Jerbearticus conquers the Andes

I didn´t actually conquer them at all; it just sounds good. I did, however, cross the Andes in my final plane from Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Amazing! And surprising. Amazing because they are huge mountains, and I saw a half dozen glaciers in the upper reaches, along with some snow. Surprising because the plane crossed them in ten minutes! I guess the Andes aren´t wide at all. . .400 miles an hour, ten minutes of travel would roughly make that section of the Andes 65 miles wide. hm.

I took an hour+ taxi from Buenos Aires right to Gaia Ecovillage, and have been in a dream world ever since. Don´t get the wrong idea; it´s not like a heaven where no one works and everyone relaxes and picks ripe fruit from trees as they please. It is, however, a very different atmosphere than i´ve ever experienced. Fifteen people live here - twelve adults 30-50, with one grandmother, and three children 2-4 years old. They are all from Argentina, as far as i know, except there´s a volunteer here my age who, amazingly, is from southeastern Pennsylvania! Near the Delaware border. Her name´s Abby, she´s been here for almost two months, and is leaving this weekend I think. I greatly admire her fluentness in Spanish.

Speaking of which, Spanish (or Castellano, as they call Latin American Spanish) is the main language at Gaia, of course. A couple people, and Abby of course, speak English, but they and I are trying to limit English conversation so I learn more quickly. This week I am learning Castellano for six hours a day. Intense! Cosas (things), verbos, las partes del cuerpo (body parts), and so much more. I am totally saturated. I have not slept normally because my mind keeps trying to say sentences and conjugate words at all hours even though i have no desire for it to do this in the middle of the night. I will get by, though, and I am learning a lot. I feel a bit crazy at the moment (which heightens my dream world experience) but am having a great time so far. Everyone´s so kind and helpful. The food, which is just about vegan, is prepared (and some of it grown here i think) mostly from scratch and is so tasty! Both lunch and dinner are big, social meals and supper might stretch into a two or three hour affair. Everyone gets up at 7am and works maybe 6-8 hours a day - cooking, cleaning, office work, building and maintenance, tending to the garden, with the women and men appearing to generally be in their traditional roles. It´s hard to say though since I´m not helping out with any of that yet.

Three wind turbines on site power the whole community, the biggest electricity consumer of which is certainly the fridge. no microwaves, electric stoves, clothes dryer. solar water heaters (and a stove for rainy days) make for fine showers. The main building´s walls are made of mud, its roof of thatched straw, and its skeleton of wood. it´s a very comfortable, pretty abode, and definitely doesn´t look like your usual North American home. I guess it looks like one of those magical forest homes in a fairy tale, where maybe a magician lives. Other buildings here look more usual.

We´re at latitude 30 or 35 degrees south, I believe, and I would describe the climate as lush mediterranean. there are a couple palm trees here or there so it must never snow, but it´s definitely not jungle. Big eucalyptus-like trees tower over the property, while there is some undergrowth of bushes and bamboo. The countryside is beautiful here, and is dominated by fields of corn and golden grains, and cows. Cows must be very common because a native plant is called pata de baca - cow legs. i don´t yet understand why it´s called that though.

My Castellano teacher is very nice and speaks oh so clearly. The funniest moment so far was when I said "condoms" (condones) while trying to remember how to say "shoe laces" (cordones). My French has been quite useful while learning, as many words are near identical spelling to their Spanish counterparts, though their pronunciations are very different.

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Hasta luego,
Jeremy