Dear friends and family,

We arrived in Buenos Aires last night after a full day of travel from El Chalten, a small town at the foot of the Fitz Roy mountain to El Calafate, the tourist town that is the entrance point to Patagonia.  Our time there was filled with the most extraordinary experiences and sites.  Our group consisted of 11 people, mostly Australian, one Jewish boy from Toronto, and the three of us.  We survived five nights of camping--one night was so cold and windy that we put Jessica in the middle of a two person tent.  We trekked up and down some of the most magnificent mountains, walked through a valley in Los Torres National Park where the winds were so powerful that we could barely stand up.  We really enjoyed our fellow travelers and are convinced that Australians are the most fit, adventurous people we've ever met.  

We've survived twelve days of ham and cheese sandwiches, don't need to eat another one for a lifetime.  Food was not a strong point of this trekking company, reinforced by our meal of 'juicy meat' for one of our dinners. The actually animal remains unknown.  

We hiked for eight to ten hours a day for several days.  A few hikes had to be rerouted because of bad weather.  Our guide in Los Torres National Park told us that the catamaran that takes hikers from one area of the park to another was canceled for the first time in seven years because of the high winds.  He estimated gusts as strong as 160 km per hour.  We've never felt anything quite like it.

A couple of laughs to add in:

One evening Roy was asking for a box (una caja) at the reception of the hostel and the woman thought he was saying caca and handed him some toilet paper... 

...and you thought he couldn't top that...

Yesterday he was changing money at the bank and said to the clerk that he needed to find his glasses because he has "huevos viejos." For anyone who needs translations, he told this young woman that he has old balls, when he really meant to say "ojos viejos" - old eyes.

We've become dehydrated after tears of laughter...

So we're going to try and attach a couple pictures (our top 20, so far). Enjoy!