Hello Electricity

Seth and I are finally back from another world--the world without electricity. I don´t really know how best to start describing our time on what I think was 81 square miles, so I think I´ll just string some impulses together. It is after all after midnight and I can see in front of me without a candle--and there are no mice hear to run over my legs (easily the scariest part of the 2 weeks).

I think I´ll start and end with describing our typical day and let Seth pick up the torch with some of the juicy details. We kept a journal every day to make sure nothing important, or unimportant, was forgotten.

We rolled out of our sheepskin beds shortly before nine to make a giant pot of oatmeal. Often I would get up a little early and read while Seth barricaded himself in our room for a precious extra hour of sleep away from Sheeps the dog--who enjoyed licking any bare skin she could find. During our week at the first house on the estancia, the puesto, we had fresh cherries to stick in the oatmeal, which almost made up for the lack of peanut butter.

We´d usually work for a few hours repairing fences, making canals, picking cherries, or something else. Our tasks were varied, so we usually didn´t get too bored with the jobs. About 1 pm we´d break to make lunch, something we´d always plan at dinner the night before. After lunch we would read or write for at least an hour until 3:30, when we started work again. We always tried to do something a little bit easier in the afternoon, like making cherry dulce, so we didn´t wear ourselves out before dinner.

Making dinner was often the highlight of the day.We had no measuring cups or recipies, which led to some hilarious culinary accidents, including but not limited too 1 gallon too much of rice for stir fry (we gave it to the dog) and some very, very bad crepes (we ate them anyway, but in the dark so we couldn´t see how bad they looked). We often made several courses to stretch out the meal and dessert was often eaten around a fire or by candlelight as the sun set. It was quite bro-mantic

Now we are in the mountains about to do some hiking around the glaciers, so I need to go to bed so Seth doesn´t leave me in the dust going up the mountain tomorrow.