Mar Del Plata

So the trip started on October 19th. The sun was pounding down on the little city of Catamarca as about 200 kids all of either volleyball, basketball, soccer, and handball, etc. baked in their matching `Government of Catamarca` sweat suits waiting to load up in the assigned micro (coach bus). I was with the girls basketball and handball teams which was promising because I like the basketball girls and had no idea what kind of hell the handball girls would be during this voyage. The reason I use `voyage` instead of the word `trip` is because a) the distance between Catamarca and Mar Del Plata is km, which translates into mi b) all of that distance is translated into 20 hours of travelling, sorry- voyaging, ...in a bus...with the handball team (who insist that they sound just like the popstar they happen to be playing from their cell phones right behind my head for about 15 of the 24 hours). oh, and a micro broke down so it was really 24.

The most important thing is that we got there in one piece, the majority in one smelly unshowered piece- especially the boys. The hotel situation was crazy, my host brother had to organize it all and it turned out that there weren`t enough rooms so he had to go to another hotel. At first I was a little disappointed I wouldn`t be in the same hotel as him because I didn`t know anybody in the begining of the voyage. The thing is that it turned out better for me, since he and my host mom (director of sports in Catamarca) were extremely busy there was no time to worry about me. So what did i do without supervision? Anything I wanted, of course. (now they just didn`t abandon me, they just didn`t worry about where i was all the time so i took advantage of it)

The day we got there after showering and stuff i walked to the beach, only four blocks from the hotel, with my new friend Rodrigo. So we went to the beach but it was cold an cloudy. He filmed stuff while i walked around looking for sea shells and whatnot. We walked around looking for empanadas, bought two each and went to the plaza near the beach to eat. Just as we were polishing off emapanada number two there was this kinda fat lady standing accross from us and as she went to sit down she let out this enormous fart. All of my previous thoughts of big farts were slapped in the face with this one, auctually im surprised my cubs cap didn`t blow off. The best part was when Rodrigo sat with disbelief and just said `Incredible!`. It was helarious- i don`t care if you think i`m immature.So we got back to the hotel and walked around the city and whatnot with the rest of the group.

Other highlights from the voyage were:

I really got to know more people from Catamarca especially the basketball girls (my new basketball team) and the coaches. Now i feel better about being in Catamarca. Also I think i`ll auctually go to school tomorrow- i now have a little more motivation to make friends.

I love the independance i had. In Catamarca i always ask to go out and tell them when I`m coming back- also i always get rides... which is nice i guess but i don`t like it, i feel too dependent and afraid to ask to go out because i`ll inconvience them. With this independance I got to go out friday night with some younger coaches. The basketball players couldn`t go out (suckers) but i still had a good time. We left around midnight and walked around the whole city. Around six we walked to the beach and all watched the sunrise. It was so cool. I`m sad i didn`t bring my camera but i didn`t want it ripped off of me.

Otherwise the rest of the time was spent at the beach, writing in my journal, or going to basketball games. The U-14 basketball girls placed 14th out of 24 in the country. Not bad considering that Catamarca has only had girls basketball for about a year. Also the girls U-16 placed 8th. pretty exciting.