From Chile to Patagonia

 Matias, Cris, Benja & Alex coming back from the pool...

It's been a while since we last wrote!
What have we done in the last couple of days? We first spent a 4 days in Santiago (Chile) where we stayed at Alex's cousin Cristina's place. They're like brothers and sisters so it was super nice to catch up with her and meet with her little family: She has two lovely little boys (Matias, 4,  and Benjamin, 2) who adopted us right away! In Santiago we visited the downtown area and beautiful surroundings but we didn't stay for long because we wanted to see the Chilean pacific coast, so we headed to Valparaiso and its beautiful coloured houses and Vina del Mar where we ate amazing seafood and drank delicious wines and most importantly had a lot of fun!

Valparaiso

Then from STG we flew to the entrance door for Patagonia: Puerto Montt. We actually stayed in a little town just 20kms from there called Puerto Varas. It's a shame because we went there to see the Osorno volcano but the weather was so bad that all we saw was the hotel... but we were very lucky because the hotel was amazing,  there was a great spa and fitness so we decided to get pampered which is in our point of view a pretty good plan as well!
After this we crossed the Andes by bus as we were heading to Bariloche (Argentina). It was a lot of fun because we were in a bus with 30 Brazilians so no need to tell you how noisy the bus was...but you should have seen how crazy they all went when it started to snow!!! They had never seen it so it was magical for them. You could hear some "Nossa" and some "Meu Deus" during half an hour...and they were pretty mad at us because we didn't show any appreciation for this magic moment...but I mean...we are Swiss...we don't show our emotions and we have snow half of the year!!!

Later that day we arrived at Patricia & Andrew's beautiful house just outside of Bariloche in a little condominium called Arelauquen. They are practically family as Patricia grew up with Claire's dad in Buenos Aires. And let me tell you that we were able (again) to have a glimpse of what Paradise could look like. This place was amazing. The view first of all, on lake Gutierrez, was breathtaking. Then the golf...18 holes at 100m from home...Alex couldn't be happier...he played twice with Andrew...leaving the wives do their own program which Patricia calls "Golf widows program" which involved swimming, tanning, exercising in the gym and... alot of talking of course!...we also had the best meat ever at El Boliche de Alberto...amazing!!! We went on a nature trip too to see a volcano and its glacier. It's called "Tronador" because its seracs make a lot of noise when they fall...pretty scary by the way! Andrew and Patricia took care of us as if we were their kids...and we really felt like family with them so if you read this: thanks again!

Arelauquen...CD1

 Patricia & Andrew chilling...

Now we are currently in the center of Patagonia in a small town called El Calafate. It's the centerpoint for all day trips to the glaciers (Perito Moreno is the best known) or National Park ofTorres del Paine and we've done both, enjoying the breathtaking views on the lakes, glaciers and mountains. Pretty cool days in the wind! and long! the sun doesn't go down until 11 pm so we need to close the shutters to go to bed! We also went horseback riding around lago Argentino...like real Gauchos...except that Alex fell off his horse as he was galopping...so you can imagine the bruises...it's like jumping from a car at 30km/h...but he bravely jumped back on the horse right away... and he still thinks it was one of the best moment of our trip until now!

Better than the Colombian donkeys...

Torres del Paine

 Perito Moreno

It's strange to be far from home for Christmas, and we sometimes have what Alex calls "mamitis" and "papitis", two very well-known illnesses caracterized by homesick feelings ;-) hehehe but at the same time we are really enjoying every minute of this trip we are doing thanks to you all! It's even better than what we could have ever imagined.
Sending you lots of love!