Holidays and heartbreak

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"Holidays and heartbreak."

Andrea here! Happy Thanksgiving eve to all of our family and friends back home! I hope you all have gotten your holiday menu put together and have all your food ready to prep for tomorrow! If not, you better get on it! :) Last year to this year a lot of has changed for me personally and professionally and it makes me that much more grateful for the life that I have. I am thankful for my travel buddies, Jackie and Maria, all of my friends and family back home, my amazing and supportive boyfriend, and all in all just feeling more love this year than in any other year before this! Maybe I'm just feeling the holiday sprit lately?

Speaking of holidays, I had a feeling early on that the holiday season was going to be difficult time for me but I didn't realize how difficult. As I sit here in my bunk and type this blog post while listening to "Please Come Home For Christmas," I realize that I can't make this wish come true for my family, friends, and boyfriend. As much as I would like to book a plane ticket home for the Christmas, financially it is impossible, unless a CHRISTMAS MIRACLE happens! (But that's doubtful.) I also realize that for the first time in 29 years, Jackie and I will wake up alone on Christmas day. That last sentence sounds kind of depressing doesn't it? On the bright side, we are very fortunate to be in the position that we are in and have such an amazing support system back home to return to. The holidays will be "just a day" in our schedule this year but then again, we've lost track of what day it is let alone what date it is on this trip so maybe we'll forget that it is even Thanksgiving tomorrow? Doubtful. So I hope you all love hard tomorrow for all three of us who wish we could be home and have full bellies and a relaxing bed or couch to pass out on after eating! :)

The last week has been a whirlwind! We have taken numerous bus rides, a flight, and a boat ride and tomorrow we leave yet again to another city! The last time I wrote I was in a coffee shop just fresh off the bus in Santiago! Now I write you in El Calafate, Argentina! Santiago was a cool city to be in for a few days! Our hostel "Chili Pepper Hostel," was good! It was the one we booked last minute in the coffee shop and we had an 8 dorm bed all to ourselves! It was located in the Italian district in Santiago. The night we stayed we explored the district and it was very hipster and reminded me of Ann Arbor, Michigan! It had a lot of shops, restaurants, and good vibes! The next two night we stayed at the "Poker Hostel." We had our own room and it even had a DVD player with AMERICAN movies! This was a huge development in our books! That night we walked around Santiago and we stopped at a grocery store and I bought popcorn for our planned movie night! Santiago also inspired me to utilize my local parks at home for a napping station. Literally, we saw people and couples hanging out in the park napping, reading, and just relaxing and it inspired me! We then walked back to our hostel and watched, "Me Before You." The movie tugged at our heart strings and also brought up some mixed feelings about Euthanasia...but this isn't a movie review blog, so I won't bore you on my opinions!

The next day we caught a bus and went to a town called Valparaiso. We had heard good reviews about this sea side town and decided that we would make a day trip to the city. The city had cool buildings with art on them and we walked around and explored this little town. We then caught the bus back and retired for the night.

From Santiago we decided to change our itinerary. Now when planning this around the world trip it was easy to sit at home and make a list of all the places we want to see and all the things we want to do. When you are actually living this out in real life some times things have to change in order to make way for things in the future. I think I can say for all of us that money is no object to us and in order to do amazing things in the future, I wasn't willing to spend big bucks at the beginning of the trip. My biggest priorities are swimming with the great white sharks in Africa, exploring New Zealand, and ending my adventure on the islands of Hawaii...! So Bariloche did not make the cut this time. Instead, we booked a last minute flight to Punta Arenas, Argentina. 

Punta Arenas! What can I say about this little town tucked away on the sea shore besides the fact that it was adorable!!! It reminded me a lot of Aspen, Colorado. It was filled with cute shops, restaurants, and mountains! I started to feel the holiday vibes. We stayed at THEE BEST HOSTEL so far on our trip and honestly, I don't think anything can top it. It was called "La Casa" and if any of you are ever in Punta Arenas I highly recommend it! The hostel is owned by a couple and it reminded me of my own Grandmother's house: warm, comforting, and welcoming. The hostel owner baked us fresh cake each night for the next morning's breakfast, had the best hot chocolate, and she was so welcoming and amazing. We wish we had gotten her name...! She made us feel at home and Jackie even walked around the hostel without shoes...THIS WAS HUGE for her! I can't say enough good things about this hostel. The day we left they made sure to have breakfast for us before we caught our bus and they drove us to the bus stop! We had no idea that they were going to do this so it was like a cherry on top of this amazing sundae! 

We took a three hours bus ride to Puerto Natales (where we will be starting our five day hiking/camping adventure on December 1st!) and then decided to keep going to El Calafate which was another three hours. We arrived in El Calafate and didn't have a hostel booked. We attempted to walk around with our packs on to each hostel but were told time after time that it was full. Finally a nice hostel allowed us to use their wifi to book a hostel. We decided to go with "Calafate Viejo." It had decent reviews and a relatively good price considering we were in Patagonia so everything costs a bit more. We made our way by foot to our new humble abode and was realized quickly where we were staying...in a house away from the hotel with no wifi and it was creepy AF...! It was so late in the evening that we put on brave smiles and told ourselves repeatedly that "It's only for one night." We got dinner in town and then made our way back to our hotel. We stayed in the lobby for a bit to use the wifi then headed back to our beds. We slept and got out of there as soon as we could! I mean the toilet was broken for crying out loud! We paid then made our way to our nicer and much more welcoming hostel, "Hostel Calafate." Since we checked in before check in time, we dropped our bags off and explored the town for a bit. The town again reminded me of either Europe or Colorado. It is filled with tourists and tourist shops but we like those some times! That afternoon we decided to rent bikes and cruise around town and hopefully find Lago Argentina! The bike rental itself was only 150 pesos ($9.64) for three hours! The ride itself was kind of difficult! I think it was because the wind was against us and at times we were going uphill. We eventually made our way to the lake and the views were A+! It was totally worth it! We made our way back into town. We decided that the next day (11/23) we were going to the Glacier National Park. Originally, we were going to to do a trek on the glacier but it's $170 and we found a better and more affordable way of doing it. We bought a round trip bus ticket into the park ($51) and then paid $20 for the park entrance fee and $22 for a boat ride around the glacier. Yes, it would have been way cool to hike on the glacier but we were able to see the glacier and be in awe of it and save some money! Plus, we have a HUGE hike in Patagonia coming up that will make up for all of this! 

The Glacier was AMAZING! I can't put into words how big it is and how cool it was! I was in awe and I recommend it to anyone who is ever in El Calafate! We spent about three hours meandering the paths and taking pictures. Every twist and turn we got closer to the glacier and our mouths dropped open! And the water was so blue! Like Hawaii blue, like my Gatorade drink blue! It was beautiful! We then made our way to the boat at 1PM. The boat ride was ok. It was an hour long but it was full of people. It was my nightmare. People just pushing their way out to the outside of the boat to take pictures and totally disregarding the term "take turns." We waited patiently on the left side of the boat where the glacier was not until the boat turned around to head back and we had prime real estate and we were not moving! We finally got our pictures just in time to get off that damn boat! We then made our way to the bus and came back to town! Tomorrow we catch a bus to El Chalten, Argentina! Thanks for taking the time to read all of this and our blog in general! I hope you have an amazing holiday. Happy Thanksgiving from us three to all of you! We hope you enjoy your long weekend off of work and spending time with the ones you love. XOXO

Biggest gift this year is being able to travel and live out a dream. WE are so blessed and grateful for this opportunity!!!