Adios Argentina!

Bye bye Argentina, thanks for not chewing us up and spitting us out. You were good to us. No serious ailments and injuries and we thoroughly enjoyed your carnivorous treats, although we could have done without all that damn goat meat you forced on us. Your people were most accomodating and never seemed annoyed at our sometimes ridiculous excuse for a converstation. All together, it was quite entertaining and is a recommended destination for lovers of wine, beef, and a great dollar exchange rate. One country down, 192 to go.

Alright, so when I left off we were heading to the little mountainous town of Junin de Los Andes, which was our last stop in Argentina. Well, we took the overnight bus from Zapala and got into Junin around 5am in the morning. The sun does not rise ´til around 8am so we really put ourselves in the town at an inoppurtune time. Certainly not under a budget that allows for paying for a room at a guesthouse/hostel for only a couple hours of sleep, we set off wandering the empty streets for the special nook and cranny to hide out. After about a half hour, in an exhuasted delirium, we settled on a nice vacant lot to stretch out our sleeping bags. Our bum skills must be improving because our deluxe accomodations proved decently shaded and allowed us to sleep until 11am, basically in relatively open view to half the town. It probably didnt help matters that we were giving a lover´s embrace to our backpacks, lest they be stolen. Needless to say when we woke up we figured the word must have gotten out around town about the two gringos sprawled out next to Jorge Martinez´s Fishing Store. But the sleep was refreshing and the locals, ever aspiring to pick up on North American trends, followed suit the next night by giving up their comfortable beds to sleep in the newly dedicated Gringo Park.
Junin served as a pretty action packed layover on our way to Chile. The town is bi-sected by an amazingly clear river that was great for a little river-floating and swimming. We kept commenting on how this river was almost our beloved Missouri River, minus the spare tires, dead bodies, and meth-motivated fishermen. We also partook in a couple pickup games of soccer and volleyball with some of the locals. All in all, the day was one of the best we have had in awhile and was capped off that night with the town´s annual festival (i didnt catch the name of the festival b/c it is irrelevant to the story and well, because I just didnt care to), which included some old time carnival activities. Its embarassing to write that we rode some of the carnival rides and spent some money trying to win a bottle of whisky at the Ring Toss Booth, so I won´t.
However, I will talk about an interesting sighting at the carnival. I saw several kids walking around with single packets of Tang (the Kool-Aid type flavoring stuff) and they were just putting the flavor crystals in the palm of their hand and licking them out. I was amazed--ingenious. All those years growing up I had begged my Mom to buy me the pure sugar candy packets of Fun Dip, when all along I had canisters of the equivalent sitting at my house unguarded.
Anyways, we woke up early, shook off or Tang hangover, and headed to the bus station for our 7am departure for Chile. The ride was incredibly scenic and was interrupted twice for the immigration formalities for leaving Argentina and for entering Chile. At the Argertina border stop, a long wondered question was answered, ¨who looks like a more shady character, Petro or I?¨ Well, to my amazement and I hope yours, the answer is I because although we were both wearing zipped up fleeces, the guards had me unzip mine down for inspection. Luckily, the only thing I was smuggling was a pretty appalling body odor. At the Chilean border crossing, and I promise you this is true, one of the immigration officials had me edit and correct misspellings on the English language sign of items that are prohibited from entry into the country. I feel that having a foreigner meddle in immigration documents is a serious breach of governmental protocol, but as you can gather, things are done a little differently down here. And so, if you enter Chile via the Lakes region and you see ¨Stinky Asses¨as a prohibited item, you will know the reason for that.
Now, were are the river town of Valdivia, Chile, seriously considering buying a yacht (with the money we are photocopying) and setting off on a little adventure.

I´ll write if things fall through with that,
Q