Encuentro de Mujeres

Getting ready for the 4th annual Women's Meeting to heal the planet....and eat really good food.

 

 

Nate's Birthday Pictures

 After more than a month of preparation, we  celebrated Nate's 9th birthday with a few friends, a massive carrot cake and a new volleyball net.
Pictured here is Nate's friend, Lucas, who moved to San Marcos about the same time we did. 
Why a month?  Well...the cake pans came from Cordoba, the sprinkles from Cruz del Eje, the Volleyball net from Buenos Aires, the ball from Cordoba, the ketchup and candles from La Cumbre, etc...all collected in bits and pieces over a few weeks. 

 Here is Ona, our guest for a week or two.  She also enjoys volleyball and won Most Improved Player. 

 Our big, flat, vacant yard is perfect for volleyball! Thanks to Clay who lent us these polls and put it up and to Stella who bought the net for me in Buenos Aires.  It took a village to pull together this feat. 

Service! Eva, Nate's Spanish tutor, powers one over the net. 
We had a lovely day after the clouds cleared.  A day earlier, hail, gale force winds, thunder and lightening blew through the area bringing cooler temperatures and a little green grass. 

Signs of Spring?

     Just as in the northern hemisphere, in San Marcos, the flowering of fruit trees, peach and plum mostly, signal the onset of Spring, while the Quebracho trees are turning red on the mountain resembling Appalachian  fall foliage.  It's true the vegetation doesn't know what's coming or going... seeming as confused as I am.  Cold, blustery wind at night with temperatures in the 30's and 40's are followed by hot afternoons spent hiding in the shade. I dip a toe out the door in the morning to see what the day's dress code should be, settling on three layers that will get me through the day. 
     The houses here are built to shield themselves from the intense sun that brutalizes them in the many months of summer, having no windows on the northern exposure and deep window wells with heavy shutters on the other sides.  So for those of us that show up in the fall and winter, inside is cold and dark with no penetrating sunlight until almost noon.  Every day I am surprised when I wake up at 7:30 or 8:00, 9:00 or even 10:00, when it's cloudy. The roosters crow and the dogs bark all night, so besides an alarm, there is nothing to rouse me except the need to pee or eat.
     I do realize for someone who is use to four distinct seasons, that I must learn to detect the smallest changes that quietly say "Yes, today is different from yesterday and it will keep changing until such time that it changes back again."  I visited Hawaii in early Spring one year and I remember seeing flowers everywhere and someone saying, "You should see it in the Summer!" and my mother-in-law, who lived on Oahu,  telling me that the temperature drops from a perfect 85 to a chilly 82 in the winter.  But I guess these nuances become greater when that's all you get.
     I'm told that it gets really hot here in summer and that makes me nervous, for a hibernating bear is released inside of me when my own temperature soars, ask anyone who's ever done a craft show with me.  What I'm hoping is that the difference between the heat now and the heat then is so subtle that only those who live without those four distinct seasons describe these small fluctuations using the same range of vocabulary we Northerners do. It's so cold! (Really 65 degrees)...It's so hot! (87 degrees).  Well...as I said, that's what I'm hoping.  Like the Inuit's word for snow or Seattle's words for rain, should there be 100 words for heat?  No, there's no time for all that heavy thinking. In heat, all heat, we just like to nap and that's what they do best here.  It is now 1:31pm...siesta time...thank god.

Has it been more than a month already?

Independence Day on July 9th, with some local dancers.

I'm sorry it's taken so long to post...not through a lack of activity but really it's hard to get a good enough connection to upload any photos.  We've mostly been busy getting down to the business of just carrying on day to day activities, which in San Marcos means shopping for food, preparing food, resting after food, dishes, rinse and repeat.  I'll upload a couple of pictures that will give you a nice overview of lovely San Marcos Sierras.

Gaucho Rodeo

Gaucho Parking

Main Street of San Marcos during Independence Day Parade

Nate's Spanish Lesson...while Ferdenand nibbles on some flora.

Our neighbor's horse

Beginning of Independence Day Parade

Crossing the Finish Line.

San Marcos River

San Marcos River in town

Valet Parking

Catching up in San Marcos

This is a typical house in the pueblo...we buy health liquors here as well as things I can't pronounce or spell.

This is the playground in the Plaza del Pueblo with the Sierras in the background.  This must be during siesta time since usually there are lots of children.

Another cool car....

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This is a bus stop in a nearby town of Rincon

This is a common site...sometimes they have a cart. 

The tourist information booth as you come into town.

A rare bird.

The San Marcos River in the canyon west of the town.

Nate's new passion, the alto sax made from a gourd and bamboo.  The sound is amazing.

Another picture of the playground...

Wacky Stuff

Argentina is where old Ford Fairlanes go to be restored.  They are everywhere.

Yes, There is a Hippie Museum and this is what you can expect to find there.

The first completed wall of vina paz.

Nate's message in a bottle.

Steady...steady....

San Marcos' own Hippie Museum

Pizza oven design-built at Shambala Farm.  It's grrrrrrrreat!

The Land of Meat and Honey

Ok, Ok, I don't have any pictures right now.  That's because Dan and Nate are off exploring a permaculture farm near here with the camera and I'm at our current residence nursing a cold.  Where is here?  The land of meat and honey...San Marcos, Argentina.  This town was the last stop on our bus ride from Cordoba.  We went through numerous cute towns and I couldn't wait to see what San Marcos was going to look like.  All of a sudden, the paved road stops and dirt road begins, lined with trees and a small craft show, we'd arrived in hippyville.

It's been known as a hippy town since the 70's, in fact we went to the Hippy Museum yesterday and had an amazing tour of a small, handbuilt cottage that housed very well loved 60's and 70's roll and rock memorabilia.  Yes, that's roll and rock. Most of the memorabilia was from Latin American folk artists, which I didn't recognize and a couple of old Beatles albums, with ragged edges mounted behind plexiglass.  We learned about where the peace sign came from and looked at display cases housing pieces of the Berlin Wall and jewelry from the good ol days.

Out behind the little hut was an enormous wall of wine bottles, each with a hand written note inside. Each carefully siliconed and then cemented in place to form a large peace sign from the green and clear glass. Nate filled out his note and stuck it in the bottle, placed it on top of the wall and went off to do another.  He had a lot to say.  The note is our communication to future generations, our message in a bottle.

Back in town we ate our first vegetables, other than potatoes, since we left Buenos Aires.  Most of the food is local and organic.  San Marcos is located in a nuclear free zone and also a GMO and pesticide free zone.  Fantastic!  They are also known for their incredible honey.  The stores are lined with it and most people here make their own honey.  Their other export is olives, which are delightful!

If you want to open a business where you barely have to show up, here's your place.  Shops open sometime about 9 or 10, close around 1pm and reopen sometime around 5 or 6pm.  Siesta is serious business here. 

It is winter here now, so tourism is low.  We basically have the town to ourselves and our choice of bungalows to live in.  Given the sheer amount of rentals, it must get really busy here in the summer.  The two rivers that are close by are mostly dry now, but evidence shows by the steeply arched bridge, that it must get pretty high come rainy season.  But right now it's sunny and in the 60's during the day and in the high 50's at night.

It's past siesta time, so I must sign off.  I think that's a rule here.