Happy New Year from Buenos Aires

We just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year from Buenos Aires. We are attending a party in the hostel tonight with free drink and food until Midnight, then a DJ and bar, and then we will take the rest of the night as it comes.

Last night we did some tango and Glenn was actually persuaded to take a class - but more on that in the next post.

In the meantime we wish all our friends and family a Happy New Year!

Iguazu photos... no 2

Photos from Iguazu.... no 1.

Again, so not sure how these will come out but the comments should be self-explanatory;

1) Gargantan del diablo with a rainbow which looked spectacular on the day.
2) Nina by the Diablo very very wet from the spray and the noise was incredible.
3) Glenn on one of the walkways which showed part of the immense size of the falls - they are about 4km across in total.
4) Nina and Glenn in front of the falls.
5) Picture of the falls

Happy Christmas 2009 from Villa Gesell, Argentina

Happy Christmas 2009 to everyone back in the UK (and Australia...).



So we are spending Christmas in a lovely beach resort called Villa Gesell but before we go on about the beach, we will update you on the Iguazu falls.



First a little rant about the bus company that took us from Mendoza to Buenos aires and then onto Iguazu and then back to BA. Andesmar seemed OK but we had a number of problems - really late buses with no explanation, bags getting wet (along with all the clothes inside), bags getting baked, no veggie food despite repeated confirmations it would be OK, repeated showings of the same crappy DVD on the bus as they had only bought one with them (believe me '2 fast 2 furious' does not get better on the 2nd or 3rd viewing), stops for 5 minutes which were actually for an hour etc etc. Rant over.



BUT it was all worth it to see the Iguazu falls - to quote ourselves in a much repeated word - AMAZING. We got there at about 9am and spent the day in the national park. There were lots of walks which gave you different views of the falls but the best ones were probably the close ups of the gargantan del diablo which seems from the walkway as though there is a hole in the world and everything is collapsing into it. We spent a good part of the day just looking and being overcome with awe. Oh, and we got pretty we as well as you can see from the pictures we will put up. Its difficult to convey it in words or pictures (although we can try) but here is a you tube clip from the Planet Earth DVD we have been wearing out for the last 6 months (skip to 6 minutes 19 seconds which shows the Iguazu falls). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dRFDwqYeqs&feature=PlayList&p=A92D9B0A76531EBA&index=8



The next day we went back for the morning which is the first time we have gone back to see anything twice. From the falls we could see Paraguay and Brazil across the borders and could probably have gone to the Brazilian side of the falls but it would have been a bit tight for time and we were very happy with the Argentine side! The climate was very tropical so we had to apply lots of sun cream and deet (anti insect spray) but despite this got burnt a little bit and bitten a lot...

After coming back from Iguazu we spent 2 days in Buenos aires at a really nice hostel called Portal del sur. The best part was the rooftop bar which also had a ping pong table where Nina got some practice in for Laura and Rich's garage in Melbourne. We spent one evening in a BA institution called Guerrin which is a famous pizza place. There were lots of signed pictures of Maradonna wearing Guerrnin T-shirts so he is obviously a fan. For anyone who has been to Katz Deli in New York this is the Argentine equivalent.

But on the 23rd we came down to Villa Gesell, a mere 5 hours compared to our previous 18 hour trips to Iguazu. We travelled with company Grupo Plaza who turned up on time and delivered what they promised and all in all a comfortable ride. When we arrived we were greeted with two smiling faces - our host Martha and her little girl who spoke better English than we do Spanish. We had one of those conversations where Nina is speaking broken Spanish to an 11 year old girl who is speaking very good English and Glenn is looking at his feet in shame saying Gracias and Por Favor.

Since we arrived we have spent the day either on the balcony of our lovely room, by the pool, on the beach (20 metres from the hotel) or in the small town. Glenn wants us to mention that we spent part of christmas eve going round the shops buying a new top for Nina - or what he calls ''being dragged round for hours". Note from Nina: first shopping we have done, and replacing a top that has disintegrated and it was only about an hour...

We are enjoying going for runs and walks along the beach and the atlantic surf whilst trying to avoid the worst of the sun (and not always succeeding). Whils there is a nice amount of people in the resort, it is far from heaving, which apparently happens in January and February so we came at the right time. It is almost all Argentine tourists and everyone we speak to seems quite chuffed that we are visiting Villa Gesell, rather than Mar del Plata down the coast which we think is borderline Benidorm.

Christmas day was really nice as we managed to speak to a lot of people back home, although the phone line wasn't perfect. Our lovely hosts laid on a nice breakfast including a christmas loaf to which we helped ourselves unashamedly. We wish to document that we went for a 20 minute slow jog along the beach to offset the enormous of food we ate that day. After time by the pool and the beach, where we had our special Mendoza wine, we went to a really nice restaurant called Casa de Antonia for lots of lovely food and (more) wine.

We are spending another couple of days here before we return to BA for new year. Happy Christmas and New Year to everyone!


Nina and Glenn xx

Rafting pictures

No comments necessary, except it is glacial material which turns the water chocolately and nothing else sinister. If we did it in the UK and the water was the colour we would be wearing full biohazard suits.

Horse riding, rafting and Wine tour

Hey everyone

So we are on our last evening in Mendoza and are gearing up for an overnight trip on the bus to Buenos aires and then another overnight trip to the Iguazu falls. These are massive water falls and on the border of Brazil and Argentina, we really want to make sure we see them hence we are travelling up there before christmas.

We have had a great time chilling out in Mendoza and have had some seriously good wine- both cheap and more expensive, in restaurants, cafes and from the bodegas themselves. We have bought a couple of the nicer Malbecs for Christmas day and New Year to spoil ourselves with.

