Molino photos

Dinner party with the roomies at midnight, obviously. Who in their right mind would want to eat dinner at the ridiculuosly civilized hour of 7pm?

Dining room balcony view of the Argentine national Congress

Thanks to Florencia for the photos!

We live in Buenos Aires

Dear readers,
We have landed on our feet in Buenos Aires. Our friend Magu connected us with a whole crew of friendly Chileans who offered us a room on their floor of the Confitería del Molino. Which just happens to be an extremely well located, famous, rotten, art nouveau masterpiece. What luck. So, we`ve been decorating our little room with 25 foot ceilings and a balcony and continuing our exploration of BA which is HUGE. We just returned from a week or so travelling in the south of Argentina (El Bolsón and Bariloche) aka mountain paradise where the trees are red and gold, the water is frigid and aquamarine and the air is cold and clear. I wish I could post pictures but sadly our camera was stolen the night of our going away party in Uruguay. The robbery hasn´t tarnished our affection for "Burning Man: the Country" and we left with high spirits, many friends and intentions to return. Our final parting contribution to Punta del Diablo life was a visit to the local elementary school where we made hundreds of precious hand drawn buttons with all the kids, rocketing ourselves into the gringo hall of fame for at least one tiny fishing village in one tiny south american country. ¡Bárbaro!

I am sitting next to a window that is tinted blue, it is open and the sounds of the city spill in. Most commonly the sharp squeal of passing micos punctuated with an occasional dog barking. Peaceful as it is only one thirty in the afternoon. No one is awake yet.
Buenos Aires, do you want some party for your party?
-z

Where in the world are Mark and Zya?

Punta del Diablo, Uruguay!

Dear readers...apologies for the long radio silence. We have been all over the place, on buses, on foot, on the train, in taxis, in boats-searching, always searching for something. Searching for something that we found in the perfect, sleepy, fish/surf/vacation village of Punta del Diablo. Yup, Devils point has what we want out of a South American vacation-the people are friendly, the weather is HOT, the water is warm, the beer is cold and the fish is fried. As you can see, weve rented a darling cabaña with ocean views and we plan on staying for a while. Uruguay is by far the most chilled out, progressive country that South America has to offer. Everyone, including us, drinks mate 24 hours a day and never wears pants. We recommend that you come on down and visit.

Cheers,

Mark

Pre-Columbian

I foun out that mark LOVES pre-columbian museums. The bone picture is for Hannah.

Pisco Elqui Photos

We camped under a weeping willow in Pisco Elqui. Nice material for basket weaving. You can hardly believe that such a lush camp is cradled by such dry and sharp hills...

Atacama Spring Break!

We hit a rut here in the Atacama desert
No, to be fair to a once blind nominee for ¨the world´s most romantic desert¨, we hit a rut in the town of San Pedro de Atacama.
California´s very own Death Valley still holds the crown...
And San Pedro Atacama wins the Spring Break (bone dry) Key West look a like contest. But Chilean teenagers sure do seem to love it.

What you really need here is your own jeep.
Our experience has been similar to like what it would be to ride a bus into death valley to the visitor center/golf course ¨oasis¨ in the middle of the park ... and be stuck there with hordes of high maintenance screeching latina teenage girls with fake IDs.
I am sure the desert is lovely, but apart from over an overpriced tour in which they will take you to see some nice rocks so long as you don´t mind one of the teenage girls sitting on your lap it has been kind of like a permanant Coachella.

So we are moving on to visions of escaping horizions, stars within arms reach, flamingo filled lagoons and salt flats. A three day 4x4 jeep tour into Bolivia. They take 6 passengers, so we will have dwindled it down to 4 screachers, at worst. Four screachers standing between us and the exquisite romance of a land without water.

Pisco Elqui, on the other hand, was tops.

-z