We decided to take a short road trip to British Columbia, a western province of Canada. Upon a friend's recommendation, we headed to the turn of the century town of Nelson. We drove from LaConner across Steven's Pass (the North Cascades Highway is still closed due to snow), and then north through Coulee City and Grand Coulee. The basalt cliffs along Banks Lake were spectacular! We then cut across the Colville Indian Reservation (on a mountain road that the GPS pretended not to recognize for several miles) and then north, this time to the Canadian border, crossing at Danville, a very [View Full Entry]

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We had a lucky trip back....we were flying on passes and so had no reserved seats, but on the website the flight looked wide open with plenty of seats....when we got to the airport, we found out that the plane was being loaded with lots of cargo, leaving perhaps no room for non-paying passengers. We waited with several other people for an hour, just about giving up hope and starting to plan for a night in an expensive airport hotel room...and then our names were called! We were off to DC. We also got on the connecting flight to Seattle without [View Full Entry]

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Our last day here...and it has rained and poured all day....but it´s warm...and LaConner won´t be... We packed up, and left our luggage in the hotel office..and set off for the first of three museums we wanted to visit today. 1. Architecture Museum Close by, but closed with no explaination 2. Malba (Museum of Latin American Art) Open, half price today. Excellent museum full of Americans and Euros. 3. Museum of Popular Arts Found this on our walk to the next museum. Cost .25 each...and there wasn´t much to see...some cool horse ornaments and mate cups in silver. 4. Museu [View Full Entry]

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We are nearing the end of this trip....and doing some of the things we missed at the beginning of the trip here... Yesterday, we walked arcross the city from our hotel through St. Telmo (where BA originated) to La Boca (where immigrants arrived, and tango grew famous, along with soccer) for about 7 hours, stopping for meals and sights. We strolled through antique markets, got caught in a thunderstorm, walked into La Boca (where looking at poverty painted bright colors is a tourist attraction), walked with the crowds waiting to to get into the Boca Juniors game (where Maradona played...) an [View Full Entry]

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We never made it to Uruguay today...we got up at 7 am to get to the boat by 830, since we had not been able to buy tickets online....we ended up at the place where the boat used to be a few months ago...took a taxi to the ticket office which was closed. Tried to find the boat...but no luck (It was a few miles away from where we had ended up)....ran into the filming of an American Airlines commercial...and watched that.... We then decided to take a train to San Isidro, a suburb up the Rio Plata from BA. We [View Full Entry]

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We decided to rent bikes outside of Mendoza on Tuesday, since Bill was feeling better and I was just getting his cold...so neither of us was 100%, but neither of us was under the weather either! We took a bus to Maipu (required buying a bus pass and figuring out the correct bus since at least 6 go to Maipu). We then walked to the first bike rental we saw; Mr. Hugo´s. Mr. Hugo was an outgoing man, who ran the bike rental with his daughter and his wife. Dogs roamed around and four or five one month old tiny kittens [View Full Entry]

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Today we headed up to the pass between Argentina and Chile, to see the sights along the way and to view the famous "Christ the Redeemer" statue at the top of the mountain pass. Bill had memories of seeing it as a child in a magazine.... We took an all day tour with a bigger group this time, and found that we had a made the mistake of thinking the guide would speak some English...nothing doing....she didn´t even try to speak more slowly for us and she spoke very quickly!!! A passenger helped to explain some of the talk, but we [View Full Entry]

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Bill is reasting with a cold today...I walked to the big park this pm, and sat in the beautiful courtyard of our new hotel (the Zamora) watching the fish in the fountain and reading.... I have added new video to the Iguazu Falls, Truth, and Colors entries...check them out! All for today...tomorrow we go up the pass between Chile and Argentina....all day trip... [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Mendoza this morning after an 18 hour bus ride...we had the nicest bus so far, but still no toilet paper provided, and we couldn´t get the fully reclining sleeper seats...but we did watch three movies that were in English with Spanish sub-titles (Miss Congeniality, 7 Pounds and a Harry Potter). It is strange to doze and wake, looking out at unknown towns in the dark...in the middle of the night, an inspector got on and checked for fruits, since you can't bring any from the outside into Mendoza Province...We arrived at a bus station at 1:30 am, and [View Full Entry]

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Today we took a bus to a town high up in the mountains for the day...we ended up at around 11,000 feet in the village of Humahuaca. The bus ride took us up the Quebreda or canyon of Humahuaca for a couple hours. The whole canyon is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. The colors and rock formations are beautiful...Some parts look like Sedona AZ and others a moonscape. This area has one of the few concentrations of indigenous people. There wasn´t a large population when the Spanish arrived and most of those were of course killed off. We got there after [View Full Entry]

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