On holiday...
I decided after another week at the ecovillage that it was time to move back into the regular world, after all. I may go back again before I leave for home in mid-December, but for now, I am back on the road as a bona fide backpacker.
My second week at the village was very different to the first. Jimmy and Gabi were both gone for most of the week and so group life was reduced down to me, Bernardo and Nico, the two Argentinian guys that came for the week of experience in group living with me. It was fine -- I continued with my nascent meditation practices in the morning and as a group we continued with the garden and other maintenance work, but the group dynamics and group communication practice of the first week was largely absent. After spending last weekend with just the dog (who for reasons I cannot understand really liked me) I decided that I´d rather see more of Argentina and see if I can keep following at least some of what I learned the previous week under the myriad pressures of group living a la dormitory...
But we finished off on a really nice note. Yacu Yura has a tradition of the "appreciation circle" when someone leaves the community. Basically it is a time for people to share what they appreciate about the person leaving, and also about the other people in the group. It was very emotional for me -- I feel like I know these people far better than a few weeks´ acquaintance could account for. But having closed off my experience in group living so well, I did still end up getting on the bus for Mendoza.
I feel like I´m on holiday here. There are no time pressures, no one to be accountable to, no reason not to have a large glass of good local wine with lunch if I want to... so I did. I did get up early and do my meditation and yoga (my roomies happily slept through my early rising, as I slept through their late arrivals last night. I was the only person trying to sleep at the oh-so-early hour of half past midnight last night out of the six occupied beds in my dorm!). But since then I´ve just wandered around the city, enjoying the odd moments of architecture, the wide avenues, the mature trees and all the plazas. And a good cup of coffee this morning on a pedestrian avenue with ample people-watching opportunities. And a good lunch of veggie pasta with a glass of red wine for lunch. I think I may succumb to the call for a siesta this afternoon too and just go all out with the whole holiday theme!
Mendoza is mostly known for all the outdoor stuff you can do around here. There is a large national park nearby, you can go river rafting, rappeling, horse-back riding etc all on day trips from here, and you can also sign up for wine-tasting tours by bike or bus. But I mostly just want to wander around the city and soak it up. I have no real urge to get beat up on adventure travel, at least not here. I am heading south tomorrow into Argentina´s Lake District, and plan to do some good hiking etc there. I think that will suffice for me! I have met a number of other fellow Canadians here, which has been a nice change of pace too. I have been speaking almost exclusively Spanish for the last two weeks (to the best of my limited ability) and it´s really nice to speak with other people in my own language for a day or two. And feel like I can actually express exactly what I want to say instead of using baby words... All good, really.
I´m going to upload a few pictures here. The first is of the Quebrada de Cafayate (way back three weeks ago I mentioned how beautiful they are!) and then a few pics of life at Yacu Yura, including a silly self-portrait of me and Bernardo in Capilla del Monte a few weekends ago, a stunning sunset from this last week and a picture of my noctural vision quest visitor... (is she not huge?!)
Oh, and one other note -- I feel like I´m on the opposite to detox. I´ve been eating almost purely vegan food for the last two and a half weeks... and on the bus here I was fed pop and alfajores three times by the bus company (alfajores are Argentinian sweets -- basically two sweet biscuits held together with dulce de leche and then bathed in icing or chocolate-y coating), and then ate a steak with chips for dinner at 10:30 last night. About that! No purity left for me... :)
My second week at the village was very different to the first. Jimmy and Gabi were both gone for most of the week and so group life was reduced down to me, Bernardo and Nico, the two Argentinian guys that came for the week of experience in group living with me. It was fine -- I continued with my nascent meditation practices in the morning and as a group we continued with the garden and other maintenance work, but the group dynamics and group communication practice of the first week was largely absent. After spending last weekend with just the dog (who for reasons I cannot understand really liked me) I decided that I´d rather see more of Argentina and see if I can keep following at least some of what I learned the previous week under the myriad pressures of group living a la dormitory...
But we finished off on a really nice note. Yacu Yura has a tradition of the "appreciation circle" when someone leaves the community. Basically it is a time for people to share what they appreciate about the person leaving, and also about the other people in the group. It was very emotional for me -- I feel like I know these people far better than a few weeks´ acquaintance could account for. But having closed off my experience in group living so well, I did still end up getting on the bus for Mendoza.
I feel like I´m on holiday here. There are no time pressures, no one to be accountable to, no reason not to have a large glass of good local wine with lunch if I want to... so I did. I did get up early and do my meditation and yoga (my roomies happily slept through my early rising, as I slept through their late arrivals last night. I was the only person trying to sleep at the oh-so-early hour of half past midnight last night out of the six occupied beds in my dorm!). But since then I´ve just wandered around the city, enjoying the odd moments of architecture, the wide avenues, the mature trees and all the plazas. And a good cup of coffee this morning on a pedestrian avenue with ample people-watching opportunities. And a good lunch of veggie pasta with a glass of red wine for lunch. I think I may succumb to the call for a siesta this afternoon too and just go all out with the whole holiday theme!
Mendoza is mostly known for all the outdoor stuff you can do around here. There is a large national park nearby, you can go river rafting, rappeling, horse-back riding etc all on day trips from here, and you can also sign up for wine-tasting tours by bike or bus. But I mostly just want to wander around the city and soak it up. I have no real urge to get beat up on adventure travel, at least not here. I am heading south tomorrow into Argentina´s Lake District, and plan to do some good hiking etc there. I think that will suffice for me! I have met a number of other fellow Canadians here, which has been a nice change of pace too. I have been speaking almost exclusively Spanish for the last two weeks (to the best of my limited ability) and it´s really nice to speak with other people in my own language for a day or two. And feel like I can actually express exactly what I want to say instead of using baby words... All good, really.
I´m going to upload a few pictures here. The first is of the Quebrada de Cafayate (way back three weeks ago I mentioned how beautiful they are!) and then a few pics of life at Yacu Yura, including a silly self-portrait of me and Bernardo in Capilla del Monte a few weekends ago, a stunning sunset from this last week and a picture of my noctural vision quest visitor... (is she not huge?!)
Oh, and one other note -- I feel like I´m on the opposite to detox. I´ve been eating almost purely vegan food for the last two and a half weeks... and on the bus here I was fed pop and alfajores three times by the bus company (alfajores are Argentinian sweets -- basically two sweet biscuits held together with dulce de leche and then bathed in icing or chocolate-y coating), and then ate a steak with chips for dinner at 10:30 last night. About that! No purity left for me... :)
Comments
It sounds like you are having a good time back in civilization - I love that you are mixing in the yoga too though! Fun....
Love you tonnes!
Catherine