Leaving Argentina was not easy.  We took a bus direct from San Juan to Santiago, a ride that should be about 8 hours, but the Chileans like to ensure their country is very safe from all manner of agricultural products.  For us, this translated to a 4 hour wait at the border, which was at 10,000 feet, with the a/c running on the bus.
Nevertheless we did manage to arrive in Santiago, albeit a good bit tardy.  Waiting for us at the station were our Santiago CS hosts, Dario and his wife Mariela.  I´d met Dario briefly back in Washington about a year ago and as we’ve traveled through South America we´d kept in contact.  Despite only having met for 15 …

I first heard of Mate traveling in Guatemala on my semester abroad from college. I didn’t try it but I did remember it and when I saw it again, and had the opportunity again, chose not to try it again. I figured that since I was going to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile I should wait to try it in one of those countries.
Mate itself is basically a type of herbal tea (sort of looks  like oregano or crushed tea leaves) that is very popular down here. Rather than filling a coffee mug with water and dropping in a small filter bag with tea leaves inside, with Mate the cup itself is special. No ordinary mug will …

Many people back in the States often ask us questions about the food we eat. Over the last few months we’ve begun to add pictures of our food as part of our travel experience, often squeezing foods into posts that are really about other things.
So now we happened on a better idea. Once a week this blog will be devoted to the food and drinks that we eat. We’ve done this only once so far, with hot chocolate in Colombia (word has it that we inspired a hot chocolate drinking party with that one) but now we’ll do our best to make it a regular occurrence.
Now we’re left with the question of where to begin. …

We wanted to go to Salta for three reasons: 1) mountain biking, 2) whitewater kayaking and 3) to meet an American blogger friend and her family. We quickly found out reasons #1 and #2 weren’t going to happen. The guy who ran the mountain bike company was on “vacation” until the following week, and the whitewater company didn’t have the minimum number of people to run a trip that weekend. C’est la vie, so much for pre-planning.
Reason #3 actually did work out, and to be honest spending time with them was the best part of Salta. I feel like a broken record saying that the people are the best part of this trip, but …