wine, live music, waterfalls, and alfajores...what more could you ask for?

not much. yes, that's the correct answer.

not surprised, we fell in love with argentina.  but, if we stayed here too long our cholesterol would rise due to excessive beef and alfajore consumption (more on those scrumptious little cookies later) and we would become even bigger winos than we already are.  so, off to chile.  they don't have wine there, right?  ha.  well, at least we'll take a little wine break until after peru when we head further south where are the glorious vineyard action is at.  

now, after an interesting border crossing into chile, we've had some time to check out some more amazingly beautiful desert sites in san pedro de atacama and now, beachin' it iquique.  
  

check out our stats!

buses --> this leg: 11    total: 164

steps --> this leg: 330,000    total: 3.3 million

miles --> this leg: 3,200    total: 27,000


"Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

after tilcara, argentina we headed further south to the pretty city of salta.  almost seemed like we stepped into europe for a few days (except for the ever prominent palm trees dotting the plazas).  

free modern art museum!  cool stuff

 overlooking salta after a little ride on the teleferico 

salta at night is bee-uuuuu-tiful

amazing steak dinner with our travel buddy, mieke!

onto what was to become one of our favorite travel spots so far...cafayate.  we were a little anxious before arriving in cafayate because we couldn't find a hostel that had rooms available.  come to find out the reason why: it's cafayate's busiest week due to it's annual 'la serenata' folk music festival.  great timing!!  luckily, we found a room, and met some fellow massachusetts travel buddies in the process.  time to enjoy some wine and music...

pretty classy, eh?  i wish we could add taste-o-vision to this blog because you would be blown away by these grapes.  although we're drinking a malbec-cabernet sauvignon here, the local wine from cafayate is a dry white called torrontes.  its a unique wine because the smell is super sweet and amazing yet the taste is quite dry.  these torrontes grapes here taste like the wine smells, like sweet sweet candy :)

here's the torrontes!  yum

a very old school wine press at the bodega nanni, the only organic winery in the area

these guys in the back are doing some extremely manual work.  interesting wine fact we learned: they filter their red wine with egg whites.  apparently, all the little wine particles stick to the egg whites and "fine" the wine.  so, these guys are cracking dozens and dozens of eggs, separating the whites, and mixing :)

another reason why we love argentina...good beer too!

the reason for all the hype about cafayate - la serenata music festival.  

not only is there a stadium that hosts the festival music each night, but most restaurants have some amazing musicians play each night as well. these guys were incredible flamenco style guitarists.  

after some pre-gaming at the nearby restaurants, we made it to the rainy festival and enjoyed humongous beers :)

you can barely notice him in this picture (far left, chubby shirtless pole-dancing man), but it was impossible to miss him while walking in the street

why this picture was taken from our roofdeck: while walking around town the last two days of the festival we were in constant fear of getting sprayed with "nieve," aka snow coming from a can similar to silly string.  people do not hesitate to a) spray strangers, especially gringos, with nieve, b) throw flour at you, and/or c) take purple finger paint, walk up to you on the sidewalk, and spread it on your face (yes...this happened to lauren).  

joe showing off his sweet swim shorts :)

the reason why we came to cafayate, vineyards alllll around

ah, alfajores, how we love thee.  pictured here, the most amazing cookie on the face of this earth.  sweet cookies stuffed with dulce de leche (one of the most common things found in latin america that the US has yet to catch on to, basically a caramel spread but better) dipped in a glaze.  mmmmm...once again, wish we could offer you taste-o-vision

another notable argentine custom: mate.  these are some of the types of mate cups used in drinking the common yerba mate tea.  good stuff...bitter, smoky, yummy

ekeke, our backpacking gnome

a few buses and some sleeping in bus stations later - resistencia. although not a very touristy city, they do have a major thing to boast - hundreds of sculptures are strewn throughout the city.

the busy pedestrian walk in resistencia is NOT busy during siesta hours.  they are serious about their siestas here.  nothing but pharmacies and supermarkets are open from around 2 until 5.  

