with us, and us with them. Lots of sad, almost crying moments, lots of practice with the different forms you can use in Spanish to say how you miss someone, lots of just quiet closeness. Good stuff, but tough too. We went to church with them that last Sunday and I know they really appreciated it. It was freezing, because the zona alta decided to give us it’s own special despidida and have a good strong norte, with cold temperatures (like around 45F at night)! Brrr! So of course the bus didn’t come and we had to walk the 3K to church that day! See the rest of the Perfect Week in the next blog. I want to get this one posted now. Cheers!

So, how have I chosen to spend my last few days as a volunteer? It’s something we all have to deal with as Peace Corps volunteers, leaving our site. I believe that how we do it is just as important as those first few months after we arrived. Most of us came here thinking that two years was a lot of time, but many of us were really considering what would happen after. Some are planning out their grad school options and working on applications, others are doing grad school while they are here and spending their time thinking about what they hope to do when they finish. Still others hoped to find that magical answer for what job they really wanted to do. The interesting thing is that almost none of those things have to do with actually being a volunteer. You see as well trained Americans (and I use that term knowing it is wrong) we spend a hell of a lot of time thinking about our future. Each phase of school is to get at the next one. Preparing you for college, which prepares you for work. [Yeah right, what part of work is even the faintest bit like college?] Even as we enter work we are told (at the ripe age of like 25) that we need to start planning for retirement! I’m pretty certain I am not alone in this, but I think one of the great things about being immersed in the kind of culture we have here in El Salvador is that most of us have now seen that the now can be just as important as the future! So what have I been doing? Well, strange as it may seem, I’ve been delivering apple trees to families. You see, one of the ideas that we had to help with crop diversification was that this climate should work well for apple trees. So, from the seeds of the apples that we occasionally ate, we saved the seeds and eventually planted them. The idea was, and is that these trees would provide the rootstock for us to graft varieties that might do well down here on to. This means that we now have about forty small trees that we have raised from seedlings, and before we left we wanted to make sure we gave them out to various families we are close to down here. It has turned out to be one of the best ways to say goodbye to our closer friends! I’ll take two to four trees out and walk down the street until I come to someone’s house. Go up to the open door and call out. Then I’ll be made to sit down. They’ll pull out their best chair, sit me down and we’ll start talking. These days the conversations are mainly about the hard fact that we are leaving. We talk about how they will miss us, how we will miss them. Simple things mostly, recounting some of our favorite times. It’s an amusing insight to realize how they will remember very specific smaller instances of our time here that made big impressions on them. It feels good to have them bring up things that you thought were fairly trivial, but it’s obvious that to them they weren’t. It starts to make your time here seem more worthwhile, and you realize you did have an impact, however small. Soon, the coffee, chocolate, or fresco will show up and I understand that I’m not leaving any time soon. I explain about the trees, and how well will come back to try to help them graft the sap wood on to in February. They say that it will be great to see us, but they also are quick to point out that it won’t be the same as us living here. It will just be a “visita”. Sometimes there are silences that previously would have felt awkward. Now they are just part of passing time with friends, that now I was talking about. They don’t want me to leave, and I’m not in a hurry to go, we just aren’t sure what to say at the moment and so we sit and ponder. Eventually, after several more good stories punctuated by silent pauses, I do decide to make my departure. I have finally gotten better at this as well, I can leave without feeling I was rude, or that I left before they got around to saying what they wanted. I have more patience, and I can relax. Heading back I realize it is already noon and that I have only given out two trees. I shrug, not worried, I know that I will get another two delivered this afternoon, and that once again I will have a great conversations with good friends.

So, just sitting here in the Lima airport and realized these are our first few steps on the South American continent, so I thought it worth a post! I still have a few more posts to make on El Salvador, in particular our last week there with all of the saying goodbye to our community. Will get those out in the next day or two, and then the focus will turn to our trip through Argentina. Enjoy, and like I have said before, you should expect updates on at least a weekly basis. Cheers!

