Saturday – September 8, 2007

Saturday – September 8, 2007

Rock-climbing

This morning, along with Allyson, Jessica, Leah, Bryan, Mary Marshall, Julian, and Amy, I went downtown to meet our tour group for the trip to the Sierras. There were probably close to 30 other students – they all go to a private Tourism institute here in Córdoba. The tour group is called "Ojo Rojo" - red eye. We aren't really sure why. They are actually pretty crazy, but it was fun.

We drove for a few hours up to Valle Hermoso, which is a cute little mountain town, and dropped our bags at the hostel there. Then we got back on the bus and drove to this outdoor camp where we did rock-climbing and rappelling. By rock-climbing, I mean a probably 8-foot wall made out of boards with some fake rocks stuck onto it. The rappelling was an actual cliff face, but it was made completely of mud and it was probably only about 8 feet as well. They also had two pretty nice Zip lines. We got to do everything once, and then we hung out for innumerable hours. I helped make lunch – there are some great pictures of me cutting tomatoes with a knife that was probably from the Stone Age. We finally ate lunch around 4:00 pm. After lunch, we walked out into the wilderness to collect wood for a fire. This turned out to be the best part of the whole weekend...

First of all, there was a large creek that had to be crossed. The crossing mechanism was one wire below you and one wire above you, which you held onto and walked sideways across. Everyone was goofing around and shaking the wires and trying to scare the people going across. They kept getting worse and worse until they ended up lifting one girl literally off her feet. She held onto the top wire, swung out parallel to the creek, and dropped. When she got out of the creek, she was covered from head to toe with mud. It wasn’t very funny then – but the video is hilarious now.

Then we walked on a little in subdued silence until we had to cross the creek again. This time, it was a Tarzan rope that was on a Zip line. It was supposed to slide. It didn’t. Only maybe 5 people out of the whole group made it across without getting their feet wet (I was one of them). Everyone else ranged from putting one foot in the water at the end to standing knee-deep. Jessica got stuck in the middle going around in circles until someone grabbed her legs and pulled her across. That’s a great video, also.

Then we finally got down to business. We walked probably close to half a mile, collecting wood along the way. Everyone split up and went their own way; since there was nothing but scrub grass and a few trees, there was no need for a path, really. I was walking along near the bottom of a ridge when suddenly I heard hoof beats! There was a herd of slightly domesticated mountain horses up on top of the ridge. So of course I climbed up to go see! Then one of the guides from the camp, who was with us collecting wood, came up. His brother owns the herd, or he works for the guy that owns the herd, or something like that. So the herd was stopped, eating grass. He quietly approached and pulled one of the more domesticated horses. I went for the herd stallion.

It took me about 20 mins of slowly moving closer to get up to touch him. He wasn’t very big, probably 13 or 14 hands, and not very pretty. They were mountain ponies. By this time, a group of people had gathered around the guide, who was letting people sit on his horse. I asked him if it would be okay to ride the stallion, and he said it would be no problem. So I did! And it was utterly amazing. We weren’t running around or anything, just walking slowly, but it was so nice. I rode the herd stallion from a group of wild mountain ponies. What do you think about that?!

Anyway, that was my favorite part of the weekend. Then we brought all our wood back and made a campfire. We hung out for a few more hours, made some “Hunter’s Bread” from flour, water, and salt and cooked it on a stick like a marshmallow. It didn’t work too well, because in order for the bread to get hot enough to cook all the way through it had to get pretty burned on the outside, but hey. It was a good experience. Then we had a little bonding moment where everyone said how happy they were that they came and threw a little stick on the fire – we were building each other up just like we were building the fire up. It was very sweet.

Then we finally went back to the hostel at around 10:00 pm. I took a nap; they had empanadas for dinner, but I wasn’t hungry. Then I took a shower and went and hung out with everyone. We were up REALLY late, so no one got up until around noon the next day.