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The Total Solar Eclipse, Menlo
Jul. 12th, 2019 11:12 pmWe were up early on the Monday after ArFF (1 July), needing to head to Cerrito near the railway station to pick up the car we had hired from Budget. The plan was to get to Argentina's second city of Cordoba, about nine hours away, so we decided to hire the car as early as possible. This turned out to be 8am but due to all of the paperwork involved in hiring the damn thing, we didn't actually leave the parking lot until 9:15am, by which time our friends were waiting. We had arranged to go on a road trip with Alf, a Mexican fur who I had met at FURUM in December 2017 and his two friends, Yoshi and Auster, the former being a Japanese fur currently living in Paraguay and the latter being a local Argentinian fur. We hadn't met them before and did speak briefly at the con, but this trip was a real opportunity to get to know them better, which is something of which we took full advantage. Anyway, they spent about fifteen minutes parked up in their grey pick-up truck outside the car rental place waiting for us and once we had gotten out of the car park, he parked up behind them, discussed tactics and soon we were off.
The plan was to get to Cordoba as swiftly as possible down Route 9, which was a shame as I had hoped to swing by the town of Lujan and see their wonderous church. Alas, having lost an hour and a quarter in the rental place and wanting to get to our destination before nightfall, it was largely a romp across the country. To save time, we followed our friends closely, with them paying for us at every tollbooth we passed. Furthermore, we kept the breaks to a minimum, stopping off to grab a breakfast sandwich from a YPF service station once we had gotten out of Buenos Aires and its crazy one-way system and a few other times to fill up with petrol and use the bathroom. Navigating out of the capital proved to be tough, not aided by Auster not quite appreciating the skill needed to ensure another car stays immediately behind you, but once we were out on the motorway, things improved greatly and the ride was reasonably smooth. The journey itself was incredibly dull, with the flat terrain barely changing throughout the nine hours. This area of Argentina, the Pampas, is prime beef and agriculatural land and the featureless plains stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. The road itself was fabulously dull too, meaning that there was a sense of disassociation once we got to Cordoba and we realised we had to deal with the rush hour traffic. This saw us crawl towards the apartment we had booked, aware that the check-in place (which was an estate agents) shut at 7pm and we were cutting it fine. However, we did manage to get there with ten minutes to spare and were soon shown a rather palatial apartment which turned out to be the best accommodation of the entire con. After the Mundial, of course, most places were luxurious, but this was pretty swish. It helped that the apartment complex was a new build and being on the 13th floor meant we had a wonderful view of the city, or at least the main road upon which we were. We were also greeted to a rather nice breakfast of pre-cooked toast, cheeses and preserves in the fridge, which was nice.
We didn't spend too long in the room though as we all fancied some food, so we all met in the main reception area shortly after 7:30pm. We then had a wander out, with Alf wanting to see some sights as he knew this would be the only chance he would get, with the trio heading south-west to Barriloche after they had seen the eclipse the following day. Food was my priority, particularly as our plan was to come back to Cordoba on the Wednesday, but I was more than happy to have a look around too. What I wasn't expecting though was a two and a half hour touring experience as we waited for a few other local furs to show up, before a twenty-five minute walk to a restaurant on the other side of town, which did little to help Wolfie's ankle, which had started to throb on account of an inappropriate driving position. The restaurant turned out that this pizza place was owned by one of the furs and it was nice enough, with Alf suggesting that we should try the lomo. This was the fourth lomo we were to experience in Argentina and the one that tipped me over the edge regarding not wanting to see another one, but it was incredibly nice even if it was more like post-drinking food. The meat was perhaps a little tough, but the egg was cooked perfectly and added a lot of flavour, while my request to have it without tomato was adhered to, meaning I was happy. We also got to try a local beer too and the atmosphere was very convivial, with Wolfie and I largely speaking to Alf and Yoshi for much of the evening. Indeed the conversation oscillated across a wide range of topics, with translation being a rather common theme, and it was great that Wolfie got to meet Alfie for the first time at the same time as I had a rather enjoyable catch-up. We also felt pretty accomplished as we had gotten the opportunity to see a number of sites, including the exquisite Parroquia Sagrado Corazon de Jesus de los Capuchinos, which was stunning illuminated with lights that brought out all of the different colours of the masonry. Built between 1928 and 1934, its missing steeple highlights human imperfection while the Atlas statues struggling to hold up the columns on the portice are another example of this. I've seen a few breathtaking buildings in my life and this was one of them, aided by the fact it just snuck up on us as we were walking down a non-descript street. The streets in Cordoba are weird, with some resembling seventeenth century Spain with its Jesuit architecture and some resembling Bolton town centre with their ramshackle market stalls. In the main square, Plaza San Martin, we noticed a protest so we skirted around the main sights here including the exquisite cathedral but we were able to see them later in the week.
