NOOOO!!

So, apparently Brooke & I woke up this morning and our itinerary told us we are suppose to get to Santiago today and fly back at 9pm?? MUST be a typo. We are so sad. BUT, once we get home where the Internet is fast, we will post pictures and share more of our adventures. We have a long journey home ahead of us... we will be in touch soon and by this time tomorrow, our cell phones will work so you can call us both and tell us how much you missed us :)

Vina del Mar!

We´re at the beach! We made it to Vina del Mar Saturday night (after yet another flight delay). We picked up our car in Santiago and drove to Vina. Our car is a tiny red Toyota Yaris we named Guido! The drive was gorgeous- mountains, vineyards and then the view of the coast! Vina del Mar is nestled up against the mountains and quite hilly (reminds us of San Francisco streets).
Yesterday we spent the entire afternoon laying out at the beach in Renaca, which is a small town north of Vina del Mar that feels like a mini Cancun. I (Brooke) have never seen such big waves as we did yesterday. They were huge!
Sarah and I decided that we didn´t want to go back to Santiago so we´re staying in Vina del Mar tonight ( we want more beach time!) and tomorrow we´ll take a bus directly to the airport to head back home (so sad to be leaving!!!). Being at the beach has been a perfect way to end this awesome trip!

New Photos

Hi all! This is Sarah. We are in Puerto Natales... waiting for our next bus to take us to Punta Arenas. We were unable to catch the 6:30 bus (it was full), so we will jump on the 7:30 bus, so we stopped at an Internet Cafe. Brooke can´t get her pics to upload, and I changed out my memory card (the other one is tucked away), but here are just a few more pics from our trip!


On the dock ... this is the glacier we trekked!








Here is the glacier from the balconies. We heard 12 drops of the ice, but only saw one piece fall! This was basically the view we had during our picnic lunch outside :)






This is a picture of Torres del Paine! This is the mountain we climbed!








I have posted a couple more pictures on my Facebook, the public link is: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019559&id=1189218832&l=d888f

Amazing day!!!!!

Hey everyone, this is Brooke. Today we hiked up to the base of the Torres del Paine. We couldn´t have asked for better weather, it was a perfect day for hiking. The hike took about 4 hours of steep climbing. We hiked through every type of terrain possible. Sarah, who had never hiked a mountain before and is scared of heights, did almost have an anxiety attack on the edge of a narrow path but she made it all the way and I´m so proud of her for conquering her fears. We passed through wide open pastures, narrow paths on the edge where if you slipped you were going way down into the Rio Ascencio, thick forests, and then at the top we had to scale up in sand and boulders. What a workout, but it was so worth it as the three ¨towers¨ appeared out of nowhere. Just stunning. There was also a glacial lake underneath them. We had lunch and wandered around for an hour before heading back to our hosteria. All in all, it took 7 hours of hiking. Tonight to celebrate, we had veal steak and a few beers back at the hosteria and now we´re exhausted and calling it a night.
Tomorrow we take a bus to Punta Arenas where we only stay for the night as we fly back up to Santiago Saturday morning.

Torres del Paine!

We are here! Long day traveling, so we took a little afternooon nap - but we made it! This place is literally in the middle of no where! Our resort is at the bottom of the mountains and I feel like we are in a movie! We will try to post pics, but so far, this computer is super slow just entering this! Hope you are all doing well! - Sarah

El Calafate!

Hello (this is Brooke)! We have been in El Calafate for the past two days and I´m in heaven (think Sarah is too!). Absolutely love this tiny mountain town in the middle of nowhere. The town has one main street, but it is filled with charm and has tons of restaurants and bars. Today we did our ¨mini-trek¨ on the Perito Moreno Glacier (about 1.5 hours west of town)- WOW! What an amazing sight. It was just a perfect day- great weather, great people and an unforgettable excursion. (I even met a couple from Milwaukee!). We took a boat across the glacial lake and after a history lesson on the glacier, put on crampons and hiked on the glacier for about 2 hours. And it wasn´t a flat hike- lots of ups and downs. Just amazing- too hard to explain in words, hopefully we can upload photos to show you all how gorgeous it was. To top off the hike on the ice, our guides surprised us with Famous Grouse whiskey! (for those who know me, I´m not a whiskey girl, put couldn´t pass it up). We also had the Argentine favorite- dulce de leche chocolate cookies.
Our hostel offers everyone an option to buy the ¨asado¨ dinner, so we had that tonight. It was the typical Argentine BBQ and it was scrumptious- grilled veggies and lots of beef! This hostel is a lot of fun- lots of energy and a super staff.
This is definitely the highlight of the trip for both of us (wish we could stay here for weeks), but tomorrow we head to Torres del Paine National Park. We have heard nothing but the best reviews òf this park, so we´re both looking forward to it even though we´re sad to leave El Calafate.

