April 2014

After two weeks of red meat and red wine Jordan and I figured a little detox would be fun. We signed up to ‘volunteer’ at a yoga center north of Buenos Aires for a couple days. The Eco-Yoga Park was a beautiful place and we met some incredible people, but the farm work was actually extremely exhausting. The hard work combined with the fact that we still had to pay $25 per day per person made it not feel like the best value for our efforts.

In a rare instance of our bus travel not working out, Emma and I found ourselves stranded in the town of Lujan on Easter Sunday. The day began normal enough, browsing through the street fare then having lunch in the central square underneath the massive cathedral, but as the sun went down things got a little strange. Following a few incomprehensible announcements over a muffled loudspeaker, we watched as locals took to the stage dressed in colorful outfits while painted in blackface.  Here’s where I don’t even try to interpret what kind of dance went on or why it was performed.  What really caught our attention was a 25-ft tall effigy of Judas that they set aflame in the middle of the crowded street. Confusing, exciting, uncomfortable, it was all these things! But the night ended with a spectacular firework show over the cathedral and we left with the feeling of confidence in knowing that we’ll never experience an Easter celebration like that again!