The Final Days

Days 114-121
It would be too hard to recall a day by day description of our time spent in Buenos Aires, so here is a list of highlights of the remainder of our stay in the apartment. We had many great nights out on the town and eventually realized that we prefer the bar scene to the club scene. Though many of the clubs were very unique, i.e. Niceto Clubs token Drag Queen night, they generally turned out to be a bit overwhelming for us. You can only listen to bad music and watch drunk girls embarrass themselves for so long.... Several nights when we attempted to hit the club scene, we fell back on our favorite American Sports Bar, El Alamo. We were always guaranteed good company and a few free drinks there.

kicking it with our friends in La Boca
(the main shipping area)

our lifeguard in El Tigre

During the days, we spent our time roaming the city. With so much to see in this wonderful city it was impossible to be bored. Daytime was also when we did our most damage shopping.... The city is just too fashionable and reasonably priced. Needless to say, neither of us had trouble adding to our wardrobes. Thank goodness our moms had taken a good portion of our belongings home with them (I'm not sure how we would've fit everything otherwise...) Though our initial attempt to go to the beach in El Tigre  due to weather, we made it there several days later. It definitely wasn't comparable to our beautiful southern California beaches, but was worth the trip. The sun was scorching, the water was refreshing, and the beer was cheap. And of course we hit up all the basic tourists sites.

On another day, Kristin was able to reconnect with her host family. We'd planned on just stopping by for a quick hello, but ended up staying for 3 hours chatting, eating, and drinking. Apparently the no beer rule was only applicable to being a student.

Other than the disgusting bug infestation in our apartment and the incredibly leaky air conditioner, our stay in Buenos Aires couldn't have been better!


Day 122
Spent the morning packing up and cleaning out our apartment. Our biggest mess to clean up was the large collection of Quilmes (the local beer) bottles we'd accumulated. We apparently misunderstood the bottle return policy, f.y.i. it's not the same as in the states, we'll just leave it at that. However, we eventually got everything cleaned up and checked out at 1pm. From there, we headed to the bus station and hopped on the 19 hour bus that would take us to Iguazu Falls.

Day 123
We arrived in Puerto Iguazu in the morning, checked our luggage at the bus terminal backage check, and headed to the falls. Here we spent several hours roaming the falls and checking out the various view points. The only word that can really describe them is spectacular. There's really nothing like it. After viewing the falls from every possible angle, we headed back to the small town of Puerto Iguazu. With nothing else really to do, no open book stores or internet cafes (other than the falls, this town is dead, especially on a Sunday), we took to drinking in the streets so that we'd be able to sleep on the 17 hour bus we were taking to Rosario that night.

Day 124
At around 6pm we arrived in Rosario. Though we were exhausted after two overnight busses in a row, we were excited to see our friend from school, Georgia, who was currently living in the city, and I must say, she showed us a superb time during our stay. This evening, we went out to dinner at a fantastic milanesa restaurant. Milanesa is Argentina's token food, it's essentially flattened meat that's been breaded and then fried. The restaurant we went to was known for it's milanesa pizzas. YUM! Then after dinner we headed to O'Donnells, the Irish pub around the corner from her house that her roommate worked out. We got here with the intention of having one drink because we were all so exhausted, but this quickly turned into loads of free shots and bottomless beers... I guess that's what happens when you have an in with the bartenders.

Day 125
Woke up this morning not feeling quite 100%, but eventually pulled ourselves together enough to make it to La Florida, the beach which was just a short bus ride away. After lounging in the sun for several hours we headed back to Georgia's to get ready for our evening. For dinner and drinks we head to Fanesia's, a delicious brew pub, started by two Northern Californians. We treated ourselves to delicious burgers and microbrews, two things we'd been deprived of for many months. The owners were two very nice gents that Georgia had struck up a friendship with over her stay in Rosario, so we got to stay after hours at the bar, play Asshole (a card game), and even fill up pitchers behind the bar!

Day 126
We spent the day touring Rosario and looking for a bookstore with english books. Both were successful! We ended back at Fanesia's for the evening, but kept it a lot more laid back because we were hoping on a bus to Uruguay around 8pm. So we carried our backpacks into the bar with us so that we could head out immediately from there.

Day 127
Arrived in Montevideo after another all night bus, only to hop on another bus to La Paloma, the beach town we'd decided to camp in. Luckily this was only a 3.5 hour bus. Once we arrived at the campsite we decided to head into town to pick up some essentials for the evening. Unfortunately, we walked to the wrong town. We made it to the one that was closer, however, it had no ATM, and we had no cash... So we set out on a walk to the other day, which was about 40 min away. The walk would have been fined had we planned ahead a little more, but instead we ended up getting completely scorched by the sun due to wearing take tops and no sun block. When we arrived back at camp finally we attempted to go lie on the beach and read, but at the point the sun had disappeared and the wind had picked up, so we retreated back to our campsite to light a fire, cook dinner, drink red wine, and play cards.

