We started in Punta del Este which is a famous beach resort for rich Argentinians and Brazilians.  We stayed just outside the city in a quiet hostel and headed to the beach everyday for five days.  WE met some great people as usual and played a lot of cards and read a lot as well.

We are currently in Punta del Diablo which is an old fishing town and its year round inhabitants only number around 700 people and 200 of which are construction workers.  This is quickly turning into a huge resort and in the summer there are upwards of 15,000 people!!!!  The hostel we are staying at is pretty impressive in size and is run by a young couple from Minnesota.  We have been here 6 days and plan to leave tomorrow to get some culture in Montevideo and then possibly on to Colonia before we sadly head back to Buenos Aires for our plane ride home! 

We will both be very tan and I am sure shocked by the cold after being in Steamy Buenos Aires!  See you all soon!

the best part of our time in Cordoba was Halloween! The hostel we were staying at had a Halloween party and I was personally responsible for putting eyeliner on at least 3 guys! Woohoo. Elisa and I searched all day for costumes and ended up buying a bunch of princess stuff. We had wands, crowns, and lots of glitter! It was a good night from what I remember!

Next we went to Iguazu falls and stayed at a hostel that was an old casino resort and it was a beautiful seeting. A huge pool in the front drew Elisa and I in like a magnet an we sat out there for 2 days straight absorbing the sun and trying to stay cool in the extreme heat and humidity. After two days at the pool we headed to the falls…one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. All I could say the whole time is ¨this is so amazing¨! We went on a speed boat that goes right up in front of the falls and you get completely soaked. It was so much fun and for me a little terrifying as I was reliving some memories from our rafting tour. The waves at the bottom of the falls were pretty intense. Elisa rated it as one of her top favorite things we have done on the trip and again what I have to say to that is …it was so amazing!!! There is no way pictures could do the waterfalls justice. The walkways bring you out and all you can see is the water all around you and it is rushing with such power and ferocity. Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life!!!

Let me just throw this in quick…YAY OBAMA! People in Argentina have been much happier and friendlier already when we say we are American. Our cab driver today said Obama and him were brothers! I am proud to be an American again. (Sorry to those of you who may have voted otherwise. Just my opinion…)

Now we are back in Buenos Aires for a huge music festival that will have over 100,ooo people there and go for nearly 20 hours! These Argentinians are crazy!!!

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

Anyway, we went met a dutch couple and rode to a museum with them.  We got some free wine and the tour was boring.  We split up and rode about 6.5 kms to an olive oil factory thing, expecting lots of samples.  We were starving and there weren´t any.  Instead, I got a bag of dried tomatos and Kristen got pickles.  Things were not looking good.

We went to a vineyard after called Carnea.  The wine was ok.  Sidebar, Mendoza wineries makes mostly red wines, so I can´t say I was particularly impressed with any, but we tried a total of 7 or 8 all day.  We rode up the road to another vineyard, di Tomasso, and wisely skipped the tour and tasting, opting to just buy a bottle and drink it.  It was a lovely vineryard and winery, with cask tables set up out side.  We then road to a chocolate and liquor place.  We tried different liquors and chocolate and its too bad it wasn´t later int he trip, because then I might have had something to bring home for my mom.

We returned our bikes to Mr. Hugo´s and ended up staying there talking with other travelers or 3 hours.  It shoudl be noted we went to Mr. Hugo´s because we had heard he gives you bottomless wine when you return the bikes.  This is not just myth, its a reality.

On Wednesday, we went on a trekking and rapelling excursion.  We have both come to the realisation that trekking is not fun at all and really hard.  Luckily, that part only lasted an hour.  We then rapelled from 3 heights of 7, 14 and 45 meters.  It wasn´t to scary, I don´t think becaus eI had to wait to go last all times and by the time it was my turn to go I was so bored from waiting that any fears up to that point had subsided.  It was a good day though.  We went to a thermal springs water park in the afternoon, which was really nice.

There were two american girls there, both blonde and from arizona.  One also shall we say was augmented.  They must never see blond people with plastic surgery in Mendoza often cause all the preteen girls in the pool surrounded the blondes for the whole time and taking pictures with them.  I think the Argentinians thought they were Hiltons.  They probably thought so a little bit too.