[This is that Guest Blog I spoke of earlier. Steve wrote a very nice entry that I think will help you all see our site through fresh eyes again. Thanks Steve!]I am scribbling down this guest blog entry from the airport in El Salvador, about two hours since parting from Jon & Katie in bustling San Salvador.  Julie and I spent 5 days with them at their site, their community, in El Centro.  We ended our brief trip with 2 days together in San Salvador. Although I’ve been away from the U.S. for only a week, it seems like much more.  We’ve seen and experienced a lot this week.  There is much to describe about our stay and impressions of El Salvador– the landscapes, the food, how it was great to see Jon & Katie thriving in their community, how amazing the people of El Salvador are, Jon & Katie’s project work – but I’ll try to focus these ramblings on the people of El Centro and provide an outsider’s glimpse of Jon & Katie’s experience.When we arrived in El Centro, it was immediately clear that much of the community was expecting us.  Upon arrival, we walked to one house to pick up a mattress that a family was letting us use at Jon & Katie’s for the week, then picked up blankets from another family.  All along the way, friendly faces greeted us and stopped to chat (although, the “chatting” is limited on our end, due to our less-than-stellar Spanish).  Beatrice, one of the family members at Jon & Katie’s house, had a bracelet already made for Julie; Yoni, the son in the family, had two made for me within the first couple hours of our arrival.  For dinner one night, we had pupusas at Jesus’ kitchen.  For our last lunch in El Centro, Belgi, a friend of Jon and Katie’s (and daughter of Jon’s counterpart, Secundino) hosted us for a very elegant and delicious meal.  She was also very gracious about the tortillas that Julie and I “helped” her make … ours were distinctly variable and lopsided compared to Belgi’s perfectly honed tortillas (see photos of our “creations” below, ours are the left stack).  Katie has been organizing a bread baking day once a month with some of the women, so one day we baked about 50 loaves of zucchini bread with them in an adobe oven, using zucchini’s picked from Juancito’s crop.  There were many nice moments with the community like these throughout the week.  Because Julie and I have also been considering working or volunteering internationally, including Peace Corps, it was also important for us to see what Jon & Katie’s experiences have been and get some in-depth time with them.   I’d always heard that a volunteer’s success, however one wants to measure that, in the Peace Corps is completely related to situational flexibility and adaptability.  “Things won’t always work out the way you planned.  Don’t be disappointed if you have to change projects.”  Jon’s previous blog entry about changing expectations and “goals” gets at the heart of this.  Based on my own travel and work experiences, this makes a lot of sense to me.  In fact, this has always been something that has drawn me toward considering applying for the Peace Corps.  I think Jon & Katie’s experience has been a combination of succeeding at developing and implementing important, specific projects (worm farm, environmental education projects, etc.), but also reaching their community in other equally important ways.  There is more than a volunteer can contribute to a community than developing and implementing specific projects.  How they reach out and integrate into their community.  How they become liked and respected by the community.  Do they isolate or fully immerse themselves? Assisting nations and communities with specific infrastructure, community development, agroforestry/conservation, and education projects is probably the core mission of the Peace Corps.  This is precisely what many of us are interested in, and why we consider volunteering.  We want to help.  Naturally, we develop expectations and goals before we deploy.  However, many on-the-ground variables strongly influence how this plays out in each situation.  Culture, timing, the concept of “time” (again, culture), personalities, local funding.  My guess is that how well a volunteer integrates and fits into his or her community is probably the most important variable.  In addition to their technical abilities, determination, maturity and travel savvy, this is where Jon & Katie are succeeding and thriving.  Sure, they’ve probably hardened, and would even occasionally describe themselves as a bit jaded, but who wouldn’t be?   You’d have to be.  It’s a very intense two years, requiring a lot of mental energy, flexibility, focus, and self-evolution.  Not to mention, giving up the concept of personal space for two years.  Jon and Katie are available (all hours, literally) to talk with, provide advice to, listen to, positively challenge and encourage, the kids.  In a community where most of the adults have not had the opportunity to achieve an education at the level of this generation’s kids, Jon & Katie are probably among the very few in the community who the kids can relate to about education.  They have also earned the respect and solid friendship of the adults, and are frequently asked for their advice and assistance on a range of matters.  So, Jon thought he left the consulting business more than two years ago.  From where I sit, this is not exactly how things have played out.  However, the type of consulting they are engaged in may be more meaningful and satisfying.  Their previous blog entries have given us an idea of what their work projects are about.  Julie and I were able to see this important, interesting work in action.  We toured the worm farm, and helped Katie give a charla on an arts project.  However, I see their contributions also including many less tangible but equally important accomplishments and “consultations.”  Jon’s counterpart, Secundino, stops by the porch daily to catch up over a cup of coffee, bounce ideas about the worm farm and agriculture, and ask Jon to attend impromptu meetings with local officials.  Gaggles of kids stop by the house daily, to check in on the Waggoners, see what’s new and interesting, and just talk.  Katie checks their progress on school projects, advises them, and listens.  Simply being present and available matters.  I asked Julie what her favorite part of the trip was.  She said the whole thing, but probably the most memorable was the time with Jon & Katie’s local family – the people they live with.  It’s difficult to draw the lines between “families” because of many interrelationships, but the main unit we got to know is Juana, Eliseo, Karina, Yoni, Rebecca, and Beatrice.  They were some of the most welcoming, warm people we’ve ever met, and completely opened their home to us. As I was leaving El Centro and commenting to Jon about how the kids were so engaging, he remarked that “they will always remember your visit.  Years from now they will be talking about how ‘the aliens landed here’…”  Based on what I saw and the people I met, this is true.  It is also humbling.  Later, I thought about how it must have been when Jon & Katie first arrived in this pretty remote community, before any Gringos lived here, and how much effort it must have taken to get to the point where they are – especially after seeing how they are respected, and the differences they make in this community. Jon & Katie, thank you for a great, meaningful visit and for sharing your life and community with us!  Que bonito![Due to technical difficulties, I didn't post all of the photos Steve had. I will try to use some of them in future posts. Cheers!]

