Farming Community

Here are pictures of all the neighboring homes that sit on beautiful farms along the street winding upward toward El Bolson.  Hiking along the ridgeline, attending a 'Luna Llena' festival just downriver on Melanie's farm/campsite, getting lost...that is how these photos ended up on my camera.

This house is on the farm just up the hill from us.  It belongs to Jorge and Paulina and their 8 children.  They take care of the horses, chickens and cows for Ellie and Mark.  

I was hiking and met these 3 on the trail...

I was walking back to the house after visiting the baby lambs, and Jorge and 2 of his sons were leading Molly (the sick cow who is now up and walking!) down the hill.  Jorge asked me if I would take their picture.  My heart almost burst.

This is a sign for all of the refugios in the area...usually small homes  scattered along the tops of the nearby mountains.  Usually one or two people live there and they take in hikers for the night.  

This is Melanie's house, the closest neighbor to La Confluencia.  She is around my age, lives alone on the farm.  There is a big campsite on her property.  She invited all of us to come to her 'Luna Llena' party...a fiesta under a full moon.  We arrived around dusk and walked to the rocky banks of the Rio Blanco behind her house.  People were sitting around in circles, talking, laughing, passing around food, naked kids were everywhere, hopping along the rocks and splashing in the river.  It seemed to be an intimate gathering of a family of friends.  They were all dressed up like hippy clowns.  

Melanie's dog on their campsite

How many butts can you count in this picture?

The day after the full moon, the moon disappeared from the sky and the stars were more brilliant than I've ever seen.  The sky so vast, so grand above us, so dark.  The Milky Way twinkling with stars made a long streak across the sky.  It was a calm night, with a book and a fire after admiring our cielo.Nature just seems to swallow us here; we are constantly working with our hands in the soil of the earth, creating a sustainable world for plants and people, under all the weather that comes our way, surrounded by a dramatic landscape.  It's beautiful here..more beautiful than when I first arrived because I feel more connected to it, closer.  As I dazed off into the stars last night, I continued to think about what I will take from this place when I leave.  This place will, of course, continue on without me, maybe with a few of my fingerprints, but what imprint will it leave on me?  So far I've come to 4 things...adaptation, exploration, nature and patience.