5 Days Left

We are finally leaving this place. Next saturday, we will have our bags packed and be in the taxi that will take us to the train station in Tigr'e where we will be able to, for about 10 pesos, catch a boat that will take us and our dogs to a little island in the delta of the Parana River where we will all finally be able to get off our city leashes and run free in the grass and the trees. Oh my god! Grass! I can´t wait! Today we bought the part for the cook stove that we forgot in Iowa and learned that, although that cheap rum we had does burn, it just wasn´t sufficient for powering the stove. I guess next time we will have to buy a stonger liquor.
Harvey and Suka have almost successfully starved us by eating everything we leave in, or near the house. Including some articles of clothing, a book, and a brand new box of granola that Shaun isn´t too happy about. I feel bad for them. We take them on walks for hours a day, but it´s just not enough to get their energy out. Soon, dogs, soon. Today I put everything they could possibly eat or destroy on top of the fridge before we left the house. And they still managed to find something. Luckily most of it was just trash, but Harvey did chew the flower off of a really nice ankle bracelet a friend gave to me. I don´t blame him. I guess I would be mad also if someone took me off of a farm in the country with 6 other dogs and all the fresh air I could handle and put me on the end of a leash to scramble and dodge between trash, cars, and people on a dirty, narrow city sidewalk.
But as I said. 5 days left and we can lay out under the stars and run around all we want. We are traveling to this little island about an hour north of Buenos Aires where a friend has some land that he is offering as a sustainable living program for anyone who wants to stay there. We will be camping and living and providing everything for ourselves and/or working with anyone else staying there to create projects for ourselves. Since it is winter here, and cold by Argentine standards (but montana summer temp for us) I think we will be the only people camping there. We are planning on creating a garden space somewhere and cooking up lots of fun stuff in the clay oven that has already been built on the island. It should be a good time, and it will be a really nice break from the city.
I´m pretty bummed out that we may not be able to go the the farm like we had been planning. Since they have limited space, Mama Roja isn´t accepting any more volunteers for the month of August. We decided that by the time we spend a week on the island then make our way North to Mama Roja, we would only have about 3 weeks left to stay on the farm, and then it would be an equally big challenge to get away from the farm to the western part of the country. Since we will have to rent a car from Tigre, we have decided to just cut straight across the country to Mendoza where hopefully it will be alot easier for us to move around and there will be alot more outdoor activities for us to partake in. From there, hopefully we will be able to find some sort of part time job for a while, or go south to the ski towns and maybe find an instructor job there.
I am really not looking forward to renting a car, since it will be so expensive for us, however at this point there seems to be no other way. Buying a car is way more difficult than we anticipated, and the train only allows dogs less than 6 kilos. Ours are around 25 kilos. Since we live in kindof the business center of the town, there are alot of transient people and people in transit, so it has been difficult for us to make many friends... especially friends with cars...who want to travel. We have met a couple travelers who have already moved on, and some bartenders, and some business people from around town, but nobody with a car. At this point, I kindof feel like taking a taxi as far out of town as they will take me and then just walking. We explored taking a canoe upriver from Tigre to Mama Roja, but if the farm is closed the month of August, we would arrive and be out of luck. Oh well. I have faith that everything will work out fine and we will be able to travel alot easier outside the city.

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I finally took a few pictures.