IGUAZU FALLS!

Hello to you all!
Since Buenos Aires we have moved up the Argentine/Paraguayan/Brazilian boarder to see the mighty Iguazu Falls! I was really excited because I read somewhere that waterfalls release negative ions which automatically make you manically happy, sounds fun.
We started our tour of the falls at about 8:30 and decided to do the less crowded circuits first and then move on to the larger ones.
Our first circuit was the ¨superior¨ circuit which took you around near the tops of all the falls. This involves a lot of looking over the edge as water rushes downard and getting misted. The ¨inferior¨ circuit took us closer to the bottom of the falls where were able to get more panoramic views. After walking around a bit and getting teased by the spray, we decided it was a great time to do the boat tour that takes you under some the falls. The whole time we were paranoid about our cameras getting soaked (I actually carried mine around in two plastic bags all day) but they were prepared and gave us drybags, as well as ridiculous orange lifejakets, so all was well. Almost, Koehler dropped her camera while we were waiting in line... so far the screen is still black.
The speedboat ride was crazy. We did a couple loops around for pictures and then with a small warning we were literally under the waterfalls...well not completely but as under as humanly possible. It felt like a crazy waterride at Disney or someplace...except there were no gimmics like a shark popping up or pirates. Just amazing natural beauty.

From there, we decided to take a break for lunch where we got to watch coatis make madness. They are these little part badger-part raccoon-part anteater-and part monster thingys and they are pretty domesticated from all the tourists feeding them. I saw one kid bend over and pet one and another man made one sit. They may sound pretty cool, but they tend to bring havoc on innocent picnicers.

In the afternoon, we decided it was time to see the Garganta del Diablo! This is Iguazu Falls.
Here´s a clip from Indian Jones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3XGmQd1Je0&NR=1
Basically, I can´t describe how incredible it is...but I could have stood there all day just watching the water fall repeatedly. It was therapeutic and entertaining.

Our last activity in the park was to do this little hike to a hidden waterfall. To get there you walk on this little trail in the jungle called Sendero Macuco for about an hour and then you reach some stairs, walk down and are in a relatively isolated area with one waterfall and a small pool for swimming. We went swimming and climbed behind the waterfall!
On our way back, we saw a tucan in the wild! It was crazy! I thought they only existed on cereal boxes and in the zoo! It landed right on a tree in front of us!

Well, Sorry this was a bit long! Hope it was enjoyable!

Buenos Aires

Holla! and greetings to all. we are in Buenos Aires, soaking up the city air....lots of activities to do in the city. Including:

Evita Day!!! Us (L,E,A,K) and our new Londonian friend Michelle had an evita-inspired first day of touring BA. including: casa rosada (tour not included), fancy barettes and dresses. it almost included red lipstick to be extra chic, but the lipstick was lost. so we settled on coral. we also toured the evita museum that is located in one of the halfway-esque houses that she set up for women and girls. it had a bunch of videos of her speeches from the casa rosada, her outfits, and rooms dedicated to all her charitable works. v good. we also took pictures with her postcard.

Getting Lost: NC in Big City= lots of wrong turns. i cannot read a map.

Nightlife: tres bonne. i hope that means good in french. they has a russian death-tobasco shot. not tres bonne.

Tango Show! In Cafe Tortini, historic cafe of BA dating back to 187_ish. v. exclusive. they had a live band (bass, violin, piano, ACORDIAN) and singer guy who wanted us to sing along to all of these "traditional" tango songs....that we didn{t know....and lots of sultry dances. including a few close calls in terms of wardrobe malfunctions. also these two guys who did drums dances and whipped around these stones connected to bungy cord ropes things and they tapped out rhythms with that. v intense. super hardcore.

hmmm. our next stop : iguazu! for 3 nights, nature walks and waterfalls, and staying in a hostel that used to be a casino. imagine: lush red velvet drapery and "fringe" and a huge pool (at least that{s what i{m imagining). the romantic part of our trip. also! we are about to have our 1 month mark for our travels! miss you all tonsies, chau

Photo Montage!!

