El Bolsón, part 1

I am going to have to tell this story in parts because it is rather long. Here is what I have so far:

El Bolsón. Oh El Bolsón. Where do I begin to describe my experiences there? A lot can happen in a week.

Maybe it was because I was homesick, or just sick of city life, but I was ready to leave Buenos Aires. My language program had gone on for about a week to long and I was itching to see something new. Getting on the bus at Retiro, I was excited for the journey ahead. I didn’t know what to expect for farm living. I realized I was going to the woods, but hadn’t given the actual day-to-day existence much thought. I was going to a ‘farm’, whatever that meant. I figured I would be milking cows, or something. I probably would have had a better idea if I had actually read the description of the place before arriving.

The bus from Buenos Aires to El Bolsón was relatively painless. The bus, comprised only of first class seats, had great food and lots of alcohol. The twenty-plus hour ride passed very quickly due to the combination of many movies, fully reclining seats, and lots of cocktails in Styrofoam cups. For the record, Julia and Julia is a very cute movie.

After arriving in Bolsón, I pulled out the directions for the chacra (organic farm), and found the first remis (local taxi). I handed the directions to the driver and told him to take me to the farm. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but he had no idea where the place was. I should have taken this as a sign. After driving for about 20 minutes away from Bolsón, and towards the middle of no-where, he had to pull over to ask for directions to the farm. As it turned out, the distance from where he first pulled over to the chacra was less than a kilometer, but the 3+ stops for help made it feel much longer.

After arriving at ‘Aqui y Ahora’—here and now—he let me out and told me I should walk the rest of the way. He promptly drove off and I was left at a fence in the middle of the forest with a road behind it leading off into the distance. I opened the fence and walked down the road with my bags to a house around the bend. It was at this point that I started thinking ‘What have I gotten myself into?’.

‘Hola’ I shout. No response.

‘Hola, me llamo Chase Hensel. Soy un miembro de WWOOF’ I shout a second time.

‘Hola! Me llamo Emile, mi hermano Arturo esta tomando una siesta adento. Un Segundo' someone shouts. There was a man sitting in a lawn chair in the grass in front of the house. The man, Emile, gets up, walks over to me, gives me a hug, and walks inside the house to grab his brother, Arturo. Thank god I thought, I am in the right place. Arturo was the name of my WWOOF contact.

Arturo, Emile and I had a brief conversation about how strange it was that I was from New York City, exchanged pleasantries, and hug a second time. The two brothers then lead me to the adobe in which I was to live and work on for the next two weeks.