Day 128
We woke up an immediately headed to the beach, eager to make up for the lounging time we'd missed out on the day before. I don't think we could've asked for a more pleasant day; we spent the whole time, reading, napping, eating fruit, swimming, and basking in the sun. The evening turned into a repeat of the night before, it's amazing how the sun can suck the energy out of you.

Day 129
We wanted to spend the morning how we'd spent the previous day, but after an hour in the sun, we decided it just wasn't worth it because our bodies were too burned. So instead we headed back to camp, loaded up all of our gear, and headed to the bus station so we could take a bus back to Montevideo. We made it to Montevideo but late afternoon and spent our time roaming the city, and then headed back to the hostel to catch some z's. We'd originally wanted to go out, but decided we just didn't want to spend the money and needed to take the time to catch up on some much needed sleep, not the mention we had an early bus to catch in the morning.

Day 130
Woke up early to catch a bus to Colonia, from where we caught the ferry to take us back to Buenos Aires. We ran into some trouble when we reached Colonia and were checking into get on the ferry. Apparently, we never received our necessary Visas when we entered Uruguay. The bus that took us through the border was suppose to give them to us, but somehow failed to do so. In exchange for not having the necessary paperwork, border patrol was trying to get each of us to pay a $30 fine, which we just flat out refused to pay. Their main argument was that we were Americans and that it really wasn't that much money, then after us repeating several times that we didn't have the money and that was why we were schedule to leave for the United States the next day, they told us that we should just put it on the credit card. Eventually, I think that we just complained enough, and the didn't feel like dealing with us anymore, so they gave us dirty looks and then stamped our passports. SUCCESS!

Once back in Buenos Aires, we checked ourselves into Millhouse Hostel, the biggest hostel we'd ever seen, ran our last minute errands (purchased souvenirs), and began started drinking in celebration of the Super Bowel! Our hostel was ever so accommodating too, the put out the game on the big screen and had drink specials all night!

Day 131, the last day (we were there for 134, but somehow lost count in our blog, sorry avid readers)
This was a very sad day for us, so we spent the majority of the day moping and drinking in various parks around the city. Then around 6pm we headed for our last supper at parilla restaurant in Recoleta, we splurged and it was absolutely worth it! After dinner we hopped in a taxi and headed to the airport, we had a several hour stopover in the Mexico City airport and then landed at LAX around noon the following day.

It was the trip of a lifetime and we're devastated that it had to come to an end, but now we're on to the next stages of our lives. Kristin just recently moved up to Portland and is desperately seeking a job, while Molly will be attending Thomas Jefferson for nursing school in Philadelphia starting in May.

Thanks for reading!

Beer, Wine, and Luxurious Living

Day 96
We left Valparaiso or Valpo, as the cool kids call it, in the morning for Santiago. We spent the day roaming the streets and getting lost, we also learned how to take the city buses for free (the dumb American card never gets old).

Day 97
We woke up excited because our moms were arriving today. We left our hostel and went to the hotel where we were planned to meet them. Once they arrived, we set out sightseeing. Despite the negative things we´d all heard about the city, we found it to be very clean and quite lovely. That night we enjoyed a highly anticipated sushi dinner.

Day 98

We decided to go wine tasting at a vineyard just outside Santiago, Conche y Toro. Though our tour guide didn´t seem to know a tremendous amount about wine, the vineyard was excellent, the wine delicious, and the cellar beautiful. After the wine tour we headed back to Santiago and had dinner at Phone Booth Pub, a restaurant that was highly recommended in the guide books. After filling up on sandwiches and beer we went back to the hotel to wait for the night bus we would be taking to Pucon.


Day 99
We arrived in Pucon around 9:30 the next morning, checked into our hotel, and then went to have the most delicious breakfast, eggs and sausage instead of white toast. We then spent the remainder of the day exploring the charming city and then made plans for white water rafting the next day. We were exhausted from traveling the previous night so we took a nap and relaxed for a few hours and then got ready for a wonderful Parilla (traditional meat bbq) and trout dinner. After dinner we walked around and explored some of the late night craft markets that were scattered around the city.

