It´s been awhile....

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Hey everyone! Sorry it has been awhile but it has been pretty full on the last little bit.....for this reason I am going to try and summarize the trip from where we have left off, by giving you guys the highlights!

Sooooo on our last day in Mendoza beffore heading to Santiago, Chile, James and I went on a grand white water rafting adventure. Soooo after a bit of a drive we arrived at the rafting centre where we got fitted for our gear, and got introduced to our guide..."CRUSTY" already I knew it was going to be a fun ride. So after doing some practice paddling on the shore and the basic guidelines of 1. never let go of your paddle 2. "IN" as in jump into the boat because we are in trouble and about to crash. I will be honest that my fear was that I would fall in, but after reassurance that the river ends in a lake it was a little less scary...I say a little because our boat consisted of 5 girls and James, and the other girls were more preoccupied with talking and kissing each other....scary. Anyways so as we are paddling down, all of a sudden we hit this huge rapid and the right side of the boat went up, and the left side down into the swell.....I was on the left, and James on the right. Might I point out he was at the front of the boat and me at the rear. So James save the girl in front from falling out, the one in front of me is now nowhere in sight, and I still in the boat have just realized that i dropped my paddle, when I almost fell out. So I grabbed for my paddle, missed and leaned out for it again (might I say the girl is still under water, under the boat, and crusty is telling me to just leave it) well I managed to get it back in, and then as I was trying to pull it out it got stuck....So here i am thinking do i rip it out of the rocks or is the girl under the water stuck to it....I ripped it out of the water. The girl then popped to the surface, and managed to get picked up by another boat.......but just to rewind this a bit. The only reason I didn´t fall out of the boat was either a) i slipped into the boat or b) i inherently thought SAVE YOURSELF, and let go of the oar.....somehow i think it was the second one! HAHA.....but to top it off, I guess when i was grabbing for the oar everyone thought I was going for the girl to save her...so I guess you could say I looked like a hero that day...BWAHAHA. Note to everyone any chance of danger I will save myself....I think I get it from my mother! Anyways we continued on down the rapids, with more ppl in other boats falling out, and us and kayakers rescuing them. One of the other boats actually ended up completely flipping so everyone was sent on a rescue mission. James pulled one man out the water, but not before he freaked out for james to grab him, even tho he could have grabbed onto the rope on the side of the boat, but hysteria had struck in for him-quite funny really. So anyways the rapids were absolutely awesome, but I will say the next few days my body was definately paying for it, and muscle I didn´t even knew i had were killing.

So we arrived into santiago, chile and met up with a family friend, and her boyfriend, and then ended up staying in their loft for the next few days. Pretty nice cause we got tons of tours of santiago and got to see all the highlights. Our second night there we went to a local diner/low key pub, when all of a sudden all you could hear was smashing glass. Well the next thing youj know a woman I would say about 8 months preggo comes into our area and tries to rip the tap off the bar. With no luck she decides it´s best to start throwing ash trays, tea cups, glasses full of freshly poured beer, and to start hysterically yelling at the staff. 4 ppl had to finally pull her down, not before she slipped herself and fell on her ass....she was what you would call LOCA! At this point the place has gathered quite the crowd, even apartment dwellers across the street are looking in. And she is still screaming. Some guy near us decides it is a good idea to start chirping her, well she is soooo off she thjinks it is Gustavo and James, and then she looked like she was going to kill them. Until at least her friend told her that it wasn´t them. Needless to say by the time the police showed up 45 minutes later, and we had to move to a different area in the restaurant due to all the glass everywhere, she was calmed down and sittng on the the street.

This was not to be our first fight in santiago. On the last day there, we went to the centro mercado (central market) which sells a lot of the seafood to the city. Well there are tons of restaurants set up in the market, and waiters are shouting at you to come to their restaurants. With the "I have the best deal", "pisco sour" blah blah blah. Anyways when we finally decided, another waiter came up to us from the neighbouring restaurant and point blank told us we made a terrible mistake and we were going to get really sick........well as we ate the next we know we are hearing about how jsut five minutes ago there was a big brawl outside the market. Apparently two rivalling restaurants (they´re all rivals) went out with their waiters and got in a big fight. To the point that lumber was being used to hit ppl over the head.. Jess and I figured it would be a good time to leave, James wanted to go and see if it was still happening, cause just as we left we heard more smashing and yelling.....oh dear.

