After 6 months of being land bound, Abby and I are off again. Abby's persecution in South America has led us to head out east where she will still stick out, but only slightly less than myself. 4:30 am wake call was rough, but the bloody mary waiting for us at JFK made the sun rise a little faster. **update** JFK is refusing to sell us hard liquor before noon (hello...its midnight china time. rude) So we had to make due with Steve Olp's recommended Barefoot wine. Yes, I want a bottle of wine panini lady, and no that judgement isn't necessary.... read more

So in the middle of the night Abby and I were awaken by the sound of broken glass. It came about once every 10 minutes, but it was loud and it was violent. At one point I thought someone outside was breaking windows, and as my bed was inbetween two I became very worried. We woke up to find lots of broken plates and glasses outside our apartment, so I can only assume that's what all the noise was. Either way, it was an agressive way to end our stay in Santiago. Abby and I woke up in the morning and headed to the bus station to make our way to the last city, Valparaiso. We managed to get tickets for a morning bus, and wound our way to the costal city. Once our bus stopped ... read more

This morning we woke up and decided to start the day with a Bike tour. We found a company that offered bilingual tours through the Bellavista neighborhood and markets. Bellavista is a neighborhood in Santiago where a lot of Turkish people settled after leaving the Ottoman empire during the Christian persecution. Consequently, the neighborhood has a very bohemian feel and world class graffiti. One of our first stops was Pablo Neruda's house, a famous poet and politican of Chile. We then weaved our way through the neighboorhood, past all the college bar which helped Abby and I plan our attack for this evening's bar crawl. Our next stop was the Vega Market, Santiago's largest fresh fruit and vegetable market. It was filled with vendors selling the most delicious looking food, the vegetables were easily 4 times ... read more

Today we woke up nice and early and decided we needed to be on horses pronto. Our hostel was able to find us a very romantic sunset horseback riding tour which we booked immediately. We had a few hours to kill before hand so we decided to take a lap around the city. Mendoza is a super cute, medium sized town. I'm not sure what business goes on here other than wine, but they seem to be doing very well. The city was rebuilt after a devistating earthquake a ways back so now the streets are nice and wide and there are many open plazas intended to be used as evacuation zones in the event of another disaster. There city also as a quirky gutter system where the gutters serve as a four foot deep moat ... read more

For our next adventure, Abby and I are bussing it from Buenos Aires to Mendoza. We went ahead and slurged for the first class tickets which gives you a seat which fully reclines and your own personal Marcos, a very attractive Argentinian who makes it his own personal mission to ensure you have a full glass of wine during the entire 10 hour bus ride. Abby and I made our temporary home out of a pile of blankets and pillows and settled in to watch a Spanish version of Pirates of the Carribean, which, thankfully we figured out how to get in English about 20 minutes later. For dinner we were served 100 pieces of bread and a pile of green beans, a meal I still call into question. There was a second course which came ... read more