Sitting, sitting, and more sitting...

Greetings from Bariloche, Argentina! Jer and I just arrived this afternoon, and we're anxiously awaiting the "siesta" hour to be over so that we can grab some dinner from a well-reccomended Mexican place around the corner (yeah, I know we're not in Mexico but we're REALLY craving a burrito!) We've spent the better part of the last two days sitting on a bus, as it's quite a long way from Puerto Natales to here, and all the flights were really expensive. Luckily, we broke up the trip into two legs of about 16-17 hours each, separated by a long afternoon in Puerto Madryn, a beautiful beachside town with the first warm weather we've felt in awhile.

Tomorrow we're hoping to do some paragliding around the spectacular mountains and lakes around here, then hit the trails the next day, camping out along the "Seven Lakes Route" and arriving at a small town called San Martin de los Andes, which has some great natural hot springs (the perfect way to relax after a few days of trekking).

In one of Jer's last posts, she mentioned our last day in Torres del Paine, and I wanted to add some comments to that. We were both exhausted after 5 days of hiking on the "W" route, and the last part of the journey was an hour-long knee-popping scramble up a very steep bouldery hill to a lookout point for the famed "Torres" which the park is named after. The torres are giant granite towers that were thrust upwards some 8,000 feet a long long time ago, and are simply breathtaking to see in person. As much as I've seen pictures like this one, there really is nothing like seeing them through anything other than your own eyes.



Jer noticed a certain "twinkle" in my eye, and snapped this photo of me, which I think deserves the photo of the year award. Look closely at my eye, and then look at the close-up picture below....


Can you see the torres reflected in my eye? (Click the photo to see it enlarged even more)


Anyway, we're very happy to be in Bariloche, partly for the nature and partly because of its famed status as the chocolate capital of South America. Also, we scored a cheap return flight to Buenos Aires next week on an airline called LADE, run by the Argentine military.

That's all for now... drop us a line and give us an update on what's new with you!