The Programme - join today, it´s free

Having spent three quiet evenings in Valparaiso it was a shock to our weary heads (having travelled all day through the Andes - spectacular but nevertheless an eight hour bus ride) when we arrived in Mendoza and checked in to Hostel Internacional...aka Party Central!

We went out for an Italian meal at half nine. The restaurant was quiet, in that way that makes you think twice about going in, though in our case it was an easy choice as the other options were McDonalds and Mr Dog. I mean really... Mr Dog!?! By ten thirty we were high fiving as the restaurant was pumping with local Argentinians!

The bass on the rigaton/raggaeton playing at Internacional when we returned was equally pumping and continued to pump... and pump--and PUMP!!! I was reminded of my first year at university - the chants were in a different language but nothing could disguise the encouragement to "skull your vessel!" Is it just because we are married that we chose to insert earplugs rather than join the happy revellers (no pun intended)?

In any event, despite our relatively early night we still managed to turn up to breakfast half an hour after it had finished. We did eat though! This was by virtue of our complete ignorance of the fact that Argentina is one hour ahead of Chile (where we had arrived from), and because the kindly woman doing the dishes post-breakfast didn´t make a fuss when we asked for a plate!

Not that I want anyone reading this blog to think that ALL we do is crawl around eating scraps of food, endlessly chowing down! Barely taking a moment to appreciate the scenery - NO NO! and Mr R will no doubt enlighten you on particular aspects of nature that have delighted us....

...I would add that I have devised a training programme which I am documenting on this blog as incentive to stick to it and not return to New Zealand portly! It´s effectively that old psychology of telling others about your goal in order to keep you honest. Still this isn´t completely introspective because you can also do the programme from the comfort of your living room!

Think of The Programme as my gift to you in these tough times,

Mrs R

The Programme

Warm up with three to five salutes to the sun (time is short so I will leave you to google this if you don´t do much yoga).

Then you have three sets of the following exercises.

- running on the spot (for the amount of time it takes you to count up to the number of the day three times)
- star jumps
- burpies
- press ups
- wide legged squats
- lunges (option - when the right leg is forward do a chest press action with your arms, when the left leg is forward do a shoulder press action with your arms)
- jumping forward and backwards (for the amount of time it takes you to count up to the number of the day three times)
- jumping side to side (for the amount of time it takes you to count up to the number of the day three times)
- tricep dips
- crunches

The number of reps we started with was eleven or once in Spanish! It works best if you count the number of repetitions out aloud in a different language to your normal one. So for us, we are using it to practice our espanol.. uno dos tres etc

We plan to increase the number of reps so that eventually we´ll get to twenty or viente. We´ve done eleven for the two days we have done the programme. Next time we do it we´ll do twelve and then maybe back to eleven, then two more days of twelve before moving up to thirteen.