The last stop I decided to spend the last week of my trip in Buenos Aires starting to wind down and prepare myself for the transition back home. A great week in a great city. Made some new friends, ate delicious food, and heard some fantastic tango music. Everyone should experience the magic of Buenos Aires at least once in their life. It has been quite the journey when I reflect back on all the amazing experiences I have had over the past few months. Everyone told me before I left that I would go through much self reflection and [View Full Entry]

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Bariloche is a small mountain that is still in Patagonia, but further West and North from El Calafate. We had 4 whole days here to explore the lakes and basically relax. Met up with Zach, a friend from my trip last year in Chile and Argentina. Since he lives in Bariloche and took us to some great restaurants. Had some of the best meals in Argentina here. Great trout and lamb at Kandahmar for Vicky's birthday, Naan the next night had delicious gourmet food and deserts, and of course I had to make my way back to what in my [View Full Entry]

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Just to give a quick background on what this glacier thing really is (since I didn´t understand all of it before I got there) From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perito_Moreno_Glacier "The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of only three Patagonian glaciers that are not retreating. Periodically the glacier advances over the L-shaped "Lago Argentino" ("Argentine Lake") forming a natural dam which separates the two halves of the lake when it reaches the opposite shore. With no escape route, the water-level on the Brazo Rico side of the lake can rise by up to 30 meters above the level [View Full Entry]

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HUGE ice cubes South America » Argentina » El Calafate » Perito Moreno Glacier By lisalisasf April 10th 2007 Lisa Englert After getting our fill of the big city- Vicky and I hopped on a plane and headed to El Calafate [View Full Entry]

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I made it! I made it, I made it, I made it! All the way down to Buenos Aires. Arriving to Argentina was exhilerating and such an accomplishment after all I have been through with this silly broken ankle. I felt a strange sadness to leave Central America and the safety and connections that I felt there. So odd to say that I actually missed the *safety* of Central America, isn´t it? BUT, if I thought Panamá City was a big city, I really wasn´t prepared to conquer just how HUGE Buenos Aires is. When you pass over it in [View Full Entry]

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And all of a sudden we hit buildings... after months of flat cities and small pueblos- Panamá city is like the City of OZ popping up out of nowhere! So modern and happening with tons of traffic and a sultry nightlife scene- it really is a city that doesn´t sleep. Had heard that the hospitals in Panamá City are very modern and many of the doctors have trained in the states, so my chances of finding a bilingual doctor were high. This sounded great after several confusing experiences with the Nicaraguan doctors who spoke very, very quickly using fancy medical [View Full Entry]

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So yes, the border crossing really was as crazy as I had heard it would be. When I arrived at the crossing between Costa Rica and Panamá I couldn´t believe that you actually had to walk over this plank bridge from Costa Rica to get to the immigration office on the Panamá side. Basically, the bus drops you off on one side, and then you pick up a different bus on the other side. Who thought of that idea? There were tons of people making crossing as I hobbled with my crutches and a lot of concentration very, very, very [View Full Entry]

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After almost 30 days in Granada, Nicaragua nursing my broken ankle, I decided that it was time to make the dreaded trip on my own through Costa Rica and on to Panama. Although I was very nervous about just how I was ever going to make it with my big bag on crutches across the borders, I decided I just had suck it up and go for it. The bus ride from Nicaragua to Costa Rica was fairly painless. As usual, most people are ready to help out, and sometimes being on crutches actually helps you get to the front [View Full Entry]

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I think this will be the title of my first travel book. I am getting around just fine these days. Not much exciting stuff to report, but have posted a few new photos of Granada and some of my travel friends from Australia. It is so nice to meet people, hang out for a few days- but then you have to say goodbye, which is never fun! Plan is to head through Costa Rica in next few days and make my way to the Carribean Coast by bus. Meeting Jen Cocohoba- a friend from San Francisco in Panama at Bocas del [View Full Entry]

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That´s right... after months of working on my spanish, I am finally able to fool the native speakers. Not that they think I am from Latin America or anything, but they don´t think that I am from the United States! So- just to be clear about why this is such an accomplishment... as Americans we notoriously are known to have a terrible time with the pronunciation of the R´s and the D´s in the spanish language- we just don´t seem to be able to wrap our tongues around these sounds. Especially, not as well as the Europeans for sure! So, when [View Full Entry]

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