New Year's Eve

To finish the New Year's Eve story, I need to describe couchsurfing.com.  It's a social networking site that helps groups connect in person, and the Buenos Aires chapter is the third most active in the world, with over 3000 members.  Basicially travelers and locals post messages offering a couch to crash on or an idea with something to do, and others sign up.  So right before NYE, someone proposed going camping, and within 48 hours 28 people signed up.  Gotta love the internet.

I made it to the train station on time (in fact, we waited for a while for the rest of the group), took the train to Tigre, some of us went to the supermercado to get supplies (largely of the liquid variety).  I arranged to get beer and wine, since Anna and Eric had picked up meat for me to contribute to the "asado" (BBQ, but calling an Argentinian asado a barbeque is like calling the Grand Caynon a ditch.   Okay, that's an exaggeration, but an asado here involves LOTS of meat and fire, and is pretty awesome)

Couchsurfing folks are very nice.  Roughly half were visitors, all the Spanish-speakers spoke English fairly well, so communication was easy.  And beer and wine and whiskey was flowing, making things even easier.

Not surprisingly, the group is young.  Very young. Young enough where sleeping on couches or the ground or a bench or a bus seat isn't a big deal.  Alas, I am old and finicky and a light sleeper, so when we arrived and I saw there was a hostel next to the campsite, I got a room.  Room prices are per person, but everyone else from the group was prepared to camp, so I ended up in a room solo (perfect).

The party started about 5, I chatted with almost everybody, played a bit of frisbee, chopped some veggies, moved some tables and benches (the easy stuff) while someone, not sure who, prepared this awesome asado.  So from 5 until just before midnight it was non-stop chat, eat, drink.  Lovely.

At midnight we went down to the river, some folks swam (it was on the chilly side, so not me), some played guitar (I played the one song I still know, American Pie), and more chatting and singing.  At this point it was fairly dark, we wandered back to the campsite and around 1:30 I gratefully retreated to my room.

The next morning, I woke up early, around 7, and looked out at the campsite (I need to post some photos of what I saw).  Overnight, the campsite had turned into a marsh, almost into a lake.  It hadn't rained, but the river rose, and with it the groundwater.  Most people had already moved their tents once, sleeping bags were soaked, people were sleeping whereever they could find a dry patch, it was quite a sight.

The 18 pesos ($6) I spent on my room was possibly the best purchase of my entire life.  

Seriously, it would have been a major downer for me to wake up in a puddle, but most people seemed to take it in stride.  They used my favorite line "This will make a good story".  In this case, I get to tell the story without having lived through it.

I left on the early side, and I figured with the wet ground there wasn't going to be much frisbee or futbol and I was already up, while many people were still asleep (I heard most people went to bed between 4:30 and 6, which is actually pretty normal for a Argentinian party).

I hope to connect with some of the couchsurfing folks again, a really nice, welcoming group of people.