Hola, I see we have some catching up to do…  When we last left you , we had just arrived in Bariloche.  Bariloche, Argentina is in Patagonia and one of the most beautiful places I, Elisa, have seen in my life.   Much like a Swiss village and any ski resort in Colorado.  The area around Bariloche was formed by glaciers and it is surrounded by beautiful blue glacial lakes.  We spent our time, taking in one of Time Magazines top five most beautiful views in the world at the top of a local hill, then hiking to one of ten most expensive hotels in South America, Llao llao.  It was all gorgeous and we topped off our stay by going to a reggae bar over looking the lake at night.  Good times.

 

We went to El Bolson for two days, which is suposed to be the hippie defect capital.  Honestly, it was quite boring and we spent most of our time in our double room (!) with own tv (!) and bathroom (!),  I also taught KP to crochet.  Immediate family members: expect scarves and hats for Christmas.

After two uneventful days we went to Puerto Madryn.  Puerto Madryn is on the East coast of Argentina and Northern Patagonia.  There, I did two scuba dives, one at a wreck at 25 meters and on a reef for 8 meters.  If was nice since its been over two years since my last dive.  We also were able to see whales from a dock only a couple blocks from our hostel and were one block from the beach.  Honestly, where else can you have near beachfront accomodations for 12 dollars a night with breakfast included?  KP also went on a penguin tour; Mom, shes has plenty of pics to show you.  More on that I am sure.  ciao!

(This is Kristen)  I went to the second largest penguin reserve in the world, aside from Antarctica.  There were over 200,000 mating couples in Punta Tombo and each of them had two eggs, so when the penguins hatch there will be nearly 1,000,000 penguins!  If we were there two weeks from now there would have been fluffy little babies all over the place!  It was amazing.  As far as you could see there were nests and little penguins walking all over the place.  From there we went to Rawson to look for dolphins.  We were on a boat that was pretty low to the water and ended up seeing a Right whale as soon as we hit open water.  The whale was massive and it came right up to the boat and was swimming around under us.  I could have nearly touched it from my seat!!!  We then went out further to look for the world´s smallest dolpin.  We found a few and they were so cute.  they were black and white and extremely quick.  On the way back we saw a few more whales and that was definately the highlight of the trip! (KP) 

E