A city at night always has a different feel so it was great to see the vast majority of sights in this context. However, around the Museo Superior de Belles Artes Evita our attention turned to a black and white dog who started to follow us. He was a rather friendly chap and we noticed that he was wearing a collar, with his owner nowhere to be seen. He did seem a little lost so we googled the address and noticed it was only a five minute walk away so after attempting to phone his owner and not getting through, we endeavoured to deliver him home safely. Our attempts lasted about half an hour, partly because we got a little lost and partly because we were a little pre-occupied with pettings, while I found out that the lag time it takes for my phone's camera to focus meant that I could rarely get a good shot of the little guy. In the end, we basically ended up where we had found him, outside the museum with its rather morbid stone statue of a bear clubbing a fish to death with its paw, where the dog refused to follow us any further. He seemed happy getting pettings from the passers-by and we did leave a voicemail on his owner's phone, so we opted to leave him be.
We had something of a lie-in by Argentinian standards on the Tuesday (2 July), but we still had to check out by 10am which is customary. With our trio of friends running a little late on account of Alf being up until 3am doing some freelance translation work, we didn't leave Cordoba until approaching 11am. This was largely fine as our drive was a much shorter four hours to the town of Menlo in San Luis Province. Tuesday was the day of the solar eclipse, with totality set for 17:41 local time. Unfortunately, I had confused this with the time of greatest totality, which was about an hour and a half earlier, which resulted in me panicking and getting a little frustrated about how long we were taking to get to the observation point. I will get to that later though. I was also a little concerned with how busy it would all be, having seen a local news report in the apartment from Menlo talking about the eclipse. Still, that was for later in the day, as we had a rather stunning drive through the rocky craggy peaks of the Sierra de Cordoba to enjoy. This mountain range to the west of Cordoba was stunning, with plenty of opportunities for photographs. Alf in particular was looking for fursuit photos, having taken one in a gas station as we left that morning, and soon we found a roundabout with some road signs which gave us an opportunity. We were only doing partials but it turned out to be quite a dramatic scene, punctuating nicely where we were going and what we were doing. Things got even better at the next stop though, which afforded breathtaking views over the plains to the west of the mountain ridge. We spent a good twenty minutes here taking an array of shots under the watchful eyes of the people who ran the deserted cafe next to the road leading to this place. This area really highlighted the barren dry terrain neatly, a terrain that was so refreshingly different to the acres of fields we had driven through the day before, and the bright sunshine and azure sky really brought out the best of it.
We were a little lucky to have such a wonderful day for the eclipse, what with it being winter, but we had done our research. Poli had told us that the driest place on the path of totality in July was the resort town of Menlo, which is why we decided to spend thirteen hours in total driving here. We could have just gone an hour south of Buenos Aires but this would have been a bad move, as furs there had told me it had been cloudy. We had never seen a total eclipse before, the closest I had been being the 2001 eclipse when I was in Leamington Spa at about 95% totality. As the day wore on then we got increasingly excited about what we were going to see, which was only heightened by our joint decision to do it in fursuit. I hadn't gone into the day anticipating or looking for this, but it did kinda make sense and it also afforded us some truly stunning photos, probably the best we have ever taken in our lives. We also proved to be something of a novelty attraction for the locals, many of whom came to us wanting pictures and selfies.
Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. We spent much of the journey listening to The Bloodhound Gang through my Spotify, arriving in Menlo shortly before 3:30pm. With a little time ahead of the main event. we decided to drop the majority of stuff off at the apartments where we were staying. We did happen to be driving past them, but the reasoning was that the lady who runs the place goes home at 6pm and while we could have gotten access as she had made provision, it was obviously better to get everything done and dusted ahead of then. However, the checking in procedure took slightly longer than anticipated and with me thinking the eclipse was taking place an hour and a half earlier than it actually did, I started to get antsy. This was exascerbated by the long drive into the mountains, which we were told would be seventeen minutes but became almost forty. Part of the problem was we were tailgaiting the trio and didn't know specifically where they were going, with them passing numerous places where we could have stopped and seen the eclipse. There were also police everywhere keeping an eye on things and I feared we may be turned away. As it turned out, they wanted to go to one of the main places to try and pick up some solar glasses and upon discovering they had sold out, we went right to the top of the mountain where there was a small cafe and quite a large number of people gathered. They had run out of glasses too but fortunately I had thought ahead and had brought a pair for Wolfie and I. We were more than happy to share these and they did work wonders, enabling us to see the path of the eclipse clearly without damaging our eyes.
