Wow. These past two weeks have gone by so fast, and yet seem to have lasted forever. The last week of school was kind of hectic. I had a literature essay due on Monday, which I finished on Saturday because I had another essay due Wednesday for Descubriendo Buenos Aires, for which I wrote about el Teatro Nacional Cervantes. I finished that on Saturday as well. I had to finish La Pregunta de sus ojos by Tuesday rather than Wednesday because Josh’s parents arrived on Wednesday and he had wanted to have class on Tuesday so he could meet them.

I did my presentation for Soledad and turned in that essay, had our last lit class with Leo, took our history test (on which barely anyone did very well, history has never been my strong suite) and Addie and I gave our presentation for idioma, which we did about el Transporte de Buenos Aires. At the end of that class, Gabriela ripped apart everyone for making certain mistakes, for which everyone felt all sad and hurt, but I was pretty sure almost none of the criticisms applied to me so I wasn’t too bothered. It was a sour way to end the class though.

That night, Thursday, we all went to dinner with Maria at a tenedor libre. Pretty much everyone has gotten some kind of stomach problem since, but I’ll get to that later. It was a really emotional dinner. Half the girls cried because Maria made us all tell an anecdote that was our favorite moment of the trip or something funny. We got to tell it in English because Josh’s parents were there with us too. It was so funny hearing Maria speak English after all that time speaking her native tongue again; she sounded so differently from when we were back in Missoula. Lots of people told funny stories, but some told more touching ones. 

Addie and I were sitting next to eachother so she went right before me and she made me cry. She told us how, as an only child, she had always wanted siblings, and with this trip, with all of us, she felt like she finally had that. She almost couldn’t continue because she was crying, then she finally said to me, “Matisse, I feel like you’re my sister” and I started crying. I feel the same way, and I’ve said it to her and to other people. It was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me and I’m so happy and moved that she did. That means so much. I love the closeness that we have now and I’m going to really miss living with her. I really do feel like we’re sisters now.

After the dinner, Addie and I went home to change and then we headed to the party at Casa Bar. Zac arranged it with the bartender for us to have the top floor all to ourselves to play music and beer pong. There weren’t very many people up there at first but more came that we had met through our roommates in other programs and such and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I was worried about Zac though, he got fairly drunk and I hoped he would wake up on time the next morning for us to leave and go to Posadas. I woke up early the next morning at 750 and walked to Zac’s house where I waited outside for half an hour before he finally came down because his mom woke him up five minutes before the car rental people were supposed to get there. They were almost an hour late. We finally got out of the city and on the road.

On the way to Posadas we got a ticket for not having our lights on in the middle of the day because apparently that’s the law here. It was kind of sketch because we had to pay right there and we didn’t have enough pesos so we had to use some US dollars that Zac had. After we got on our way, we later took a detour into a town 15km off the highway to get money at an ATM and discovered that it was really cute and thought we might stay here on our way back. It was called Federacion.

On our way to Posadas we saw a beautiful sunset and finally, stars! When we finally got to Posadas it was 2AM and the reception of the hostel we had planned to stay in was locked and empty so we had to go looking all over the city for somewhere to stay. We finally found a hotel that was open and stayed there for 300 pesos. Zac threw up the whole night. It was horrible. The next morning we headed off looking for the Jesuit Ruins and found instead an ecological reserve. We went to the next one, las Ruinas de Santa Ana, which were in the process of being excavated archeologically and was pretty interesting. Their policy was not to rebuild anything, but rather to preserve what is there currently and work on discovering exactly how it was before.

We headed back to Posadas and stayed where we had originally planned, which turned out to be a hotel, cabin and “dormis” place. We were given a little room in a bungalow with 3 bunk beds and a bathroom across the way, which was full of spiders. The next morning we headed off to Iguazu and on the way stopped in San Ignacio, another ruin, but one in which they have mostly rebuilt. It was beautiful, but full of people. From there we went to Iguazu, which seemed like a really pretty, green town. The way there was gorgeous. The red earth against the lush greenery under the huge blue sky is something I’ll never forget.

