3 lessons learned

Acouple of weekends ago, I decided to visit the Sierras (more specifically, La Cumbre). The Sierras are a series of large hills that run through the Cordoba region. I like to refer to this trip as my networking vacation. Once again, since I had no one to travel with, I headed out by myself. When Piera found this out, I immediately noticed the motherly worry look appear on her face.
"Sola? Pobre Kasey!"
I tried to explain to her "No pobre Kasey! I like to travel by myself. In fact, I enjoy it." I have finally learned that there is no Argentinian that will ever believe me.

Lesson #1 No one believes that you like to be alone. Stop saying it. They think you are weird.

Argentines are such a social people, that they cannot imagine that anybody would ever want or even prefer to be by themselves. So right away she gets on the telephone to call her sister, Millie, in Cordoba to meet up with me before my connection to La Cumbre. I agreed, assuming that we would grab a cup of coffee somewhere so I could pump her for information about the Sierras. Wrong again. In case you haven´t noticed, I´m not the brightest star in the galaxy, so it takes me acouple of times to learn a lesson.

Lesson #2 Assume NOTHING. The only thing that is safe to assume in Argentina is that there is food there. Where you ask? Anywhere. You will never go hungry.

To make a long story short, what I thought would be an hour visit with family, turned into me staying the night in Cordoba. Why wouldn´t it? After telling Millie that I wanted to leave for La Cumbre that morning she told me she wanted to take me on a driving tour of the city. Of coarse I´m not going to pass up a tour from a local, so I agreed. Seven hours later, it actually happend.

When I tried to tell her that I didn´t want to stay the night, that I really wanted to get to La Cumbre so I could go hang gliding the next morning she said "But I wanted to take you to this really cool art museum!" Of coarse I´m going to pass up a really cool art museum. "Okay". After drinks and 3rd meal (Argentines have four meals a day), and after waiting for dude man to hang up her curtains, and after she took a shower and got ready, we headed out for the museum at 10 pm. I know what you are thinking. 10pm is a little late for a museum to be open, right? Well, this time, you are exactly right. Of coarse the freakin´museum is closed.

Crap. Now it´s too late to grab the last train to La Cumbre. crap. We heard some music coming from the coartyard of the museum so we went to check it out. As we were listening to a mediocre local rock band, Millie ran into a friend of hers, Ludmilla. I tried to listen to what they were talking about, and picked up about half. It sounded to me like she was trying to pawn me off on this poor girl. I was right. She turns to me and says "Ludmilla is going out with some friends of hers. Do you want to tag along?" Of coarse I do. The question is, does she? And furthermore, Really? I´ve been comprimising my solo adventure all day for it to end with you, pawning me off to this poor girl? Here we come to lesson #3.

Lesson #3 You can never be an inconvenience to an Argentine. They really are that genuinally nice. There is a whole other level of nice that, unfortunetely, doesn´t exist where I come from.

So far my solo adventure has been a little bit of a slow start. It´s nothing how I pictured it. But that´s how the real good adventures begin. My new friend, Ludmila takes me to her bosses house and we do a little prepartying (remember, anybody who is anybody doesn´t go out until 2 or 3am). Then we went to a nearby bar to meet up with her work friends, who were beyond nice and funny people. After trying acouple of the national drink of choice, fernet and coke, I was dancing, laughing and having a blast. It was like I had been friends with these people my whole life. And even better, Ludmila had given me the number of a friend of hers that lived in La Cumbre. "Someone to show you around" she said. Ludmila walked me to Lita´s house and we exchanged numbers. We departed like two best friends, giving each other promises of our next visit together.

The next morning, I had a bit of a late start, like most mornings after partying in Argentina. I finally got my things together and made the bus to La Cumbre. The weather had been cold and dreary so far, but nothing had prepared me for La Cumbre. I arrived to La Cumbre without the slightest idea of where I was going to stay or what I was going to do there. I stepped into the visitor´s center and got a recommendation for the best hostel that I´ve stayed in so far in Argentina. I settled into my dorm and immediately met a girl from Ireland, Deborah, and two girls from the United States, Adrienne and Allison.

I called Ludmila´s friend, Michele, then Deborah and I headed into town for a bite to eat. My phone died so, Unfortunetly, I never got to meet up with Michele. Despite some recent bad news Deborah had recieved, she was absolutely splendid to talk to. Due to the unfortunate weather, I didn´t get out much in La Cumbre. It didn´t matter much to me because I had great company.

The next day I tried to go horse back riding, but they cancelled the trip because of hail. Too bad. Oh, well. Nothing is ever perfect, but if you play your cards right, you can get pretty damn close.