La Estancia clubhouse

El lechero más famoso

Héctor Andrés “Gallo” Capuzzelo, the most famous milkman in south Salta province

a poem about houses

The House

Mud put
upon mud,
lifted to make room,

house
a cave,
and
colder night.

To sleep
in, live in,
to come in
from heat,

all form derived
from kind,
built
with that in mind.

                              Robert Creeley

weather

Make a habit of Cafayate weather.

stained glass

Nadia Khan creates custom stained glass and furniture. You may have seen her work at Restaurant Colorado in Cafayate. She was first introduced to the art of stained glass while studying sustainable building techniques and fine woodworking at Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont. Her studio is located 15 minutes north of Salta. Visit Nadia's website to read about her process see more samples of her work. Visit April's blog, Living in Cafayate, for more about Nadia's works of art.

Audi R8 on Nat Geo

Voltage transformer

This transformer is a way to power the 110 volt electrical items you bring to Cafayate.

Hector Cruz

Hector Cruz is a stone sculptor who has created a courtyard, museum, and gallery complex 18 kilometers from the Quilmes ruins. Visit his Museo Pachamama website, and if you don't read Spanish, click on the site's links anyway for beautiful photos.

Condor Valley

Condor Valley: La Bodega and an adjoining ranch, El Tipal, lie in the shadow of the 10,300 foot Mt. Creston six miles of the Juramento River and make up a long term conservation stewardship of 70,000 acres known as Condor Valley.

Diaquita

Diaguita: a foundation concerned with the preservation of Diaguita culture and history

on the road to Tucumán

Loros & a Zorro

Parrots on wire, on wing
above a ginger fox

— a calico ginger
the feathered ears & eyes
so like a cat —

at the side of the road

ears & eyes & nose
even motionless feathers
sensing all that moves

whiskers, a black
nose & white-tipped
snout, surrounded by
a dozen shades of ginger.

White-tipped black
feathers spell gray.

What if every prey

colored its killer — mouse
& mole & careless parrot
& caterpillar & lizard

& bumblebee that stings
the lips when swallowed.

What sweet & sour
stingingest, numbingest flavor

would we tongue & swallow?

birds

580 species of birds have been spotted in Argentina's Salta province, including the ubiquitous Southern Crested-caracara (Polyborus plancus), which is as common in our neighborhood-to-be as are boat-tailed grackles in our Charleston backyard. Here, photo by Morti Riuuallon, are an adult and a juvenile.

These birds are carrion eaters. Here's my shot of an adult caracara picking at a dead toad while two juveniles look on. (Not enough zoom to satisfy me, but because some baggage handler or security guy boosted my camera somewhere between Salta and Buenos Aires, I'm getting a new camera, a Nikon P100 with 26x optical zoom.)

The bird didn't like our interference so he took his toad and left.

our Charleston house

is for sale, interested?

native plants

photos by Morti Riuuallon
someday some of these may grow in my Cafayate garden
my current favorite

Charleston

Our realtors dropped by this morning to take us through the paperwork required to put our Charleston house on the market. They shot pictures and reminded us to hide most of what shows that we live here. By noon the contract was signed and the for sale sign planted in the front yard. By mid-afternoon the listing was live on MLS.

Oddly enough, midway through getting the house listed, a minivan pulled into the driveway, a woman stepped out and approached the house. I walked out to say hello. She said, "You have a lovely house," and pointed to the for sale sign on the vacant lot next door and asked whether our house was for sale. I said yes and sent a realtor out to talk to her. Minutes later, the realtor and the woman and her husband toured the house. This was before the contract was even signed.

If I were superstitious, and I am, I would take this as a good omen. It is a lovely house. And a lovely yard, a splendid view, a particularly lovely new shower and sauna. The peach and cherry trees are flowering pink, and the 20-some azaleas are about to join them.

Ferrari Superamerica, Bethesda, MD

Cala house design

This is the baseline plan of the 2100 sq ft, 2 bedroom, 1-1/2 bath house we're going to have built. Baseline means that we've asked for numerous changes -- flip the house 180 degrees so that bedroom is on the left and the garage on the right, simplify the upstairs roof line, enlarge the master bath, delete the home office, reduce and relocate the wine storage, remove dividers between the kitchen and great room, enclose the garage, delete the veranda between the garage and house, add windows upstairs, add a veranda between the kitchen and great room, etc.

Below, for those of you who don't mind mirrored text, is the horizontally flipped floor plan.

heard on the street

traffic laws are only suggestions

yield to the faster car or the bigger cojones

meat is so expensive, people are having to buy chicken and fish

dancing starts at 1 AM, but my friends and I don't arrive until 3

Casey's project

I had been following Doug Casey's Argentina property development for a couple of years, but never felt the urgency to get involved in a new project just getting off the ground. The grand opening was in November, 2009 and the main club house was completed.

On a weekly basis there is an email published that is a conversation between Doug Casey and one of his investment newsletter authors. In February there was an extensive conversation about Argentina that included news of a wine harvest celebration at the Casey Argentina property in March. On February 10th I asked for additional information about the harvest celebration and after getting an introductory email the following day I began discussions with Carol about checking it out. Once we realized this could be our next big adventure we began the investigation.

Why not Argentina?

Two months ago I was sitting in my chair in Hawaii when Mike said, "Would you ever consider living in Argentina?"

"Sure," I said. "Why Argentina?"

"You know I'm always trying to diversify our assets, and this looks like a good opportunity."

And so the conversation began. Mike began researching, and I went back to my reading.

I was curious but not particularly. We've had these conversations about moving elsewhere since our early days together. We've considered (and in most cases visited) the Oregon coast, Costa Rica, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Panama, New Zealand, Mexico, and Nicaragua. In 1996 we made our first move, to Hakalau, Hawaii, where we lived full-time for eight years and currently spend four months of each year.

Why we do this isn't an easy question to answer.

Maybe it's because we started moving early in life. Before we met, Mike lived in Washington, Germany, Oregon, and California; I lived in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, at least eight different towns/cities in Massachusetts, Switzerland, Greece, and California. Together we've lived in California, Hawaii, and both Carolinas.

Now we're planning our next move. We've traveled to Argentina, bought a lot, begun the house design and building process, and hope to move in the second half of 2011.