Off to Bariloche!

I finally got to Sheilah's house in Bariloche after 23 hours of traveling. My friends Gaby and Gise took me to the bus terminal in Buenos Aires and saw me off at 1:01pm Saturday afternoon. One lunch of three different ham and cheese sandwiches (why???),

a vasito (little cup) of white wine and a thin biscuit-type ham and cheese mini-sandwich (sorry, no pic)






a "picada" of ham and cheese (go figure),















a dinner of "pastel de papa" aka Shephards Pie (thank you! something other than ham and cheese!),

a breakfast of assorted pre-packaged snacks and instant coffee with powdered milk, and finally I'm just outside of town when our bus breaks down.









Everyone had been telling me that the drive into Bariloche from BA is gorgeous, so I had been excited that I had a seat in front with the panoramic window in front of me, until I woke up and saw all the bugs on the window.

I didn't think my camera lense would be able to focus on anything past them. Then of course our bus broke down this morning so we waited a couple of hours and joined another group's bus. I got a back window seat... not exactly the front panoramic I had had before. At least it didn't have bugs all over it.

I knew we had to be within a couple of hours of Bariloche, so I kept waiting for the amazing scenery. So far it had been wide-open brown fields with a cow here, a horse there, and a dead cow every now and then.

After an hour of trying to keep myself awake to see the sights, I finally let myself doze when I hadn't seen anything new yet. I went in and out of that half asleep mode, checking my window for anything good, for about an hour until finally I saw something worth taking a picture of. The pictures gradually get prettier and prettier as I drew nearer and nearer to the beautiful city of Bariloche.

The nature reminded me of Big Bear, a mountain by my home in California. For a part of the drive I felt like I was on my way up to our cabin, but then I saw this -

which Big Bear definately doesn't have.

Joventud Para Cristo/ Youth For Christ

I had been invited to help out with a retreat for the staff of Youth For Chirst, America. By "America", I mean all of the Americas. Being that most of the countries within the Americas are Spanish-speaking, most of the representatives spoke Spanish and only a couple were native English-speakers (pretty much just the few that came to represent the U.S. and Canada). I had been invited to help out with translating (yes, I can do that now) and being an extra hand for the whole week.

The first couple of days we stayed at a camp called Maximo Paz where we slept in cabins, ate camp food (which was pretty good), had worship, a speaker, and a selection of forums pertaining to leading youth each day. It was nice to be away from the business of the city, but no one appreciated the mosquitos that came with the wide open fields of tall grasses. After three nights in camp bunk-beds, everyone was excited to move back into the city for the rest of the week to stay in hotels. The daily events were hosted at a local church and we used their kitchen to make food for 100 people for the next 4 days. My work really began when we moved back to the city - I was in the kitchen for the majority of each day helping prepare the food (the head chef let me be in charge of the salad!), clean up, prepare the next meal, clean up, prepare the next meal, clean up... you get the picture.

Amongst all of this I was able to hang out with people from all over Central and South America and go on their excursions into the city with them. It was a fun but long week, and I am glad to have had the opportunity to meet such cool people! It was so exhilerating to worship with my Latin friends - they realy get into it! You should see how the Brazilians dance, haha!

This is a picture with someone from each Latin American country that came holding up their flage - a beautiful sight!

This is Vanessa and me - she is actually a student from the institute and was volunteering in the retreat too. This foto was taken the last night at the pizza party (we obviously are on dessert already).

I'm not sure who started it... I think it was the Columbians, but whenever anyone would take a picture everyone would rush over to get into it and start yelling (happily). It seemed like they thought the photo would capture their voices, and you know what? I think it did.

The Columbians taught me the lyrics to the Cucaracha song (which may or may not be the actual lyrics - all of the Argentine's I've asked about it claim that it is something else).

"La cucaracha, la cucaracha

ya no puede caminar,

porque no tiene

porque le falta

porque no tiene

una pata para caminar"

"The cockroach, the cockroach

now cannot walk

because it doesn't have

because it misses

because it doesn't have

a soul (as in bottom of your foot) with which to walk."

This is a cockroach that now cannot walk.

.My City.

I took some photos from the bus and then just wandered around the city snapping shots. I really like a couple of them. I feel like they capture the energy of the city pretty well. Enjoy!