On our way to El Calafate!

Hello everyone! Today has been challenging, but also super lucky! Brooke and I went down to Recoletta this morning and had coffee and empenadas and checked out BA for the last time. Our flight to El Calafate was at 3:40pm, so we walked back to our hotel, took a cab and then after checking in, we realized we were at the wrong airport. Apparently, the airport changed (not our fault) - and the only contact info they had was our travel agent in WI who was unable to contact us, long story short, we had to jump another taxi that was $180 pesos, ha!, and go across town. But, our flight had been delayed until 5pm, so we are all good! Either way, we will be heading down to the tip of the continent in about an hour or so! We are at a Internet Cafe now in the airport, and limited to 30 minutes. If we have remaining time, we will post photos! Ciao!

Rainy Sunday morning

Helllllo! We are still in Buenos Aires. It´s a bit rainly and chilly today, so we are taking it easy (I posted pics up on my Facebook) and catching up on a few emails. We will explore this afternoon! Yesterday was great! We walked around to the Recoletta Cemetary (SO amazing) and then thru Palermo and down Santa Fe street that is known for it´s shopping. They had a strip, oh, similar to the Plaza Art Fair. For everyone in Madison and elsewhere, more like a craft show with booths and people´s local crafts. Both Brooke and I bought some photography, but I could have bought everything! Tons of jewelry and the artwork was simply amazing! We walked forever. Lots of funny things we saw and laughed a lot. The guide book warned us about all the stray dogs and the shadoobs they leave all over the sidewalks, so we were hopping all over the place! We walked by the zoo, tons of muesems, the Japenese Gardens, and down Embassy Row. We walked for hours and hours and miles and miles. We capped it with sitting at a cafe and having some wine, cheese, and coffees. We got ready and ordered room service, then we went to a Tango Show! It was raining so we checked out umbrellas from our hotel and went about a mile down the road. The show was very casual and you could take lessons, so I dance a bit. Had NO idea what I was doing, but had just the most amazing time!! (must have been all the Zumba practice! ha!) I will post a few pictures! Hope you are all doing well! For those that know me, I am the worst speller, and since this comptuer is Spanish, it doesn´t offer spell check, so please forgive and excuse me for my ignorant typos!

Okay, I just spent the last 15 minutes trying to upload photos and the connection is giving me an error is Spanish, so here are the photos I uploaded to Facebook if you would like to view those: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019559&id=1189218832&l=d888f

Oh, one more thing. We are flying to El Calafate tomorrow! So excited! We will be glacier trekking, so not sure if we will have any access to the Internet. If we don´t we will post later! Take care everyone! Miss you!

We are in Buenos Aires!

Quick post this morning! We made it! The flight was just like any other American flight and the airport seemed similar to La Guardia, so really simple to navigate! This city is big like NYC, but everyone says it´s very similar to Paris. I (Sarah) have never been, so I can´t say that, but now will have to go just so I can compare! It´s amazing here. The architecture alone is breath-taking! I´m so glad to be here, and feel like this adventure of ours just keeps getting better & better! We met some Americans last night - a couple from Pennsylvania and some Dallas folks. So random! We ate at the most amazing restaurant Cabaña Las Lilas (thank you Dave Hensley!!). We will post pictures soon! We may go on a city tour today, shop, go find a park for a quick run and maybe even a cafe to journal and read there and feel like an Argentine! Love it here!! We will post more soon!

Buenos Aires

Hi everyone! We are taking our first domestic flight today and will be off to Buenos Aires! Very excited! We are about to check out of our hostel where we have had a blast at! Just thought we would let you know! We´ll let you know more about Buenos Aires once we arrive!

Zip lining!

Hello everyone!

