Lessons learned....in spanish class (by sarah)

We just finished up a week of spanish lessons in Mendoza, Argentina. The class consisted of only myself, Jason and Janet. If any of you have taken a foreign language class, you know that there is alot of question-answer type excercises for practice. It doesn´t matter what you say, just how you say it. This made for a lot of very humerous moments in class. Well, for us it was humorous, I think our teachers thought we were nuts. I don´t know why some things are so funny in a foreign language, but they are. Some highlights:
Janet listing her hobbies as sleeping, reading, and talking to her cat.
Jason finishing most of his sentences with "...when I am drunk."
In an informational session on the first day of class, I accidently said that I have two daughters (not nieces) that live in Michigan. The next day when I corrected my mistake, our teacher was glad to know that I hadn´t left two toddlers in the States for six months while I travel with my amigos.
In a "Have you ever..." excercise using verbs the teacher wrote on the board and then we would ask her questions using this tense, Janet asked our very proper teacher "Have you ever, uh, smoked marijuana?" Yes, she actually asked the teacher if she had ever smoked pot. Good use of the verb Fumar, Janet!
I´m pretty sure both of our teachers would go home at night and tell stories of their crazy american students.
So it was with new confidence we left the city and headed south for Patagonia. One quick 20 hour bus ride and we were in the Lakes District in the city of Bariloche. It is situated on a lake and surrounded by snow capped mountains. Our second day there we hiked up to a Argentine High Camp called Frey. It was a set up very similar to what the three of us had worked at in Yosemite all summer, so we felt right at home. A 10km hike up to 1700m and it was beautiful! Jason and I set up a tent and Janet rented a bed inside for the night. The weather was less than perfect, with the wind blowing the snow horizontally at us and then rain and more snow, but nothing we couldn´t endure. The rain the next morning kept us from staying longer, so we headed back into Bariloche. This high camp, or refugio as they call them here, is the first on a five-camp loop. We wanted to do a five day excursion and visit all of them, but there is too much snow right now and you can only go if you have a guide. So....
This morning Team Mexico disbanded for the final time, as Janet stayed behind in Bariloche and Jason and I headed south to the tiny hippie mountain town of El Bolson. We found a place to camp and are looking forward to doing some great hiking and backpacking in the area. From here on out it´s Patagonia...which means lots of mountains and lakes and glaciers and camping. Just like home!!