Merry Christmas and South America wrap-up

Merry Christmas everyone!!

We're now back in NC for the holidays. Finished the South American leg of the trip off with some time in Buenos Aires where Hulya joined us. We watched a tango show and also watched Boca Juniors (famous Argentine club soccer team) play in the final game of the season and squander a chance to win the league title with a 2-1 loss to Lanus. After two months in South America, Mark and I can sing "Hips don't lie" backwards as a great duet next time we're at karoake.

Mark and I are getting ready to start the Australia and New Zealand portion of the trip, and Lori (Mark's sister) will be joining us for this portion of the trip as well. We'll be in Sydney, Australia for New Year's Day, posting will resume afterwards. The adventure resumes, and until we bring sexyback sometime in 2007 have a great year!

SCUBA certified!!

I went to Puedro Madryn on the Atlantic Coast of the Argentine Patagonia, and finally finished my SCUBA certification!! You heard me talk about SCUBA diving nonstop for a month, you may have even wished I would swim with the fishes as some point, and I'm finally SCUBA certified, and a card carrying member at that. Highlights of the dives included diving a wreck and seeing a sea lion.

In my element

From San Pedro we headed back to Argentina, and went to Mendoza first. Mendoza is in the heart of Argentina´s wine producing region, and after all of the hiking I was looking forward to relaxing and tasting wines. Of course, to make sure the whole day wasn´t relaxing we biked from winery to winery. Our favorite place was the one that made chocolates and chocolate & fruit liquors. And yes, we liked the wine too.

Surfing the desert

From the beach we took on the desert next. San Pedro de Atacama in Chile is the driest desert in the world, and the perfect spot for me to try to learn how to sandboard. Having never snowbaorded before, I was surprised how quickly I mastered going down the dunes. Or something like that. Other things I do in the world´s driest desert are stay out of the sun during the day, and party with locals at the free festival and concert one night.