Day 100
We woke up, walked around a bit, and then ate lunch at a place that served burgers the size of your face. After stuffing ourselves, exactly what we´d planned not to do, we went back to our hotel to prepare for our white water rafting adventure. River rafting definitely was a highlight of the trip, thanks to the tour group we went through, Politur. The rapids were huge and at one point everyone fell out of the raft except our guide and Valerie, Molly´s mom, who was holding on for her dear life. Kristin even managed to get stuck under the boat for a few seconds. After our raft´s experience on the rapid, we watched the next raft flip as it went through the rapid loosing all passengers and paddles. As a result, the guide of that raft got stuck going through the next rapid alone with no paddles. It was all very exciting. We spent that evening bar hopping and ended up eating dinner at a nice Italian restaurant.

Day 101

We woke up early to prepare for our long journey to San Martin de los Andes, Argentina that day. Traveling took all day, but the scenery made the journey worth it. We crossed through the Andes via Lake Panguipulli and Lake Pirihueico. We docked in San Martin, a beautiful lake side mountain town that seemed as though it could´ve been in the Swiss Alps, around 8pm and were starving. We quickly checked into our hotel and headed out for a pizza dinner. After pizza, we found ourselves at a pastry shop where we could over heard a local punk band playing at the street fair that was going on.

Day 102
We spent the day walking around, but being a Sunday, the city was rather shut down. So, we resorted to picnicking and lounging by the hotel pool. We also finally were able to reserve an apartment in Buenos Aires! After that, we headed to the bust station from where we´d be heading to Bariloche. We arrived in Bariloche around 11pm, and after what seemed to be a hopeless attempt, got a taxi to our hotel. We quickly checked in, and rushed out to see if we could find an open restaurant.

Day 103
We woke up and began our exploration of Bariloche. We found the city to have wonderful views, but also to be very touristy, and very expensive. After walking around for a bit and having lunch, we stopped for ice cream, where after consuming too much ice cream, Molly was forced to swear it off for life. Shortly after, we got another bus to Puerto Madryn, where we had a tour booked to see Peninsula Valdes, a wild life reserve. This bus trip turned into one of our more interesting bus experiences when our bus was stopped at a random check point. A drug dog, one who clearly needs to get his nose checked, smelled drugs on or around Kristin´s bag and four others on the bus that lead to Kristin having all of her things searched through and scattered while her mom, Linda, was having a mini breakdown. Luckily, being the law abiding citizens we are, there were no drugs to be found.

Day 104

We made it to Puerto Madryn a little behind schedule due the chaos from the night before. So immediately upon our arrival, we were rushed onto our tour bus because the group had been waiting for our arrival. The tour was good, but dragged on a bit due to so many hours on a bus. However, it was totally worth it to be able to see penguins, one of our new favorite animals. We also saw a surplus of elephant seals and sea lions. Then, while the other on the tour paid way too much money to go on a boat trip to see more of what we´d already seen, the wise four of us sat at a beach side restaurant, drank beer, and people watched. We finally arrived back to Puerto Madryn but with no place to stay, so we made the smart decision to head to Trelew, a city an hour away form where our flight to Buenos Aires would be leaving out of in the morning. We arrived in Trelew with low expectations, but ended up staying a rather nice hotel and eating at a restaurant, Glam, that would become one of our favorites. After dinner we retreated to our rooms to prepare for our flight the next morning.

Day 105
Flew into Buenos Aires and got ourselves a room at the Art Deco Hotel. After checking in, we walked to Florida Street, one of the most touristy streets in BsAs, at lunch at a Havanna, the most popular coffee shop in BsAs, and then walked to where our future apartment is located. After that, it was time for some serious shopping. Thank you Linda and Val! Merry Christmas! For dinner that night, we ate a traditional Argentinian feast that consisted of meat and vegetables. After dinner we attempted to find wine, but to our disappointment we learned that you can´t buy alcohol after 10pm. An important fact that Kristin had forgotten. Luckily, our hotel didn´t operate under such regulations and we finally got our wine.

Day 106
We woke up and went back to a store from yesterday so that Santa Val could buy Molly the boots she was still thinking about. After that we headed to the Recoleta Cemetery, where Evita Paron is buried. The cemetery basically looks like a little mortuary village. From there, we had our worst lunch ever, mainly because the service was TERRIBLE, and then headed to a very interesting exhibit at MALBA, the modern art museum. The exhibit was by Marta Minujin, a hippe prolific artist. After the museum we headed back to Florida Street to recheck out some of the leather stores from the day before. This turned out to be agonizingly painful because the street was so crowded, so we headed back to the hotel to rest up and prepare for our night. We had dinner at a restaurant in the oldest plaza (Plaza Darango) in Buenos Aires, it was in the San Telmo district. We then headed to Tango Porteño, where we had reservations for the tango show that evening. The tango show was fantastic and the free wine was even better, we tangoed our way home that evening and slept soundly.