When we got to Iguazu the hostel at which we had made a reservation didn’t have room for us; either they had given away our room or never even taken our reservation. We didn’t even get our deposit back (at least it was only 9 USD). We drove all over town, using our GPS again to find “alojamientos” without much success: every place we went to was full. We were turning back towards the main street when Zac spotted a sign that read “Aquilo cuartos” and we stopped. It turned out to be a hotel type thing owned by a family and they lived in the attached house. It was actually really nice and well kept, two blocks from the main street and we were able to park our car in the omnibus garage the man owned. It was 200 pesos so not so bad, not as cheap as the hostel would have been but not bad. The next day we went searching for somewhere to stay and found a hostel called “Residencial Uno” that was really ghetto but really cheap, 60 pesos per person per night, and we stayed there for 2 nights.

It had a pool, but unfortunately we weren’t able to use it. Our first day there we didn’t really do anything but get caught up, buy groceries and a device to play the iPod in the car. We made dinner and Sophie and Jodi came over because they were also staying in the city. We talked and had a fun time. I made Mexican rice and heated up corn and black lentils and made some scrambled eggs. It was the closest I could get to Mexican food in this country. The next day I woke up feeling fine, but once we got to the park I started having stomach cramps that lasted all day. Zac and I waited for Sophie and Jodi for an hour (they had taken the bus) and finally they showed up and we planned to go see the main event, La Garganta del Diablo, and meet them at 2. They were late again, but finally they showed up and we all went on a “hike” together where we got to stand next to a huge waterfall. La Garganta del Diablo was incredible. It almost made you sick just to look at all the water flowing at once. We got soaked but it was amazing.

When we finally got back to the hostel, I threw up on the street outside and later got a fever. Zac bought me a thermometer and medicine to bring it down, and I tried to sleep all afternoon. The fever went down but the cramps continued to last. I didn’t throw up again but I thought I might. The next morning I felt much better, but weak and not well enough to eat anything. We headed off to the park again and did a little hike that ended in a natural pool under a mini waterfall. We climbed around the pool and stood under the fall and it was the most amazing feeling. So refreshing and I felt so alive. If you waited long enough, a huge gust of wind would come and the water would just dump on you. I was almost afraid it would get so strong I wouldn’t be able to stay standing.  We dried off in the sun and walked back to the car. We got back on the road after getting some fruit, a Sprite for me and money from the ATM. I wasn’t feeling too good on the way back to Posadas. We got there at 8 and stayed in the same place we had before, but this time the manager gave us an even crappier room, but no matter. We sat in the bar and messed around on our computers for a while. I still didn’t eat. The next morning we got breakfast there and I managed to eat 2 medialunas and a little of my coffee.

We got on the road to Federacion and got there at 8PM. We went around the city searching for somewhere to stay and finally settled on an “apart hotel” that was really nice, with a mini stove and everything. We got the last room available and it turns out, literally around the corner (backed up against the hotel) was a thermal outdoor water park that was open till 10. We went there and got to soak in the 37C pools under the stars and the moon. I even saw an owl perched right next to one of the pools. The hottest one we went into was 39C and was huge and covered. It was a perfect ending to a crazy, stressful, but awesome trip.

I wished we had stayed longer in Federacion. This morning, as we drove out, the lake and la costanera looked so nice. It was warm and not a cloud in the sky. I still couldn’t really eat anything though and felt even weaker. I’ve been mainly living off Mylanta and Pepto-Bismol. I ate a yogurt but couldn’t even finish a cup of coffee without feeling like my stomach was so full it would explode. It feels a litter better now. But we arrived in Buenos Aires at about 5 and drove around for an hour trying to find somewhere to stay because last night I was so tired I had Zac find somewhere to stay and he found a ghetto place and emailed them but didn’t see if they emailed him back and it was a whole mess.

Finally we found a hostel called Milonga Hostel that was reasonably priced and fairly ghetto but fine. I’m here now, waiting for him to come back. He dropped off me and most of the stuff here and had to go get his suitcase from his host family’s house and give the car back to the people. They better not complain about it being dirty and not having a full tank, because they didn’t give us a damn matafuego as they are required to do by law and almost cost us 5000 pesos. I managed to eat a banana and an apple, so hopefully that means I’m getting better.