yes, that is a wolf feeding little children, the story of romulus and remus. showcasing how much italian influence exists in this town.  read on... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus

this is fernando, the people's dog of resistencia.  he's featured all over the city in sculptures.  the legend of fernando: he was the pet of a traveling musician, who died shortly after arriving in resistencia.  so, he took to the streets and became 'the dog of the people'.  because of his musical background, he was able to recognize when someone was playing out of tune and would bark at them.

our first couchsurfing experience in latin america!  we stayed with two great guys that lent lauren an apron and chef's hat while preparing a teriyaki stir fry :)

off to the province of misiones, aka land of jesuit ruins.  this one was pretty cool, located in the town of san ignacio de mini

another example of christianity's history of respecting women :)  there was a small building next to the cemetery that housed "women whose husbands had to go away, widows with no relatives, orphans, elder women, some single women and the adulterers." this is where they were 'confined'. 

soon to be one of the new seven natural wonders of the world?  we'll cross our fingers for you iguazu falls.  you were certainly wonderful.  pictured here, garganta del diablo, aka 'throat of the devil.'  extra devil-y when we were here because of the large amount of rain they have been experiencing lately

check it out - garganta del diabloooooo

darcy, our friend from home, described iguazu falls with two words - lisa frank.  remember the days of shiny rainbow, butterfly, and unicorn stickers?  lisa must have gotten her inspiration here

coatis roaming around the trails

hey cool blue bird!

double rainbow!  like this one:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI

waterfalls!!!

more awesome waterfalls!

joe won't let me take this waterfall picture out of the blog, even though i just said that i think we posted too many pictures of waterfalls

the source of the falling water

dig it!

i don't think we posted enough pictures of waterfalls in this blog ;)

the things that make us laugh while exploring supermarkets

our last view in argentina before we cross the mountains into chile

welcome to chile!  you can take all your dried herbs, rice, oil, and other foods into our country, but, we're not sure about this wooden dice shaker.  nearly got confiscated while at the border.  after signing some forms thinking that our new purchase was to be taken away, the scornful customs lady said we could keep it but it was "very illegal" to bring in this piece (even though i claimed it on our customs form) and that it was similar to bringing in a gorilla's paw. didn't know how to respond to that statement. crazy lady

cool nighttime churchiness in san pedro de atacama

took an afternoon tour to a few highlights in the surrounding area...pictured here, valle de los muertes

sweet valley

dust tornado off yonder!

our off-road vehicle used to explore the desert sites

piedra de coyote - coyote rock!  you can kind of see it in this photo, a profile of a coyote underneath lauren. it was basically just a spot where everyone in the tours would take photos :)

joe, the thinker

salt cave in valle de la luna - named "valley of the moon" because the landscape looks like the surface of the moon...

whenever we asked our guide, "what's that?", the answer was always: salt. salt everywhere.  

moon aliens!!

sweet moon stuff

joe doing his moon pose

lauren mining for what else but... moon salt!

las tres marias - actually two and a half marias because the left most pillar was destroyed by someone climbing on the rocks last year

sunset in the desert

la pukara de quitor.  similar to the pukara we saw in tilcara, argentina, this was an old atacameño fort on top of a hill overlooking the valley

the valley

so, this volcano, licancabur, was amazing.  thus, the reason why we had to include a few photos...

artsy, eh?

our walk back to town, complete with many a volcano view

traveling does take it's toll. so, sometimes you need to do nothing but sit around in nice weather and lay on the beach. now relaxing in the beach city of iquique, chile.  great weather, hostel, and...seafood...

yum, chupe de mariscos.  seafood in a bowl of melted butter and cheese :)

the colorful buildings of iquique

although our daily budget is being badly injured by chile, we are already thinking about our return after three weeks in southern peru.  despite speaking incredibly fast and incomprehensible spanish (even the argentines have a hard time understanding the chileans!), people are super friendly, food is good, and the climate is ideal.  we just have a few days left in chile before we embark on our 24+ hour journey to cusco, peru to meet our first travel companions, lauren's parents!  they'll be experiencing our backpacker lifestyle for a few weeks and joining us in visiting one of south america's highlights - macchu picchu here we come...hooray!!

besos! 

tallyho,

lauren and joe