Los Esteros de Ibera

I have emailed multiple people about my recent Spring Break or I guess here would be Fall Break with my program. I went to Tandil and Ibera, but I really enjoyed Ibera the most and I am just going to go ahead and copy one of those messages: (Sorry if this goes against the ideals of blogging, but you can go ahead and suck it) hehe.

Ibera is kind of similar to the Florida everglades in a sense...huge area of marshlands, with over 4000 types of birds, animals, plants, etc. It was amazing. Our hotel was right on the water and we took boat trips to explore the area, went canoeing and just enjoyed ourselves. Saw caymans (Yacare in Guarani), these CUTE little rodents called Carpinchos, a ton of different birds, monkeys, spiders that made me cry ( i legit had a panic attack and almost vomited, along with my tearing up). Ok I should probably explain the spiders: they are colonial spiders, thus they live together in these huge ass nets and they sleep in a bundle. Well I think I probably could have handled that, but no, we were seeing them about a foot from our boat during hunting time. So imagine about 500 medium sized spiders crawling all over their webs and in the air. Hmm...I could not. I turned away, but kept imagining them and just flipped. Probably my first real panic attack and just kept turning away but ended up crying until we were well away from them. Besides the spiders, the animals were super cool.

Now, onto the gauchos. Well, the second night at the hotel there were two gauchos hanging out with the two directors of the hotel, they begin to play guitar and sing and while I'm watching from a different table they invite me over and thus I tell the two girls I was "in a converstaion" with to join. We are welcomed into their circle and they continue the music. The guachos keep handing us and offering us wine. It just really showed me how generous they are and the difference between the USA and even the city of Buenos Aires. Anways, we are talking and hanging out throughout the night, more people join, it becomes a party. Those who can play guitar play some songs, one of the gauchos invites me to dance the typical dance of Corrientes (funny how I am always asked or forced to dance). And than they taught us these "cries" of the gaucho, I forgot the name, but they are sort of yells of emotion, you can have different ones for whatever you are trying to express. It was just neat to hear them do it. The next night they are back at the hotel and we end up playing Texas hold em and figure out they work at the estancia we are going to visit on that Saturday, so we are just on good terms and they are really fun to hang out with.

All of the estancias I have visited thus far have all been really nice, but all pretty touristy. THIS ONE, was an ACTUAL estancia. It had only 5 gauchos working on it, which I dont know how many cows they own, but I did remember the amount of horses they have, 150 mas o menos. We were split into two groups and my group first went walking around the estancia to see some buffallo, cows, horses and just get a glimpse. Than we saw the guachos lasso cows that needed their horns cut off and the first one also needed to be castrated. Well, they castrated the cow, which in all essence I dont think hurt them that much. They just slit to little areas and took out the balls. Than they bbq-ed them or "asado-ed" them on the spot. They cut off the horns and would use hot rods from the fire to burn the wound and stop the bleeding. I could go on explaining, but I know it may be too much, thus Ill warn you to be wary of some of the pictures that may include some blood. It was just insane to see it in person and I also respected it, because I think that it was apart of the farm life and not to hurt the cows, but to insure that they did not hurt the horses. But anways....guess who had cow testicle? They offered the balls after being cooked to us and no one said anything so I was the first to accept one and just ended up eating half because after I agreed, other people wanted to try. They tasted fine, I have had worst parts of an asado. After that we went and just hung out until the other group arrived from horse back riding. Then we ate an asado and after had sack racing! It was soo funny and I did not expect us to be sack racing, I kind of hurt my calf again and did not even come close to winning, but it was really fun. Than we switched groups, were we would return in horseback to the boat and the other group stayed to see some cow stuff. They stayed and learned how to lasso cows, which I was told 3 of the students fully lassoed on their own three or 4 cows and two actually took them down and brought them to the ground! The horse riding was really nice and we just went through areas that changed between the typical "pampa" scene and the marshes of Ibera. It was very relaxing.

FInally, I will mention the amazing food and the reason I gained weight. At the hotel in Ibera they had HOME MADE EVERYTHING. Breakfast: homemade scones, homemade medialunas (crossiants), homemade yogurt, homemade bread, homemade jam, and HOMEMADE DULCE DE LECHE. Thus every breakfast I had some cereal, yogurt and banana with dulce de leche. And when they rbought out warm medialunas with scones from the oven I could never say no. On top of breakfast every lunch and dinner had a starter/appetizer, a main plate, and a dessert. Than TEA TIME at 5 or 6 pm. Seriously..I forgot what it meant to be hungry.

It was really nice and I just feel as if I may enjoy smaller communities. I like the city of Buenos Aires a lot but I still have doubts about whether a big city is for me. I feel so relaxed in the country, but than again I was there during vacation...and have not spent a good month or two away from city life. I just keep trying to figure out if I really do like Buenos Aires or perhaps I may seem to not like it AS much because I do not have many porteno friends.

All I can say is that smaller towns, such as Rosario and even Portland just seem to be more friendly than the bigger cities. But perhaps I am still a virgin to big cities, because in reality I have only been to Buenos Aires and it is the only one I can judge. And actually now that I think about it, everyone here is really nice and when I arrived I remember blogging about being a tourist and everyone helping me, telling me where to go when I asked for directions. So I dont know. I looked at the date today: May 11th. I am basically past May and will only have one month left. Holy cow.