HUNG

I love riding horses. I like to think that they like me just as much.
The afternoon spent horse riding by the Andes is the highlight of my travels, so far.
I had little expectations: I heard many stories of travellers who pay to ride a horse and they are then presented with a donkey. To be honest, the scenary was so breathtaking that I would have been happy to ride a Great Dane. But I did get a real horse!
The trainer began with the introductions (Fede, this is the horse. Horse, this is Fede) and explained us all that with horses, you have to be firm. Decisive. They need to know who's the boss. I have been dealing with plenty of animals in my life, (especially at clubs and bars) and being firm and assertive has never been a problem. However....I might have taken this advice a little too literally. I kicked the horse with my heals with the innocent intention to show him who's the Boss (Me!Me!) and off he went....my first, natural thought was how to explain my mum that I had broken several bones after falling from a horse (not a donkey). But I did not fall! I was born to ride horses. I'm the new John Wayne.

Galopping is dead easy: the horse goes 100 mph and you just pray not to be killed. Some people don't pray, they just shit themselves. I prayed. It's cleaner.
Trotting is bloody hard. Hop! Hop! Hop! And you feel all the internal organs hopping up and down into your body. I felt my Fallopian tubes hopping all the way up into my throat.
After 2 hours of strolling, trotting, galopping and tits-slapping, we stopped for dinner. Not much point in asking "what's for dinner tonight, dear?", as the answer is pretty much the same: "cow". "we shall be eating cow".
The day after horse riding I discovered with surprise that we have several muscles aound the groin area. I know because every single one of them hurts like hell. I think I might sue my horse.

My Spanish is improving, but very slowly. I'm still confused between the Spanish I learned in Spain, the one I learned in Central America and the one spoken in Argentina.
I have been asking (countless) waiters to give me a "vaso de vino tinto", thinking I was ordering a glass of red, but strictly speaking, in Argentina vaso is "vase". So I've been asking waiters for "vases of red wine". No wonder I'm always shit-faced!
So I went with my friend to a language school, to enquiry about a Spanish course. Prices are way too high so I did not enroll. I did, however, took part to what they call "language exchange". Basically I got squeezed in a crammed room, with a tiny window (closed) and a big radiator (on) surrounded by other sweaty foreigners.
 Spanish was spoken for the first hour or so, then English. I cheated a little and spoke Italian, just to go against the rules and make things a little more challenging. To be honest, the scenario was a little awkward: basically I was pushed to speak a language I'm not familiar with, to sweaty people I have not met before, in a room that looked like a cell. I loved it. There is something fascinating in every awkward situation.

20 minutes into the session, the teacher (who wasn't teaching, was just pushing people to speak a foreign language) took some weed out of a bag, loaded a tiny pot, poured water into the pot and passed this kind of pipe to everyone in the circle. " WE ARE GETTING HIGH!!!", I thought. Now we're talking.(in fact, now we can start talking in any language you want me to). But what I tasted did not make me high, it made me pee. It was Mata, the traditional tea. It's packed with goodness, they say. But it's not as nice as weed, I add.

I briefly chatted to an English girl, here at the hostel. She has the cutest tattoo ever. It's just a circle, with a dot in it and all around it it's written "porque no?" (why not?). It inspired me. It really is what life is all about, in my eyes. Why not? So after I spoke to her I decided I'm going to see what's across the boarder. Tomorrow I'm heading to Chile. Why not?