A las sierras nos vamos!

This morning, I had to get up early again. I went to UBP to meet up with the others. It was me an Elsa for a while.  Everyone is so late. That's Argentina for you!   We were waiting because today, some of the tutors were taking us to a lake by the mountains to spend the day. Soon enough, people started showing up. Yassi, Audrey, then Mireille.  Massimo showed up, and later Nico, Elo and Emi, Massimo's brother, and Yurika. All we were waiting for was Valentin.  He was an hour late!!! He's really embracing Argentina's custom of getting places late... moreso than even the Argentinians!  We finally hit the road.  I rode with Nico, Emi and Elo.  It was nice to get to know them.  Elo and Emi are always being talked about, so it was really nice to put names with faces. The three of them are tutors- Elo has a bunch of students. Emi is taking Tourism classes and speaks Italian and French, aside from Spanish and English. I think it would be fun to practice French with her.  As we went, we were drinking mate.  I learned some things I didn't know before about mate, like how the one who pours gets the first sip, and that certain mates, (like mine) can only have bitter mate in it- no sugar. Just my luck! Oh well, I like it both ways.  Finally we got to our destination- Potrero de Garay.  It was nice- we were kind of in the mountains, but not yet.  We spent the day by the lake.

Once there, we did a lot of things.  Some people took a ride in the paratrike, a 3 wheeled motorcycle that flies with a parachute.  One of Massimo's friends is an engineer and builds them.  We also drank mate and relaxed. We had 3 mates circulating- a bitter mate, a sweet mate and a bitter mate with coffee mixed in. Some of the guys were still playing with the parachute.  The paratrike stopped working, so the decided to try kite surfing.  After they got tired, we went to Leo's (the engineer) lake house.

He had a pool, a slack line, and direct access to the lake. So we all took turns trying to balance.  Didn't work so well for me!  We were waiting for the food to arrive, so we also decided to get in the lake before we ate.  Massimo jumped in, and invited us.  When I got in, the water was freezing!!! It felt like I was swimming in ice.      

Elsa and Audrey stepped in, and changed their minds.  Massimo said "Come on, is that all you've got, France?" Burning with national pride, the two French girls charged into the icy water.  The water was cold, but their pride was warmer. They tried to warm up by dancing.  It didn't work.  So we stayed in the water a little longer until we couldn't handle it anymore, and we got out to dry in the sun. 

                                

After all of this, we had lunch- pizza and milanesa.  We relaxed some more and enjoyed the weather.  We danced Tango, we played a conga drum. We chatted and enjoyed the time together.  Then we went back to the spot by the lake we were at earlier today and the girls took a walk while Valentin and I listened to electronica music. 

Remember the Urban Woman? Well here's the Urban Gaucho!

Finally, it was time to leave.  So I rode with Massimo, Yassi and Mireille since we all lived relatively close together.  We stopped on the way to visit a mountain graveyard, for no particular reason, but to see.  We also passed the Urban Gaucho- like the Urban Woman, it's a monument of sorts.  However instead of a woman, he's a gaucho with a copy of La Voz (Córdoba's newspaper) and a cell phone in hand. When I finally got home, I was tired! I ate dinner and showered.  Off to bed.