Well, it´s been almost exactly a month since last I enthralled you with my wit and tales of adventure.Cory and I entered Argentina and stayed two nights in Bariloche before heading down to a little hippie town known as El Bolson. In our typical and frugal form, we spent three nights sleeping in a dusty campground and shivering throughout the night due to our lack of sleeping bags. Enough was enough and we made it to a nice little hostel known as La Casa del Viajero. Tucked away in the woods about 2 kms from town, the hostel is like an unintentional Zen retreat, complete with eco-frienly housing, compost piles, a myriad of fruit trees, shaded hammocks, free roaming chickens, a trout pond, and an owner (Augustine) who is seen every evening running a rake through his japanese sand garden. It didn´t take long before I was volunteering to help out in the the garden and with the neighborhood street clean-up project done by Augustine and a number of his neighbors, and it wasn´t very much longer after that that Augustine offered me a place to stay in return for a little work. The picture to the left is a shot from the trout pond at sunset.
While Oswald, a neighbor of Augustine, was out of town, Cory and I spent our time living at his place, watering the gardens, feeding to the dogs, and enjoying the simplicity of living in a home without such modern conveniences as a refridgerator, microwave, or flushing toilet. This is a picture of the outside of the house. The vines growing up the front of the house are hops, and the lattice that it grows on is made of woven willow branches by Oswaldo himself. After a few days of being there though, Cory realized that he was left with less than 3 months before his return to the US of A. We made the decision that he would begin heading to Mendoza, and I would continue working in the community for a few weeks before joining him. Splitting was a strange feeling, but we both knew our individual adventures were just beginning.
Once Oswaldo returned home, I moved out of his dwelling and into a shack by the river constructed completely out of recycled and reusable materials. Who knew things could get more basic? No running water, no heat except a wood burning stove, windows of sheet plastic, holes in the walls, and an outhouse about 100 meters from the house. From the front it looks rather quaint, but the photo below shows the true nature of my little shack. Bear in mind, it´s a work in process, slow, . Of course after staying there for a 
short while, I was once again moved to a place of more comfort on the hostel property. Still a bit of a shack, but all four walls were in place, some of the windows were made of materials other than sheet plastic, and it was close enough to the other buildings that Augustine recommended that I use the hostel kitchens and bathrooms.
The work I´ve been doing - To answer it quickly, I spent the majority of my time working on the eco-friendly houses, insulating with hay, bottles, newspaper and cardboard, or mixing and applying adobe to the outsides. The picture is of Fernando, who I just referred to as, ¨Maestro.¨ He´s standing in our mixing pit, working the mixture over with his feet, as is typically done. It really puts a new standard to the term ¨Dirty hippie feet.¨ We mixed about a dozen loads of adobe that way, using the clay that I dug out of the mountainside myself. The other work I did varied greatly. I watered the orchard and gardens, worked with the compost piles, split firewood, organized the recycling piles, and kept a watchful eye over the hostel while Augustine and his wife, Laura, were away.
And lastly, the joys of living the simple life...the real one that is. Not the one involving two incapable and inane blondes traveling the country in desperate attempt to succeed at the most simple of tasks. There is a beauty in El Bolsòn that is difficult to explain. To the East a craggy mountain looms over the town like a watchful gaurdian, and to the South a valley extends for miles before erupting into jagged peaks. Life there was intentional and beautiful. Time was dictated by the sun rather than the clock, life 
was controlled by need, not desire, and it didn´t take long before one begins to let the stillness in. As Thoreau said, ¨Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.¨ Walking to town took on the feeling of an evening stroll, and I began to find myself sitting by the river for a bit of time just to enjoy the scenery. Beyond that, the community that has developed there is something to be marvelled at. Everybody helps each other with cutting firewood, constructing new houses, and digging irrigation trenches. When Oswaldo pressed fresh apple juice from his own trees, he brought it over to share, and when Augustine finished grinding fresh wheat, he brought it over for the ¨staff¨ to make bread with. And so, with much excitement and remorse, I´ve left to rejoin Cory in Mendoza. New adventures ahead.¨Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevations of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor.¨
-Henry David Thoreau