Legs in Valpo

Huge sand dunes

Posing with Pabs Neruda

Virgin statue in Santiago

Mote con Huesillos

En route to the Kunstmann Brewery

Sealions! in Valdivia

Nearing the top of Puyehue...we did not ride the horses

Cerro Campinario, Bariloche

View from Circito Chico, Bariloche

The only picture from the biking wine tour in Mendoza

Mendelicioza

Hey hey everyone! So our trip has taken us back to summer weather. seriously, bariloche, the wind was about to blow all life and energy out of me for a while. but it was beautiful! lakes everywhere, that were v. calm and bluegreen and peaceful the first day we got there. THEN the day that we decide to do the momentous 27km bike ride around the lake loop, mister wind god wakes up on the wrong side of the mountain and starts whipping waves out of those lakes like i never could have imagined. now that we are in mendoza, which is v. pretty as well...i almost feel as if i had been taking the lake region for granted! with all the hills/mountains and snowpeaked volcanos and little wildflowers dotting the roads, it seriously felt as though we had taken a side trip to europe. even a girl from swedem said that it reminded her of her own country! i have had to fight hard against the urge to break out in sound of music sing alongs (climb every mountain: during puyehue; the hills are alive: all the time; adelweiss: when trotting along roads with all the wild flowers). but now we are in mendoza. it's crazy hot here, so it's almost as if you're stupified in between 11 and 3pm (especially transitioning from easy breezy bariloche). BUT we dragged ourselves out yesterday to enjoy a wonderous biking tour of vineyards and olive farms and chocolate liquer factory places. all of the roads and avenues here are quite wide because of this earthquake that destroyed everything. so the city planners built all of the buildings low, and the roads wide. there are all these beautiful shade trees, so it's nice to walk throughout the town. also, to bike. we met up with these 4 australian boys who adopted us into their group because we saved their friend, chucky, who had gotten lost (we soon realized that this is quite a common story). so we vineyard hopped and had a really wonderful day! unfortunately, the roads were a bit tricky with gravel, etc, so both emily and i have our respective scrapes. it's okay, though, we're becoming more and more hardcore as our voyage continues. the vineyard tour was 28km of biking, but it wasn't half as hard as the bariloche biking view tour adventure. also, a very important update: argentina has officially tainted us! not really, but we ate meat at a bbq dinner thing last night at a hostel, that turned into a dancefloor after everyone had their fill. argentine and aussie influences led us astray...but it was seriously delicious. hmmm. tomorrow we are going to one of the top zoos in SA, a jesuit ruins from the 19th century, and a serpentine musuem/zoo place. braving the heat to get our fill of mendoza. then we're off to BA by the 20th! our trip is picking up speed, and we're meeting lots of friends along the way. hands down, hostels> hotels and homestays. very refreshing. alright, i hope by this scattered post that you all can observe our high spirits. take care!

Bariloche

To all you wonderful people:
We are in Bariloche which is technically in Patagonia, so eventhough we thought we would not be seeing the region... we did!
Our first night here was a little rough. We got in at midnight and went searching for a hostel and ran into the problem of being the last to arrive during high-season. We walked around door to door for about 2 hours until finally finding a hotel that had rooms available and was not mad expensive. The next day we had luck and found a hostel in the morning and we already had reservations for Monday and Tuesday.
Bariloche is quite a bit larger than lonely planet led on. I imagine it´s similar to Aspen except on a lake. The main attraction is centered around outdoor activities. There is this one hill called Campinario which has one of the Top 10 views in the world according to National Geographic. There is also a popular bike circuit that has many beautiful viewpoints! We conquered both activities eventhough we lost one day to nasty weather.
Tomorrow, we are taking a loooong bus ride to Mendoza which is popular for it´s vineyards!
Ciao for now!

Puye-half-ue

HOLLLLLLA!
So, we set out on our 3 day trek with only the memories of camping on the Neuse or in the NC mountains...not really thinking that for the Andes you need more than peanut butter, bread, and some apples. We went to the trail for Puyehue, a volcano with alternate trails to geysers and hot springs, and hiked about 3 hours to the refugio where we spent the night. Everyone at the site was extra prepared (and also from Israel, which we thought was strange but apparently S.America is the place to go after army service) with things like knives, matches, propane, long underwear...a tent. The night time was absolutely possitively freezing! I kind of forgot to subtract 20 degrees due to altitude. But, due to the artic conditions we were able to wake up early and start hiking the volcano and thus receive one of the most beautiful panoramic views of the earth I have ever seen. We started our hike above the clouds and with every step we saw more and more of the snowtopped Andes. The largest mountain we were near was Mt. Osorno (I don't know if you want to google image it) but it was really big and pretty.
Now we're in Pucon for the night. It's a nice lake town witch is big for people wanting to go trekking or hike a volcano or go rafting. The weather is kind of poor right now and we're out of chilean pesos so we're going to Argentina tomorrow! Bariloche or Bust!!

Onward

Hello Hello!
Since the last post, we have moved away from the coast, toured Santiago, and survived an overnight bus into the southern region of Chile.
A speical thanks to Sander and his family for housing us in Santiago and just being awesome!
Right now we are in Valdivia but are getting ready to go to a national park for a hiking trip. Valdivia is supposed to have a strong German influence. We were expecting wooden houses, saurkraut, and knee high stockings. We came to the conclusion that the German influence must be more subliminal. There´s a brewery in Valdivia which we walked to in hopes of getting a tour...but they don´t do tours so we had a sampler of their 8 varieties. Oh, there are also sealions! Sealions are huge and these are not afraid to plop down on a pier or platform near a sidewalk.
Anyways... we´ll try to be better about updates...and yes, pictures will be posted one day!

Valparaiso! Happy New Year

Happy New Year!
It's our last night in Valparaiso and tomorrow we leave for Santiago for a couple of days. Thus far, we have enjoyed 20 hours of sunlight, 1 empanada, and summer vacation traffic. Yesterday, we went to a beach called Renaca which is apparently divided into 5 levels based on physical appearance and age...but it was so crowded that I'm sure it really didn't matter. Near the beach is a line of dunes that are popular for 4-wheeling and enjoying the sunset. I felt like I was walking through a virtual reality or screensaver or something of that sort. Pictures will be posted pronto so you can each understand what I'm talking about.
Today, we decided to go to Pablo Neruda's house in Isla Negra. It was a semi-disaster due to it being high season and getting mixed in with beach traffic. When we found the house we also found out that you can only enter with a tour and that the next available tour was at 5:30...so we gave ourselves a guided tour of the gardens and the exterior of the house. Neruda definitely seemed like a pack-rat, but in the best possible way. His home, from what we could tell, was full of sea glass, wooden animals (like a life size horse), and various nautical accessories. In the gift shop, we looked through a picture book of his house so that we didn't feel totally jipped.
Hope you are all well! Pictures and more updates to come!!
Love,
Em and K