Cacti everywhere - Valley of Humahuaca (View on flickr)

Now that we have been in Argentina for a bit over a week, I have noticed some differences I would like to share. Wine flows more freely than water and is way cheaper than bottled water. I haven't really found good wine since the USA so this land of wine and honey is a great place to buy very good wine at a fantastic price. I wish I knew which wine vineyards are the best. (If you have a recommendation of some of the better wines let me know.)

Water can be drunk directly from the tap all over Argentina! No more buying plastic bottles of water and adding to the world's plastic waste.

We have entered into the land of refrigerators so we can buy cold cuts and cheeses, and refrigerated yogurts. We are now preparing sandwiches for lunch instead of the lunch specials or menu del día found in most of Latin America. The lunch specials usually consisted of rice, french fries, yucca, chicken or beef with a soup as an appetizer with rice, potato, stock and some kind of chicken or beef all for an amazing price of a dollar or two. Argentina's lunch specials are far more expensive than we've had in the rest of South America, at 3 or 4 dollars. They eat around 2:00pm, take 3 hours off and then start the evening feasting and entertainment around 9:00. We went out for dinner the other night to have our first Argentinan steak. At 8:15 we were the first ones in the restaurant that night and they had to turn on the lights for us. Most Argentinans eat dinner about 9 o´clock or 10 o´clock at night.  read more here... lee mas aquí... »

We are in Bariloche, in Patagonia in southern Argentina. We have rented an apartment for a month and will enjoy a gorgeous place with fine weather. As winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, we will be exploring the lakes district which is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and spring weather. Please let me know if you are sufficiently jealous.

Valley in Quebrada de Cafayate (View on flickr)

We rode from Salta, Argentina, a jazzy city in Northern Argentina, through the Canyon of the Shells (Quebrada de Las Conchas or Quebrada de Cafayate) an impressive multi-colored landscape with interesting geological and cultural history. As my friend, Linda, described It is like Moab, Utah but with more pizazz. The landscape was inspiring as we traveled down the las Conchas Ravine and colorful sedimentary mountains towered over us. I was gleeful to be riding. Amazed at that we where riding this region in Northern Argentina. How lucky can we be?  read more here... lee mas aquí... »

El Tronador from the Chilean side (View on flickr)

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We took an incredible bike-and-boat tour from Argentina to Chile. The "Andean Lakes Crossing" combined boat rides through two majestic thickly forested national parks, hiking, and biking touring. We started from Bariloche, Argentina and ended up in Puerto Montt, Chile.

We emptied out the apartment we had been renting in Bariloche, Argentina and loaded our bikes with the gear that had been spread out all over the apartment for the last month. My bike was heavier then usual because I had purchased some new clothes and art supplies but some how it fit, especially because I offloaded some of the art supplies to Randy. We left at 6:00 in the morning, pedaled 20 quiet kilometers to the boat dock at Llao Llao (pronounced Zhao-Zhao in Argentina). After loading our bikes on to the front of the giant catamaran and purchasing a nice cup of cappuccino we settled down for first of three boat rides. The first was across Lago Nahuel Huapi which was surrounded by huge mountains and we reached Puerto Blest after a couple of hours.  read more here... lee mas aquí... »