Greetings from Punta del Este, Uruguay! Even though I flew into Buenos Aires, Argentina, I was only there for one night before taking a ferry over to Uruguay to meet up with Rubin and Andrew (friends from school). This isn´t a travel journal, but just a few pictures whenever I have time (and a good internet connection).

Andrew and I at “Finger Beach”, a beach in Punta del Este with huge finger sculptures…and a lot of graffiti.

Our first night out in Punta. From left to right: the “Australian” guy, Andrew, two girls we hung out with (whose names we have yet to learn), me, Rubin, and a random 17-year-old guy (who did some amazing impersonations). We were out till 6am that night.

At the beach, which is what Punta del Este is known for, on some rented lounge chairs.

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That´s it for now. Adios!

We are now in Buenos Aires, trying to take in everything this big city has to offer. There is lots to see and many good restaurants — all with excellent steak and wine.

Argentina is known around the world as home of the tango, and trying to experience this culture we decided to take a tango lesson. We found a dance hall that offered lessons to locals and tourists, and luckily there were beginner and first-time lessons. The dance hall:

After first loosening up with some scotch, we were as ready as we would ever get. Our faces, however, still revealed our fear of the embarassment that is sure to come.

In general, the lesson went well. Unfortunately, it was taught entirely in Spanish, which made it even harder to follow. Fortunately, we weren´t the worst ones in the class. Unfortunately, some women still told us we need to practice more.

Overall we had a great time and were glad we did it … and we are still happy we weren’t the worst ones!

Patagonia — it´s not just an outdoor clothing company; it´s the name of the mountainous region in southern Argentina filled with lakes, glaciers, wildlife, and other amazing scenery. We flew down here (getting close to the bottom of the planet) to visit a few well-known sites.

The city of El Calafate is most famous for the huge Perito Moreno glacier, an incredible glacier the size of Buenos Aires that moves very fast, approximately 2 meters per day. Its front end lies in a lake, and we hiked to get the best views possible. Here we are getting close to the glacier.

We then took a boat ride to get even closer to this humongous block of ice.

Moving on. Several days later we rode on multiple buses for 7 hours, crossed the border into Chile, and reached the Torres del Paine National Park, a park featuring three large (2000m high) towers of stone and many lakes. The park has every sort of terrain possible — forest, mountain, rivers, boulders — and you have to hike across all to reach the best view points. The classic hike has 4 legs (called the “W”), each leg taking one day; we did the first part of the W. Unfortunately the weather was not great that day — they say there are 4 seasons in each day here — and we couldn´t see the towers. An exhausting, but great, day.

In case you can´t tell, it is cold here…very cold. Unfortunately I didn´t plan to come to Patagonia, and so I didn´t prepare appropriately — expecting a trip full of beaches and sunny weather, I packed only shorts and T-shirts. So most of the clothes I´m wearing I bought down here!

The Recoleta Cemetary is one of Buenos Aires´main attractions. It is a huge and elaborate cemetary for the elitest members of Argintinean society: past presidents, military, and just general rich and famous. Evita (Eva Peron, the wife of a past president) is also buried here, and people continue to bring fresh flowers to her site daily.

Buenos Aires is known for its unique tasting beef, as they have a special breed of cows that are not found anywhere else in the world. Their beef is usually barbecued or grilled, and something commonly found in Argentina is a parilla, a type of restaurant that serve these barbecued meats. Also common are sights like this outside these parillas:

This city is filled with mosquitos (but no malaria luckily). I´m too lazy to wear repellent so I’m getting bitten every 10 minutes. As a result I´m covered with mosquito bites…as well as some large strange-looking lumps. I just hope this is some weird new reaction my body is having to these local mosquitos because most of these things look and feel like abscesses (large, warm, tender, kind of hard). Not exactly what I want in a foreign country.

My first one, pictured below, was the first one and during the next two days I had two more form on that arm and one on the opposite arm. I actually felt one swell up in a matter of a few seconds. I better not die.

Sadly, my trip is over. I am now home after three weeks touring several countries in South America. Why I was slightly reluctant to go on this trip initially, I’ll never know, because I cannot wait to return and visit the rest of the continent one day.

Overall it was an awesome few weeks filled with new activities and great food, particularly beef (as well as lots of wine and scotch). Here are some brief thoughts on the countries I visited:

Argentina

An amazing country. Buenos Aires is an exciting and vibrant city with people partying until the early hours of the morning. In Patagonia region you’ll find excellent outdoor activities and beautiful scenery. Also, the large Italian influence gives this country a very European feel.

Uruguay

While I only visited Punta del Este, I feel it is a very modern country. I was impressed with the quality of the roads, buildings, and internet access. Unfortunately the young crowd there is a little…young. All the girls who were at the bars and clubswere well under 20 years old (which is why we referred to it as the Tanner Stage 2 part of our trip). All the guys here also tend to throw their sweaters over their shoulders — interesting style.

Chile

While I didn’t visit any major city — only the little Patagonian town of Puerte Natales — I got a slight glimpse of this country’s culture. First, the Spanish they speak is weird. I don’t speak Spanish, but I can definitely tell the version they speak is much different than any other dialect I’ve heard. Next, it’s an expensive country. It’s still cheaper than the US, but compared to the other South American countries, everything there costs more.

Overall I got to visit three new countries and one new continent…not too shabby. Even more exciting is the number of stamps my passport accumulated during this one trip!