Anyways, as for stuff other than fighting we went to quite a few markets in town. Got a really nice bracelet made of copper from James. We also went up to Santa Lucia, which is a giant fortress and castle in the middle of the city, really pretty, and pretty cool cause all around it are modern buidings. Went for a gondola ride and had some wine at the top, had some great sushi, and went to an interesting seafood restaurant that was decked out like a complete boat, submarine everything you can imagine that would float at sea.

The last night in Santiago, gustavo was putting on a surprise birthday for Jessica. So James and I got to play that up, and make sure that she was surprised. We got her good, and ended up having a big BBQ bash on the rooftop of the hotel, with santiago lit up all around. Dinner most nights was at midnight or later, they eat very late there. Good times.......

On the Sunday (16) we flew into Buenos Aires, where we were meeting up with some Aussie friends from the Gecko tour. The first couple days were spent getting stuff organized for Iguazu, we also went down to Puerto Madero and also toured around the city centre. On tuesday we headed out on our second to last 18 hour bus ride up to Iguazu falls. We arrived in early the next morning, to HEAT and HUMIDITY. I am saying it was about 35 degrees, orr that was what the sign said anyways. So the first afternoon was spent at the pool. The hostel we checked into was a former casino, so it was set up pretty well. That night we had a big BBQ party, followed by the power going out for what south americans would say was 15 minutes. But was more about 1hr and a half.....south american time is always VERRRRRRRY slow! It´s all the siesta time, and as Leanne would say "There´s too much CANOODLING and not enough WORKING" which pretty much sums up SA.

The next day we headed out to the falls, which were absolutely amazing and soooo huge. It took us about 5 hours to walk around, and we walked fast. Needless to say at a few points we got absolutely drenched, but it was well worth it being so hot. We headed back in the late afternoon and for the next day spent time by the pool. A definite necessity having......another necessity would have been air conditioning, unfortunately that just didn´t happen, and so we died at night being bitten by malaria infested mosquitos with just a ceiling fan. Not good.

Anyways on Saturday we boarded our last 18 hour bus ride...hung over, with a woman sitting front of us practically hacking up her lungs. Not a pleasant trip altho i felt more sorry for the man directly in front of her. Because since the seats recline 140 degrees and she left her´s at like 90 she was coughing on his head while he slept. GROSS. Needless to say when we finally got off in BA (yesterday), we were all really happy until the taxi drivers tried to scam us with prices. But we were too smart by this point of time and headed off only to get a cab for about 1/3 the original price. It was great to get back to some air conditioning again.

Yesterday afternoon James, Craig, and i headed to a local soccer game! That was pretty awesome. We sat in the more expensive seats cuz general admission on the home side was pretty full on! The whole game there was just singing and screaming. I can´t even guess the number of ppl up there, but they were packed in like sardines. Got tons of pics of it, and even a couple of videos. The visitors end, was razor wired fenced in with police officers on either side of the bleachers. To top that off there were police dogs, firefighters, and otehr police walking around by the game. We ended up losing 2 to 1, but it was still pretty incredible to see. At the end, the visitors left first and then about 20 minutes later we all got to leave, can u say RIOTS and FIGHTS anyone?

Today we went down into the "blue collar" region in BA, called La Boca, where there are bright primary coloured homes. But besides the main strip it isn´t the best idea to wander too far. This afternoon we are doing more city touring, and then saying goodbye to our aussie friends. Tomorrow James and I are off to Uruguay for about 6 days, for some beach and waves. Anyways, just thought I would drop a note to let u know where we were at. Still working on my tan, but it is coming, seriously! Very exciting, some upcomming beach days will be great. anyways we gotta get going, take care everyone!

love erin and james

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