Most of the people were at the edge of a cliff looking down onto the town of Menlo. The plan had been to join them but we had parked on a little ridge and thought that as the main event was in the sky rather than on the ground, we might as well stay where we were. This turned out to be a shrewd move as it was also near the entrance to the car park for the cafe, meaning all of the people arriving and leaving could see us in our suits. Once we had parked up, we donned our fursuits and waited, following the moon trace its path over the sun for a period of about an hour and a half. Of course, as totality approached it started to get incredibly dark and quite cold reasonably quickly, not that we could feel it in a fursuit. I remember something similar happening in Warwickshire eighteen years ago, but this was something else, with the four and a half minute period of complete totality being pure magic. Not even superlatives could describe the etheral atmsophere, with the aura of day becoming night so quickly really touching the soul. We took a few pictures with the eclipse at our backs, listening to the cheers of the locals being replaced by stunned awe. We just kept looking up, huge smiles on our faces, resplendent in the power of nature. We had all seen eclipse photos before but none of them could live up to the majesty of this, with Wolfie admitting he didn't even think the photos were real until he had seen it with his own eyes. And to be here - two Brits, an Argentine, a Japanese and a Mexican - five friends, united through furry seeing this beautiful wonder of nature in togetherness, as friends, uniting countries and cultures, will be a legacy that will remain with me until I die. Seeing the sky, dark where we were but orange on the horizon where the eclipse was not in totality, was another natural wonder.
Sadly the eclipse was over almost as soon as it began, with the sun starting to peak out from the south-west corner as the moon sailed over it. The day started to reappear and the light returned, with my only regret not being on the cliff edge with the others admiring the view. We had some tops of parked cars, but we also had our vantage point all to ourselves and this made it so much more special. We made the right call. We weren't in a rush so we decided to just hang around, knowing that it would take quite a while for all the cars to get down the winding mountain pass. As they left, some people came up to hug us, others honked their horns and we found out that there was someone else there in a wolf costume who was being interviewed on local television. They had set themselves up on the veranda of the cafe but by the time we had gotten over there, they had already packed up the broadcast. This is a shame as it would have been great to have been interviewed by them but it was such a minor thing in the grand scheme of things. We were in the cafe as for some reason we decided to go in fursuit and get something to drink, with hunger also hitting us. I was surprised they let us sit inside in fursuit but they let us, so we deposited our heads on one table and sat down at another, soon enjoying hot chocolate and strawberry tart after our original choices had sold out. Wolfie managed to get onto the over-subscribed WiFi with his computer knowledge and I managed to post a picture of the eclipse on Twitter, with Wolfie and I having a little argument about him perceiving me as demanding. The problem was that I was wearing my full body armour and I couldn't really use my phone - an issue we had when driving up the mountain in the first place as I couldn't communicate on Telegram with our friends so I couldn't find out what the plan was - but it all got resolved in the end.
After the eclipse as we entered the cafe, we also managed to get onto the aforementioned cliff edge as most of the eclipse watchers had gone. This was no doubt partly due to the Brazil v Argentina match in the Copa America semi-finals, whose kick-off was at 9:30pm. Anyway, we were able to watch the sun go down from here, watching it drop slowly beyond the horizon and see the lights of Menlo below become brighter and more twinkly. The twinkles were also quite pronounced once we had left the cafe as the lack of light pollution here meant we could see a large number of stars, in our case for the first ever occasion as we had never been this far south before. All of this prolonged the magic and means the day will stay with me forever.
