Friday, November 6, 2009


IT HAS BEEN FOREVER... sorry : )

Okay, so again... chronological order from where i left off more or less. On September 26th I went to Uruguay.. for one day lol. We went to Colonia which is a really old city and we just ate and walked around and went to the art fair there and I bought a shirt (so cute) and laid on the beach. I didn't take a bunch of photos but here are a few...


URUGUAY:


Random band performance in the streets of Colonia


The beach that is actually at the mouth of the river "rio de la plata" that pours into the ocean





RECOLETTA:

I went to this cemetery pretty close to where I live that has a bunch of mausoleums that were reeeaaalllllyyy old and some newer ones too. They are so creepy but cool. You can see the coffins in windows and some are like abandoned n stuff so there is nothing between you and the coffin... GROSS! But in a way the whole place was also really gorgeous.


entrance






FERIA DE MATADEROS:

I went to a big feria which like an art fair and food and all sorts of stuff its awesome. They have them all over the city on the weekends and I'm a bit of an addict : ). BUT I always forget to take photos because I'm so busy looking at everything... hand-made crafts and clothes and artwork and bracelets its great.

Doing traditional dance in the square



IGUAZU TRIP!

I went with my program and a group of like 40 of us students to Missiones which is a province waay in the north of Argentina right in between Brazil and Paraguay. We went
first to these Jesuit ruins and a museum and then went to an Estancia which is like a big property and they have a bunch of land that they grow mate on (remember? the weird tea that they drink here) and they grow green tea. We just hung out on the pool and went to a mate factory place and saw how they cultivate it and ate a ton of food and laid in hammocks. It was so nice to be hanging out outside of the city. Then we stayed at a nice hotel and the next morning woke up early to go to iguazu falls. It was AH-MAY-ZING : ) the pictures don't do it justice there is no way to capture the infinity of this place. Its just torrents and torrents of water gushing off the earth. and sooo greeen (but im from the desert so any green is pretty
amazing : P ).

THEN i had the opportunity to go at night! 12 nights a year on the full moon they open the park to small groups of people and we go to la garganta del diablo which is HUGE and we see it by moonlight and can't use flash so everyone can adjust their eyes to the darkness and just enjoy the sounds and the huge waterfalls. Its so cool! but none of my pics from the night turned out. Anyway, the trip was phenomenal : ) I want to live in the rainforest.

THEN lol we went to this village of indigenous people that still live in the province they are called Guarani and they still have maintained they're way of life. They aren't christian and believe in like sun god and all that and based on their religion they don't accept money and only trade goods. They make artesian crafts in exchange for other stuff like clothes and shoes n stuff. They hunt their own food in the rainforest with hand made traps and weapons. No guns or anything. They cure all of their people from natural medicine from the rainforest they said they cured asthma in their people and none of them get cancer or any sicknesses like that. and the AVERAGE LIFE SPAN IS 100 YEARS! Its nuts.

JESUIT RUINS:




ESTANCIA:


They have to store the mate for 7 months. They pick it by hand, burn it,
separate the stems, then store it.


freakin tons of mate





Kirby, me, julia goolia, and like-girl


IGUAZU FALLS:








Beginning of the bug collection : ) its so rad



You can see the hairs! i love my camera! (thanks mom : )



Close-up!

There were rainbows everywhere. so amazing.

The goup : )

This is my version of Dos Palmeros : ) love you uncle David!




Its incredible. incredible. theres a video further down.





yay!




La Garganta del Diablo (Devils Throat) the biggest effing waterfall.


This is not at Iguazu but it IS a nice shot of Brazil across the river. And on the left (not in the pic) is paraguay and I am taking the picture from Argentina so its pretty sweet to have the option of swimming to 2 new countries.

GUARANI VILLAGE:


Guarani people singin


A trap to catch food


The lady standing in the back is this mans aunt... shes 104 years old!






This is their school where the kids learn half the day in their own language
and half the day in spanish.


SO that is about it for that segment. I think my next entry will be about the city because I've been hangin out here a lot and I wanna show you all the things that are different or unique about it here. Like cabs and fashion and buildings n whatever. I didnt post videos because they are too long and take foooreeeeverrrr to load sorry : (. Miss you all!! love you! e mail me let me know how your lives are goin!

besos,

Kate