he Bus Ride Dawn. I´m awakened by the shake and rattle of the bus for what must be the 20th time. I realize that we´ve been driving on a dirt road for the past 100 miles. I pull back the curtain and peek out the window to see a cresent moon floating above the orange and pink horizon in the pre-dawn light. I can see for miles in every direction across the barren pampas with no trees or buildings obscuring the view. I try to take it all in befo...

Leaving Bariloche Okay, so it never really stopped raining in Bariloche but the clouds did part now and then. We took a local bus partly around the lake and then rode a chairlift to the top of Cerro Campanario for some nice views of the snow capped mountains to the West and the series of lakes, islets, and wooded peninsulas to the East. Yesterday, we braved the drizzle and hiked up 1400 meters from the center of town to the top of Cerro Otto for mo...

Just a quick update on Bariloche... It´s been raining here since we arrived and the forecast doesn´t seem to change. We may see if we can move our flight to El Califate up to escape the weather. Yesterday we braved the weather and did a six hour hike up in the mountains to the first ¨Refugio¨ (mountain shelter) and back. The hut looked like a little Troll´s house as a giant boulder served as the back wall and half the roof. We got ...

Buenos Dias from Patagonia Well, we finished up in Buenos Aires after exploring every corner of the city - from the colorful old port section of La Boca where the Tango was born and the San Telmo barrio with it´s artsy stores and eclectic Sunday Market, to the MicroCenter filled with European looking colonial buildings and the seats of the local and national governments, to the upscale Ricoletta neighborhood which reminds me of Park Avenue in...

So we decided to go to a traditional Argentinian "Parrilla" for dinner, which I think means "grill". There are dozens of these around town so we just picked one as we walked by - it was just filling up (at 10pm) and looked like a nice place. There was a bunch of raw meat in the window and a huge grill just inside the restaurant.We could have just ordered a simple steak but decided to get the "Parrillada Para Dos" which sounded like a nice mixed grill for t...