I've officially backpacked through South America and only went to the police station once. And I didn't even cry.

At the end of the trip, I took another trip!!!! I know what you all really want to know, is how long I've spent on a bus in my time in South America, so I'll lay it to you straight. The answer is, regrettably, 160 hours. 24 of which have happened in the last 48 hours. So now try to judge me for two posts in a row.

Our first stop: Rosario
 A sleepy little beach town with the national monument to the flag. Twas a beaute.

After: MENDOZA. If I don't make my flight tomorrow, it is because I sold my ticket and moved to Mendoza: land of wine and rafting. The first day we walked around. GUESS WHAT THEY HAVE IN MENDOZA: ITS CALLED MEXICAN FOOD AND ITS MY WHOLE LIFE AND I ATE IT SEVERAL TIMES. After that, we had a wine tour. Just so you know, I am a wine connoisseur and will continue to upscale you all on my pointing out fruits of the forests and notes of toasts. Consider yourself warned. Mendoza is incredibly dry but set in the foothills of the Andes. We went to the wineries Vista Alba (love the Corte C, if I can find it in the states), Tapiz, and Septima for lunch. Just honestly, I have no idea how Septima wine is. But here are some picks! We also we went rafting (twice). The first time I fell out, the second time was midnight rafting by the full moon. Frigid and amazing!

 Sophie and I at Vista Alba--My favorie bodega by far.

 LLAMA BABY.

 Vasos Vacios.

 If you look close enough, you can see my face that says: Oh shit, I'm going overboard.

The group + tour guide at Vista Alba.

On to CHILE!!!
First, we went to Valparaiso. It had some sketchy feels, but our hostel was super fun and located in a great spot. Also Chileans are incredibly nice and hit on you in English (not why they are nice).

 My hostel in Valparaiso!

 Valparaiso in the background!

La Chascona in Santiago--one of the houses of Pablo Neruda in Santiago, Chile. Very very very beautiful!

Santiago was very beautiful and the people were so friendly. The only incident was, while watching irish dancing (long story) in patio Bellavista, one of the girls I was with went to eat dinner around there alone. SEVEN HOURS LATER... she had still not returned. So Delaney and I went to the Police Station and began the painstaking task of filling out a police report in a foreign language. Thank god for the man in the hostel, who, immediately upon her arrival, made her call the police station and find us. Needless to say, bridge burned. The trip, however, was amazing and I would gladly spend several months in each of those cities: Santiago and Mendoza were my favorite by far. T-minus 29 hours until I arrive home!! See everyone soon!

I went to the end of the world and drank some whiskey.

After the program ended we went to Ushuaia, arguably the lowest city in the world. It was FRIGID. Somehow I managed to pinch a nerve in my back in Ushuaia, making most things painful and difficult. I could have been more attractive in pictures, but mainly I just look constipated--you're welcome mom. We saw a dog house, where they keep all of the husky mixes, and they were beautiful! Argentina, of course, attempted to breed some sort of arctic monster bear dog, the last of which died last year. Now, its offspring are charged with being the sleigh dogs. They are pretty terrifying and aggressive. 

 Allison y yo, with the end of the Andes in the background!

"I generally like cats, but you're okay too"
After mastering our fears of rabid wolves, we went 4x4ing around Lago Escondido and had a little parilla lunch. Twas delicious, and the views were OUT OF THIS WORLD. Places like this are not real and I treated it as such: by eating approximately 16 choripans.

 Lago Escondido (Hidden Lake) in Tierra del Fuego National Park was named because its so rare to be able to see it under a layer of clouds. Obviously, the clouds parted for my presence.

 Kate McCarty and I, squatting in front of the glorious views.

That is really the color of that water, those mountains, that sky, and those trees. I'm almost camouflaged, can you find me? After Ushuaia, we flew to El Calafate. It had cute mountain-town onda and a very very very casual landmark.

