Wayne:

Hi all, heres my little update of the last week. Arriving in Barilche after the big city life in Buenos Aires was like taking a few deep breaths of paint thinners. A complete change of gears. This place is like a little swiss village, not at all what I expected from South America... you can even throw your toilet paper into the toilet and not into a bin. WOW.

So as mandy has already written, we have done a lot of sight seeing and wondering around the city. Eating very well, mostly home cooked meals and lots of wine... You can buy a fairly good bottle of wine for about R7.

Thanks for all my birthday wishes this last weekend, it was so great to hear from you all and know you were thinking about me. I even got sent a couple pics of family and friends getting trashed on my behalf... the sacrifices you guys make... aaaaahhhhhhh

I had a great time, started on Friday night. The hostel had a braai and lots of wine. We then went to an Irish pub until about 3am and then to a dodgy club which only got busy at about 4:30. Got to bed at 7 then slept till about 1, when I got up Mandy surprised me with a hole bunch of presents (soooo cool) and the guys at the hostel had put up balloons everywhere... very cool place. Then I lay infront of the TV till 9pm and ended up going out again till 5am. luckely the sun only comes up around 9:30, so I got to sleep while it was still dark. Enough partying now for a few days..

After the club on friday, I was walking home at about 6am, with one of the girls, shirley, from the hostel (yes, she was hot, and no, I didnt get lucky). Anyway, we passed a group of 5 guys who were smashing in a glass street poster holder and stealing the poster. We casually walked passed them and at the next street saw a couple of policemen. Shirley then decided to stop and tell the police about the guys who were just behind us... why, I dont know. So, the policemen stopped the guys and the next thing they were being frisked agains a shop window, we kept walking. Unfortunately, one of the guys must have been walking a little further behind and was not stopped. He came up horizontally to us but on the otherside of the street, called out to me, looked me in the eyes, pointed to his head and said he would remember my face. I was ready to blame and sacrifice Shirley, but thought that may be a bit unmanly... I would go down for some stranger. Coinciding with the dreaded 27th birthday didnt help....hehehe Three days later and all is well, although I have been very hung over and not really left the hostel.

So what to do from here... Im thinking of doing a 2 or 3 day hike through the mountains and Glaciers tomorrow. I figured, why start hiking with the small stuff, may as well jump right in and do the biggies. It should be interesting. Very cold here, and we would have to camp in tents... maybe I should think this through a bit more.

So thats it for now... till next time. Bye