We cautiously drove down the hill, dodging a rude foxy boy who was staring at us as we headed down, getting back to our apartment around 8pm. These were confined, with our friends nabbing the house and us staying in a place resembling something like a hotel room. It was all very comfortable, but it was bitterly cold, with the temperature in the area touching freezing. There was a gas fire in the room, but it was a situation of being too hot when it was on and too cold when it wasn't, meaning that when we woke up the next morning we were shivering. Still, we had another pre-cooked toast breakfast and the self-contained nature of the complex meant that it was rather peaceful and secluded. I got the impression that there may have only been a couple more rooms occupied so we largely had the place to ourselves, which may explain why we saw two foxes staring at us as soon as we opened the door on the Wednesday morning. The adult fox swiftly darted underneath a sun lounger placed around the pool at the heart of the resort, but the cub was a little more bold, allowing me to get pretty close to him before turning around and walking away. I did manage to get a number of good pictures of him though as he frollicked about and it was a very pleasant way to start the day.
Anyway, I have gotten ahead of myself once again so back to Tuesday evening. Once back in the room, we chilled for a short while, surprised by just how clean I was after a four hour fursuiting experience. Indeed, I wasn't sweaty at all, so we decided to head out for food pretty swifty, all squeezing into the truck to make the five minute drive into the heart of the town. We parked up outside an interesting parrilla that was roasting a full splayed open lamb on an outdoor pit fire. Looking good and fancing Argentinian BBQ, we headed inside, being directed to a table on the first floor. The football match had just kicked off and we somewhat got engrossed in it, even though it was not a positive experience for our host country. In the end Brazil won 2-0, with the first goal in the opening half deflating all of the patrons in the restaurant somewhat. Indeed, you could feel the atmosphere deaden as soon as they had scored, with this turning to despair once the second goal went in. It wasn't as if Argentina were bad - indeed they were probably the best team on the day - but they had a few contentious decisions go against them and being beaten by your biggest rivals is hard to take. I was quite surprised just how passionate they were though, with the waiters in the place all wearing Messi tops and most of the patrons trudging out dejectedly once the game was over. We, meanwhile, sat back and enjoyed the parrilla for four, which was more than enough for the five of us. The wide range of different barbecued meats - from fatty lamb to succulent beef to black sausage - were all tremendous, as every meat dish we tried in the country was. We also got to sample some local craft beer which was nice.
After our meal, we were thinking of heading to a bar but this was our last night with our friends before they headed to Barriloche and we went back to Cordoba, so we swung by a newsagents to get a few beers (which after 10pm needed to be carried around in featureless brown paper bags like they were pornography). We had a look at the nicely lit fountains outside the main casino in town, a joint that was jumping at midnight and was clearly THE place to be, before heading back to the house they had rented in the complex. Here we signed Alf's memory book and chatted for an hour or so, before wishing our friends well and heading back to the room. They had to set off very early the next day so we weren't going to see them, so we expressed our gratitude for their help on this trip and our delight we had spent such a magical thirty-six hours with them. We do hope to share more memories with them again soon.
The plan was to get to Cordoba as swiftly as possible down Route 9, which was a shame as I had hoped to swing by the town of Lujan and see their wonderous church. Alas, having lost an hour and a quarter in the rental place and wanting to get to our destination before nightfall, it was largely a romp across the country. To save time, we followed our friends closely, with them paying for us at every tollbooth we passed. Furthermore, we kept the breaks to a minimum, stopping off to grab a breakfast sandwich from a YPF service station once we had gotten out of Buenos Aires and its crazy one-way system and a few other times to fill up with petrol and use the bathroom. Navigating out of the capital proved to be tough, not aided by Auster not quite appreciating the skill needed to ensure another car stays immediately behind you, but once we were out on the motorway, things improved greatly and the ride was reasonably smooth. The journey itself was incredibly dull, with the flat terrain barely changing throughout the nine hours. This area of Argentina, the Pampas, is prime beef and agriculatural land and the featureless plains stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. The road itself was fabulously dull too, meaning that there was a sense of disassociation once we got to Cordoba and we realised we had to deal with the rush hour traffic. This saw us crawl towards the apartment we had booked, aware that the check-in place (which was an estate agents) shut at 7pm and we were cutting it fine. However, we did manage to get there with ten minutes to spare and were soon shown a rather palatial apartment which turned out to be the best accommodation of the entire con. After the Mundial, of course, most places were luxurious, but this was pretty swish. It helped that the apartment complex was a new build and being on the 13th floor meant we had a wonderful view of the city, or at least the main road upon which we were. We were also greeted to a rather nice breakfast of pre-cooked toast, cheeses and preserves in the fridge, which was nice.
