Aventuras de las Primas: Parte Tres

Ahhh, horseback riding. It always seems like an inspired idea-- fresh air, exhilaration, exploring that unspoken connection between animal and man...until you remember that you are not athletic and awake the next day whining that, "My everything hurts." Fortunately, in Mendoza, there's a hotspring for that!



The Andes giveth, the Andes taketh away


We spent our last day in Mendoza recuperating at Termas Cacheuta- a spa fed by natural hotsprings in the foothills. Because it's quite small, only a certain number of people can visit each day, and we secured the last two spots. We took full advantage of our good fortune by:




 Soaking in the pools





Basking in the sunshine




Trying out all the features




And sampling the entire lunch buffet




The therapeutic mud at the spring supposedly contains minerals to restore your skin and hair, so we took no chances and plastered ourselves head to toe.










We soon noticed that all the other young women there were daintily smearing their bodies with thin, delicate layers of mud, primarily on the chest and legs. To which Jen and I responded in a ladylike fashion by flinging huge clumps of it into one another's hair.


Eventually, we had to clean off and head to the tiny Mendoza airport to catch our flight back to Bs As. On the flight home, it suddenly hit me that not only was an amazing vacation coming to an end, but I had to start my goodbyes to the life I had built here.

As a child, I celebrated all my birthdays at Jen's house. My grandpa's birthday is two days before mine, our cousin Nikki's the day after, so it was always more like an August birthday family extravaganza. It seemed only fitting that my last day in Argentina with my cousin was, in fact, my 28th birthday.

Jen treated me to a last night out on the town and bought tickets to a ritzy tango show.


Huge, swanky theater downtown



Complete with a three course dinner and wine.



We were invited to take a tango lesson before the show, which I think was mostly to make us appreciate how hard it is to not fall on your face when kicking in heels.









The next day, Elsa saw us off with a surprise birthday lunch.





I kept coming back for more hugs as Elsa promised I could return any time. Just months before we had been complete strangers living in the same space, barely able to communicate-- yet now here we were, clinging to one another and trying not to totally lose it as we packed up the taxi. And then, I was heading home.




Jen told the crew it was my birthday and the captain came over the intercom and announced it to the entire plane. I did the whole, '"Oh, stop-- I'm so embarrassed!" while secretly loving it' thing.
My cousin gripped my hand as we took off-- mostly because she's terrified of flying, but at least in part because she saw the tears I was trying to hold back begin to slip down my cheeks. "Go ahead and cry, it's okay," she whispered and then focused on trying to squeeze my fingers off as the wheels went up.


My life in Buenos Aires had been such a series of ups and downs-- from the total suckiness of being mugged to the joy when my students helped me realize that I want to teach for the rest of my life. From those days where I was so anonymous that people looked right through me, to the comfort of being recognized in a city of 17 million. I had yo-yoed from screaming with impatience at the fact that banks are open at the most inconvenient hours and there is a street-blocking protest every other minute, to pausing to savor the pace of a city so vibrant, with so many stories to uncover, that I wanted to walk its streets, watch its people and be in awe of it forever.

I was ready to go home, but a part of me felt that I was also leaving it.



Love from,


Kerk