In the Peace Corps acronym-laden world this is also called COS. That’s where we are now… at the close, the finish, the end. It kind of snuck up on us really. At one point we were back home for my sister’s wedding, the next we were back here and heading to the COS conference!

It’s the conference I want to talk about. Partly because it is a very insightful event that you wouldn’t think a government agency would take the time, and more importantly, the money to do. I wonder about the history of the conference, was it something they started way back in 1963 or did it develop over time as they realized the need?

It is basically a three-day event where they get you back together with all of the people you started this crazy adventure with. These are the same people that we first met in Washington DC two years ago! It’s not as if we haven’t randomly run into, or had visits with these people… but it is the first time since we all graduated training that we are all back together in one spot! It was really great to see everyone again. Well, all but Jason and Ryan who are now home awaiting the arrival of their first little girl! Outside of that exception we all really enjoyed hanging out and catching up. Beyond all of that, I think it was important to have some time sharing experiences with each other, see the changes, talk about future plans.

Of course it isn’t just passing time, there are a ton of charlas (as we call them here in the Latin American world). The first day we covered the labyrinthine process of actually exiting the PC, meaning all of the forms, reports and interviews we need to accomplish. No wonder they do the conference almost three months prior to your end of service, it takes that long to get everything done! The next day we covered the more touchy-feely aspect of how to deal with going back to the States. What will it feel like, what will you do? There were some concrete discussions on things like how to use the PC resources to look for jobs, how to write a good resume and include your PC service in a way that employers could understand. The last day was spent mostly on how to deal with leaving your site. The feeling of leaving a community that you have become an integral part of and now have to wrench yourself away from.

Each of these aspects of the COS conference deserves some elaboration, and since I’m not really sure who my audience is for this blog entry, I’m just going to go more or less chronologically.

So, the first day. By far the most intimidating thing was the fact that on the very first day, you have to actually set the date that you cease to be a volunteer. Your true, personal COS date. See, something that most of us didn’t realize when we signed up is that even though we have our official COS date, the PC allows you to leave any time up to a month before that; in our case anytime between October 28th and November 28th. Katie and I chose November 19th. We wanted to be around for our schools graduation on the 12th, and have a bit of overlap time with the new volunteer who will arrive at our site on the 15th. So there we are, we now have a date, and more importantly for us, we can now buy our ticket for Argentina!

So some of the things that have to be accomplished by that date (we have a checklist which needs signatures) are, write our final report and description of service (DOS), have a final interview with the country director (CD) and our APCD (sorry never bothered to learn what that stood for, but its our direct supervisor), final Spanish interview, and of course have our final Medical Clearance. We had to pick dates to accomplish each of these tasks. By the time we were done with all of this it began to sink in how little time we had left!

The second day. As I said, this day we spent a lot of time talking about life after PC, including the re-adjustment phenomenon. There was a panel of RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) who talked about their experiences heading back home. It was interesting to note that only one of our group of 24 folks hadn’t gone home at least once during our two years down here. El Salvador is not that far away. Some people who went to school out of state were actually farther away from home when they went to college than they are now. That combined with internet and cell phones means that our experiences are very different from the PCVs serving in more remote countries or those of a few years ago even here in El Sal.

I will be interested in hearing some of our group’s reaction on returning home. It’s not that I think there will be major breakdowns or anything, but my general impression is that most aren’t giving themselves much time to readjust, and don’t really understand the need. As someone who has “dropped out” of the normal social structure a number of times (though not for two years like this). I know how different it makes you feel. My most used example is the “Seinfeld phenomenon”. One of those years where I was gone firefighting and then off traveling was the year of the rise to pop culture status of Seinfeld. I missed it all, and even now people who were in the flow will use a Seinfeld reference, and I will just look at them blankly while they wonder what planet I’m from.

