Northwest Travellers

Finally, for the sole reason of wanting another passport stamp, we took the ferry across the river to Colonia, Uruguay, with Martin and Corinna. We went to an animal reserve/Guiness World Record recipient. The owner of the animal farm just happened to be the owner of the world's largest key chain collection. Go figure! It is hard to believe that our trip is over. Thanks for all of your love and support as we journeyed into the unknown. Knowing that all of you were behind us made it very easy for us to leave our routine and jobs and try something new. We hope you enjoyed these blogs as much as we did sharing our travels with you. Love, Melia and Bryan ... read more

Deciding that an extended stay in Bariloche was not worth it, we hopped on our longest bus ride yet—20 hours—to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. Let’s just say that Cruz del Norte offered us our best bus ride of the trip! Any bus trip that starts off with whisky on the rocks, beer and wine during dinner, and a dessert of champagne, can’t be bad. We arrived at the hectic Buenos Aires bus station and secured lodging for a few nights. A few days later, we took our second airplane of the trip to Puerto Iguazu—the launching point to visit some of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world—the Iguazu Falls. These amazing falls are shared by Brazil and Argentina, and you can visit them from both countries. Knowing that Argentina is supposed to afford ... read more

We arrived in Pucon in the morning after taking a great all night bus from Santiago. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit overcast and a bit cold. The ground was wet and it looked like it had rained the night before. Melia and I wandered around the town after finding accomodations and tried to figure out what we wanted to do here. Pucon is listed as the outdoor adventure capital of the Chilean lake district. We had read our book and found all the typical activities one would expect....mountain biking, hiking, fishing, rafting, horse riding, ropes courses, volcano climbing etc..... Mount biking...hmm not for us, hiking..why pay when we can hike on our own, fishing...don´t have a kitchen so what would we do with the fish?, Rafting...we just did that in Mendoza, Horse Riding....weather wasn´t great, ... read more

After Bryan´s skydiving adventures in Cordoba, we headed off to Mendoza—the heart of Argentina´s wine industry, and a favorite of travelers. After an overnight bus (again with our friends, Padraig and Sinead) we went to a hostel that came highly recommended by a Swiss couple that we met in Cordoba. After staying there, we were not sure why is was so highly recommended, given that we had to walk what felt like miles to get to the city center. Maybe it was the $14/night pricetag??? Fortunately for us, the family that owned the hostel decided to close up for vacation, forcing us to relocate closer to the city center. As they say, location is everything because our whole perspective on the city changed and we really enjoyed being able to walk to the cute shops and ... read more

Hello! Melia and I spent 3 days in the lovely town of Cordoba, Argentina. After taking an overnight bus from Salta we stayed in a hostel with our Irish friends Padraig and Sinead. The hostel was a bit out of the main area but the owners (Willy and Carlos) and the place more than made up for it. We spent the first day walking around the plazas and main areas in the old town. The city was quite different because there were modern high rises all over the outer areas (still built with bricks and covered with a stucco) and there are over one million residents in the city. The first night, our hostel had a traditional Argentinean parilla (or bbq with every kind of meat, chicken and sausage) which was great!!! After travelling the night ... read more