Bariloche onward...

Okay, so quite a bit of time has passed since my last blog. I´m going to try to break up the next few posts, so there isn´t one huge monster post to get me caught up. So, sit back, grab a cup of tea/cocoa/vice of choice and get ready for a read!

13Feb08 (Day 7)
So, I left Bariloche for El Bolson, the closest town to the permaculture farm (CIDEP) I will be volunteering at. It was a comparably quick ride (2hrs) and I got to El Bolson in lots of time to catch the 4:00 collectivo (mini bus). In fact, more time than I thought. Apparently, the 4:00pm bus only comes on Tues,Thurs & Sat and at 4:05 on this Wednesday, no bus arrived. So, I waited. And waited (practice is making me a lot better at this) for the 7pm bus. Did I mention how small El Bolson is? Luckily, it´s also very cute and seated right at the mountains edge.





That´s not to say around hour 4 or 5, I didn´t seriously contemplate shelling out for the remise (taxi) that would scoot me the 15km to the farm. But, I´m glad I held out because the collectivo ride was an experience! This well-used ex-school bus arrived and I boarded. To my delight, the volunteer coordinator for CIDEP also got on (scratch off worrying about where to get off or trying to pronounce "Mallin Ahogado" properly enough to tell the driver where I need to go). Then, as each other person got on the bus, they first shook hands with the bus driver with an enthusiastic "Hola, que tal?!" that would make you believe these were long friends reuniting from a long absence, followed by sequentially greeting each other person on the bus with a one-side cheek kiss and big bear hug. Each person! And this carried on throughout my 45min trip, with each stop at the end of a long dusty farm road when a new set of passengers would get on. We crawled along the bumpy, rocky road (seriously, I´m talking rocks the size of my fist) and everyone was cheery and chattery.

We finally arrived at CIDEP, the permaculture farm and walked the dusty 2km into the farm.




What laid ahead of me was a feast for the eyes- about four buildings, all earth-clay structures and a huge group of the warmest people you can imagine.

(I wish I had taken photos of the all-clay solar shower cabin and dry toilets- both incredibly cool, and sanitary)

I arrived in the the closing days of a 12-day permaculture workshop, so everyone was excited and eager to share their ideas with me. Since I had very little idea what they were talking to me about, I adopted what would come to be my fall-back response for the next 10 days: nod, smile and say "Bueno"! Sometimes this got a laugh, sometimes just another question- to which I would give a similar response...

And this would more or less make up the base for the next handful of days for me. I´m at this fantastic organic/permaculture farm fed by water straight from the surrounding glaciers, mountains everywhere, eating INCREDIBLE food and in the company of really warm, friendly people. Can it get much better?