Ok, on to the third day. For me this whole thing is one of the more interesting parts of service. The act of leaving a real community. As “estadounidense” or “norteamericanos” most of us don’t really live in communities, or I should say not close-knit family-like communities. Many of use have lived in Suburbia, which is like the antithesis of a real community. So to me, the volunteers leaving from these types of communities will be a unique experience in their (and our) lives. When Katie and I left The Pocket, we barely felt the need to say goodbye to anyone! We kind of knew our immediate neighbors, but it would be a stretch to say that any of them were friends. Here we have so many people we need to say goodbye to, and spend some time with before we go! I feel like we have it a little better in that we plan to come back through here after our trip to Argentina, still, it is an emotional thing.

Ok, so this has gotten a little long, but I wanted to give you an idea of what this phase of Peace Corps life is about.

Update: So, this also took forever to get posted so now we are even closer to our departure date, a mear 15 days!! Yikes! The blogs should get more frequent once we start traveling, and I expect that even along that journey, our thoughts and my posts will still sometimes be about El Centro and our Peace Corps experiences. Cheers!

Hey! So I haven't written much here recently. I blame it partly on the fact that we are almost done and thus, everything isn't as interesting... but mostly on the fact that our computer broke down a while ago... and I just hate to write these things on the fly like I am doing now. Luckily, our friends Steve and Julie actually came down to visit, yay!!! With them they brought a new computer that I'd order and had sent to them. So, no I don't have the excuse, except that I just ran into a new wrinkle!

So, Word 2008 for Mac, can't be recognized by this older version of Word that we have on the computers in the office! So, I can't copy and paste what I wrote here to the blog... There is a way to save it as on older file...so I will eventually fix it. For now though, here are some new photos that I wanted to share.So this is a friend of ours, Claudia, who is all dressed up for the Dia de Independencia. That dress is made just from paper! Her and some other girls worked on it for weeks prior to the big parade day.

These are some of the traditional outfits that the use for the folk dances that they do at pretty much any celebration.These are some girls that I actually managaed to get a good photo of. I always have trouble getting good group shots... very hard to get them all to smile!Here is my counterpart Secundino with his oldest daughter Belgini and their two kids, Kati and Jerson. When Secundino's wife got deported from the US after living there for almost 5 years. It was a huge re-adjustment for the family. In the end, Belgini, who had been running the household for the last 5 years had to move out. Her and her mom just couldn't live under the same roof. Sad.Here is our whole group together for the last time at our COS conference. That's Close of Service for those not up on Peace Corps speak! Cheers!Oh, and I hope to soon post a "Guest Blog" from Steve and Julie on their thoughts about coming down and visiting us. Should be fun. Cheers again!

So, as you can tell, blogging has not been high priority lately. (Actually, this is the first of 3 new entries, so scroll down and check them all out!) I believe that is at least partly a reflection of what point of service we are in. There is just not as much stuff that we run into now and think…”Whoa, how strange/different/weird/cool/great”, ect… Also we are pretty comfortable with our community so no big cravings for things to be “normal” or more like back “home”. Combine all of that with being busier than we were last year, and the fact that we can now see how fast the end of service will be here… Well, it all makes for less time to ponder those things that make good blog entries, and fewer moments that seem so… bloggable!

I typically don’t go back and read any of my old entries, so I’m sure I have said some of this before… but here are a few of the more interesting phenomenon of the second year of service, at least in El Salvador:

**You stop making any real effort to get to know any of the new volunteers. You realize they don’t have much in common with you. They are going through all of those new things, learning about their site, the language…and they still have big ideas, most of which you have given up on by now…or at least resigned yourself to lower expectations. You find it hard to talk to them because of these differences. If you do talk to them, you end up sounding so negative from their perspective that you scare them, or they think you are “jaded”.

**Everyone in your site starts talking about the fact that you are leaving soon! This one was almost like a switch, one-year, boom! We are leaving in a year, and everyone starts to comment on that. You want to tell them no! That we still have lots of time, a full year left… but it’s true, you are now at the point where you too realize how short a time that is. People you hardly know come up and tell you how much they will miss you! Even little kids will come into your room and say things like, “so, you gonna be leaving this camera/iPod/hat/guacal/box/book/bag of churros behind, right?” They start looking around your room wondering and hoping that they will inherit something cool when you go. Still, they always tell you how much they will miss you too.

