Celine Dion music video...

I have to describe my horse adventure because it was SO MAGICAL and something I will always remember! There was one night in Punta Del Diablo where I felt really well, so we decided to ride horses on the beach. I was with the four other girls I went to Uruguay with and we were all thrilled to do something different, other than stay at the hostel. We walked to the "sister" hostel that was near ours- it was only about two blocks, mind you this town is all dirt roads, very remote and peaceful. The only noise is the ocean! We waited for quite a while for our "gaucho"/tour guide to arrive, all anticipating how comical it would be to see a man with five horses coming up the dirt road. Finally after what seemed like an hour a man with 6 horses in total shows up, jumps off his white horse and yells to us "HOLA!!!!". He had a huge grin on his face and a cigarette in the side of his mouth.

All the horses!




It took us a few minutes to get situated on our horses, but we finally succeeded. The Gaucho asked who was the most experienced rider, I lied and said that I wasn't (even though I had taken many years of lessons when I was a youngster). It's not a comforting thing to hear that the most experienced rider needed to ride "Borracho". Borracho was the brown horse with streaks of black, his name meaning "Drunk". I purposefully did not take any of the feistier horses because I always end up with the crazy ones, and there have been too many experiences of me falling off. I ended up riding "Rosarino" and just my luck, he was the slowest horse EVER. He just walked along, doing his thing regardless of whether or not I was kicking him to move faster. He could have cared less because he stopped every ten seconds to eat grass.

Me and Rosarino:



Our walk was through a beautiful and private national park full of palm trees and some roaming cows. Being high on a horse at sunset with nothing to worry about on a Wednesday evening was a freeing state of mind. After about 10- minutes of riding, I became really comfortable again on the horse as did my friends. We went down some steep sand hills, these were the only times I was ever timid. Once we came out of the park we arrived on the beach just as the sun was setting- and you can only imagine how beautiful that was...




For some reason "Gaucho" thought it would be fun to trot with his horse. If one horse did something then all the others would follow. Without having to even kick my horse to make him move, he took off. It was a blast; trotting on a remote beach at sunset with my new friends and the most BEAUTIFUL weather!! We rode for quite a bit on the beach and then back into the national park. We went pretty deep into the park before we took a break. We each hopped off of our horses and sat at a little table in a tiny cove amongst the trees. Gaucho tied the horses together and just let them roam.....they ended up walking extremely far away from us but they are trained really well so they didn't "run away"

Little Cove:






Being in the little green cove was amazing. We sat there for about an hour, had two bottles of wine, smoked some cigarettes that Gaucho rolled himself- no filters or anything-it's very typical to do that here. We spoke in Spanish and made jokes with our new friend, this was his life job and he loved every minute of it. We sat and chatted for a long time until it became quite dark. We rounded up the horses...who were hilarious and very far away from us meandering around. At this point, we had finished two bottles of wine and were feeling great! The sun had completely gone and there were NO lights in the park whatsoever. We basically rode the horses through the national forest/park in the PITCH BLACK. All I could see was the black outlines of the palm trees against the deep blue and starry sky!! It was UNREAL. Hands down the most magical thing I have ever experienced (deep, I know). We rode in the darkness and silence for about two hours! The sky literally looked like fairy dust I wanted to reach out and feel the individual twinkly stars. We rode through the forest- totally trusting Gaucho and our horses(I literally could not see my hand in front of me). Upon arriving on the beach again, the horses TOOK OFF and it was incredible. They began trotting and then galloping quite fast. The moon reflecting on the ocean,the starry sky touching the horizon of the ocean and riding horses in complete darkness(felt like we were flying) was an indescribable experience.




After sending this exact blog post as an email to my family a few weeks ago, my brother's only response was "Ha ha this email is ridiculous! I'm imagining some Celine Dion music video as you gallivant in the surf at dusk"- I couldn't have said it better myself! It WAS a video- totally unreal in how amazing it was!

My heaven/hell

I can't even begin to describe the ups and downs that I have gone through these past few weeks. Today is actually the first day in the 1.5 months that I have been here, that I have actually sat at my computer in privacy. Every other time I've been in public at the Road House or in a hostel with a line of people waiting to use the internet. Talk about lack of privacy....this has definitely been the biggest change for me.

I will try and go into as much detail as possible so that I can cover all the inquiries my friends and family have had. I guess I will start with the TEFL course. Let's put it this way: it was hard. There was a TON of outside class work...and then when I went back to the Road House (student Residence) there were 20 other people there. My entire first month was spent in a classroom learning my own native tongue and then doing a thousand touristy things on the weekends. The Road House was great, but a month was MORE than enough time living there. It got frustrating having to share 2 refrigerators with 25 people, waiting in line to rinse a dish and having one cup, plate and bowl in a locker...

Without sleeping at all my last week of TEFL, I finally passed the course! I taught my last class from 8-9 on a Friday night, went straight to my residence and packed everything I brought to Argentina in half an hour. I was then rushed into a cab with my HUGE bag and my four friends and I headed to a ferry which took us to Uruguay! Alex(from Denmark) and Natasha (from England) helped plan a 9 day beach vacation for me and Leigh(roommate) and Jess(from Cali). The five of us stayed in Punta del Diablo- which was a paradise! We stayed in an awesome hostel with all these guys from Chicago and Wisconsin..such a cool place. It was very remote and calm. The beach was beautiful, the food delicious and I believe there was a hole in the ozone layer cause we all tanned like never before. I had an amazing time in Diablo, but I got sick on the second day and my sickness lasted the rest of the 7 days.

