Happy New Years Everyone! Today was not only New Years Eve, but also our full day tour of the Island with Freida. He picked us up at 09:30 and we quickly discovered that pretty much all the tour companies do the same tour at the same time. For such a small island there sure seemed to be a lot of tourists! (who us? never!) But with our vehicle only having the 3 of us we were quickly in and out of sites (when we wanted to be) and generally managed to stay away from the crowds (which in a big city would have seemed small). We visited all the main sights on the island, including Vaihu where the statues fell face forward; Akahanga where the Moai are well preserved and this is where the first king ... read more

Vladimir met us in the morning and our first stop was to the organic vineyard of Emiliana. Who says you can't drink wine before 10:30 when on vacation? Not me! The vineyard is very unique in the fact that not only is it 100% organic it is also biodynamic; meaning that everything grown/lives/grazes there is all part of this unique ecosystem that keeps things running pesticide free and with very little help from humans. They even integrate certain bugs that eat other bugs that attack vines, and have particular chickens and hens that eat other bugs, not to mention growing certain types of flowers that attract certain bees and so on. I'm oversimplifying it; quite a fascinating farming style; one I had not heard of before. They also had this ridiculous type of bird/chicken with a ... read more

Our Intrepid tour officially ended today, but we had made plans to do the hop on hop off bus with Sarah. Gone was the serenity of Patagonia; now was a chaotic, old meets new city of 20 million people on their way to work, while tourists roam wide eyed looking for Tango dancers in every corner. The city was not only heavily populated, but geographically is massive and and by the end of the day we would end up with very weary feet! Discovered the queue for the line to BUY the tickets was terrible and the line to get ON the bus was downright outrageous! At our estimation it would have taken at least 1.5 hours to just get on the bus, which was a shock as I was quite looking forward to seeing the ... read more

Today was glacier day and after an extremely uneventful breakfast we packed up and headed off. First things first: I opened my present from Michele to discover it was a pair of purple Smart Wool socks! I had been coveting the ones Michele owned, and whether these were new or recycled I so didn't care, loved them and picked my outfit for the day based around them! Puerto Moreno Glacier was really cool bud didn't have a massive WOW factor for me. But I've been spoiled by my travels and kayaking through glaciers in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic followed by Antarctica is hard to beat. The walkway they have created is wonderful, however the dry bumpy gravel road we took on route for a "special treat" was lame and unnecessary. We ended up at this ... read more

Today was the day to do the hike to the Towers, a grueling 19km and 800 meter gain with a bum knee/leg. Our fearless leader Fede had arrived after his 2 day bus trip and never having been before he literally walked to the wrong Torres camp site, dragging ALL his luggage with him up about 15 km round trip getting more and more pissed off. He had ranted about it at dinner considerably however it was quite funny truth be told. Christian and I had discussed me trying the summit at my own pace and he suggested that Fede go with me. City boy who just spent the last 2 hours bitching about the mountains and how he would never do it again. Michele kept teasing him about his upcoming lazy day (unbeknown to him) ... read more