Echo-Village!

The trips I've taken outside the city are beginning to have a common theme: OUTSIDE. 

I've never considered myself an "outdoorsy" person, but this has changed once I realized how much it sucks to not have immediate access to nature. I'm looking forward to honing some outdoor competency when I get back to Colorado. I want my friends to impart on me the knowledge I blew off growing up because I'm finally ready!!!

Anyway. I made a trip up to Tigre, an area an hour north of Buenos Aires where a river delta divides a number of islands in which many retirees have beautiful properties. It's kind of got the Bayou culture going on. Actually, it reminded me of a river version of the Adirondacks. 

I met Leo Jara a few days after I'd arrived from a friend of a friend of a friend. He had just started this project called Echo-Village and is now in the process of turning it into an NGO. This is the basic premise: create a incredibly cheap, environmentally and economically sustainable model of alternative living for the families all over the world facing the current social, economic, and climate crisis. 

It has begun with the small property in Tigre where Leo built a small one room cabin with his one two hands for next to nothing. It's a very basic building.

 He hopes to create a number of these small cabins to fit families on the property and eventually take the model to different parts of the world and adapt it to the different social and ecological situations. Right now it's a bit of a destination for young backpacker type tourists who find out about it through couch surfers. Hopefully it will gain enough to traction to become a destination for students who want to study ecological and sustainability issues and gain credit and others who are serious about the movement. 

My trip had the simple objective of checking out the scene, contributing a little manpower to a day project, and basking in the glorious early fall river town weather! I was joined by my friend Kevin from the program and a couple of American expats who teach English in the city. We ended up having our way with a couple machetes to clear some land. 

Here is Leo gettin' the job done. 

The river is actually very clean, there is just A LOT of silt. I forgot a bathing suit so I swam in a tshirt and canvas workpants. It was quite the work out. Amazing though, I haven't been swimming in ages. 

Here is Jessica with the homemade pizza that was cooked in a homemade mud oven! 

YOGA on the riverbank!!!!

Photo Credit: Jessica Cartwright