It has been a long time since you have heard from us but... we have been really busy travelling!

We spent 2 weeks in Buenos Aires since arriving in Latin America. Fabulous city and hard to focus on Spanish classes in the morning when living the 'porteno' lifestyle. Breakfast at 10, lunch at 4, dinner at 10.30 and then the milonga's start at midnight where people go out to dance the tango until daylight. We were only in Bangkok the week before and only in London 4 days before going to Argentina so the lifestyle kept us in a continous jetlag but enjoyed it to the full.

Buenos Aires is a fantastic city. We had high expectations before we arrived but the city definitely lived up to it. Our apartment was dead center and we strolled around Recoleta, historic San Telmo with tango demonstrations on every street corner and trendy Palermo. Fantastic cafes from trendy bars to art nouveau establishments like cafe Tortoni. Great people, all chatty, helpul and curious. All very touchy/feely and everyone kisses you to greet you from the Spanish teachers in the morning to the guy who collects the deposit for the apartment. Hilarious but very warm hearted.

It is hard to describe what makes Buenos Aires such a great place. There are no real treasures or famous landmarks but the whole city is drained in passion, pride and portenos who love to talk about their city from taxi drivers to people next to you in a restaurant and from the baker to musicians in the park. And tango (or Gotan as they call it it here) is everywhere, definitely to boost tourism but in the right places it is most certainly alive and there is also no separation between locals and visitors so it is easy to talk and integrate which is very different from Asia.

We also definitely caught up on punishing the liver with steaks the size of a brick accompanied by glorious Argentinian wines, Milanesa's, empanadas, the lot. But as James Bond says 'When one visits a place you should explore all its treasures' (Roger Moore, The spy who loved me, 1978) and the liver is evil and shall be punished! We will walk all cholestorol off when we go trekking in Patagonia.

We also did an excursion of 3 days in the spectacular Iguazu Falls which makes the Niagara Falls look like someone left the tap open! 1600 meters long falls in the middle of the jungle. El gargante de diablo being the biggest one where the massive amount of water seems to go into slow motion when it pushes ove the cliff with unimaginable force. It almost gives you vertigo and the noise it produces and the spray that turns into a cloud from the depth of the devil's throat is amazing. They take you on a dinghy almost under the fall which is also great... and wet. Next day the same thing from the Brazilian side with great views on the whole stretch of waterfalls. Definetely a landmark in our trip and not the last one!

We spent anoter couple of days in Buenos Aires and with pain in our heart we moved on to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. Remote wilderness, snowcapped mountains, beautiful lakes and the Beagle Channel on our doorstep full of seals, sea lions and a few penguins. We felt like frkn David Attenborough! We walk and hike across the national park and stop occasionally to sit down and listen to the deafening, deafening silence. It really feels like a pioneering town at the end of the world and again met very nice people and stayed in great guesthouses and hostels. We rented a car for a day with two girls we met the day before and whent to the remote Estancia Haberton at the end of the Beagle Channel. It must be the most remote place in Latin America, 30 miles away from a paved road and another 30 to Ushuaia. Imagine the discussion in the morning who is going to get the bread! It is really a pioneering ranch with the gate to the garden made out of a whale jaw and the 5th generation of (British) owners running the place. The summer gets a few tourists around and the farm is active and 8 months out of the year snowed in. I hope they got a good selection of dvd's.... Fantastic stuff and a great contrast after 2 weeks in bustling Buenos Aires crossing battered landscape and wildlife. The skies are beautiful and the wind blows the clouds apart and pushes it up against the mountains and you keep taking pictures of the ever changing landscape but it doesn't capture the beauty no matter what you do.

From Ushuaia we moved on to Torres del Paine in Chili for a few days of trekking. Sometimes in the sun, sometimes fighting the elements but Torres del Paine is another fabulous remote place with no one around and only Sabintje and some condors for company. Unreal. You can only get there with a daily bus and a ferry at midday and when you arrive in the park you walk from one refuge to the next with sun, wind, rain, snow and sun again within the span of one day. It makes you feel alive in every - wet - bone of your body and respect nature in awe.

The day before yeterday we arrived in El Calafate look and listen to the Perito Moreno glaciar. A 200 feet high and 2 miles long ice wall that roars and growls until it pushes another massive block of ice into the lake. Every 15 minutes of every day of every week of every year ..... for the past 5000 years. Spectacular. Patagonia is like one natural wonder after the next.

As you can see travelling is hard work so we took a day off today in El Calafate to relax and update the website but will move on the El Chalten tomorrow to walk/trek around Mount Fitzroy. We will try to give another update... try and we gave up on uploading pictures as it takes bloody ages but whenever we get to an internet cafe with real high speed we'll give in another go.

Hasta luego chicos!