Today we rented a car - quite the adventure! we left Mendoza and went into the mountains... about 1.5 hours away! it was very fun to get out on our own! we went zip lining and to a water park. we did 6 zip lines and we have some photos to share! tonight (it´s 8pm here) we are going to go to the market and get wine and cheese and fruit and then tomorrow we head off to buenos aires! we are taking our first domestic flight!

here are the pictures from today - we had a professional photographer on site. we will post more later!

This is me and Brooke in Santiago having our first beer!!! salud!

to the right is brooke on Cerro Santa Lucia (hill in the heart of the city) that we climbed in Santiago!!

this is us at our first stop in mendoza! we had two flights and tried 10 different wines and then had a glass! mucho vino! i bought 12 bottles to ship back to the states!! very fun and every sip was a lesson and the history of mendoza is remarkable.. more so than napa, oh, and we met Argentinian friends!

this is our first night out in mendoza! we went to the Vines of Mendoza.. picture above, then went to a super market and bought cheese and wine and got ready. our hostel is awesome! we met some americans and others and they are the best! randomly, we went out to an irish pub and had two beers but they were the size of 40s. we had a great time. that photo was last night. today, we got up at 9am and went to breakfast and then to the bodegas (vineyards) and rode bikes and drank wine. the bikes were fun and it was in the upper 90s and we went about 10Ks out... so we had to hitch hike home! we will post photos of all of that! email us later.. or facebook. we love and miss you all!

this is sarah! hola! we are now in mendoza! so far.. we are having the best time... i must say tho.. the keyboard is different.. so this will be short! ..oh ya, and we drank some mendoza wine! we arrived here after a 7 hr bus ride... the entire time was thru the andes mountains... most amazing thing..i keep learning things and the one main thing i learned today was that pics will never do any scene justice.. brew and i took some great shots, buy they will never capture what we really saw. im so glad we went by bus! we got here and our hostel is cute and we walked.. ps. super flipping caliente!!!! to the vines. and tested.. okay .. i cant find punctuation except the period.. so pardon.. and we had 2 flights of vinos - which are 10 small dixie-glass sized samples of a variety of wines, .and now we are at the cafe and will head back for ice cream and our hostel. this town is cleaner than santiago and much more spirited. we met a friend at the vines that will take us to an irish pub tonight and tomm we plan on hitting up a vineyard or going to a spa .. just depends, well be here for three days! this is it.. well write tomm. talk to you soon! xoxo

Mendoza

Tomorrow we will be in Mendoza and will post some pictures tomorrow or in the next few days!! Hope you are all well! Be in touch soon!

Hola! We have arrived safely in Santiago! Our flights went well, especially the first leg as we were bumped up to first class on our way to Toronto for ¨weight distribution¨. We were treated like queens- hot towels, free booze ( we recommend the beer ¨Canadian¨), and our first of three dinners that day. Our trip from Toronto to Santiago was 10 hours and was easy and fairly quick. Air Canada airplanes are decked out- huge selection of TV shows, movies, music, etc on our own personal screens and good food. Upon arrival, customs was easy and we were swarmed by men asking us if we needed a taxi. Our hostel is very cute and in the best part of town. The Bellavista Barrio has tons of outdoor cafes, bars and restaurants. We unpacked a bit and then got a few Chilean beers (which got us a bit buzzed) and we headed off to find our way to the bus station to purchase our tickets to Mendoza for tomorrow morning. Luckily we stumbled upon a very nice young man named Ignacio who walked us to the correct bus that would take us to the bus station (it was complicated) and then he got us on the bus for free! We bought our tickets for Mendoza and then decided to walk the 5 or so miles back to our hostel ( after being on a plane for so long we needed that walk). We stumbled upon some sort of old castle or fortress in the heart of the city and hiked around it a bit, which was nice because we had been walking along a graffiti ridden boulevard for hours. Santiago definitely has some quirks- it seems like every other person walking was eating an ice cream cone, ice cream vendors hop on and off the buses to sell ice cream treats, there are a ton of stray dogs just laying all over the streets- they look dead half the time. We finished our night eating dinner at the Bellavista Patio and tomorrow we´ll be up early to catch our 7 hour bus to Mendoza. So far things are great- it´s hard to believe we´re here!

Two days until the big trip!

We're going on a 2 1/2 week trip to Chile and Argentina! We'll try to update our blog frequently with photos and news of where we've been.