The very casual Perrito Moreno Glacier. The Glacier itself is about 250 square kilometers- larger than the city of Buenos Aires. And I got to hike on it. There are pictures, but they are on my phone. If you think going to Georgia Tech has made me any better at working anything electronic, then I beg you to look at my GPA and reassess. I will gladly show them all to you in person, including the one of me drinking at the end. After hiking up glaciers with your scary, spiky shoes, you get a nice rewarding glass of whiskey to enjoy with some glacier ice. Definitely an experience for the books. The last thing we did in El Calafate was horseback riding and zip-lining. I handled neither of those things gracefully, so I will not be uploading pictures. Deal with it.

Iguassssssuuuuuu: The land of mosquitoes the size of small mammals

This weekend I went to Iguazu Falls! The most breathtaking thing I have ever done. My camera died 4 pictures into the trip, so almost all of these pictures have been stolen from my lovely group-mates who were sweet enough to take pictures of me. Highlights: buena onda at the hostel, jungle hiking, swimming in a waterfall, and boating into the base of the widest falls in the world. Bad points: 18 hour bus rides ~36 hours apart, mosquitoes that show no fear and are excessively large, being chased by a monkey with freaky little hands, and humidity that turned me into a little italian boy in all of these pictures.

 Being a wimp before just man-ing up and jumping in.

 Check out how close the platforms get!

 

 Pre-boat ride excitement!

 

 Waterfall life chats! That's me in the pink sports bra with sub-par posture!!

 Rainbooooow!

Brazil in the background!

Pinguinos, bellenas, elefantes, oh my!

This past weekend was a long weekend and our group directors planned an amazing trip to Puerto Madryn in the Chubut province of Patagonia. I'm so thankful that they decided to take us there because I would have never been able to make a trip that amazing happen on my own. We took an 18 hour bus ride on Thursday afternoon and got to Puerto Madryn Friday afternoon. We walked around the town and had a delicious lunch with some torrentes wine.

 My delicioso langostinos al curry.

 Alli y yo en frente de la playa del Puerto Madryn.

 Stephanie y yo, lista para nuestras bellenas.

 Sea lions!

 Whale sighting! The best part about this gulf was that, unlike whale watching in the US, you are GUARANTEED to see whales at this time of the year. And they were right. I saw at least 15 different whales, including an albino baby! I did, however, get some motion sickness. Que lastima. The first full day we saw whales and elephant seals. And a lost penguin that we named Douglas. But the second day we went to Punto Tombo and saw the Magellan penguins. We walked through the breeding grounds and I was inches from penguins. Absurd. More than 250,000 penguins!

 Alli and I, seizing from penguin exposure. And then a picture of us with the Argentinian flag. If you look very hard you can see penguinos swimming/playing in the water! What an amazing long weekend!

Family came to visit!!

Lexi and Dode came this week and we went to Colonia, Uruguay! It was so amazing and I'm so happy I was able to share my experience with them!

 My adorable visitors.

 Sissy and yo on the lighthouse in Colonia.

 La linea fundadoras de los madres marchando en la Plaza de Mayo.

 La otra linea.

 San Martin el Libertador y la bandera.

La estatua de los espanoles on a beautiful day!

Lluvia, lluvia, dejame en paz

I haven't updated my blog in a hot second....so here I go! Sorry about the delay, but I'm a sloth like person with needs like naps and eating out. It was pretty yucky last week, so my activities were limited. Here are the big exciting things that I have done so far:

Fuerza Bruta
Museos de Bellas Artes Nacionales (Fine Art Museum)
A lovely day trip to the delta Tigre
Teatro Ciego Gourmet (Blind Theater + food)
Barrio Chino with some Argentines

Fuerza Bruta is a performance group down here who had the most amazing art/ performance installation. Their show is really interactive and I left wet and covered in glitter. It obviously was amazing.... Here is a video that does absolutely zero justice to how amazing it was. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZpbqFbW5GY

It has been a nasty past couple of weeks here with some serious cold, wet rain. As a result we had a little day at the local, free museums. It was cool to see some of their work and some more famous work, as well. The next day we took a trip to Congress, which was just like every other congress building in the world really. I learned about laws and then contracted some form of death plague from our 30 minute march in the freezing rain. Boo hiss.

