Leaving buenos aires

Tomorrow I am leaving Buenos Aires for two weeks with LIFE charity to distribute shoes to poverty-stricken people across Argentina.

It is kind of a road trip by car, we are visiting Rosario, Santa Fe, then Quebrada de Huamahuaca, Purmamarca, Tilcara and Salta city in Salta. Afterwards, Pirane and Mercedes in Corrientes. While there we will visit Esteros de Ibera wetlands, then back to Buenos Aires on monday 26th.

There are only four of us going, I hope it will be an amazing chance to see some more of Argentina outside of this city, as well as doing some charitable work on the way.

In other news, my mobile was stolen yesterday, picked from my pocket on the subway. I thought I'd be upset but actually I feel... liberated. Too often our phones and the internet can distract us from what is really important. It's another wakeup call as well, your stuff is NOT SAFE on this continent. I will exercise more vigilance in future. My spanish is coming along really well and I expect this upcoming trip will improve it even more.

On friday I went to a bar in Bs As, here they don't close til 7am in the morning so I stayed out and had some pretty MAD conversations with people in terrible spanish in the early hours of the morning. All in all, a fantastic success.

I had an almost disaster last night. My couch host pulled out at the last minute and I was left stranded in Bs As at 9pm with no place to sleep. To make matters worse, all the hostels were full due to a huge music festival this weekend called creamfields. I tried maybe 20 hostels and all of my previous couch hosts, as well as the emergency couch section on couchsurfing.org. Nothing worked out. I was seriously looking at sleeping under a tree in a park somewhere when LUCKILY I was able to turn up at a hosts house who I was meant to stay with next week and he was able to host me at the last minute.

Nothing like putting yourself in uncomfortable situations like this for expanding your comfort zone. My ball size has increased 150% just since I arrived in this incredible, poluted, grungy, mind blowing, colourful and eclectic city.

That's all for now. Will update on my return to Buenos Aires.