We didn't spend too long in the room though as we all fancied some food, so we all met in the main reception area shortly after 7:30pm. We then had a wander out, with Alf wanting to see some sights as he knew this would be the only chance he would get, with the trio heading south-west to Barriloche after they had seen the eclipse the following day. Food was my priority, particularly as our plan was to come back to Cordoba on the Wednesday, but I was more than happy to have a look around too. What I wasn't expecting though was a two and a half hour touring experience as we waited for a few other local furs to show up, before a twenty-five minute walk to a restaurant on the other side of town, which did little to help Wolfie's ankle, which had started to throb on account of an inappropriate driving position. The restaurant turned out that this pizza place was owned by one of the furs and it was nice enough, with Alf suggesting that we should try the lomo. This was the fourth lomo we were to experience in Argentina and the one that tipped me over the edge regarding not wanting to see another one, but it was incredibly nice even if it was more like post-drinking food. The meat was perhaps a little tough, but the egg was cooked perfectly and added a lot of flavour, while my request to have it without tomato was adhered to, meaning I was happy. We also got to try a local beer too and the atmosphere was very convivial, with Wolfie and I largely speaking to Alf and Yoshi for much of the evening. Indeed the conversation oscillated across a wide range of topics, with translation being a rather common theme, and it was great that Wolfie got to meet Alfie for the first time at the same time as I had a rather enjoyable catch-up. We also felt pretty accomplished as we had gotten the opportunity to see a number of sites, including the exquisite Parroquia Sagrado Corazon de Jesus de los Capuchinos, which was stunning illuminated with lights that brought out all of the different colours of the masonry. Built between 1928 and 1934, its missing steeple highlights human imperfection while the Atlas statues struggling to hold up the columns on the portice are another example of this. I've seen a few breathtaking buildings in my life and this was one of them, aided by the fact it just snuck up on us as we were walking down a non-descript street. The streets in Cordoba are weird, with some resembling seventeenth century Spain with its Jesuit architecture and some resembling Bolton town centre with their ramshackle market stalls. In the main square, Plaza San Martin, we noticed a protest so we skirted around the main sights here including the exquisite cathedral but we were able to see them later in the week.
A city at night always has a different feel so it was great to see the vast majority of sights in this context. However, around the Museo Superior de Belles Artes Evita our attention turned to a black and white dog who started to follow us. He was a rather friendly chap and we noticed that he was wearing a collar, with his owner nowhere to be seen. He did seem a little lost so we googled the address and noticed it was only a five minute walk away so after attempting to phone his owner and not getting through, we endeavoured to deliver him home safely. Our attempts lasted about half an hour, partly because we got a little lost and partly because we were a little pre-occupied with pettings, while I found out that the lag time it takes for my phone's camera to focus meant that I could rarely get a good shot of the little guy. In the end, we basically ended up where we had found him, outside the museum with its rather morbid stone statue of a bear clubbing a fish to death with its paw, where the dog refused to follow us any further. He seemed happy getting pettings from the passers-by and we did leave a voicemail on his owner's phone, so we opted to leave him be.
We had something of a lie-in by Argentinian standards on the Tuesday (2 July), but we still had to check out by 10am which is customary. With our trio of friends running a little late on account of Alf being up until 3am doing some freelance translation work, we didn't leave Cordoba until approaching 11am. This was largely fine as our drive was a much shorter four hours to the town of Menlo in San Luis Province. Tuesday was the day of the solar eclipse, with totality set for 17:41 local time. Unfortunately, I had confused this with the time of greatest totality, which was about an hour and a half earlier, which resulted in me panicking and getting a little frustrated about how long we were taking to get to the observation point. I will get to that later though. I was also a little concerned with how busy it would all be, having seen a local news report in the apartment from Menlo talking about the eclipse. Still, that was for later in the day, as we had a rather stunning drive through the rocky craggy peaks of the Sierra de Cordoba to enjoy. This mountain range to the west of Cordoba was stunning, with plenty of opportunities for photographs. Alf in particular was looking for fursuit photos, having taken one in a gas station as we left that morning, and soon we found a roundabout with some road signs which gave us an opportunity. We were only doing partials but it turned out to be quite a dramatic scene, punctuating nicely where we were going and what we were doing. Things got even better at the next stop though, which afforded breathtaking views over the plains to the west of the mountain ridge. We spent a good twenty minutes here taking an array of shots under the watchful eyes of the people who ran the deserted cafe next to the road leading to this place. This area really highlighted the barren dry terrain neatly, a terrain that was so refreshingly different to the acres of fields we had driven through the day before, and the bright sunshine and azure sky really brought out the best of it.