**You start to think about the things you will miss most when you go home. Things like, back home as you are walking down the street not everyone you see will be yelling out, “Don Jon, Niña Katie!” You have to remind yourself that back home you are unlikely to even be “walking” down the street. Then you realize you also won’t be able to walk to the store, work, friends houses… anywhere! You won’t be so important anymore! No longer will the Mayor come by your house first when visiting the town, or the Minister of Agriculture, President of “Blank” organization… you won’t be served first at all occasions, get the best piece of chicken. Kids won’t be coming over every afternoon just to hang out with the cool gringos and listen to their funny Spanish. (this point is a whole blog, and better done a bit later)

**Your first more conversational question for fellow volunteers is no longer “How are your projects going?” or “How are things at your site?” but rather, “What are your plans at the end of service?” You don’t have an answer to this question yourself, but it is comforting to hear the others stumble over this as well.

So yeah, here we are nearing the end of service, or in Peace Corps jargon Close of Service (COS), with just around 4 months to go. It’s a weird time. You are mostly pretty busy, the days go quickly unlike the start of your service. You are still trying to accomplish some things, anything really… and yet, at the same time you are definitely preparing to leave… mentally you are spending at least half your time thinking about where to go, and what to do “after”.

So, this is just a fun blog, with some pictures, but has some serious stuff as well. First off I´ll start by talking about the kids who got scholarships thanks to donations made by you guys!! Or perhaps some other friends who don´t read the blog.

To the left you can see the winners. From left to right they are; Claudia, Karina, Nelson, y Kenia. They were very happy and excited to win, and get money too! They are all going to instituto or high school...roughly. Both Claudia and Karina hope to go to University next year, but would definately need another scholarship to do that... plus they have to pass a test that is very difficult for those that go to public schools, especially in the campo. This year they might have to pass a portion of the test that is in english. Great, except you can´t get good english teachers to come out and work in the boondocks for a public school... Anyway, they have there work cut out for them.

We would like to help them again in the upcoming year, and for that we need your help again. Go to the Aid El Salvador websight http://www.aidelsalvador.org/ and follow the donation links. (the site does have issues, I just tried to go, and it didn´t load) but people with pay pal have managed to donate! Thanks!!! Be sure to list that you´d like some or all of you money to go to the kids of Canton El Centro, San Ignacio, Chalatenango. You put that in the memo section of your donation page. It takes a long time to process through, which is why we are asking now!! Please go and help them out! If we get enough, we´ll add a couple of new winners...

Ok, time for baby photos. This is the baby of our house, Brenda Liset. That´s her ten year old sister Rebeca holding her above and her nine year old sister Carina to the left. For us Brenda is a reminder of our time here. We moved into our house in March 2007 and shortly after, her mom, Juana learned that she was pregnant. We got to watch the development through til birth in October. Now this coming October we will get to celebrate her first birthday... then we´ll leave! Ok, well enough for now.

“So, how was it being home?” That’s the question that we are dealing with now. Both from our Salvadorian neighbors, and from the Peace Corps volunteers that we run into. Furthermore, it’s a natural question to ask ourselves at this point. So how was it?

It was great is the natural answer, and true too… but with some reservations. It was really, really good to see everyone. We had the fortune of my sister’s wedding to gather a bunch of people in one spot for us to visit with them. It was nice to have a family event like that to kick off the visit. There was nothing strange about being back, no strange instant culture shock things. Maybe all of the long overseas travel adventures helped us to get used to coming home after an absence.

Still, there were things that stood out as noticeable. Like the fact our sofa just felt amazing! I spent a lot of time playing Halo on that sofa, and kept thinking what a great invention comfy sofas were! It’s true. Down here we don’t have (pretty much nobody does) comfortable furniture! Even our bed is less than comfy, and our chairs are just molded plastic things, functional, but not something you enjoy passing time in.

So, if my newfound love of the sofa was an indication of culture shock… then the more obvious was taking long hot showers! Showers down here are neither… not hot, and therefore not long. I think that the first few days I was home, I took probably three or more showers a day!

So it wasn’t the big or drastic changes that I noticed. It was easy to put things like playing Halo on an Xbox360 into a whole other realm… the realm of “solo en los estados”. Therefore those things are outside the realm of comparison between the places/cultures/living conditions. Rather it was the subtle everyday things like getting up in the morning and taking a shower right off the bat, without checking the weather or waiting till the sun is out so that the cold water won’t feel so bad once you are out. Another thoughtful moment occurred the first time I hopped in a car and headed down to the store to pick up something.

At my dad’s house the store is probably a quarter mile away, including his driveway. This would be easy walking distance down here, but up there you’d never think that way. As I was driving the convenience of the whole thing hit me. No timing the trip to match some elusive bus schedule. No walking to where the bus would pick me up, and getting off close, but not at the store. Most important, not having to wait at the store until the returning bus passed by to take you home… or at least near home.

