hola hooola hooopla

We stayed a few days at the perfect setting for a horror film, a field station in the middle of patagonia desert along the coast. We drove trecherous dirt roads for miles, getting stuck in the sand every now and then so that we had to get out and push. We completely ruined the rental cars, it costed 100 usd extra per car when we returned them. Tarantulas scurried accross the road and bones littered the landscape. We were the first group of students to utilize this facility. It was converted from an old sheep ranch 5 years ago. I seriously expected people to start disappearing one by one. We were a couple miles from the coast and the beach was incredible, just cliffs and flat rock, covered in fossils. A mother/calf pair of southern right whales hung out less than 15 meters from shore, making awesome roars and calls next to a rock full of sea lions. I´ve never been to such a deserted beach or experienced a landscape as dramatic. It felt positively prehistoric. The first night we stayed there we found a scorpian in the kitchen. This turned out to be a nightly occurance since they were living in the walls. Poisonous snakes were not hard to find either, not in the building, but chillin in the pathways. Apparently there were so many black widows in the area that there was a station set up nearby that specialized in catching them to aid in making the antivenom. These were like the only things we didn´t encounter, thankfully. I finished the book Geek Love, loved it! Now I´m reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its totally annoying but I still can´t put it down. I´m runnin low on fictions. I went on a whale watchin excursion and got super close to a bunch of whales, the guides were breaking every law in the book. I saw kelp gulls landing on the backs of whales, eating them alive. Gross. I hate kelp gulls. Dusky dolphins chased our boat and jumped out of the water, sometimes over eachother, like a dance. Surreal. Just like Iguazu felt like Neverneverland, this felt like Little Mermaid or something. We camped on the beach and it was my first time sleeping alone since I´ve been here. I´ve been on this 90s kick lately. A lot of ratm, pumpkins, cranberries, ect. Trying to recreate my childhood? Minus the angst. I just found out that Pete and Nessa are planning to come down here and want to kick it. So insanely excited! I realize I totally hate facebook. It doesn´t make me feel connected to people. Just the opposite, I feel totally apart. Its useful for what it is, but I don´t feel good about it. I had a nightmare about the postal system here. Impossibly long lines followed by rapidfire spanish while the lady shakes my package then hands it back. Rough translation: rattles to much? I turn to leave because there is nothing else I can do. Wait, that wasn´t a dream. I guess I won´t be sending my loves care packages any time soon. Its a challenge for me to complete the simplist tasks here. I will ask something in previously rehearsed spanish, get a confused look, then repeat myself a few times. Suddenly it clicks. They go, ahhhhh, then repeat exactly what I said back to me as if it was completly different. Then they laugh. Thats a good scenerio. Bad is when they get annoyed or bring me something completly different then what I asked for and I just accept it because I don´t want to bother repeating the situation.

i was gettin gettin gettin getgetgetget gettin..

After 35 hours in a bus I arrived in Puerto Madryn last Sunday.

Here´s the summary: This week I snorkled with sea lions, saw a dog car surf, got hooked on soda water, hung out with sea elephants, saw a giant tarantula and some right whales, celebrated katrina´s birthday at a fancy seafood restaurant, found a bar that had microbrews and enjoyed my second ipa in argentina (they are quite rare here), climbed down a cliff full of fossilized shells (from the Pacific ocean, moved here from glaciers), couldn´t put down the book Geek Love, biked 26 km on an ass-bruising rental bike (4 classmates and my professor wiped out, Levi got a minor concussion after deciding to go down a steep cliff and landing on his face), walked through a penguin colony and nearly froze to death from the arctic winds, and finally caught up in my species journal after sitting in a cafe for five hours drinking irish coffees. Tonight, boliche? Time to put on my fancy shirt.

p.s. does anyone even read this?

give it up, baby give it up!

The last week has almost been more than I can take in. My class arrived in Missiones on Tuesday morning(ish) after a 17 hour bus ride that consisted of the worst American movies in existence, more alcohol offered than water (dehydration), and incredible reclining chairs, its one saving grace. Its embarrassing how much stuff we are carrying; giant backpacks on front and back, causing us to stagger and walk awkwardly down stairs, totally conspicuous and disoriented. Reaching the hostel made everything better though. It has a pool next to the outdoor covered kitchen and hammocks. We had dinner and seminar poolside and this just totally beats any class setting I´ve ever had in my life. Its hot and we are surrounded by jungle. I´m sharing a room with a girl and guy (Morgan and Katrina) and it even has a tv so we can watch south park dubbed in spanish and horrible kung fu! So on to the good parts. Wednesday we hiked to the Iguazu waterfalls, the most beautiful, breath-taking, mind-shattering natural phenomenon I have ever experienced. Words cannot describe. They are massive and were created from edges where lava stopped flowing. Along the paths we stopped to identify birds and other wildlife. I saw giant tucans, monkeys (one with a baby on its back, another that threw an orange at me which I tried to eat but it was overripe, on that tried to hit us with a stick while sucking on its foot, and another with a hard-on that was growling at us while playing with its balls), coatis (raccoon like creatures with long noses that will not hesitate to rummage through your backpack), turtles, and an incredible amount of butterflies. The next day I woke up at 5am to go bird watching. I saw almost 40 different species and was totally mesmerized. I cannot believe I ever went hiking without binoculars before because they are the greatest things ever. Now I totally want a pair for my birthday. We also saw a crocodile swimming through the water, looking so much like a dinosaur. I have a new fear: bullet ants. Giant ants that are nearly as long as my thumb, shiny black and poisonous. Their bite is like a bullet wound and they are everywhere in these jungles. Like you take a few steps, look down and there´s another one. Some part s of the year they even have wings so they can land on you. No bueno! Last night I jumped in the pool after dinner with my clothes on and lost a hundred pesos. Then I got bite next to my eye by a mosquito and looked like Quasimodo for a second. But my money was recovered the next day and then we went to a hummingbird garden nearby. These people have been feeding birds in their garden for 10 years so it was completely full of them! I saw like 6 different species of hummingbirds. More to say but out of time. Peace!

the cool things i saw today..

yeah, totally in the wild...