goodbye Chile, see you soon

Best pics

Wow, what a great trip! We got 5 out of the 6 stations working with the 6th one coming in a couple of weeks. We saw

Santiago-city with 1/2 of Chile's population
Punta Arenas- southern most city in world on the Magellan straights
Puerto Natales- gateway to the famous Torre del Paine National Park
Valdivia, Osorno- in the lakes region
La Serena- resort city on the beach

I then went on to Buenos Aires and Iguazu Falls. In total, it was 10 hotels, 14 flights, and a whopping 18,000 miles! This is about 85% of the circumference of earth. The highlights were the lakes region of Chile, Torre del Paine, the soccer match in Buenos Aires, and Iguazu Falls.

Stay tuned for the next blog when I go to Antartica in Janurary....

Santiago-daty 26

I went with Marina over to her University. I think I´ve been here 10 times now.

Tonight I fly out at 10pm and get into Miami at 4:30am. I then fly out again at 7 and get to Boston at 10:30am.

tomorrow Ill post the top pics from the trip...

Santiago-day 25

Happy Thanksgiving! I wish I could be there and eat turkey,mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie with everybody

I met up with Marina today and went over to her apartment in the afternoon. She took me on the same bike ride we did earlier in the trip. We went up to the top of the mountain and had 2 of the apricot drinks with barley. (mote con huesillos) I think Im going to have to open up a cafe with that drink. Delicious! My Thanksgiving dinner consisted of Chinese food in Santiago.

Im definitely going to miss the 70 degree weather once I get back to Boston. The weather in beantown shows snow.

Iguazu Falls- day 24

I wrestled with the idea of visiting Ciudad de Este in Paraguay. It is a spot for cheap electronics so I considered buying a GPS navigator. I spoke with a Peruvian girl and she said that they dont check any IDs going accross the border.

Before I went accross I did a little research online. I learned that as an American I do need a visa. In addition, in just minutes after doing a google search I learned that....

1. One American without a Visa on his passport got detained, got taken downtown, and had to pay the guard triple the visa rate to get released.
2. The city is known as the black market capital of south america with drugs, guns, and plenty of smuggled electronics.
3. Websites warned of robberies walking accross the bridge.

With all this I decided to stay in the safety of Brazil. Good form.

Lots of traveling today again. I took a taxi ride from Brazil to the airport in Argentina. Flew from Puerto Iguazu to Buenos Aires. Took the 2 hour bus ride to the international airport in Buenos Aires. Flew from Buenos Aires to Santiago and finally took a taxi to the hotel. I left around noon and didnt get to my bed until about midnight.

I went on my 11th and 12th flights today and stayed in my 10th hotel room. I also realized Ive been in the Santiago airport 6 times. Im definitely ready to go home and get away from airports, buses, taxis, and custom officers.

Iguazu Falls- day 23

The Brazil side offers the best panaramic view and the Argentina side offers the chance to get close to the falls. Argentina didnt disappoint. When you get next to some of the falls, the sound is deafening to the point where you cant hear the person next to you. At the same time you get soaked just from the mist that rises up. It really is a unbelievable experience being just feet away from such powerful waterfalls.

our jetboat, at first we went out to take pictures, then we put our cameras away and cruised underneath the falls. Underneath the falls you couldnt see the seat in front of you from the water everywhere.

my peruvian friends

the granddady of them all- devils throat. best waterfall ive seen in my life.

Foz do Igazu/Iguazu Falls, Brazil- day 22

Today I went to Iguazu Falls and saw them from the Brazilian side. Wow, they are absolutely amazing!!! They are the 2nd widest behind Niagara and 3rd highest behind Victoria and Angel Falls, but when combined makes it incedible. Plus the sheer number of falls-275!


The map of the falls-they are the border between brazil and argentina






Helicopter ride


beautiful!

After the falls I went to Itaipu dam. It is by far the largest power plannt in the world, the equivalent of 4 nuclear power plants! It generates 20% of Brazil´s power and 90% of Paraguay´s power. It is split between Paraguay and Brazil so I got see some of Paraguay today too.

One of the 14 generators. Just one of these bad boys powers all of Paraguay. The other 13 go to Brazil.