Back to school....

Bariloche 21 January - 26 January

Bearing our school satchels and pens and minds filled with a thirst for knowledge, we marched off to school with our new friend Maarten, our "pancake" (our new word for sweet and hot) of a blonde Dutch housemate. We were separated for the first time in a week into different classes - due to diligent Gayle actually submitting her test, she found herself in a more advanced class while Nix was left with an unenthusiastic native Canadian in beginners class! Gayle had the more "perky, super cool" Canadian classmate, Sarah, who also turned out to be our new housemate at Mara's.ç

Events of the week included:

Monday night = Salsa night with a paunch wanna be Casanova dance instructor... learnt a few sultry moves which we might one day grace someone with!
Tuesday = Admin & blog day - we still can't work out how to post photos - if anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated! (Editor in Chief - Neil Rutherfoord - where the hell are you???)
Wednesday = Ron (La Montaña school principal/director - actually that makes it sound like he is a hardworking, responsible individual, when in actual fact his main role involves corrupting our homework time with beer invites and weekends away!) sorted us out with flights, advice and contacts in 10 minutes (this would have taken us all afternoon) thereby allowing us to go
to Pilgrims (Maartens fav haunt) for a lunch. We spent the afternoon tanning on a gravel and pebbles, swimming in an yskoud Andean lake, surrounded by snow capped peaks on what Argentinians affectionately refer to as a "beach".
Thursday = trek up Cerro Otto (the Lions Head of Bariloche) with a group from school. Fellow trekkers included our chocolate-obsessed friend called Ash who suffers from verbal diarrhoea; Lindsey from the USA & also Ash´s translator - Ash seems to have great difficulty comprehending "South African English"; Will (aka Harry Potter), who finally realised after numerous attempts that his efforts to make us practise Spanish were in vain; as well as a few others. And most importantly Ivo, our knowledgable guide - we have informed all the girls at school it is well worth their while to attend next weeks trek! We kept the group motivated through singing Boney M hits including "I'm so dizzy", "Feliz Navidad" and "Ma Baker" up the mountain - the only way we could get Ash to shut up! Absolutely incredible scenery and an awesome 4 o clock photo. 5 and a half hours later rewarded ourselves with humungous helados (ice cream) and chocolate.
Friday = spent some of the afternoon chilling out in Pilgrims (free Wi-fi) where we created a new age techno junkie backpackers haven - couldn't help but wonder how the backpackers of "the old days" would feel seeing a bunch of backpackers drinking cocktails with their laptops, digital cameras, USB sticks and camera cables sprawled all over the table, talking on Skype,
emailing and researching their next destinations...

That evening the school activity was an asado (a typical Argentinian braai), where we made our mark by teaching everyone the "cereal box game", where various forms of the Giraffe, the Crouching Tiger and the Eagle were displayed. We succeeded in being 2 of the 4 winners, and everyone now believes South Africans have some superior genetic flexability... Had a hecticly big night at a few bars and the local club, getting home in the late hours of the morning.

By the end of the week Gayle was able to make small contributions to dinner conversation with the family, while Nicky was able to command Tibo (our dog) to "Sit" and "Stay" in Spanish! Our great achievements and fantastic people we met inspired us to stay another week in Bariloche.

Posted by Nix and Gayle!

_________________________________________________________________
See their smiles, hear their laughter with Windows Live Messenger!

http://messenger.live.com