Claromeco, Argentina
Saturday, January 31, 2009
After 18 hours and 3 different buses we arrived in the little beach town of Claromeco. Through e-mail we had been introduced to the head of Polish Girl guides in Argentina and she said they were in a little forest by this town, and if we ask at the local gas station they would know where it is. The time was roughly 8 pm when we got into town, and there was no sign of the gas station. We asked for the forest and got a little map that showed forest on the outskirts of town. We walked down the sandy roads with tons of funky little dune buggies around and more stray dogs that you can shake a stick at. As we left the city limits (its getting late, the sun is setting, we are exhausted from now 20 hours of travel, and have NO clue where we are going) there was a small gate house to the entrance to the park/forest. We asked the ranger about scoutos polacos (that was the instructions we got). He looked at us like we were speaking Swahili. Might as well have busted out a Mambo Jumbo at him. Fortunately there was another guy in the booth who seemed to recognize part of what we were saying
. They mostly explained where we were to head and we on our way into the forest. After about 20 minutes, we saw some tents a small sign that said Scoutos Polacos. We walked in to the camp and were welcomed by Basia, the aforementioned head of Polish Girl Guides in Argentina.
We spent the next 3 days with the scouts, learning their ways and sharing some of our experiences.
The weather was great and we spent some time on the beach and in the town and generally helping out as best as we could. On Saturday we folded up camp and boarded a bus with the rest of the scouts and head to Buenos Aires.