We folks from “alla” are so accustomed to things being convenient and around our schedule. We have created our world that way. It’s part of that whole being independent thing. It is why things like good mass transit systems are mostly doomed to failure. They make you dependent on something outside your control, and that always bothers us at some visceral level. I am mostly just postulating here, I haven’t yet taken the hours to turn it into a good argument, so bear with me.

Down here so many things just fly in the face of your independence. It goes beyond the transportation thing, which is obvious. For instance, every family needs to make masa to make tortillas, an imperative. To make masa, you need a grinder, but not everyone has them. Back home if this were the case houses would probably be built with grinders (mills) pre-installed, because the mill would be considered a necessity, like running water and a car (garage anyone?). Here only about one house in twenty or thirty has one, and instead of an inconvenience, it is an opportunity to socialize, plus at least one family is making money from it. For the rest though it means up to an hour out of your day just to get the corn ground into masa.

I’m going to leave the whole independence thread now and return to cultural stuff. To close this subject out I will point out that the most surprising shock I received during the trip was not wandering through the “cube-land” of consulting firms, or walking into a Nugget Market, though both of those elicited a sense of disorientation. Rather the biggest occurred in the Los Angeles airport on the way back. Sure, just LAX is enough to freak anyone out, but what got to me was standing in an airport bookstore watching a thirteen year old girl (or thereabout) buy an amazing amount of completely unnecessary crap at inflated airport prices and not even flinch as she pulled out three twenty dollar bills to pay for it! (Just so we’re on the same page regarding “crap” she had three magazines, Us, People and Cosmo, four candy bars of different varieties, a bag of chips, some cutesy lip gloss things, and a tin of Altoids.)

I’m still not sure if it was the blatant consumerism, disregard for the value of things… or maybe the arrogance. That’s what it felt like to me, an act of arrogance. Not sure why, just stating how it felt to me. It just made me feel a little disgusted. Like she didn’t even realize or value what she had, and instead was perfectly willing to throw it away… The funny thing is, it’s not like I’m living in some frugal culture right now. They waste money with the best of them. Spending on worthless things is rampant here, and there is very little concept of budgeting or saving money.

No it’s not a cultural thing, it’s a personal thing. I myself have been living on a fairly tight budget down here. When we go to the capitol, we have to really think about whether that six-dollar fast food meal is worth it! Then, returning to the states and finding the price of gas almost doubled from when I left, and thus affecting the prices of almost everything else… well, I guess it made me feel a little bit vulnerable thinking about what I should do to prepare to live with this new economy when we return. So seeing that girl flaunt her disregard like that just made me think… are we prepared to be back?

So yes, I'm a terrible blogger these days! Oh well, sorry to any and all who have actually checked this thing the last few months. For now we are home visiting. I've been busy trying to get all of the Halo out of my system during the few short days that I'm here... been partly successful, I've had a good time, and haven't yet played enough to where losing consistently to all of the whining 11 year olds out there really bothers me! Sure I still complain, but I'm not actually wanting to throw the controller across the room.

So, being back... well being up here in Fall River doesn't really expose you to all of the craziness that is the US... it is still pretty campo. The things that I find myself really relishing are of course the HOT showers, but also things like comfy couches! Don't find those in El Centro! I have also noticed that I drink a beer more consistently each night... funny 'cause I don't do that when I'm living here, but now, knowing I will lose the privilege again soon, I "aprovechar" a beer or two each evening! What else?

Hopping in the car to go some place seems way weird. It's a strange mix really, because you do it on auto pilot (bad pun not intended) just jump in a drive off like usual...except its not usual now. It hits you somewhere on the way to the store how this is a marvel...just driving around on your own, listening to the music that you want to, and not paying someone to be packed into a bus, at the whim of a crazy driver! Of course, with the price of gas being what it is now, it can be a little painful to stop at the pump!

I'm sure there are lots of other insights, but some of them won't hit me until after we return. One of the more interesting things is how much effort out friends from Centro took to try to contact us to wish us well, and check in on us! My counterpart, Secundino, called my sister to talk to me. She just got a strange voice mail in Spanish, which she doesn't speak, and I had to learn to use the Tigo website to send him a message saying that we were fine, and that we hoped her was doing well. He texted back saying how glad he was, and that all was good down there too.

I have also noticed that most of the time when I say "home", I'm talking about El Salvador, not here... what does that say? Cheers!

Sorry that posts are so infrequent these days. Currently we are on Utila, in the Bay Islands, Honduras, on "vacation". This mostly involves diving, relaxing and eating good foods, with a healthy dose of taking to travellers along the way. I did bring the dive case for the camera, so I should be able to post a few shots next week or so, be patient :-)

Internet is expensive out here, so no long update now, but I will pass on that the local language is some very mutated form of english...think "talk like a pirate" and you have the idea! Cheers!

