Out of the City Fast and Shitty

Over the first weekend after classes began at UCA a few of us joined about 120 or so students from all the UCA campuses around the country for "UCA Week" - four days in Uspallata, a small town a couple hours outside of the city of Mendoza in the foothills of the Andes.

We spent a lot of time getting to know everyone. It was a much needed opportunity to finally get to know some Argentine students (a surprisingly difficult feat in a country whose population is, in fact, nearly 100% Argentine). Nate, Ian, our friend Joe (Pepe) from New Zealand, and I were the only international students on the whole trip, so we got to be the awkward, goofy exchange students who everyone gets a kick out of.

Our first full day there on Sunday we hiked a small mountain in an area that looked EXACTLY like Arizona, but was surrounded by huge snowcapped mountains. Monday we drove through the aforementioned large mountains until we reached Cerro Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas and the second most prominent in the world next to Mt. Everest.

Tuesday we did some volunteer work at a few local schools and then spent a couple hours in the city of Mendoza, which is beautiful. Also, during the trip we had staid in a military training camp and I participated in an Argentine military march/band performance. It was a great trip.