We were a little lucky to have such a wonderful day for the eclipse, what with it being winter, but we had done our research. Poli had told us that the driest place on the path of totality in July was the resort town of Menlo, which is why we decided to spend thirteen hours in total driving here. We could have just gone an hour south of Buenos Aires but this would have been a bad move, as furs there had told me it had been cloudy. We had never seen a total eclipse before, the closest I had been being the 2001 eclipse when I was in Leamington Spa at about 95% totality. As the day wore on then we got increasingly excited about what we were going to see, which was only heightened by our joint decision to do it in fursuit. I hadn't gone into the day anticipating or looking for this, but it did kinda make sense and it also afforded us some truly stunning photos, probably the best we have ever taken in our lives. We also proved to be something of a novelty attraction for the locals, many of whom came to us wanting pictures and selfies.
Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. We spent much of the journey listening to The Bloodhound Gang through my Spotify, arriving in Menlo shortly before 3:30pm. With a little time ahead of the main event. we decided to drop the majority of stuff off at the apartments where we were staying. We did happen to be driving past them, but the reasoning was that the lady who runs the place goes home at 6pm and while we could have gotten access as she had made provision, it was obviously better to get everything done and dusted ahead of then. However, the checking in procedure took slightly longer than anticipated and with me thinking the eclipse was taking place an hour and a half earlier than it actually did, I started to get antsy. This was exascerbated by the long drive into the mountains, which we were told would be seventeen minutes but became almost forty. Part of the problem was we were tailgaiting the trio and didn't know specifically where they were going, with them passing numerous places where we could have stopped and seen the eclipse. There were also police everywhere keeping an eye on things and I feared we may be turned away. As it turned out, they wanted to go to one of the main places to try and pick up some solar glasses and upon discovering they had sold out, we went right to the top of the mountain where there was a small cafe and quite a large number of people gathered. They had run out of glasses too but fortunately I had thought ahead and had brought a pair for Wolfie and I. We were more than happy to share these and they did work wonders, enabling us to see the path of the eclipse clearly without damaging our eyes.
Most of the people were at the edge of a cliff looking down onto the town of Menlo. The plan had been to join them but we had parked on a little ridge and thought that as the main event was in the sky rather than on the ground, we might as well stay where we were. This turned out to be a shrewd move as it was also near the entrance to the car park for the cafe, meaning all of the people arriving and leaving could see us in our suits. Once we had parked up, we donned our fursuits and waited, following the moon trace its path over the sun for a period of about an hour and a half. Of course, as totality approached it started to get incredibly dark and quite cold reasonably quickly, not that we could feel it in a fursuit. I remember something similar happening in Warwickshire eighteen years ago, but this was something else, with the four and a half minute period of complete totality being pure magic. Not even superlatives could describe the etheral atmsophere, with the aura of day becoming night so quickly really touching the soul. We took a few pictures with the eclipse at our backs, listening to the cheers of the locals being replaced by stunned awe. We just kept looking up, huge smiles on our faces, resplendent in the power of nature. We had all seen eclipse photos before but none of them could live up to the majesty of this, with Wolfie admitting he didn't even think the photos were real until he had seen it with his own eyes. And to be here - two Brits, an Argentine, a Japanese and a Mexican - five friends, united through furry seeing this beautiful wonder of nature in togetherness, as friends, uniting countries and cultures, will be a legacy that will remain with me until I die. Seeing the sky, dark where we were but orange on the horizon where the eclipse was not in totality, was another natural wonder.