[This is broken into two parts because I haven't yet finished, but I am at internet and want to take advantage...'cause I feel guilty for not having posted for so long! OH and a new phot one below this one, fyi]

So for those of you who recognize the title reference, Kudos! For the rest of you a quick update is that it is the title of a book about a guy who has been doing amazing things over in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. I just finished reading this book myself, and this blog entry is not going to be a review of the book, but rather a contemplation of how his experiences compare to ours down here.

So, by way of a bit of background the book was a story about a guy who pretty much literally stumbled into development work. By virtue of his first accidental desire to help, he focuses on building schools. Through fits and starts he eventually completes his first school and ends up starting an entire foundation and building numerous schools throughout the region even into the current times of war.

None of this is particularly similar to our own very deliberate decision to go into the Peace Corps. However, in his struggles with learning the language, the culture, and the people of the region, as well as his ground level community based operation, he has a lot in common with what we, and most PC volunteers deal with.

Still, I plan on discussing the differences, mostly because that is what struck me as I read it. The first most glaring difference is the guiding principal of sustainability. This is a part of the Peace Corps credo, and we are sometimes kind of forced into dealing with it as we work here. It isn’t that his schools are not sustainable, I think they might be given the drive of the populous to be educated. However, funding for the teachers, as well as buying books and materials seems to be largely left up to the government, or else his foundation steps in and helps out…at least until it is not there. This is not to knock what he has done or accomplished, not at all, it is amazing work, it is merely to point out that it does not adhere to the idealism of sustainability. For those that need that concept in a sound-bite (election year anyone)…the whole teaching them to fish versus giving them fish idea.

He goes out and raises the money for the school materials, then he organizes and oversees the construction. There is no trying to get the villagers to raise the money themselves, or teaching them to write a grant proposal to learn how to solicit funds from an outside source, ect… He just does it. There is no arguing with the fact that that is the fastest way to get a school there. However, what did the villagers learn from the experience? They and the surrounding villagers learned that to get something the needed, they had to wait until a rich stranger come into their village…and then he would do the rest. Cynical yes, but you can see it in the book when the other surrounding villages try to convince him to build a school for them next. They, the villagers are not becoming “empowered” by the experience…except, that in a way they are…after all, their kids, and most importantly their girls, are gaining an education! Some of them are now even continuing on to far away universities and will accomplish great things. Many will return to become new leaders for the community and provide new ideas and inertia.

So, is the lack of “sustainability” a bad thing in this case? The answer depends on whether at some future date, a wanderer through the Himalayas stumbles on village after village with empty schools…all waiting for the day someone will come along to give them money for a teacher and textbooks and repairs… I think that the sustainability model, while I do agree with it, also has some obvious deficiencies.

I’m going to skip a bit now and jump to glaring difference number two, village leadership. Thanks in large part to the culture in the villages there, every village had a strong leader, sometimes two because there was the religious leader, and then there was the “chief”. Either way there was someone who could speak for the village as a whole, and that when push came to shove, they would get behind this leader…and in this case go to great lengths to build a school.

Sitting where I am in the mountains of Chalatenango, this seems like an incredible feat. Here we have virtually no local government, and no leader. Instead we have just a few strong personalities, with no one that can speak with the “voice” of the Canton (our word for village). What does this mean? It means that if we ask what the Canton needs, no one can really say…or if they can, you will get a different answer from every person. More importantly from the project perspective, no one can really get behind any one project, therefore when push comes to shove…no one shows up to do anything.

So, this is mainly a group of photos we have taken during our Saturday walks. You see, a couple of months ago, we started a new "tradition" of taking kids on hikes around the area. We'd have them meet at our place, and then we head out for a morning, or sometimes a full days hiking. It has been fairly successful and had some surprising results.

The most common participant has been the young girls. This is partly 'cause Katie is just sooo cool to hang out with, and partly because the girls don't usually get to wander around as much! We provide the "safe" traveling for them. See...boys are sent out all the time to go collect firewood ect... but girls only really get to go to the "molina" (mill) to take the prepared corn in the morning to make the "masa" for tortillas... and to school and church...that's about it! So they are all very exicited to take trip to the various "Cerros".

The other photos are of another successful Katie project, that of pine needle basket making with a group of women here. I'm hoping to get Katie to write a blog about this whole process, so for now I'll just post the photos of some of the products and one of the women who is making them. Enjoy the photos, which are all below!

