Slogging away

Well, as we suspected, Sunday was a complete writeoff for us. We went to Sofi's sister's wedding on Saturday and had a BIG party.

The wedding ceremny started at 18:30, luckily it was only about 30 minutes long. Then we drove to Sofi's parents Bodego, wine farm, and proceded to have drinks and hors d'euvres on the lawn outside. The wine was spectacular, made by the family, and the champagne was equally as good. There were also a lot of Margueritas being served, since it was half a Mexican wedding.

At about 21:00 we were seated at tables on the other side of the buildings, next to the vineyards. There were several courses served, each from another country - mexican, argentinian, chilean, italian, etc. We carried on drinking and eating ourselves into the ground.

Then the party started.

First a waltz, just to get everyone on the dance floor, and then the music didn't stop till after we left at 06:00 Sunday morning. The bride and groom, friends, family, old people, children, everyone stayed up and dancing till into the early hours of the morning.

Man these Argetinians know how to party!

So We didn't do any work on Sunday. I only got out of bed at 15:00.

Yesterday it hailed on us. First they were the size of small marbes, then big marbles, then they were golf balls. It wreaked havok on our poplar trees, stripping branches and leaves. It also made a few holes in the roof of the far dorm room - luckily I cleaned in there already, otherwise it would have been a mudbath.

Aparently it hardly ever hails in this area of town and Enrique says never this big.

We are getting somewhere with the new hostel.

Thought it was about time to show some photos.

This is what it looks like so far. 

The poles mark out the outside of the main house, which Pablo is building. Nico is building the two bedrooms on the one side, and Arlington - yes he is an argentinian - is buiding the kitchen using local stone on the front side.

The path you see here, leading up to the house from the driveway is going to be a set of stairs. I did that all myself, and I have the blisters to show for it. Those little wild thyme bushes are spikey bastards.

I am also getting on with cleaning the old house. It's taking a while because I have to work myself up to do one room. It starts with cleaning all the cobwebs off the ceilings and walls, and I HATE spiders. Funny enough, I don't come across any of them while cleaning, not live one's anyway, but I have killed three large spiders, one small scorpion and several other bugs since I got here - not to mention all the things we find in the pool. The house is very dusty, and I have to sweep each room about three times just to make a dent in it, with time in between for letting the dust settle. It's hot work.

We go into town about once a day, to Nico' disgust, but I am the money man now, and I have to withdraw money slowly - none of the banks or money exchange places will let me buy pesos with my card. I think my bankactually put a stop on my card the other day because I have spent so much on it here in the last few days. Got it sorted out though.

I have also used MS publisher to create a very basic website for our hostel and Enrique's horseback riding business. I have asked Pia, the expert, to see if she can fix them up a bit, and put them on the web. Watch this space for the URL.