Bagged earth building project at Camerones

As I've mentioned before, despite having a motor home H and I are doing a bit of couchsurfing (www.couchsurfing.org) to meet some locals as we travel around. We still sleep in the camper but share some meals and conversation with locals by this participation. 

Via couchsurfing we found a project where a group of people are building houses using recycled and locally available products. A start has been made on a bagged earth house. 

The offer on couchsurfing was that you could help out to build these houses. I never committed to helping out, but told them we were interested in their project. (I've been caught before with projects that weren't what they seemed). 

When we arrived the host and his friend weren't in town, but it didn't bother us as we'd re-met with Dutch overlanders and went free camping out of town with them. 

Then the next day our host still wasn't back from the city, but his friend came back and we chatted and drank matè and set up camp in the 'hosts' backyard. Finally, after 2 nights the host got back from the city where he'd been purchasing materials for the building project. 

We enjoyed some interesting conversation and I enjoyed learning about what they were doing. But these guys aren't getting a lot done. It seems to me that what work they've done so far was achieved last time they had some travellers to help and they haven't worked on it themselves since. 

It's okay for them, they have a concept that it's about the journey and the project rather than being about completion. But for me, I made enough money to afford this lifestyle by buying and fixing up a couple of houses, whilst working full time to pay for them, and so their idea of just doing it for the journey seems illogical and slack. And meanwhile, the bags on the bit they've already completed are deteriorating in the sun. 

They said they'd do some work the next day, but we were moving on (ie not staying to help). Then, in the morning when I asked what time they'd be getting started, our host said that it was a perfectly nice day to do nothing.... The sun was shining, there was little wind (for this part) and it probably got to about 26 degrees Celsius. Seemed like a perfect day to get it done to us!

Interestingly, there is a lot of subdivided land in Camerones and other parts of this country that have been sold or are being sold. In Camerones it really grabbed our attention because its a sleepy little town with no sign of industry or any industry being developed. So why buy a house block there? 

It's to do with the Argentine economy and them having inflation at about 25-30%. If you put your pesos in the bank or under the the mattress then in a years' time it will only buy 25-30% less than what it will buy today. So buying a piece of land is a more secure way to hold an asset. And land prices have risen in the years leading to now. 

Likewise our host had been in the city buying building materials, he had paid for them but wasn't interested in having them delivered for a long time, because next year, due to inflation, they'd cost so much more... And this year, he's not interested in getting on with it.