South American Blunders

To those of you who actually read this blog, I'm sorry for having so completely dropped the ball. I'm going to try to do all of this in one more entry, from where we left off to being towed across the finish line, so bear with me.
The night of my last blog entry I went to sleep in the municipal camping of Gobernador Gregores (asshole of the world) with the expectation of getting a ride at the crack of dawn from a friendly trucker that had agreed to pick me up. I woke at around 4:30am and sat on the curb, in the dark, for about 3 hours before walking to the road that would lead to the ranch; the same road that I had walked for hours before catching a ride into town. I hitch hiked all day, mostly getting ignored or people shaking their heads, until the sun went down and I disheartedly pitched my tent on the side of the road. The next morning, after another few hours with my thumb out, someone picked me up and took me within a mile of the ranch.
Southern Patagonia is a flat, fairly barren desert. You can find ostrich like birds and aardvarks but very little water or vegetation. The ranch, however, was an oasis of green grass, weeping willows, and a creek. They relied on 2 small windmills to supply the ranch's power and, on windless days (very rare), we ate by candlelight. The work for the first two weeks was informative but less than exciting. I did a lot of construction, helping to build the owner a new living room and random repairs around the ranch. Marc-Antoine, the owner of Santa-Thelma, is a macho Frenchman that likes to play cowboy and sip mate (a traditional, tea like drink). He doesn't like homosexuals or black people and didn't hesitate to make periodic jokes to that effect. Never pleased, unappreciative of the free labor he was receiving, and an overall jerk-I didn't care too much for the guy. In the time I was there 2 other volunteers came at different times and, despite their plans to stay for weeks, both left after a number of days because of the owner. His young, hot girlfriend Pauline on the other hand was sweet and appreciative and could meet any french stereotype with her cooking. She was probably the only reason that I was able to stay there for a full month.
I worked from morning to mid-afternoon and would then read in the shade or go for a hike before dinner with Marc-Antoine and Pauline. After the third week it was time to round up the sheep. We rode out for a full day to the end of his property and stayed the night near a dried up lake, under the stars. After a very cold night we woke at dawn and saddled up in order to drive all of the sheep from the end of his property to the corrals near the house. We fanned out and spent the day whooping and haaing at sheep until all 2,000 of them were in the corral. The next two days were spent tagging (taking a chunk out of the ear), castrating (just a rubber band around the balls-no blood), and cutting the tails off of some. My job, with one other, was to isolate groups of sheep in a small pen and then lift up the young ones onto the fence to receive the mentioned treatments. After being castrated, clipped, and marked we would count the sheep (people kept falling asleep, it was a problem) and then do it again. My moment of glory came when one of the sheep escaped through the fence and was heading off into the hills but out of nowhere came this young, American cowboy that open field tackled the wryly bastard. Even the stoic, weathered, gauchos there patted my back and told me that I was "like a wolf." Ya, I know.
2 days later I was off again, heading North with 2 other volunteers, a french couple, in their VW van. We picked our way along the coast for 2 days, stopping to camp and see the sights here and there before we parted ways in Caletta Olivia. I had less than 2 weeks left before my flight home from Santiago, Chile and planned on going to visit friends in Bariloche and others in Mendoza. I got to Bariloche and met up with my old frisbee friend from France, Joe Cooper and his girlfriend and their friend Brian. I stayed with them in their rented house for 2 nights of bowling, drinking, and the Argentinian card game 'Truco.' We hiked up into the nearby beautiful mountains and stayed at a refuge near the top, which happened to be swarming with climbers for a climbing competition the next day. We hiked down the following day and enjoyed a spectacular view and some very close flying condors. The three of them agreed to come North with me to Mendoza where an Argentinian guy named Hans had agreed to let us stay at his unfinished farm house.
Mendoza was great. It is the wine capital of Argentina and we rented bikes in order to tour multiple wineries and a chocolate/liquor making factory. At the farm we played cricket (epic game in the pouring rain that ended in a victory for Hans and Joe), made pasta from scratch, fired a big, scary gun, went swimming in the lake, and generally had an spectacular time. Then, it was time for me to go home.
Hans and his wonderful girlfriend drove us to the bus station, naturally at the very last possible second, and we rode to the main bus station. I said my goodbyes to Jess, Joe, and Brian and sat down in an internet cafe to kill 15 minutes before my bus for Santiago left. To make a long story short, after 5 minutes I felt a tap on my shoulder. The girl working at the internet cafe asked me if that had been my backpack leaning against the wall there. OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT. It was, of course, gone. I went racing through the streets of Mendoza, not sure what I would do but determined to find the thieves that had taken EVERYTHING. After 15 minutes of desperate running in circles I made my way back to the bus station with nothing but the shirt on my back, a month old magazine, and about $30 in my pocket. The bus company was kind enough to change my ticket from Santiago to Buenos Aires since I had no passport and couldn't get into Chile. My understanding and infinitely patient parents told me not to panic and put me up in a hotel room in Buenos Aires. The US embassy was able to issue me an emergency passport and my parents changed my flight to Buenos Aires. On the 25th of February, after over 5 months of life changing travel in South America, I boarded a plane with nothing but the clothes I'd been wearing for 3 days and a shopping bag with toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant.
The trip was incredible. I'm not going to even try to summarize in a paragraph what it meant to me or how I think it might have changed me but I love talking about it. So, when you see me, ask me questions. Scariest moment? Favorite place? Ask me about the 'coke found on the bus story,' there's more to be said. Ask me about the German youth hostel on wheels in Chile, the would-be-piranha-buffet in Ecuador, or teaching Sergi to throw a forehand in a warm, Peruvian river. Too much, too much.