Thank You

Well, this will be our last post from South America, our dear friends. We leave tonight on a bus to Buenos Aires and leave tomorrow afternoon to return home. We have to say that this has been an awesome experience. We've learned alot about how life works down here, some things good and some, well, different. But in the end it boils down to sincerely appreciating home. Not just California, but our families and friends... and Mexican food. Gracias por todo!

A few more

Bariloche Bari Bari-locheeeeeee

Me at the top of Bariloche

Jay on his way to the top of Bariloche, We love to hike

Breathtaking

It was a cold night, I was not happy

not so safe

A few pictures to hold you over til we get home!

Torres Del Paine, the start of our two day hike from hell!

Daniela at the start of the hike, looking Super excited!

On the boat over looking the south side

The amazing Perito Moreno

Our boat over to the Glaciar

Another angle

and another

Jay being amazed

The top of Perito Moreno

Perito Moreno

Who wants pictures?

Me too, me too! We'll have them up asap. We've been on the receiving end of a dicey asado for the last couple of days, but as soon as we download our 435 pics and pic our favorite 30-40, you'll have em'!

last weary backpacking leg

We are headed back to Uruguay! After Mendoza we headed up to Salta in norhtwest Argentina and did a day trip to a little town called Humahuaca which is 60 miles from the Bolivian border. We were at 10,000 feet and eating llama and trying coca leaves like natives. P.S. the coca leaves weren´t that great, but the llama was tasty! We were only there for one day and then we headed to Córdoba to check out all of the Jesuit churches. We have never felt more religious than going to 6 different churches in 4 hours! Oh so holy... Anyways, we are headed out this after noon to Montevideo and guess what! We A)got a great deal on the trip and B) we have the top front two seats on the bus, which means that we will have a driver seat view of the trip! I´m excited, but it may be chilly so we´ll bundle up. Oh and they´re CAMA seats.

Pictures to come and 10,000 of them!!

Wine, Chocolates and Olives, Oh My!

Just wanted to give you all a little update on where we are right now. As you know, we have been in Mendoza for the last two days wine tasting and are now trying to figure out if we want to go to Salta or Cordoba next. Either would be fine, but let me tell you the best part of the last two days. We rented bikes and went wine tasting!!! We camped out at a little spot outside of town and walked 10K to find the street with all the bodegas (wineries), the campground was a little farther out than we first thought, but it turned out fine in the end, the policia picked us up and took us to the bike place. We did winetastings at four different wineries and even went to an olive oil plantation where we found that the making of olive oil is ridiculously simple. The best part is we did the whole circut with out falling off our bikes. This morning we went to a chocolate factory were everything is hand made and we bought Absinthe. Little Green Fairy, here we come! We will let you know where we ended up in a day or two. Ciao!

Moving On

So we have been in Bariloche for two days. Bariloche is home to the seven lakes. Our hostel, Pudu, is on the top of a hill which over looks one of them, Lago Nahuel Huapi. On our first day here we hiked (without packs this time) up to Campanario. The hike is only 45min. when you get to the top it over looks the most spectacular view. We sat, had a beer, took pictures and made it back down. Then we went on a bamboo trail that lead to Lago Escondido. After a 6 hour day of hiking we ended the day with some pizza, beer and a movie at the hostel, not to bad.

Today we walked to the bus stop that went to Villa Coihues and while waiting we met a guy from Canada who was going on the same hike, so the three of us decided to do it togethter. We walked off the bus and met up with our tour guides (three local dogs) that walked us to the waterfall. Then all six of us walked to Catedral (4 hour hike). We then left the dogs and went back to Bariloche for beer and chocolate...

Bariloche has been really great to us. We have met some really friendly people and if you are ever here you must stay at Pudu Hostel, the owners ROCK and they have a bar with some local beer that is really good! Tomorrow we will be on our way to Mendoza! Where we will have some WINE!!! We can´t wait!