Patagonia!

Where do I start...?  Patagonia is amazing!  We went on a rafting trip on the Manzo River, we floated through a beautiful rainforest.  Unfortunately we don't have any pics because our camera isn't waterproof, wa wa.  The excursion started with a 1 1/2 hour bus ride to the base camp, then down the river into Chile.  We saw some amazing scenery and I got to raft for my first time.  The initial instructions given by the guide had me shaking in my boots.  We were approaching our first rapid, the name of the rapid was something like "The International," the instructor shouting orders like, "Guys, see that boulder ahead, you must follow my instructions or we will crash into it, if we do just try to protect your head so you don't get knocked unconscious.  But I know you guys will be just fine."  Super reassuring for a first timer.  Yikes!  By the end of the trip I was an old pro!  We went back to the base camp and had a tasty Argentine BBQ.  There was a dope Israeli soldier and a old latin tree hugger who were both obsessed with Matt, one wanted to talk to him about the ecology of patagonia and the other about put him in an Israeli army headlock!  Awesome.  They both wanted to row next to him and sit at his table for dinner.  At one point I thought a jihad for Matt's attention between the three of us might start.  At one point I found Matt hiding in the nasty bus, "What are you doing here?"  His response, "I had to get away!"  It was pretty funny.

We spent a day on the Limay River fly fishing, with our guide Carlos.  Matt was in HEAVEN!  I sat on the back of the boat reading, taking pics, and enjoying the scenery.  Carlos taught us a lot about the Argentine culture.  When Matt had a good cast he would say, "Beautiful my son."  He invited us to dinner and also offered to take us fishing again and give us a ride to the airport.  Most of the people here are so friendly and accepting.  We have met a few older women, they all mother us and try to help us out.  Anyway, Matt caught some cool fish (rainbow trout), we will post some pictures.   Matt was trying to explain to me how much this experience meant to him in terms I could relate to.  He said it would be like me being at a Paris Fashion Week and going to see a Chanel show.  He was seriously beaming all day, it was an unforgettable day.

The next day (Saturday) was a complete cluster *&^%!!!  The plan was to fly from Patagonia to Iguazu Falls and check into our pre-paid hotel, easy breezy.  What really happened I will summarize...  We were leaving the hotel for the airport when Matt decided he would double check our flights, I was in the other room when suddenly all I could hear was Matt shouting profanities in a fit of anger.  Calmly I walked in to the room and said, "We missed our flight?"  I talked him down from the ledge, "It's cool, lets just catch the next flight, no big deal."  We got to the airport and waited in a long line to speak to a ticket agent who explained... The last three days of January are the busiest flight days in Argentina, there wouldn't be an open flight until WEDNESDAY.  He gave us a phone number and said that they could change our flight.  We called the number, they can't make changes to flights over the phone.  We waited in line again, found out that if we could get to Buenos Aires by bus (22 hour bus ride) then we could catch a flight from Buenos Aires to Iguazu.  Perfect, we rushed to the bus station.  The bus station can be described by one word, chaos.  We tried to buy tickets from several different vendors, all buses to Buenos Aires were sold out.  We figured we would go back into town and find the airline's office.  We got there at 1:45, it closed at 12:30.  The office wouldn't be open again until Monday so the only way to change our tickets would be to go back to the airport.  Back to the airport, luckily we got a really helpful ticket agent (I think she could tell we were ready to blow) she arranged flights for us to leave for Iguazu on Wednesday.  So we are here in Patagonia for an extra four days.  I guess there are worse places in the world to be stuck.  So we found this killer hotel on the lake, it is quaint and romantic.  More to come, tomorrow is tango/bingo/beach and pizza party at our hotel and horseback riding through patagonia on Tuesday.  Salud!