We are in Patagonia now.  More on that to come….

Elisa

Ok, now for how I defied death by a bunk bed today.  ELisa and I were taking some post breakfast naps and I was just waking up and Elisa turned over and her entire bunk bed fell on top of me.  The bracket had given out and I was pinned under the bed.  Quite an alarming way to wake up.  I told her if she wanted to be on the bottom bunk she could have just told me!  There are nicer ways of going about things than dropping a bed and frame on someone.  We were both pretty startled but made a good  lot of jokes about it.  It seems we cannot leave a city without having an encounter with death or serious bodily harm.  I luckily sustained no injuries other than a scratch on my toe.  When one of the handymen came in he asked what we did with the rest of the bed because he didn’t even realize that it had completely fallen!  All is well though.  WE switched rooms and we get free breakfast tomorrow.  Assuming the same thing doesn’t happen in this next bunk bed and I may not be so lucky this time to wake up for breakfast!!!

Iquique would be a nice tourist city if they cleaned up all the drunks on the street- 7 days a week, 24 hours a day- and all the mangey dogs.  Can’t say we have ever seen so many strays in one place.  I don’t think they have a South American Bob Barker encouraging you to spay and nueter. 

Along with beach activities, tanning, reading and such, we managed to locate the local McDonalds, which has now become our haven in strange new places.  Aside from tanning and walkind, we didn’t do too much.  Oh Kristen did jump off cliff, more on that later.

It should be noted some interesting people we met at the hostel:  A Australian family is traveling with two kids under 12 for 5 months, which is crazy in and of itself.  However, their son had this chesty throaty whoopng cough that was kind of his way of announcing his enterance or identifying his whereabouts at any time.  Not only was he a little strange, but he would sit down randomly and different tables with people fromt he hostel, but then he’d cough all over their stuff.  Gag.  We also hung out with two south african boys with hedge funds.  If only we had had more time together…..

Elisa

We then went to our second island in the afternoon where we were to stay over night in family´s homes. The woman in our family was named Gladys and had two small children. Gladys must be doing alright in the tourist industry because her home appeared fairly new, and our rooms were essentially set up like privates in hostels. Except for the toilets, which were next to a pig and a hole in the ground.

We met up with our group and hiked up to the top of the island where the inhabitants have old temples built. Every third week in January the people go up to Pachamama and Pachatati. Pachamama is where the women trek and Pachatati is for the men. Side note to that is Pachatati represents perfection, but I beg to differ. The views from the top were gorgeous and we could see the mountains of Bolivia across the lake from where we were.

We had dinner with our family and then went to a small fiesta with the group where we all dressed up in traditional Quechua garb. Huge colorful skirts and intricately embroidered shirts with heavy black cloths covering our heads. We looked good!!! It was actually the shortest party I have ever been to. We were all there maybe half an hour then people started packing it in at 8:30. It had been a long day.

We went to a third island, Amanti, on Thursday and trekked some more. Piece of advice, if you ever travel to South America and book a tour of anything, always assume there will be quite a few miles of previously unmentioned trekking. We had lunch and then got attacked by 2 and 3 year olds selling bracelets and they just kept repeating un sol miss, un sol, un sol with there little snot noses and quechua garb. We bought some.

We got back Thursday and have probably clocked at least 12 hours in front of the TV since. Today is not looking much better. We are headed for Chile and the beach tonight.

Ciao!

When we arrived to the river the guides set up lunch for us.  They fed us huge mounds of food every meal because we would need the energy for paddling long days.  After lunch they tought us all of the commands such as FORWARD, backward, high side right , high side left, right back and left back.  The passengers on our boat were: Elisa, Lisa and Glenn from Australia, Paddy who is a guide in Australia, Netti (our little English mate) and myslef.   “FORWARD” became our least favorite word to hear, especially on the second day when we paddled for nearly 8 hours.  So, we went through some drills to get the commands down and then we had to practice the high side right and left tactic in which we flipped the raft so we would know what it as like to have it flip over and know what to do to get it back the right way up.  After that we had to climb up a little cliff and jump off into the current to practice with the rescue kayakers.  They paddled up through the current and you grab onto the back of the kayak and they brought us near the shore.

