More South American Adventures

Rachel says...

Buenos tardes!

I hope all is well with you! Kristine and Liz arrived yesterday after much anticipation! It is great to see them and to keep exploring the city.

Last Monday, Amy and I decided to try out another tango class after our distastrous first attempt. We arrived at the location which was a sort of community center. When we got there, there were small children playing soccer, a restaurant-y space and no sign of tango. However, we asked someone and it turned out we were just early, tango was next after kiddie soccer.

This class went infintely better than the first! We didn´t have to dance with each other at all and the instructors broke down the steps a lot more. We also changed partners after every song, which was nice. There were only about 10 people in the class and they were all very good-natured and welcoming. Amy and I both danced with one middle aged man who told us, "I lead, you follow. It is tango, not life." He said it kindly though...I guess we were both a little headstrong...hmm. :)

After class, we packed up our things and were about to leave when they insisted that we join them for dinner! This was a surprise, but a pleasant one. We said yes and soon found ourselves eating salad (for me) and beef (for Amy). It was her first steak in Argentina! It was an awesome experience...there we were sitting with our 10 new Argentine friends who were clearly tickled that we had joined them. Between my attempts at Spanish and their attempts at English we did pretty well for ourselves!

On Thursday, Amy and I took a three hour ferry over to Colonia, Uruguay. The inside of the ferry was plush and rather casino-like, surprisingly, but was very comfortable. We got there and immediately liked the feel of this much smaller city. It had lots of cobblestone streets and the pace of life was palpably slower than in Buenos Aires. We got settled in our hostel, walked around for a bit, and then came back and napped for an hour. Later we had a lovely dinner at one of the local restaurants; the real adventures happened the next day.

On Friday we decided to go horseback riding. We went with a guide and three other people from our hostel who were students at the University of Florida (Kevin, Alex and Jessica). We drove out into the country a bit and stopped at the horse pasture. It was an idyllic scene with lots of trees, pastures, a random kitten, and of course, the horses. After a bit of saddling up the horses, we embarked on our journey. I was on a smaller horse named "Chiquitito" or little boy. He was very mild mannered and listened to my commands. Amy was on a larger beautiful horse that was brown and white. We couldn´t remember his name, but he was also a good horse.

The U of Florida students did not fare as well as we did. Alex was on a horse that was "muy lento" or very slow. He had to tell him to keep going the whole time. Kevin´s horse kept freaking out - so much so that he wanted to switch horses with our guide. While the switch was taking place Jessica´s horse got a little too close to the feisty horse. Feisty freaked out and started kicking the horse she was on - three times - hard - in the side. On one of the kicks the horse hit Jessica in the knee! It happened so fast were all stunned. She was okay, but it definitely hurt a lot. Nothing seemed to be broken at least from the outside, but it looked painful. She took it like a champ -- I told her I definitely would not have done as well as she did. The guide offered to have her picked up from that point so that she didn´t have to ride any more, but she refused and we kept going.

Other than the crazy horse-kicking incident the actual ride was gorgeous. We got to see farmland, swamp-land, forest and we also rode for a while on the beach. It was beautiful. Amy and I were very glad that we went but felt bad for the girl that got kicked. When we got back to the hostel, they offered to take her to the doctor to get it checked out. Hopefully she got the care she needed and is doing better! It was definitely an adventure!

After horseback riding we went back to the hostel, freshened up and had lunch in Colonia. Then in the early evening we caught the ferry back to Buenos Aires. I am glad that we got to see another aspect of South America and experience a smaller city!

Love from Buenos Aires,
Rachel

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