Farming and other things

I write to you from a farm in the Chubut province of Argentina, not far from the Chilean border. Since Rosario we stopped for a couple of nights in Mendoza, which is the jumping off point for a lot of outdoor activities like climbing, hiking, and camping. It reminded me of smallish, very outdoorsy towns I´ve been to in Colorado, as it was surrounded by mountains and filled with people who like to play on them. While we were there, in the big park in the center of town there was a little festival of sorts going on, with people selling handmade crafts, live music, and a puppet show for all of the cute Argentine kids. The second night we were in town we took a bus to a really neat campsite, nestled among some huge hills (the edge of the Andes). It´s tough to really rough it when you take a bus camping--there were showers, electricity, even a movie being shown each night and a place to get a bit of food. The surroundings were beautiful though, and we got a chance to climb up one of the big hills for a nice view of Mendoza and some prime rock hurling opportunities.
We also stopped in Santiago, Chile for a couple of nights. We both really enjoyed the place, so much so that we´re considering stopping there instead of in Buenos Aires for the last stretch of the journey. Among the many reasons why we liked it so much are the numerous delicious restaurants we found, and the friendly people. One day we stumbled upon the most delicious, plentiful and insanely inexpensive produce we´d ever seen...a pound of the freshest juiciest strawberries known to man for under a dollar, plus lots of other sweet fruit. And then we realized that it´s like that everywhere we went in the city. Also, we found the biggest seafood market I´ve ever seen--dozens of rows of vendors with tons of beautiful salmon and trout and other fish I couldn´t identify but that could be really tasty, I´m sure. During the night (I think it was a Thursday) we went out wandering after dinner as is common with us here, and it was impossible to go a block without running into a really nicely lit music space with live music going on. The layout of the city is also nice, there are lots of parks and museums to check out. There are a few drawbacks to the town however. The Chilean accent is very hard to understand, Brittany says so anyway. For me at this point it´s the difference between maybe understanding some stuff, and understanding nothing at all. Another thing is that it´s significantly more expensive in Santiago than in Buenos Aires or in any other place in Argentina.
Now we´ve been on a little organic farm in a town called Epuyen for a little over a week (I think). We´re in a deal where we trade our work for room and board on the farm. So many things about this place are great.. I guess technically we´re in the foothills of the Andes, but as far as I´m concerned we´re surrounded by small mountains. The location is beautiful, sunny and also really hot most of the day, which is why it´s necessary to take a 4 hour lunch/nap break in the middle of the day. I´ve never really dwelled in any land of the siesta before, but I think it will be pretty hard to go back. The work consists of lots of physical labor--digging holes, setting posts, lots of weeding and harvesting, as well as keeping all the plants irrigated with well water. They grow tomatoes, lettuces, beets, and potatoes, but my favorites are fresh peas and raspberries... there are always tons of both around. There are also sheep and chickens to take care of, and certainly the most interesting task I´ve been involved with since being here has been the slaughter and butchering of two sheep, from field to freezer (and to plate). Kind of gory work, but it was a very educational experience overall. I feel as though I feel a little more comfortable sitting down to eat meals of meat now that I know I sort of have what it takes to go through all steps of the process of getting it there myself.
We only have a few days left here, but we´re still not sure where we´re headed from here. We´ll write to let you know.