When we finished this activity we paddled down stream for about 45 minutes where we reached our first camp site.  The guides made us jump off the rafts and swim about 150′ to shore.  They set up our tents and made dinner for us.  Again, huge heaping plates of food that were impossible to finish.  The wind really picks up at night and at one point I thought our tent was going to take off.  Sand is surprisingly hard when you try to sleep on it too!

We woke up the next morning at 7am and got on the river at about 8:30 am and started off by hitting some level four rapids.  They kept saying that the rapids were very technical because of all of the large boulders in it.  LAter that morning we came upon a level three rapid that had claimed a young man’s life the month before.  Apparently, the rocks get worn away underneath from the current and create caverns and this particular rock had two caves.  One girl that had fallen out made it through the cave and the young guy never came up.  They think he is still stuck in there because his body has yet to be found.  That was very scary to hear.  Just before he told us that, one of the cargo boats went down ahead of us and it flipped.  Big mess to try to flip a heavy raft in the rapids.  We were all pretty nervous.  WE made it through just fine though.  Later we stopped for lunch in amazing place where two rivers met and then back out for another four hours of paddling and rapids.  Again they started us off with some level 4+ to 5 rapids.  Pretty crazy stuff when they tell you inside because you are going down a ten to fifteen foot drop!

That night we set up camp on a nice big beach and had a huge fire and feast and some drinks.  Elisa, Netti and I were talking to one of the rescue Kayakers, Efrain, and he was horrifying us by telling us about how dangerous the river is and that it claims many lives.  He said it claims so many lives because of all the rocks and the caverns that they make.  We tried not to let it set in too much because the next day we still had four more hours to go.

On the final day they made us pancakes and fresh fruit and porrage.  A greta meal and we played some games to get warmed up for the day.  Once again the first rapids we hit were a level 5.  They always like to start us off strong.  We made it about half way through the day when we got to a level 3 rapid and the other cargo boat flipped so they had us attempt to go through the  rapids a different way.  The first boat made it clear and fine , the second boat got a little stuck on a big rock and nearly tipped.  Then it was our turn and we got stuck up on the rock and our entire raft flipped over at the beginning of the long rapids.  Netti and Lisa got sucked right out from under the raft and were rescued immediatly.  Elisa and Paddy were clear and free quite quickly as well.  Glenn held onto the raft and was on the outside of it.  I however, got sucked under and then got stuck under the raft.  I opened my eyes for one second and all I could see was the blue of the raft and bubbles.  I was freaked out!  I was grasping for anything to pull myself up from under the raft.  All I could think was I was going to get stuck in a cavern and die on  my 25th birhtday!  Fianlly, Aldo, our guide saw me under the raft and freed me from there.  I came up and I was gasping for air.  I saw Glenn’s face and he looked absolutely terrified.  I had  a hold on the boat because I had somehow gotten tangled in the rope and I don’t know why but I let go of the boat and went down a little water fall and tried to keep my feet forward and up like they said.  I saw all the kayakers were moving away from me and I panicked even more.  I hit another big rock and got sucked under for a bit again and fianlly Efrain came and got me and brought me to Segundo’s raft until they sorted the boat situation out.  He immediatley opened my life vest and took off my helmet and gave me water.  Iwas in complete shock.  All I could do was keep asking where Elisa was.  She had been dropped off on a beach and was safe.  Segundo had to shake me to get me out of my funk.  I was so horrified the rest of the day and we had to go through more 3′s, 4′s, and 5′s still.  All of us were shaking and terrified to finish the day.  After about two more hours of rafting we all settled down a little bit and had fun again.  At the end of the day we stopped off for some cliff jumping.

We arrived at our end point and I think all of us were a little relieved.  TheyFed us and gave us shirts and tickets for  massages.  Nice way to end it.  Later we went out for dinner with the entire crew.  Oh yeah there was a group of 9 Israelis that was on the trip with us as well… We went to an Israeli restaurant for dinner and then to the club with everyone later.  It was a good night.  I just personally wish I hadn’t been sick…

Overall though,  I think we all had a greater appreciation for life and a better understanding that we are not invincible after this trip.  A great experience that made us all a little stronger and wiser and I would not change it for the world!