It’s a Spanish word that if you look up in the dictionary will mean, bug, insect, small animal. But here, if you are out in the street with a bunch of kids around, you will soon learn that it is used in a different way. Here, and by here, I mean El Salvador…not sure how far it spreads beyond the borders…haven’t heard it in Mexico anyway… it means “kid” or maybe “brat”. It is yet another of many words that doesn’t really have the best direct translation into English. It can, like so many words in Spanish, be either bichos, or bichas, depending on the sex of the kid or kids you are commenting on. It is used by; parents to talk about their own kids, between the kids themselves, and sometimes, from an adult that knows the kids or kids parents very well. If used by a relative unknown it would be insulting.

This being the case, we very rarely use it. Katie has found it an effective way to gain control of an out of control classroom full of kids, ¡Bichos! Not sure it doesn’t shock them a bit…but at that point, who cares? You hear it a lot though, frequently in a commanding voice, ¡Bichos, vengan aca! Or ¡Bichos escuchenme!, sometimes more like a whiney Bichas…vamanos… It just never ceases to entertain though.

The other major use of bichos, the kids themselves, not the word, is to get stuff for you. It’s a staple of the community that if you need something from the store you just “Mande un bicho”, send or order a kid. It goes beyond the all too frequent trips to the tienda though. In an agricultural community like ours, need some carrots, just send a bicho out to look for them, ask around, buy and bring back. The kids make the most of it. Gets them out and about and they often don’t take the most direct route stopping for other fun things along the way.

It’s taken about a year, but we are starting to use bichos too. Just today we wanted some cabbage for a soup I am making, and for some coleslaw…well eventually two of my counterparts kids came over, bringing down the ballcap I left at their house last night (typical bicho mission), and after we’d talked to them for awhile, we mentioned the need for cabbage, and they immediately offered their services. We aren’t quite to the “Manda” stage yet, we wait for an offer, or if it’s our neighbors they’ll tell us to send their kid out. Still by the end of another year who knows! It might turn out to be one of the things we miss once we get home…no bichos to go get us stuff!

A question that all of us volunteers frequently ask ourselves as we sit around our communities is: what do we bring to these people that they don’t already know, or have? It can be a tough thing to ponder because it questions all of our reasons for coming and doing this whole thing in the first place. None the less, most of us shortly after arriving notice that pretty much everything they do, they know more about than some college educated yahoo from the States.

Who am I to tell them how to grow their corn? They have been doing this a lot longer than I have, and most of the things that we see as a bit strange or different about the process, usually turns out to have very good reasons for existence.

So, today I had an epiphany. I now understand what I have to offer. It’s video games! Yep, that’s what I know, that they don’t…and they want to. Growing up through the ages, I lived from the start of Pong, through to the days of Halo 2 (currently missing out on Halo 3!). It’s amazing what sorts of things are virtually innate to my consciousness having matured during our technological decades. Things like “Start” buttons, audio video cables, and even more important, turning your TV to the AV channel (you know, that thing before channel 2…oh, mostly older TVs here, so no video input button). These are all things that any directions mostly fail to mention, but for someone trying to get some cheap Chinese electronics to work, they can be incredibly frustrating. Oh, and not to forget that most of these folks couldn’t read the directions even if they came out of the box in Spanish.

The other day I was over at the greenhouse I use, when Juancito came in with a strange box that was a promotional “gift” for getting a new cell phone. It turned out to be a very cheap Chinese video game set up. He hadn’t the slightest idea how to set it up, and so…where do you go for help with things like this? To the gringo of course! It was a bit confusing even to me, and the directions were useless. Still, I managed to get the cables sorted out, and took a look at the controllers…all in English…and not at all intuitive. Still, I got the whole thing going in no time, and soon I was showing them how to play Pac Man, Loderunner, even Space Invaders! Good fun, and really pushed my Spanish vocabulary in to new regions. Damn hard to explain not just how to use the device, but then each game has it’s own confusing way to operate. For me it was fairly easy to figure out the controls, and make things work…for them it was a whole other matter.

How do you explain that all car racing games have high and low gears so that you can shift? Left on their own, they would play forever, never knowing there was a high gear, and not doing too well as a result of that… there are a ton of examples like that, second nature to me, but completely mysterious to them. It was a bit scary to me how much I understood. I mean I really wouldn’t normally think of myself as a game geek growing up. I did have an Atari, but kind of stopped with the console gaming world after that…no Nintendo, Playstation, PS2….nothing until the Xbox that I only bought to play Halo. So how did I have all of this innate knowledge? I just absorbed from our “culture”, commercials, visiting friends, reading papers and magazines, ect… It is a huge “strength” of US culture, that we PC volunteers can help with out in these developing countries! Finally! Something useful to do here!!!