Valparaiso, Vina del Mar, Mendoza, Maipu, and Cachueta

Valparaiso = port town, slightly sketchy, very colorful, a "photographer´s dream", WONDERFUL food (La Concepcion), good hostel, fun new friends, card games, vino, graffiti, jail, etc.

Favorite graffiti


Vina del Mar = beaches!!!, tons of people, 6 min bus ride from Valpo, bus ride where I almost got stuff swiped, freezing cold water

Beach (obviously)


Mendoza = wine country, wonderful

Maipu = where we actually stayed (suburb of Mendoza?), so quaint and wonderful, awesome B&B, tommy the dog, bicycling to wineries and olive oil farms, wonderful empanadas, relaxation, beautiful!

View out the window at B&B


Vistandes Winery (very modern)


Chaya biking on our way to a winery


Vino!


Cachueta = thermal springs, super relaxing day, massages, crazy, delicious buffet, MUD!!!!

The Thermal Springs (random people in pic!)


So far so good...more to come later (obviously ;)). In Bariloche now and already in love!!! mil besos xoxoxox Sending hugs to you all and praying for those with family or friends in Haiti. much love, much love.

Santiago, Chile

Not at all what I expected, but soooooo great! The day started with a little jaunt in the wrong direction, but Chaya and I didn't care...we got to see more of Santiago on a beautiful day! So after realizing that we were headed in the wrong direction, we headed back to Bella Vista for lunch at Patio Bella Vista at a great little French restaurant. Then we were off to the funicular for an amazing ride up San Cristobol where you could see the entire city..it was awesome! Lastly, we took the metro to plaza de armas and saw the cathedral of Santiago and the governmental palace. Santiago is a great city that is ridiculously clean and has the friendliest people I have met to date in South America. I highly recommend it to any and everyone!!! Off to rest before finding some Thai food (it's supposed to be great here) and then off to Valpo tomorrow!!!! Chau chau :)

Lunch at Patio Bella Vista


Funiculuar Ride


Top of San Cristobol


View of Santiago


Cathedral of Santiago


Plaza de Armas


Governmental Palace

Wonderful Trip Home and now back to South America!

First, I had an AMAZING time back in the states!!! It was so unbelievably good to see my family and friends...just what I needed! Much love to you all xoxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxox

And now, onto life back in South America....

So, Chaya and I met up in Orlando to begin our trek back to South America where I met her parents (so great!) and got to catch up on all our stateside experiences. Then we were off to Houston where we had 5 or so hours to kill. We ended up at Pappadeux where alligator was sampled and we ran into Tim and Molly!!!! It was so great to see them. So good in fact, that we were sorta pushing it to get on our long flight to Buenos Aires. The 10-ish hour flight was pretty uneventful until close to the end when they were serving us breakfast and we got called Double Trouble. And then, when the flight attendant came around again I was greeted with, "Hey Trouble!" Dude, why me?! hahahaha....it's all good!

Anyhow, when we got off our flight there was a little bit of chaos and Chaya and I were sort of oblivious thinking, "Well, we still have 4 hours to kill." Well...little did we know that our connecting flight was actually impossible to get on - it left before we even landed...not our fault (continental took full responsibility). Soooo, a few hours later we ended up at an awesome little hotel/inn near the international BA airport that was not at all what we expected. We knew we were home when a wall of vino greeted us at the door :) But seriously, this was a great way to start our month-long trip around South America...there was a power outage, a crazy computer-crazed man, great food and wine, and completely inappropriate English rap songs on the speakers at dinner that we were dying laughing to as non-English speakers just ate away. Oh man, if this is just a little detour, who knows how the rest of the trip is gonna go!!!! Can't wait!

Gonna try and blog along the way...at least little tidbits so it's my own journal if anything. Stay tuned and can't wait to catch up with you all! xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxox