Dulce Vida

Yesss. Life is sweet. I am sitting here in my temporary home approriately named Chilli Hostel in Santiago. Clever, no? It has been such a beautiful trip so far, and I am blessed to be in such lovely countries with such lovely company. We three girls have lots of fun together (we also eat a lot of food, drink a lot of wine, do a lot of shopping, and take a lot of pictures...yeah, we´ve been busy). We got in yesterday from Mendoza, Argentina after three days in the country. It was a breath of fresh air from Buenos Aires. Literally. Smog checks are obviously out of style in South America. No bueno.

So I have finally found a computer that was made after 1995 and has a port where I can upload my pictures. Yay! However, I have like 400-something of them and it will probably take many hours to put them online. No yay there...
So I will put them up from my trip thus far and let them do talking. I am too tired to type a lot. But I will fill you all in on where we have been:

First, we were in Puerto Iguazu where we visited the famous Iguazu Falls. We also drank a lot of Argentinian beer and went out to a random discotech with a random guy we met at this restaurant. At the club they had a room with lots of fog and foam. Adventure!

Next, we traveled to Buenos Aires, where we stayed at this super fun hostel full of young partyers. Downside: we were "sleeping" next to the party room. Upside: I *heart* Buenos Aires. It is full of all these really cute neighborhoods, reminiscent of the Mission district or Noe Valley in San Francisco. We ate out, went drinking and even took tango lessons! The tango is soo beautiful...it made me melt watching people dance it (well, dance it well I should say...). We also had an excellent steak dinner one night. I really don´t want to go into detail about how much food I consumed. It was a sight. There was this amazing cemetary there, full of huge monuments of all these prestigious Argentinians. We saw Evita´s grave! It was beautiful.

After four days there, we were off to Mendoza, which is wine country. Yum!!! It was a beautiful part of the country, very hilly and green. Actually reminded me a lot of California, oh pangs of nostalgia! We spent leisurely days in the park, having lunch by the lake and popsicles under grape vines. We rented bikes there and rode around the wineries, tasting all these delicious Argentinian wines. We were invited out by the woman who owned the hostel one night to a barbecue nearby. We got to practice our Spanish, drink lots of good wine, and eat lots of a-m-a-z-i-n-g barbecue. So, we left Argentina after dancing tango, drinking lots of wine, and eating lots of meat. Goal accomplished!

To end this entry on a blue note, I got an email from my mom telling me my dog died on Monday. Java was my baby and I loved her with all my heart...we had her for 12 years! I knew she was old, but I still couldn´t help the tears...
Sending my love to doggy heaven!!

Well anyway, here we are in Santiago, Chile and our adventure continues! Hope you enjoy the pictures, although they are a poor representation of the amazing sights I am seeing day to day! Miss and love all of you!
¡Besos y abrazos!
¡Ciao!

(Tip: Pictures are from oldest to newest and they are in groups of five because I could only upload five at a time. So I will have five, ten, or fifteen pictures from the same place, depending, just to give you an idea of where they were taken...)