One of the best days we had in Mendoza was rafting during the day on the Rio Mendoza - which is basically a river which looks like a nesquik advert - but we were assured that was just sediment and not pollution! We have a good DVD of pictures taken by the company and will try and put photos up. It was really good fun, not least due to the humiliation of being made to wear wetsuits. On the same day we did a ´sunset horse ride´where some real gaucho cowboys took us out on some very docile horses across the Andes. There were lots of ýee ha´ from the group as we trotted and felt we were going really fast.... Next day there was lots of sore areas including heads from the wine and BBQ we had after the ride. We do have pictures of Glenn on the horse but it will take some more persuasion before publishing...

Anyway, off to the bus station for our marathon journey across Argentina. We are well armed with pringles, bananas and cheese rolls.

Love to everyone

Nina and Glenn xxx

Torres Del Paine pictures 3

Torres del paine photos... 2

Some photos again.. not sure of the order in which they will appear but some commentary.

1) Glenn and the glacier... this point took us about 7 or 8 hours of walking to get to and we were right on top of the glacier - amazing.
2) Glenn having a cup of coffee by the glacier.
3) Nina and Glenn near a lake just outside the hostel Paine Grande where we stayed the final night.
4)Nina and Glenn in the bar at hostel Paine grande - they had ´happy sour´where two pisco sours where the price of one...
5) Glenn on the snow.. you can just see the ´torres´of torres del paine in the background.

Torres Del Paine pictures 1

Hello Argentina....

Hi everyone

So after a long break, we are just going to do a quick update to the blog as this is a slow computer in the hostel. We will try and find an internet cafe in the next few days to post photos etc.

So quick update of December so far!

After buying our compass in Puerta Natales, we went to the national Park Torres del Paine and spent 6 days hiking with huge backpacks on - often uphill on difficult trails - and it was absolutely amazing, the best thing by far. Hopefully the photos will do it some justice, but we saw impressive mountains, beautiful clear lakes, and glacial streams (and obviously glaciers).

We stayed in little refugios, which are basically hostels providing basic accomodation in 6 bed dormrooms - Glenn always had the top bunk as less likely to bump his head! We carried food for brekky and lunch, and some of our favourite memories are meals outdoors - such as pasta and soup in the sun, cup of tea by a glacier and noodles halfway up a valley. The 3 course dinners we had in the evening were brilliant robust food, which is what you need after 12 hours of hard trekking (well, other days, it was more like 4 hours!). The refugios had a ski-lodge type atmosphere in the evening which was cool - lots of people tired but happy after being outdoors all day wanting to have a drink or two... We generally went to bed early-ish before 10 as we were getting up for 6 am or so, but we still managed to have the odd glass of wine, beer or Glenn´s Glenfiddich (small hip flask for ´emergency purposes´).

One of the highlights was a day we covered a lot of distance with 12 hours trekking, the midpoint of which was a trek up the tip of the valley frances (middle of the W) which involved trekking up a snow covered piste to reach a mirador (viewpoint). It was slow going upwards - imagine walking in deep snow in trainers, without walking poles (which we noticed, everyone else had) but coming down was ace. We basically skied down but on our posteriors. We have a couple of wicked videos for when we get home. It was probably dangerous with submerged rocks and glacial streams but it was totally fun and so much easier than walking down, we don´t care. We couldn´t feel our freezing backsides for half an hour but, hey, it was cool.

Overall, we had great weather - sunny but often really windy - but it would have been a totally different experience in rainy, snowy, foggy weather.

So we finished the W circuit and then got up at 5.30am (driven out by the worst snorers we have ever heard) to do a 5 hour trek to get the bus back to civilisation. We then spent a few days travelling back up to Santiago via Puerta Natales and Punta Arenas and then a 7 hours bus ride across the Andes to Mendoza, Argentina.

We are staying here for a few days to have some fun - and have booked up for some rafting and horse riding (Glenn only convinced after 6 weeks of nagging) and will be doing a wine tour as well. This is serious wine country and we are looking forward to doing lots of tasting of top wines. The weather is beautiful and it is nice to walk around without packs on our backs (all our cold weather gear is being stuffed down the bottom of our luggage).

Love to everyone and hope the xmas parties are going well!

Nina and Glenn xxx

It´s snowing.....

Hey everyone and HAPPY birthday to Granny Guy - 21 again today - lots of love and we hope you have a great day.

So, we have gone from balmy cafe culture in Santiago to freezing cold in currently snowing Puerta natales. Yesterday was fun - another 3am start to get our flight, uncomfortable plane, then bus for 3 hours with lots of snoozing on the way. We passed the ferry terminal in punta arenas where, if you want to, you can get the boat to Antarctica. We decided not to (no pubs or chip shops, we think).

So we are staying at a really nice hostel called Los carretas with a nice big warm room and private bathroom, with hot showers. Bit of hostal luxury before our next adventure. Tomorrow, we are setting off for the Torres del Paine national park for 6 nights. We are staying in little refugios (small basic huts with bunk beds and toilets) so we don´t carry tents but we do carry food, sleeping bags and clothes for 5 to 6 days of trekking. The wikipedia link below gives a sense of what we are doing (´w´ circuit).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torres_del_Paine#Hiking

Obviously, we won´t have internet access for a few days - in fact most areas of the park will just be connected by radio signal. So, we will update (probably with lots of pictures!) when we get back to civilisation, currently planned to be on Dec 8th. If it is any earlier it will be due to getting lost or picked up by the helicopter of shame courtesy of our insurance company. The route is supposed to be well marked and idiot proof, but still nina will not be directing this trek - glenn is in charge of getting the map the right way round. We are now off to buy a compass....

Love to everyone
Nina and Glenn xxx