We arrived in the dead of night at the farm in Urdinarrain, tired and dazed, so our first thoughts of the place couldn't really be described.  The initial look of the large communal eating and sitting area looked amazing though and we were happy to have a room inside the house (albeit the kids and I scored a double bed while Lorne drew the short straw and got the air bed on the floor!).  

It wasn't until morning that we could gauge our surroundings.  The house sat on a plot of land that then had a 360 degree continuation of large, flat land, rolled out as far as the horizon, which even then, only had trees dotted across it to break it up. Whichever way you looked, flat, green land and cows were all your eyes could see. 

It was a sight to be seen, but also a sight I could grow very tired of.  I prefer my mountains, or even hills, and thick luscious forests to break up my view. 

It was a view that could make a man go crazy and I'm pretty sure our host had an abundance of craziness tucked away in the back of his head. 

The farm of animals we had been promised in his profile were reduced to a single cow, a cat and a couple of horses on the verge of going wild, as the host couldn't ride them anymore due to an injured knee. 

I could try to romanticise our host - a lone, rough, cowboy from days of old, not yet adjusted to the present day way of life. But alas, he wasn't even fit for that picture.  He was lonely, yes, but his loneliness was born out of his own misogynistic attitude, which trickled through with every belittling comment he made to the younger girls there, who were too young, weak and embarrassed to react. 

He also failed as a leader, preferring instead to bellow orders to these kids, who quite frankly, struggled to boil a pan of water, let alone carry out the absurd tasks he was insisting they do, but he would never show how. 

He would appear to disregard mine and Lorne's ideas, then two days later, regurgitate them, passing them off as his own wonderful concepts, which helped us to understand and play him to a certain degree. 

Was he an evil man though? No of course not.  He relished in the idea of our two kids playing around the house, plying them with chocolate biscuits and telling them hilarious stories.  He cooked milanesas more than once, because he saw it was the only dish the kids would devour.  He questioned everyone about their country's political, health and education set up.  He took us all into town on Saturday night to watch the German Octoberfest (I know, we're in Argentina, it's a long story!) He invited people into his home, even though he didn't really look like he enjoyed it.  And he used English as the only language to be spoken in the house so that no one felt left out.  

He also never really took me on.  Whether I was too old, married to flirt and belittle I don't know.  I kept myself busy with the kids, sweeping, cleaning, making plant pots out of old plastic bottles, weeding and trying out my previous permaculture teachings by trying to rescue some poorly trees that had previously been planted by workawayers. 

We had planned to stay for two weeks but the opportunity to leave a week earlier arose and we took it.  We could have stayed longer, but the reality was, we weren't happy, we were just surviving.  At the end of the day, we're here to enjoy ourselves.  And yes, we won't always get on with people we stay with, but that's the beauty of travelling, you just get up and move on, you look forwards, not back, and the excited trepidation of what's around the corner comes flooding back and that wave carries you along, shaking off any moss threatening to stick, and you stay light and happy and that's what counts.