We arrived at the apartment after an uneventful trip. The apartment is in Ipamema. Several people recommended we stay in this Provence for safety reasons. Copacabana while relatively safe during the day can be dangerous at night.

The first day we walked ipanema beach and Copacabana beach and back inside the city. Rio is a beautiful city. The landscapes are simply breathtaking.

Yesterday we went to sugar loaf mountain. You reach sugar loaf by cable cars. The from the mountain overlooking the city is incredible.

Today we are going to the Christ statue. Tomorrow maybe a jungle tour.

The Emirates flight to Rio from Buenos Aires was excellent. The flight is on a new Boeing 777-200. As soon as we sat down we were handed a hot towel. The ceiling has star led lights. There were over 200 movies to choose from and at least as many TV shows.

In general flying outside the US has been a lot easier. No TSA to deal with.

Also there is a photo of BA airport, pictures of Brad pit hanging everywhere. Quite funny.

We arrived in BA on December 13th around 1pm. After some driving around in a taxi we finally found our place. One thing about this trip is that taxi cab drivers have been inexpensive and much more honest than those in Europe. Our place is great close to resturaunts, bars and clubs. It took a couple trips to get wifi working. Yesterday we walked around Palermo the fashion district. Today was San Telmo the old town and around the port area. We also walked through the presidents house a large red/pink house. Despite the currency devaluation clothes here are as expensive to a lot more expensive than the U.S. We walked into a Levi store selling the same jeans I bought for $40 for $100. Food prices are the same in the US. Most meals here in Argentina are beaf. In Uruguay there was a good selection of fish or pescado to choose from. We have had some good beaf tho. Tonight we are going to a Middle Eastern restaurant. People seem to eat earlier here than in Uruguay, 9 or 10pm. We leave here Monday night.

On December 12th we left Diablo and headed to Colonial Del Sacramento. Colonia is an old port town on the southern side of Uruguay. Along the way we stopped at La Paloma a small surfing town for lunch. The trip to Colonial took us 6-7 hours. Colonia is an old port city used today mainly for day trips of argentians looking to get out of the city for a day. Unlike the rest of Uruguay Colonia was hot and humid with lots of mosquitoes.

The ferry ride to BA was uneventful. The ferry was huge and probably held around 900 people.

We arrived in Diablo 2 days ago. December 9th. This is a really cool place. A bohemian village that survives on fishing and tourism. During the winter there are around 200 total population. In the summer starting December 15 the town will swell to 20 thousand. The is no ATM and wifi is hard to come by. The hostel we reserved did not look so hot so we drove around and found a cool 2 bedroom apartment on the beach for a little more. We a couple in punta del este, John & Georgia, from Melbourne Australia. We ran into them again here in Diablo. So last night we had a barbecue at our place, The night before that we met a couple girls from Seattle, one of which was the front page manager for Microsoft’s Bing. We surfed today the water here is unbelievably cold. Tomorrow we are heading to Colonia del Sacramento.

Punta del este looks like Miami beach except with much better looking people and not as much to do. Season doesn’t get going until January so it’s a bit on the quiet side. High-end expensive new condo high rises are everywhere. Spent the day driving around and on the beach. The airport was very nice. The hostel is well situated. The pics include one flying over the Andes mountains leaving Chile. The weather is warmer than Chile and very nice. Tomorrow we go to a much smaller town, punta del diablo

C-Rat is having his Last Pisco Sour before getting on the plane to Montevideo, Uruguay.

The weather has been spectacular in Santiago. Very similar to the weather in San Diego, CA. I will miss seeing people kissing on every corner. The girls take kissing very seriously.

The food here has been good. I love empanadas anyway and they have a variety of seafood empanadas. We tried to go to a winery yesterday but the GPS took us 40 minutes in the wrong direction.

The flight today should be 2 hours. We are renting a car in Montevideo and driving to Punta del este. Should arrive there about 11pm tonight.

Whewwww we just had to run across the airport. They changed gates on us and we didn’t realize it. We made it though, take off in 15 minutes.

On Wednesday afternoon we rented a car and drove to Valparaiso on the coast. We stayed in a hostel with several other people my age all traveling the world for a year. They were from Canada, Scotland , Netherlands & Santiago. It was fun. Sorry no pictures as my phone died on the way there.

Yesterday we drove back to Santiago and spent some time downtown. Santiago seems to be very affluent. We walked through a mall that would put the Gardens to shame. The grocery store made Whole Foods look like Albertsons.

Last night we made a light dinner for C-Rat.

Other sites:

Catholic Church in the central square.