Final days in Paradise ... cococnuts, golden beaches and Samba in Salvador

Our returning date is coming painfully nearer... especially as we - threatend by the thought of having to find a flat in 3 days - anticipated our final flight by more than a week!! (and were regretting it badly sitting on our Paradise beach in Brazil) But all TO DO's back home were popping up to frequently in our heads... So we decided to skip the trip to the very North (another reason to come back ;-) and to indulge into some last true vacation days. No 24hr night buses anymore, no crappy hotels, no cheap restaurants, just pure luxury...

And we found our paradise in Praia do Forte. A tiny beautiful beach resort north of Salvador de Bahia. The perfect place to chill out and sip our coconuts in the sun: golden beaches, forests of palm trees and turquoise water. In fact it is called the Polynesia of Brazil.

The cultre and the spirit in this part of Brazil is breathtaking. Samba everywhere, dark smiling people full of joy and life, boys practising Caporeia on the beach and the big mummies cooking huge pans of moqueca de camarao (a yummy type of curry with shrimps and coconut milk).

And then the city, Salvador. An incredible place. The old city with its colorful colonial buildings is a UNESCO heritage. The life takes place outside. At 7am the beaches in the city are full of people playing soccer, running, surfing, kitesurfing and you can watch them drinking your coconut until the sunset.
So we were intrigued by the thought of doing the same like the Italian owner of our fancy hotel... just leaving everything behind and open an hotel in Brazil (www.hotel-cocoon.com). But we skipped the idea (for now!!) - so eventually we jumped on our plane back to Sao Paolo and further on...

Enjoying Rain in Rio with Denis and his family...

Sun, samba and minimum 25 degrees... this is what Denis promised us when we come and visit him and his lovely family in Brazil, our last country before we were turning home. And this is what we needed after some freezing weeks in Argentina...

But he was wrong!! The day we arrived the sky turned black and it was raining for the first time after 3 months!! We couldn't believe it!!
But it didn't matter at all. We loved having an excuse to stay as long as we could with Denis, Cris, Caio and Bruno (and Ruby, the dog!!) in their cosy home, relaxing and chatting all day long. And it was a good excuse for the girls to go on extensive shopping trips into the spectacular malls and get hair and nails done... and for the guys to hang out in front of the TV watching soccer...

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We were lucky that there were some public holidays so Denis and Cris had time to show us their amazing city. We saw the famous "Zuckerhut" and the dungle like botanic gardens, had a (short and wet;-) stroll at Copacabana and drank fresh coconuts with the beautiful crowd at Ipanema beach (not wet!!). And after three vainly attempts to see Christo we gave in and took the cable car up into the clouds... and were rewarded with some minutes of great views on beautiful Rio!!

In the end we enjoyed it so much that we stayed a full week in Rio ... finally with bright sunshine and the whole family at the beach. What a life!!!!!

Mi Buenos Aires querido - with Tango and Boca Juniors

Have I mentioned that we love this city ;-) (Fabri ranks it short after Sydney and I might put it even before :-)) Together we have been here now 5 times and we can´t wait to go back already!

We enjoyed it to the max! This time we emerged into two of its most famous attractions: TANGO and SOCCER, the notorious Boca Juniors. The best of both worlds for both of us! I dragged Fabri to every Tango lesson and Milonga we could find in the few days and he dragged me into the midst of the crazy Fans of Boca Juniors in the famous yellow-blue stadium in La Boca.

We had a good time chilling out our our beautiful hotel in San Telmo (great recommendation: www.thefourhotel.com) , ate yummy parilla (meat, meat, meat) till the bellies were bursting and strolled through the city like the Portenos ...
We don´t know when we will come back ... but this was surely NOT our last time here :-)

Ice climbing at minus 5 degrees - exploring Patagonia

Patagonia was just amazing! Another highlight on our already pretty long list of beautiful places in this world.

We flew from Buenos Aires a few 1000km South to the - what we thought - end of the world, a village called El Calafate. Surprisingly we arrived in a pretty much developed little town with loads of cosy restaurants, alpine-style (Huetten look) accomodation and little shops full of Argentinian handcrafts. All of this set amid a stunning scenery. Next to the deep turquoise "lago Argentino", surrounded by white peaks (the Glacier national park). And with a true Antarctica feeling, caused by the freezing winds. Which meant that latest after 10min walking we had an excuse for being rescued by a yummy submarino (hot chocolate) or an Argentinean Mate tea in a sweet cafe.

But not only the scenery and the weather reminded us so much of home (we heard it is already snowing in Munich...)...
When waiting to go on a boat trip to see the famous glaciers up close, we met Matteo and his wife (being there on a honeymoon) .. a friend of us from the Bocconi MBA!! In a queue at the end of the world - unbelievable!!!! So we got a fresh update from home and chatted until late in the evening. It was great! And it made the pretty touristic boat ride a bit more fun...

Apart from the standard glacier tours, Patagonia is an amazing place to discover untouched nature and do all kinds of adventures you can think of. We climbed through the massive, deep blue ice of the Perito Moreno glacier (the bluer the ice, the older it is...). An unforgettable experience, getting into the crampons and walking over hidden rivers and waterfalls...

2 days of our (far too short) Patagonia trip we spent in El Chalten (an even tinier village 4hrs from Calafte) to hike through the mountains around the Fitz Roy range. It is all natural parks here (UNESCO proteced!) which are incredibly well maintained by a passionate crowd of locals (the walkways are better marked than in the Alps). Unfortunately both days were too stormy and cloudy to actually SEE the famous peaks, but it was worth it, just for the great treks. And with photoshop we can paste the peaks into the white spot (the clouds!) of our posing pictures at the "Miradores" (viewpoints) :-)

Our week down there was flying and - far too early - we had to go back to BsAs... although looking forward to get our bones warmed up a bit and chilling out for a week in one of our favorite cities :-)

Colonial charme, indio villages and breathtaking scenery - finally ...Argentina!

Salta, a beautiful colonial town in NW Argentina (up on the way to Bolivia) we didn´t want to leave. The city is big enough to provide all travellers´ amenities but also cosy so you feel straight at home. And the area around is beautiful to explore - we saw small Indio villages with little white-washed houses, the amazing 7-color rocks of the Quebrada de Humahuaca and the cool cactus forest up on 3000m. All done in a one-day trip, where we almost didn´t come back from ... we got completly stuck by heavy floodings (you could watch the water rising.. scary!) with our (not at all a 4WD) car. When we tried to turn back, the way was also blocked as a bridge collapsed and the water pushed up the asphalt. When the waterlevel fell to less than 1m eventually our driver was brave enough to drive us safely home :-)

Far too quick, another night bus ride was waiting for us - 22hrs to Buenos Aires. And it was by far the most uncomfortable bus trip we had during our whole journey. But arriving in Buenos Aires instantly made up for it!
Despite the whole city being booked out for the next month leaving us with some annoying search (and daily change!) of hotels, we both love that city. Summer is on its way and the whole city is full of lilac blossoming trees. We enjoyed 2 days of strolling around in the warm sun, shopping in posh Recoleta and cobble stoned Palermo Viejo (Tango shoes :-)), and of course eating excellent Parilla (Argentinian grilled meat) before we headed down to Patagonia. A last time into the cold... (at least we thought so!)