Day 5

Hola Camarades

Ryan reporting. This is Day 5 of our trip to savage Argentina. Since our last post we stopped off to visit Diego’s relatives near Chicago and then stayed with Diego’s long time friend from Argentina, Agustin, in Ames, Iowa.

            The stop off with Diego’s relatives, Piti and Alicia, was only 1.5 days. Piti is the cousin of Diego’s dad, and Alicia is Piti’s daughter. Diego met them for the first time last year, and I just met them that day, but even though they didn’t know me they welcomed both of us to their home and treated us very well. We ate the best argentinian-grandma love food and Piti told us stories of her childhood, her views on life, with periodic insults to us for the trip we are doing in between stories haha. She does not like at all the idea of the trip and used every possible argument to try to change our minds. Since it did not work, some “friendly insults” were unavoidable. Throughout the stay I was called a Turk, and a drunk for drinking their wine haha, but it was just Argentinian style ribbing. She will be celebrating her 90^th birthday in Chaco, Argentina in April, so perhaps we will be able to celebrate with her when the time comes.

Up until Chicago the Aceituna was fairing well but during our stay with Piti and Alicia the front driver side tire was rapidly leaking air. We had the tire patched in Guelph for $10, but they only put a plug on the outside instead of patching it from the inside of the tire (crappy work, but you get what you pay for I guess). In Guelph, Diego told the guy that was going to fix the tire the story of the trip, hoping for a reduction in the price, and thought he succeeded in getting a good deal. He was very proud of his negotiating skills but of course now he is disappointed. We had the tire patched properly for $22 USD (normally that costs $40 in Canada) and now the tire is perfect.

A days drive from Chicago was Ames, Iowa where we met Agustin, better known as “El Lima”. He has been a close friend of Diego for more than 10 years. Agustin recently finished his PhD in Agricultural Science at Iowa State University and got married to his long time girlfriend Laila a couple weeks back, so we kind of interrupted the honeymoon, hehe. While with Agustin we went windsurfing at a local lake and took in the sites of the endless (and I mean endless) fields of corn, and the wind turbines throughout the fields. After a night at the local bar for $1 pints we decided to get back on the road toward Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone…

$1 Dollar Pints

Walking back from the $1 dollar pints after missing the bus from  having too many $1 pints.

Diego + Agustin making dinner

With Piti

Diego wind surfing

Agustin wind surfing

Hanging out by the lake

Laila wind surfing

Ryan Windsurfing

Iowas corn

traveling past the corn 

Agustins Ferrari 

showing off the specialty coffee

getting ready for windsurfing

Ryan called a drunk

Having Meaghans ice wine