Winter Is Coming

Winter is Coming

Hello to all! We have officially surpassed the 6th week of our journey. Crazy stuff! We had our first official snow day this week, a surprise to wake up to completely white all around us. Something us California (previously Arizona and Nevada) folk are not used to. It lasted for a day and now is gone, but it definitely was a little taste of what the Patagonia winter time entails. This week was not wildly different, with similar tasks including babysitting, pick-ax work on the roads, moving and feeding animals, cutting firewood, etc. Although, trying to find, cut, and trek firewood in the snow was something we have never done before. Let's just say the fingers were a bit chilly. Connor did have a new experience of being the first of us to get shocked by the electric fence for the pigs! Thankfully it was the smaller/less intense fence and he only compared it to a cramp in one of his fingers. For the women out there, I finally got to play some futbol with the guys - and it was a surprise to us all when I scored 3 goals!GOOOOOOOOOOOL!

We will take a break this week from our previously scheduled list of weekly activities and instead talk about some random thoughts/learnings we have had thus far here:

• We love jumping gates rather than opening them like normal, because they are all janky
• Rarely are seat belts worn and the cars definitely do not make the annoying dinging sounds if you don't put it on - also most cars are manual 
• None of the doors open or close all the way
• I (Abby) wear approximately 5 layers of clothing on the upper body most days
• Every night we do a bug check in our room, searching with the headlamp for earwigs (quite a high population of those here) and spiders before going to bed; there is a new one about 50% of the time
• Connor seems to think they have speed check dogs that run at your car when you are going too fast; I (Abby) think the dogs are just there and they bark randomly at cars
• Nails are used EVERYWHERE and are just sticking out of the walls - used to hang towels, dry clothes, kitchen appliances, decorations, etc. Our goal is to count how many nails there are in our hut...we have yet to be successful 
• Our room is too small for our twin beds to be pushed side by side, which is just quite sad. But Connor's mattress was on the floor initially, but he found some palates and wood to raise it up
• Many people seem to have the sentiment that coffee has more negative side effects/don't like how it makes them feel, so Yerba Mate is the thing to do 
• The practice of drinking mate typically entails having leaves in a cup or gourd with a bombilla (straw) that has a filter at the end, then they have a thermos of perfectly hot water at 80 degrees Celsius and you pour the water in, drink until its empty and repeat; usually shared with a group by passing it around 

We plan to be here for another 3 weeks before moving on to our next spot - most likely in Argentina. :) It has been wild to reflect on what we have already learned and grown in here in just this short amount of time. We feel both that we will miss certain aspects of this place and are also excited to see what else is out there and learn from a new person and place. 

Until next time. Ciao!

Abby y Connor

Who’s that girl?

Post-futbol hang. First piscola (pisco with coca-cola)

The full moon - so bright at night and in the morn

Sorting the firewood and cardboard

Another delicious “asado” bbq of some estomaguillo

Tea time with my friend on this early morn

Who can make the best track?

Our friend finds leaves on the side of the road to eat; 

they taste like lemony arugula 

Just randomly saw where we were 

in the world and couldn’t believe it!

Made some DELISH pancakes with my sweet friend -

 only egg and banana with some yummy toppings 

Firewood in the snow

Connor rocking some great outfits 

this week with some new finds

New pants and sweater vest

SUCH AMAZING MEAT

Connor or Abby?

Abby!

Connor in his new sweater vest eating 

all the eggs and bacon

Our roomie’s mate set-up

Beauty with snow hanging 

out on the mountains