Checkin' In

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Geo: -25.2667, -65.4833

I love waking to the sounds of birds chirping. Otherwise, it's very quiet here like everybody's gone back to where ever they came from and left the place to us. We've walked back down to this little restaurant by the bridge that we came to last night and the place is almost deserted. But there was a guy bungee jumped off the bridge just now--guess it's never to slow for inanity.

Yesterday there was a big party going on here with lots of 20 year olds dancing to live music and an abundance of frolicking. There's a jump, water slide, river rafting, something that looks like rappelling off the bridge and another thing where they just hang there and swing back and forth. The bridge evidently is a very big draw.

I've included some pictures of our abode for Isabel's sake--but for you non Spanish speakers, you'll enjoy the directions for the hot water heater. The rest of you wizards will probably wonder what the problem was. But even my dictionary was no help.

Tomorrow us and the Myers take off with Angie--the greatest guide in all of northern Argentina--to the area where yesterday's epicenter was. We'll be near the Bolivian border. I understand there's no internet up there, so don't be alarmed if you don't hear from us for a couple of days.

We'll check back in when we can.

Wish we could check with some people we met in Mendoza. A man and his daughter had been in Santiago 10 days with Habitat for Humanity repairing homes in the ghettos. The daughter was a really remarkable woman. She was the group leader for this project and as she was telling us about it she mentioned she'd also been to India and was so moved she started a non-profit to help out there somehow--she was doing research to decide how. And she's only about 25.

People like that make me feel like I'm standing still. She and her dad had to go back to Chile in 4 days to fly out-they're from British Columbia. So that would have been about the time of the earthquake.

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Photos

It's a Cool Little Place
We have a bed, a galley kitchen and a bathroom. Nothing as silly as a phone, tv or internet. Our little bathroom had only one problem--well, two. The hot water faucet wouldn't turn off and the floor was always wet. It stopped being charming today.

Nefarious Water Heater
I got out the dictionary and tried looking up all the words, but no luck. They weren't there.

Rock Wall
See how these rocks look like they've been dissolved?