Sadly the eclipse was over almost as soon as it began, with the sun starting to peak out from the south-west corner as the moon sailed over it. The day started to reappear and the light returned, with my only regret not being on the cliff edge with the others admiring the view. We had some tops of parked cars, but we also had our vantage point all to ourselves and this made it so much more special. We made the right call. We weren't in a rush so we decided to just hang around, knowing that it would take quite a while for all the cars to get down the winding mountain pass. As they left, some people came up to hug us, others honked their horns and we found out that there was someone else there in a wolf costume who was being interviewed on local television. They had set themselves up on the veranda of the cafe but by the time we had gotten over there, they had already packed up the broadcast. This is a shame as it would have been great to have been interviewed by them but it was such a minor thing in the grand scheme of things. We were in the cafe as for some reason we decided to go in fursuit and get something to drink, with hunger also hitting us. I was surprised they let us sit inside in fursuit but they let us, so we deposited our heads on one table and sat down at another, soon enjoying hot chocolate and strawberry tart after our original choices had sold out. Wolfie managed to get onto the over-subscribed WiFi with his computer knowledge and I managed to post a picture of the eclipse on Twitter, with Wolfie and I having a little argument about him perceiving me as demanding. The problem was that I was wearing my full body armour and I couldn't really use my phone - an issue we had when driving up the mountain in the first place as I couldn't communicate on Telegram with our friends so I couldn't find out what the plan was - but it all got resolved in the end.
After the eclipse as we entered the cafe, we also managed to get onto the aforementioned cliff edge as most of the eclipse watchers had gone. This was no doubt partly due to the Brazil v Argentina match in the Copa America semi-finals, whose kick-off was at 9:30pm. Anyway, we were able to watch the sun go down from here, watching it drop slowly beyond the horizon and see the lights of Menlo below become brighter and more twinkly. The twinkles were also quite pronounced once we had left the cafe as the lack of light pollution here meant we could see a large number of stars, in our case for the first ever occasion as we had never been this far south before. All of this prolonged the magic and means the day will stay with me forever.
We cautiously drove down the hill, dodging a rude foxy boy who was staring at us as we headed down, getting back to our apartment around 8pm. These were confined, with our friends nabbing the house and us staying in a place resembling something like a hotel room. It was all very comfortable, but it was bitterly cold, with the temperature in the area touching freezing. There was a gas fire in the room, but it was a situation of being too hot when it was on and too cold when it wasn't, meaning that when we woke up the next morning we were shivering. Still, we had another pre-cooked toast breakfast and the self-contained nature of the complex meant that it was rather peaceful and secluded. I got the impression that there may have only been a couple more rooms occupied so we largely had the place to ourselves, which may explain why we saw two foxes staring at us as soon as we opened the door on the Wednesday morning. The adult fox swiftly darted underneath a sun lounger placed around the pool at the heart of the resort, but the cub was a little more bold, allowing me to get pretty close to him before turning around and walking away. I did manage to get a number of good pictures of him though as he frollicked about and it was a very pleasant way to start the day.
Anyway, I have gotten ahead of myself once again so back to Tuesday evening. Once back in the room, we chilled for a short while, surprised by just how clean I was after a four hour fursuiting experience. Indeed, I wasn't sweaty at all, so we decided to head out for food pretty swifty, all squeezing into the truck to make the five minute drive into the heart of the town. We parked up outside an interesting parrilla that was roasting a full splayed open lamb on an outdoor pit fire. Looking good and fancing Argentinian BBQ, we headed inside, being directed to a table on the first floor. The football match had just kicked off and we somewhat got engrossed in it, even though it was not a positive experience for our host country. In the end Brazil won 2-0, with the first goal in the opening half deflating all of the patrons in the restaurant somewhat. Indeed, you could feel the atmosphere deaden as soon as they had scored, with this turning to despair once the second goal went in. It wasn't as if Argentina were bad - indeed they were probably the best team on the day - but they had a few contentious decisions go against them and being beaten by your biggest rivals is hard to take. I was quite surprised just how passionate they were though, with the waiters in the place all wearing Messi tops and most of the patrons trudging out dejectedly once the game was over. We, meanwhile, sat back and enjoyed the parrilla for four, which was more than enough for the five of us. The wide range of different barbecued meats - from fatty lamb to succulent beef to black sausage - were all tremendous, as every meat dish we tried in the country was. We also got to sample some local craft beer which was nice.
After our meal, we were thinking of heading to a bar but this was our last night with our friends before they headed to Barriloche and we went back to Cordoba, so we swung by a newsagents to get a few beers (which after 10pm needed to be carried around in featureless brown paper bags like they were pornography). We had a look at the nicely lit fountains outside the main casino in town, a joint that was jumping at midnight and was clearly THE place to be, before heading back to the house they had rented in the complex. Here we signed Alf's memory book and chatted for an hour or so, before wishing our friends well and heading back to the room. They had to set off very early the next day so we weren't going to see them, so we expressed our gratitude for their help on this trip and our delight we had spent such a magical thirty-six hours with them. We do hope to share more memories with them again soon.