Day 107
It was our mom´s last day so we wanted to make it action packed, but after roaming the streets of the Palermo district for a while we collectively decided that we were tired and would be happier at the hotel room. After several hours of relaxing, we headed to an early dinner and then it was time to say our farewells. After sending them off in a taxi to the airport we vegged for the rest of the night in the hotel room that our lovely mothers so graciously paid one extra night for.

Day 108

We woke up and went to the Recoleta Street fair where we both indulged in several purchases. After shopping it was time to check into our new apartment. It was smaller than we thought it would be, but had everything we would need. The biggest downside seemed to be the air conditioner leak that was continually flooding our apartment, we´ve since fixed it though. After getting a few necessities for our apartment, we cooked dinner and began to prepare for our night out. Two djs we´d learned of were playing at Crobar that evening so we were excited to get our dance on to some electronic music. However, we were disappointed by both the quality of the music and the crowd of people there. It still made for a fun night though and a quality hangover in the morning.

Day 109
We woke up, nursed our hangovers for a bit, and then attempted to go to the San Telmo Street fair. This plan failed when the wind picked up and the flood gates opened. After attempting to wait out the down pour, we finally hailed a cab and luckily, made it back to our apartment just in time to catch the start of Titanic. Once back in our beds, it turned into a pretty useless day, which was exactly what we needed after the life of hectic luxury we´d been living.

Day 110
We had a slow morning, but finally pulled ourselves together to head to the discount leather district, where we both successfully found leather jackets. They´re a bit similar, so thank goodness we´ll be living on opposite sides of the country upon our return to the USA. We headed back to our side of town, read in a coffee shop for a bit, and then got ready for La Bomba de Tiempo, an outside drum circle that happens every Monday night. We got home at 10, cooked dinner, and then went to bed.

Day 111
We spent the morning writing our blog, took a break to go shopping, and then came to the Internet cafe to type it. Unfortunately, the computer deleted it so we were too annoyed to retype it that day.

Day 112
We woke up with plans to go Tigre, a place about an hour away where´d be able to relax in the sun and lay by some water. Unfortunately, this was ruined by the endless rain and thunder that was going on outside. So instead, we spent the day buying groceries and finding a place to get our laundry done. It was the evening that was really the best part of the day, we went to see Chicago live. It was in Spanish, but so much fun! Although we didn´t understand everything that was said during the play, we knew the plot so it was easy to interpret.

Day 113
We woke up planning to go to a museum, but were distracted by the shopping on the way there. As a result, we ended up with some really cute things and still have intentions of going to the museum, just on another day.

Quick Decisions and Lots of Wine

Day 79

We pulled up to Cal Orck'o, the world´s largest collection of dinosaur tracks, and noticed what looked like an entire mountain side cut in half. It wasn´t until later when our tour guide redirected our attention to the hillside that we were informed that this unimpressive hillside was the site of the tracks. Both of us were astonished at how vertical the tracks appeared, but were reminded of the plate tectonic movement and quickly recalled that the land was once flat. Though the wall has been eroding, scientists are continuing to discover more tracks under the older layers of sediment and starting preservation of the new tracks now. We were also in the presence of several life size dinosaurs that once roamed the area. The rest of the day was spent roaming the streets of Sucre and learning, once again, not to eat Chinese food in South America. Later though, we bought a $4 bottle of whiskey, made up some fun new drinking games, and decided we really didn´t like the people in our hostel.

Day 80
Apparently, $4 whiskey doesn´t made you feel great the next day, so we acted like one of our favorite new animals, the sloth, all day.

Day 81
We traveled to Tarabuco, which on Sundays hosts the largest indigenious market in Bolivia. Bolivia has over 30 different indigenous tribes, many of them having their own style of hat that the women wear. The best and most interesting of these are the ones worn by the women found in Tarabuco. We ate lunch at a restaruant that was managed by a 7 year old boy and picked up a few handmade crafts. We bused back to Sucre that afternoon and caught a night bus to our next location, Tarija.

Day 82
Arrived early that morning and got off the bus only to discover that Kristin´s backpack was not underneath the bus. We were then informed that the bus company had decided back in Sucre to put her pack on a dfferent bus that would be arriving later on. After the longest hour of the trip, full of panic and terror, her bag finally arrived safely. Exhausted from an already stressful day, we checked into our hostel to nap before exploring the region´s vineyards. After hours of wine tasting, we had a moment of clarity when we realized we wouldn´t be able to spend Christmas in Salar de Uyuni, the world´s largest salt flats, like we had planned. We decided to pass up this area of Bolivia as well as Northern Chile and cross into Argentina the next day.

