Hola

I've been pretty busy this week. I moved into my boss's (Annie's) house earlier this week. It's a little awkward sharing a small house with her and her husband and 3 month old baby, but it'll do for now. It's kind of a drag not to have all my stuff in one place. The other bad part is that its about a 20 minute walk away from CIES. The other night I walked alone in the dark along the train tracks in the middle of the forest to her house, and it was probably the scariest walk of my life. And in the mornings if I work the morning shift, I also have to walk in the dark along the tracks. I just listen to my ipod and try not to think about the lurking jaguars and pumas. Now she has a couple bikes which I'll take out tomorrow morning.

We've also had a couple of asados. One was at Annie's house, which was a very relaxing atmosphere. They cooked the usual assortment of meat on an open fire beside the road, accompanied by salad and lots of bread and wine. (Everyone here is getting used to my massive bread infatuation and consumption). Then Johnny, Annie's husband, played the guitar and sang some Argentinean songs. Then we had one at CIES as a going away party for the leaving field assisstants. They are a really fun group of people and I wish they were staying for a while because we got along really well. Again mass assumption of meat, bread, and wine ensued. We also went out to dinner last night in town at this outdoor stand/restaurant. We ate lots of empenadas which are usually corn and cheese baked in a dough shell-type thing. My favorite, to no surprise, are the ones filled with onions. The beer here is not too great, because they concentrate on wine. One brand tastes like watered down beer, one is a sweet stout, and one from Patagonia is actually pretty good.

This morning we set out to follow the monkey group but around 9:30am we lost track of where they went. This group is apparently really quiet so following them can be difficult. We spent a few hours spreading out on the various trails but to no avail, so we came in early. The afternoon group gets to go out later than usual because it would be a waste of their afternoon wandering aimlessly looking for them. Instead they'll hopefully find them as the monkeys head to bed. Since we all had most of the day off we took the little train here to the Garganta del Diablo, the huuuuuuge waterfall that is part of the Iguazu Falls. The thing was absolutely amazing, a beast of nature. It definitely is up there with Victoria Falls. I can't quite decide which I like better yet. It's hard to describe, but it was awesome. I plan on going back on Tuesday, my day off, and taking lots of pictures of the falls and posting them. I promise pictures are coming soon! We actually just found out that the park has wireless, and the signal is sometimes not too bad around here in the hammocks (where I am now), so that should help out a lot. Yesterday I went to town with Boi, from Spain also a new assisstant, and we walked to the Tres Fronteras, where you can see Brazil and Paraguay, and below the two rivers merge. Each country has a flag that you can see from the other two and lookout points. Sadly, I didn't have my camera but I'm sure I'll go back soon. I'll definitely add some pictures on my day off this week...