After that, the man that was attempting to help brought us to the bus station to get to the top of MAchu Picchu and it was beautiful.  We found and English speaking guide and he gave us the history of the site.  We couldn’t believe that it was only used for such a short time!  It was quite amazing to see in person.  In Pictures you cannot grasp the size or the actual setting.  The mountains are green and lush and come up out of nowhere.  Jungle all around and SAND FLIES!  They are tiny little bugs that just swarm to you and you don’t know you have been bitten until you see the little blood spot.  Other than that… Machu Picchu is so beautiful and I have a bunch of photos that I will post at some point I promise!!!

Oh yeah, Camping at machu Pichu is impossible.  They make you check all bags when you get to the entrance of the park so that plan fell through and we had no tickets home.  Great!!!

We arrive back to the bottom, Aguas Calientes and try calling DORA again.  And Once again, no worries miss.  We will deliver the tickets to your hostel.  We call again…go to the Inca Mayuc Hostel and we will give you your tickets there.  This hostel apparently works with the tour agency and was very expensive.  The girl at the front has no idea who we are and I got frusterated and called the number again.  She kept saying no worries we will deliver the tickets at 8pm.  WEll 8pm rolls around and no tickets.  I call her again after we found another less expensive hostel and  she says no  worries miss.  We will deliver the tickets to that hostel tomorrow at 11am.  We thought it would be a good idea to have someone waiting at both hostels and what do you know…they show up at the original hostel!!! Of course they didn’t go to the one that they were promised to!  Big mess with Dora.  Kinda made the experience uncomfortable.

On the best note though, Machu Pichu was amazing and the best part of the entire trip by far!!!!

The trip started leaving from our hostel at 1 30 in the morning on Sunday.  We took a four hour bus to the town called Cabanaconde located at he rim of the canyon.  The town was filled with Quechua women who wear brightly colored dresses and hats and are usually selling some kind of baked goods or carrying huge colorful bags on their backs.  After breakfast which was one egg and the triangle bread they have everywhere in Peru, we started our trek at 7 30.  The first couple of hours were nice, we got beautiful views of the canyon from above, plus a little bit of vertigo.  We will post pics, but google it if you can, it really was amazing.  Anyway, the first half of the day was going all down hill, which started out pretty easy then it got steeper and the path narrower and rockier.  If that wasn’t tough enough, the edge was constantly a cliff, so if we fell, we’d be coming home in body bags.  This helped me, Elisa, realize a new fear of heights I have.

It wasn’t all near death fun though.  We went through a couple small town located in the canyon in which the people that lived there would have to hike the entire trek we did to get any kind of goods.  Many of them had mules to help carry goods and it seemd to be a regular occurence for them to hike all over the place.  We even saw a group of guys who had a pparently just played soccer about 1.5 miles down the canyon.  It is crazy how in shape thwey are! Finally, before sun down we made it to Our camp site for the night.  It was supposed to have hot springs or something, but was freezing by the time we got there.  The whole “oasis” was a little demoralizing.

WE started trekking at 3 am on monday.  It sounds insane, but this last part was my favorite part of the trek, primarily because it was pitch black out and you couldn’t see the plummet below. (This was my least favorite part as my asthma kicked in immediately .  It was a four hour trek straight up hill on a very rocky path and I would have to say the dark scared me more becasue I could not see what was down below! KP)  It was all up hill, and the sun finally rose the last hour and a half of the trip up.  KP used her ingenuity after three hours of uphill hiking and got a mule the last part of the way and beat us all to the top (personally my favorite part of the trip, except for when the mule in front of me kept stopping and we were on the edge of a very steep cliff and it lightly kicked my mule in the head).  Nettie and I finished in the middle of the group of 8.  Needless to say, finishing felt amazing. 

We had breakfast in town, where Nettie believes I got food poisoning.  We got back to Arequipa at 4 and left for Cusco at 8 for an overnight bus, the worst bus of my life.

Anyway, all is better today and we are planning on going to Machu Picchu tomorrow.

Ciao

E