Day 83

Our room at Hotel LA

Our original revised plan was to cross the border into Argentina via Villazon, the most commonly used border, and we wanted to leave that night for the border town so that we would arrive there in the morning, with plenty of daylight hours to cross. However, upon arrival to the bus station we were informed that this was not going to be possible. So unsure of what to do, we made an impulsive decision to cross the border in Bermejo instead, a closer, but less commonly used border. Our 3 hour bus left that afternoon, but due to many technical difficultues it took us 6 hours to reach Bermejo, a less than impressive town. All the delays also caused us to arrive after dark, which generally isn´t the safest time to border cross. During our chicken dinner next to the bus station we realized that we really had no idea what we were doing and decided to pass on crossing the border at night and checked into the Los Angeles Hotel, but could not have felt further from LA.

Day 84
After getting thoroughly ripped off by our taxi driver, we arrived at Bolivian Immigration, crossed the bridge, and arrived in Argentina. We got to the bus station with no particular destination in mind and decided on Jujuy, since the bus was leaving shortly. However, once there, we only stopped to eat lunch before getting on another bus that would arrive in Cordoba the following morning.

Day 85
In Cordoba we checked into a hostal entirely populated by Israelites, perfect for celebrating Christmas. We explored the city and explained the story of Christmas to our new Jewish friends.

Day 86
We treated ourselves this Christmas Eve to a sky diving adventure, which was definitely a highlight of the trip. After, we changed hostals hoping to find one with more of a Christmas celebration, which we found. We celebreated Christmas the Argentinean way; with lots of meat, fireworks, and partying until 5am.

Day 87
Merry Christmas! The only thing we wanted to do that day was skype with our families. However, to our surprise, everything was closed. Luckily we decided to go to the bus station to buy our ticket for Mendoza and found a telefonica. We were able to talk with our families, which was better than nothing. The rest of the day, we walked around the city pretending not to be lost, but like always, ended up back at our hostal. Then we ate McDonalds for Christmas dinner.

Day 88

We bused to Mendoza and arrived that afternoon and walked in the 100 degree heat to our hostal, only to discover it was now a pile of dirt. We picked the next closest one where we overpaid for a room that was as big as a closet and hotter than Hades. That night we walked around a craft market, bought friendship rings, and drank in the plaza that was surprisingly lively for being midnight on a Sunday.

Day 89
We woke up early to thoroughly take advantage of the breakfast buffett in order to get our moneys worth, and checked out of the hostel so that we could switch to a full ammenities campground on the outskirts of the city. We spent the remainder of the day being really hot, roaming the city, and refreshing ourselves with cold beer.

Day 90

We woke up early to go wine tasting around Mendoza´s many vineyards on bicylces. We toured five wineries and 2 liquore, olive oil, and chocolate places. We finished the tour around 6 and returned to our campsite around 9 after eating dinner in town.

Day 91
We woke up early to catch our bus into Santiago, Chile. We experienced our most intimidating border crossing yet and almost had a television explode on us, but in the end we made it safely. We took a taxi to our hostel only to find, yet again, that it no longer existed. Luckily, a nice man knew of one close by and walked us around the corner to the hostel. We spent the remainder of the day walking around a plaza and then took our first shower in 5 days.

Day 92
Took the 2 hour bus from Santiago to Valparaiso, our destination for New Year´s Eve. We heard this was the most popular destination for New Years in Chile and that became more and more obvious as we watched the city grow from 200,000 to 2 million people throughout the day. We cooked dinner for ourselves and laid low for the remainder of the night in anticipation for the celebration the following evening.

Day 93
Had a long and lazy day in preperation for our evening. We cooked dinner again and gave ourselves an hour to digest before getting ready to go out. We began the night sipping beers with our new friends in the hostal and then walked up to a high point to get a good view of the fireworks, for which Valparaiso is known for. Here we celebrated midnight with thousands of people that were popping champagne and throwing confetti into the air. It felt like a scene from a movie. Then we traveled down to the plaza below where live music was playing and the crowds were equally rambunctious. Then we danced the night away and had the most memorable New Years celebration yet.

Day 94
Not feeling the best we decided to go lay on the beach in the neighboring town, Viña del Mar. It wasn´t the most relaxing beach due to every person having the same idea of spending the New Year in the sand, that may have acutally been more confetti and streamers than sand, but still, it was nice to feel the sun and reminisce about 2010.

Day 95
Due to the crowds trying to get back to Santiago, we are stuck in Valparaiso one more night. The day is looking rather uneventful.