dia 6 y 7

I was triumphant on Thursday morning in the cell phone war. My best buddy José Javier came with me to the center of town to help with the cell phone exchange. While I was getting my money back from the shady company on one side of the street, José Javier went to another store front to scope things out. I followed him over there once I got all my pesos back into my hot little hands. I bought the same exact cell phone as I originally had from the first company, for exactly the same price, and it was activated on the spot. Now, was that so hard? And every kiosk in this town sells phone cards for my cell phone carrier, so I´m defintely in business. Our next stop was to check out a leather goods store. I didn´t really buy anything - i was just checking my options.... :) Then José took me to his Uncle´s watch shop because I was complaining about not having a decent looking watch. It seems that I´m now related to a million people in his town... it´s good to know where everybody works and what they do..... connections, connections, connections....

i am losing track of the days..... yesterday we were supposed to go on a hike up a mountain called Tres Marias. But the weather had other plans. We were about 5 mnutes into our hike when the fiercest wind ever came gusting from all directions. This area has a phenomenom known as viento zonda. It is a crazy-ass wind that is basically caused by the Andes. As I learned in my spanish class the other day, the wind comes off the Pacific Ocean, slams into the Andes, goes up the mountains, cools, condenses, and then comes gushing down the other side as the air heats up. When the wind blows like this you can do nothing. Also, when the wind blows like this, you know it´s snowing in the Andes. The wind was so strong that I was worried that we were going to get blown off the mountain. Plus we were getting sandblasted to death. Our guides quickly decided to turn us around and we went to plan B. We ended up hiking along the San Juan river, or whatever portion of it is allowed through the dam that provides the electricity for the entire region. It was still windy as hell, but we didn´t have to worry about getting blown clear to the Atlantic. But boy, were we dirty. We all had dust and dirt in every crevice of our bodies. It was pretty disgusting. I can tell you, that a shower never felt so good....... and things were only made better when Mabel brought home empañadas for supper..... oh and then Juan Mañuel and I watched three movies in a row.....