It finally morphed into the beautiful weather I know and love down here and last Friday we went to Tigre. Tigre is a little down in the delta of the Rio de Plata. The town doesn't use cars, instead everyone gets around in little boats and live in great little houses and live perfect lives. Their school buses are boats. How amazing is that? We had a lovely day outside (I mainly napped...) and got our sunshine on. It was so nice to be outside when it was pretty after a couple weeks of nasty.

Saturday night we went to Teatro Ciego Gourmet, which is literally a blind theater with dinner included. I wasn't in love with not eating my food, so I was pretty hungry after it. Turns out I really prefer to see my food, which might mean I'm a picky eater. The room was pitch black and we were served my people who maybe were blind or maybe saw everyone being embarrassing in what they thought was darkness with night goggles. We are still unsure. 

Sunday me and some of the girls went to Chinatown again with some of our new found Argentine(ish) friends that we met at the pub crawl. We just kind of walked around and goofed off. I bought my coveted peanut butter and I'm probably going back soon for siracha. Afterwards we went to this restaurant called Burger Joint which has the best burger I've ever had. It is also super cheap, which is fabulous! I realize I'm sort of rambley... but I've been chugging coffee so forgive me. Here is your weekly pic-fix. You can also go on facebook and search for UGA en Buenos Aires to see pictures that the program coordinators take of us during excursions!

 Some memorabilia from the dicey military dictatorship past.

 Series of trying weird apple jelly juice from a chino.....

 skepticism and self-loathing.

 Remains of my burger joint meal. (What remains?)

My apartment building!! (The tall white one)

Reserva Ecologistica y Feria de San Telmo

I know that some of you may be expecting a sappy missing home post soon. No dice, people. I'm still not planning on coming back. So here are all of the things that I've been doing that are slowly luring me away from the United States:
Thursday: Pub Crawl
Friday: Biking around the Ecological Reserve and gorging myself on buffet parilla
Sunday: Feria de San Telmo

So Thursday was international pub crawl night and we were feeling the need to speak English while drinking. It was probably one of the most entertaining nights thus far on our trip. I started Thursday by accidentally buying two pairs of shoes. I'm sorry. They were pretty. And both pairs combined were $360 pesos (about 40 bucks). Here is a picture (I'm the brown on the right).

So I started off the night assuming I would break an ankle and go to the public hospital a la vaccine clinic. I will proudly state that after completing the pub crawl and ending at a club, I never fell once. Not even on our walk home at ~4:30 am (early like the gringas we are). If you leave at 4:30 down here, you are leaving before the party is over. 7AM or bust, next time.

Some of my lovely fellow pub crawlers from my program :)

On Friday we woke up (a little too early for our 4:30 return) to go ride bikes around the ecological reserve in Puerto Madero. It was like stepping into a different world. The reserve was BEAUTIFUL and a breath of fresh, clean air.

 Okay. So who remembered that I said bike riding? And then who remembered that I hardly know how to ride a bike? Here is how that went:

Relatively unsuccessful, but good try anyway.

Today we went to the feria en San Telmo. San Telmo is one of the older barrios and it is insanely beautiful with its architecture and cobble stone streets. Each weekend there is a MASSIVE (like 6x4 blocks) fair with all kinds of amazing things. I treated myself to a nutella and banana crepe and then a BEAUTIFUL gold band bracelett that is hand woven around a piece of jade (80 pesos...that's right. i paid about 9 dollars for it). I'll absolutely be returning to that booth. It had my dream jewelry. We met in Plaza Dorrego and then stumbled on an impromptu tango show (literally people pulled from the crowd). It would have gone a whole lot different if I was chosen....

I have a video but it won't let me upload it. I'll try again later!!