Punta Del Diablo:


This is where my patience started to be tested (aside from doing TEFL homework into the wee hours of the morning). Although our hostel in Diablo was only 10 dollars a night, it was a HORRIBLE place to be sick. I still don't know what I was sick with..food poisoning or the water? Regardless I spent two STRAIGHT sunny days in a sticky and muggy hostel room,alone,on the bottom bunk, in a room with no windows and 8 other people staying in it... I think I cried seven times in those two days. Thanks to my amazing friends who got me meds and gave me plenty of hugs. It was horrible at the same time that it was amazing? I don't know how else to describe the situation. It was my heaven/hell; deathly ill in paradise...ugh, confusing to the psyche.

The hostel room I stared at for three full days:



Although I was sick my entire beach vacation, I had certain hours throughout the day where I felt totally fine. These were the hours I took advantage of. One such time we went on a evening wine and horse adventure...this experience deserves it's own blog post because it was THAT magical!

After our five nights in Diablo...still ill, but enjoying my time with friends, amazing fish dinners lots and lots and lots of rice, beautiful sunsets and late nights, we decided to have a change of scenery. The five of us got a bus and drove 6 hours to Cabo Del Polonio. Little did we know that this beach had no electricity or running water aka the WORST situation to be in when your ill. The bus dropped us off in the middle of no where in a field. We waited there in the rain, freezing, with ALLL of our bags until a 4x4 tractor picked us up. This tractor was the coolest and scariest thing EVER. We piled onto it and it drive STRAIGHT onto the beach in the pitch black of night going over sand dunes..etc. The tractor dropped us off on a beach, in the middle of the darkness on an island with no electricity.


The hostel we stayed in here was NOT what we were expecting. Long story short, it was a hut on the beach with two rooms, no running water (I know I keep repeating myself, but it was intense). There were frogs in the kitchen...bugs everywhere and we couldn't see anything. The next morning was BEAUTIFUL, thank GOD. The beach was so private and secluded. The hostel owner- Pancho was the shit. He was actually featured on "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Uruguay". SO that was kind of cool!

The shack on the sand!


After we spent most of the day on the remote beach...and after I had a few more breakdowns from exhaustion, sickness, and being mentally tested, we took a bus to Punta Del Este. THIS WAS MY HEAVEN. It was the last leg of our trip, I was FINALLY feeling better, and this beach is comparable to Miami, Florida. It's very upscale, city like and HAD RUNNING WATER! The hostel had AC...and we were the only girls there with an entire soccer team of Argentine men (haha!)It was like living in luxury again...ahh until...

We returned back to Buenos Aires after 10 hours of traveling on buses and ferry's to find out that our apt had fallen through. Again, long story short...we (Leigh and I) were homeless for three full days. Here is where it is difficult to put into writing the amount of stress, sadness, anxiety, depression, exhaustion, questioning, and every other horrible negative feeling I felt at the time. I actually reached a few breaking points and was ready to book a ticket home to America. I have never felt so hopeless and restless in my life. I spent two full 9 hour days sitting in the road house main lobby and in a cafe searching online for a place to live...to no avail.

Thankfully we were able to store our bags at the Road House...and Paige(my friend from home who worked for Road..and who has lived here for almost two years) let Leigh and I stay at her amazing apartment for two nights. Our third night of homelessness(now an actual nightmare and having fears of never finding a place) we stayed in a hotel bed with four people and barely slept. The hotel was amazing to say the least. Alex (from Denmark) was staying there on her last night before she went back to Denmark and invited us to stay over...least we had a roof over our heads!

A few of us in the hotel bed...



Yesterday, extremely hungover and really tired and panicky with fears of never finding a home, the voice of an angel called me to say she had a free apartment, although a little pricier than what we were looking for. We checked it out, said yes and thought everything would look up from there. Oh no, no, that would be too easy for Argentina. STILL exhausted, hungover and desperate for a home...we went to sign the lease and pay the money. Argentine's only accept American dollars, so Leigh and I went on a two hour search to every bank, and tried to find a Cambio to exchange our money. The banks didn't let us take out the amount we needed to pay for rent and the cambios were closed, then it started POURING....etc etc etc etc just one thing after another. BUT NOW WE HAVE A HOME!!

Our main room!



Today I woke up...called everyone I haven't had the privacy to talk to in almost two months, emailed people I needed to email and felt SO AT EASE being in a clean apartment. It was amazing to not sleep in a hostel with 7 other loud people (or Argentine soccer players chanting Argentine songs at 3am RIGHT outside out window), or in a Road House with 25 other people. It was nice to put grocery's in a fridge (not shoved in a corner amongst 20 other peoples' things) that doesn't smell like rotten eggs and to just feel for the first time that I was in a new city, doing an independent thing.

Don't get me wrong, this has been an ADVENTURE and an INCREDDDDDDDDDDIBLE experience. But I think I have just gotten past the point of "go with the flow". A person can only handle that to a point. Being a girl, (maybe I sound high-maintenance?) and not having a home, or a change of clothes or a shower or a place to rest for three days was brutal and I am shocked, yet happy to say I survived it. This whole experience of not having privacy, dealing with no sleep, being sick in sandy, hot hostels, waking up one day with a swollen eye from a mosquito bite, and not getting from point A to point B until the third try in everything I do...has tested my patience and sanity. Yet, here I sit, in a BEAUUUUUTIFUL apartment, with two friends hanging out, in an ELITE neighborhood with amazing shopping!! The sun is shining, I have my own bed, and things can only get better from here.

I guess this is what people warned me about before I got here. My experienced travel friends told me to be prepared for the unexpected and to remember no matter how prepared you are, you can never be prepared for EVERYTHING.So I can confidently say, I lived through some tough times here and I am still alive and doing well. DESPITE IT ALL, I am in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the most AMAZING CITY I have ever been to. I still stand by that first blog post about the city and my opinion on it! My relationship with BA is certainly a "dangerous" love affair!