Things have been quite hectic lately. This may be obvious since this blog now has a fine layer of dust on it. The weekdays have been filled with the usual weekday activities. Work, sleep, Spanish lessons, work, sleep, Spanish lessons. Last weekend I enjoyed the company of some friends from South Africa who were holidaying over here. It’s a miracle that I even got to see them since the previous weekend I had made plans to meet up with them via sms. What I didn’t know is that they hadn’t received any of my messages, so both of us thought the other party had backed out and not bothered to mention it. I’m having a stormy relationship with my cellphone network.

Anyway, so finally we connected last Friday and had some drinks and then met up early the next morning for a day trip to an Estancia (ranch). This was a fun experience. It cost an arm and a leg to get there on a bus that had us traveling with some other tourists doing hotel pick ups for about 2 hours. An hour later we were at a zoo, dropping some of them off and a further hour later we finally arrived at the ranch. Greeted by a uniformed gaucho and his team of maidens, we were offered refreshments and empanadas and given a brief introduction and left to our own devices, either to ride horses or go on a horse drawn cart. We opted for riding the horses. I haven’t ridden a horse since a friend took me riding on some Polo horses in Addo a million years ago. I almost became history when the giant machine of an animal went bezerk and took me on a whirlwind tour through some farm lands. So it was a bit like ‘getting back on the horse’. Luckily what we were mounting, were the moth eaten and fragmented remains of what once were work horses. The poor things could barely walk let alone gallop away into the sunset. So it was more of a plod, but fun all the same. We scoffed a 2.5 hour long lunch which was accompanied by a Gaucho with a guitar and his ‘band’. They performed all kinds of musical acts and a dancing pair showed us the many traditional Argentine dances, including of course the Tango. There were a huge amount of tourists there that day, and the Gaucho-slash-MC read out all the different countries which were present. A few were selected to go up on stage and sing something traditional. Being of the more ‘exotic’ variety, we just knew we were going to be picked on. Sure enough, a few minutes later, there the 3 of us were bellowing out the 2 national anthems. I think I’m still blushing.

This weekend has been interesting too. And now all that’s left of me is the moth eaten and fragmented remains of someone who partied til 7am on Saturday morning. I experienced proper BA night life first hand. The night only started at 12:30am. On the way to a friends house, I passed several bustling restaurants, all spilling with the late night eaters, some of them even with small children. That’s how they roll here. Starting the night with dinner anytime after 10. People start going out to bars and nightclubs usually around 2am. And it is completely normal to make your way home when the birds are already up.

Me on the horse-slash-donkey

The Gaucho

Dancers