Last days of Salento!

Later Thursday afternoon, I walked down the road to a hostal run by some artisans where I had heard there was a guitar lying around. I was greeted by a sweet woman with dreds named Carol, who told me a bit about her artwork and then led me to the back where I met another Argentine from Cordoba, Matias. We spent the next couple of hours chatting and I played him some music, which he insisted would have to accompany him on his journey south back home. How would deny that request from this adorable, dark skinned Argentine??? I returned the next night down to Yambolombia, the hostal where Matias was volunteering and with a couple other traveler there, we started a lovely bonfire and sat around singing and talking for the evening. When the night was over, I invited Matias and another friend, Luciano, to walk me home and eat some of the leftovers of humus and curry. Matias went crazy for the humus, eating it by the spoonful! And on that walk, they posed to me the idea of buying some motorcycles in Quito, Ecuador, and riding south to Argentina from there! At first, I took the invitation very sarcastically, with a very unsure maybe, visualizing myself riding on a motorcycle through south America…I figured it impossible. But, I continued to think about it, and after getting of a skype call with Fanni Farago, I was convinced I should take advantage of the opportunity to ride through South America with two males, one of which can take apart and put back together a motorcycle! Saturday was the lovely day of Love and Friendship, so Sarah and I went in to buy ourselves some friendship bracelets J, and of course some gifts for everyone else. Sunday, some volunteers that would take the job of Sarah and mine´s, which we were doing a pretty lousy job at…decided to try and cook an asado, or a big bar-b-q, for any of the travelers who wanted. Well it ended up at 20…and it was raining, which made our asado a bit of a challenge in the end, but everyone enjoyed it! By this time, Sarah and I were pretty set on leaving by Tuesday at the latest, so Monday, I told Horacio, the ranchhand who lives at La Serrana, to wake me up to milk the cows at 4:30 AM!!! I ended up regretting not getting up to do it every day, not only because Horacio is a really amazing soul, but because it was beautiful to watch the sunrise and have a fresh glass of warm milk in the morning that came from my working hands! Later that day, Matias, Luciano, his girlfriend, and I took a hike down to a beautiful spot on the river and relaxed until just before sunset. I told Matias about milking the cows, and he couldn´t wait to do it so he promised me he´d be there Tuesday morning to join me. Along with him, a couple of my kind, portenos (from Buenos Aires, hehe) showed up as well. That was nice because I was able to say farewell after our few days of friendship and they were actually the ones traveling with the guitar that I was playing. Afterwards, Sarah and I packed our bags and headed to town to catch the bus out, which almost headed off with our bags and without us as we sat in the plaza talking to Luciano!