A day in my life in Argentina...

We took a road trip from our main 'road trip' to El Chalten, which is in the northern part of the Glacier National Park. We went on December 23rd so we could get back in time to spend Christmas Eve in El Calafate. I call it a road trip because we left our BIG backpacks at our hotel in El Calafate and just took the bus with our overnight stuff.

So, the morning started in our hotel in El Calafate (quite nice as we decided to splurge for Christmas). My alarm clock went off at 6:30am, the earliest I've gotten up since I had to get up at 4:30am when I left Jaco, Costa Rica. Neither of us were pleased so we went back to bed until 7am. Breakfast is included and they had homemade bread, homemade banana cream pie, homemade quince pie (which I don't really know what that is but it's a red fruit that you can't eat raw but is good for baking) and tea. As we were walking 2 blocks to the bus station at 7:45am I started complaining about how tired I was. And then I started laughing and telling Liz how much shit my friends would be giving me if they knew I was complaining about waking up early to go see more amazing sights in South America. So...I laughed a little and stopped complaining about the early hour.

The bus ride was 3.5 hours. It was really beautiful but once again looked almost exactly like Utah. I took half of a motion sickness pill (any of you who know me know that I can get motion sick practically by thinking about riding in a bus or the back of a car). So, along with the EARLY rise and the pill, I was pretty sleepy. Each time I would wake up on the bus I would open my eyes and if the scenery looked the same as Utah, I just closed them and went back to sleep. According to Liz we did pass a lake with one iceberg. She thought about waking me up...but has learned that I can be a tiny bit grumpy when I don't have my sleep :) So she decided she would only wake my up if I started drooling on myself, which I guess didn't happen because she never woke me up.

We arrived into El Chalten around 1pm and checked into our room in a cute little bed and breakfast. We layed down on the beds at 1:30pm and agreed that we would leave for a hike at 2:00pm. It was almost 2:00pm when Liz said, we should go before I fall asleep, and I replied, yeah. We woke up 2 hours later. We have to wake up once at 6:30am and not only can we not pull ourselves out of bed until 7:00am, we have to take a 2 hour afternoon nap. Anyway, we did go on a small hike to view the town. It was super windy so we hurried down and then stopped for a submarino (steamed milk into which you drop a chocolate bar), then soup, then pizza and a bottle of wine, and a piece of chocolate cake. Needless to say, we're not looking as trim as we were in Bariloche...but I think you'll agree with me that it was a fabulous end to a fantastic day!

Photos of El Chalten & Christmas in El Calafate.

Hasta luego...

Argentina: El Calafate

We flew from Bariloche south to El Calafate. Again, it's beatiful here. Upon arriving I once again felt like I was in Utah and wondered why am I traveling to the other side of the world to look at scenery that looks exactly like it does back home...until we visited the glaciers. WOW! We paid an arm and a leg to take an all day catamarn to three glaciers: Upsala, Spegazzini and Perito Moreno. Perito Moreno, although not the biggest glacier here, is the most famous. This is because while most if not all other glaciers are receding, Perito Moreno is actually gaining as much mass at the beginning as it is losing to the lake.

It was absolutely incredible to see the glaciers. We were on the boat the whole day so didn't get to walk on them (we decided to skip the mini trekking on the glacier because the tours are so expensive). But we stayed out on the deck of the boat most of the day so we had a great close up view of the glaciers.

Here are some of my PHOTOS from EL CALAFATE.

Info on Los Glaciers National Park. We are headed to El Chalten for one night tomorrow before returning back to El Calafate to spend Christmas.

Happy Holidays!!!
With love,
Cori

Argentina: Bariloche & Photos

Liz and I had a great time in Bariloche. We continued with the trend in Buenos Aires and walked, and walked and walked some more. It was beautiful there and we lucked out with great weather. After walking for three days we hiked another day and then also did a 20 km of the Cirquito Chico by bike. Bariloche reminded me a lot of Utah as you'll notice from the pictures (well those of you who know Utah will notice).

Bariloche is famous for their delcious chocolate...which we can attest to. Argentina is also known for delicious ice cream...which we also sampled in Bariloche.

We celebrated Liz's 30th birthday on the 18 of December...HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZ! We actually put on dresses and wore shoes other than flip flops or hiking books to celebrate the occation and went for fondue and wine...after which we took the silly pictures of us making faces and lauging.

Well...2nd city in Argentina down, onward to El Calafate for Christmas.

Here are links to Argentina photos with the new camera...

Photos of BARILOCHE.

Photos of BUENOS AIRES.

Pick-pocketed in Buenos Aires Argentina

I left Utah on December 4th and flew to Costa Rica. After spending 5 days in Jaco (visiting Sama, seeing the Marina & witnessing a transvestite running frantically from an incoming firecracker), I headed to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I met my friend Liz at the airport (it´s spelled Lies...but for the gringos I´ll just write it as Liz so you don´t think of lies as in lying).

The first day in Buenos Aires we just walked around and saw a lot of the city. Apparently we weren´t being very observant because I took a picture as I was crossing the street, put my camera back in it´s case, and moved it to the back side of my body...BIG MISTAKE. No less than two minutes later I reached for my camera bag to get out a copy of my passport and the zipper is open and my camera is gone. That fast without feeling a thing. But apparently it is very, very common for people to rob you while you are holding your purse or backpack...without you even knowing. You have to constantly be watching your belongings....contstanty. Luckily I had downloaded all of my pictures while I was at home so the only pictures on the card that I hadn´t downloaded were from Jaco. So...I lost the pictures of the marina :( but I´m pretty sure I´ll be back. :)

So yesterday, we walked and walked and walked some more. I bought a camera. I decided on a cheaper one because they seem to be older models than the ones in the US. Yesterday we also took a tour of a building which was cool as we went to the top where there was a light house light and got a great view of the city. Last night we went to a Tango show, which was really cool (and of course really sexy). We´ll be here until Sunday and then are flying to Bariloche. I´ll try to post my pictures soon. Ciao!