I spent the last week in Buenos Aires Argentina for the halfway-done retreat! We went to a beautiful place in the south of the province of Buenos Aires called Sierra de la Ventana. Ventana means window, and it gets its name from the giant natural "window" that is carved out of the top of the mountain. We set up camp at a campground near the trailhead and on the first day we all made our way up to the window. It wasn't a long hike, 3 hours to the top, but it wasn't a switchback trail through the woods either. We found ourselves climbing up, over and around the giant boulders making our own winding paths between the markers as we made the ascent. It was a fun challenge that left me exhausted at the end of the day. The view from the window was beautiful and made the hike worth all the work.
The rest of the retreat we spent catching up and sharing experiences. It was fun to catch up and start thinking about things on the downhill slide. There is a lot to think about in terms of going into the second half of the year with gusto and also beginning to think about what I am going to do when I get home.
The most exciting part of our trip was most definitely the trip home. What we expected to be a 14 hour trip from sierra de la ventana back to montevideo turned into a good 27 hours of traveling (or not traveling) We spent the first 6 hours of our trip sitting in a stationary double decker bus. The wheel broke as we were pulling away from the terminal and we turned around and headed for the gas station. We sat there for 2 hours waiting, not knowing what had happened before the driver came up to our level to let us know that we now would have to wait 3 hours for the mechanic to arrive and fix the tire. Our departure time was 11pm, so the majority of the people slept through the wait, Cristina and I did not have such luck. To pass the time we tried to write a song. It is a work in progress, hopefully we can reach a finished product by the end of the year! We also spent a good amount of time in the gas station and we couldn't have made it as long as we did without our favorite cookies, the frutigran! We just about devoured an entire package ourselves, which is quite the accomplishment and probably has something to do with the fact that all of the volunteers have been experiencing a certain snugness to the clothing we brought with us. It's all a part of the experience! Once the bus actually got rolling we slept a bit, but the 6 hour delay made us miss our ferry boat. Bummer. More waiting. Oh well, the important thing is that we had a safe, fun, adventurous trip with the volunteers. We made it back safely... at 2 oclock in the morning, just in time for me to catch a few zzzzz's and getup for work early the next morning.
Oh the joys of traveling in South America!

Until next time! Miss you all.

-kate