"Love is friendship set on fire" - Jeremy Taylor

The past two weeks were AMAZING. I don't have words to describe all that happened or that my eyes saw.

Our Buenos Aires Trip was pleasant. Our coordinators planned the trip very well (and fed us a bit too well!) We went to some museums, took some tours, ate (of course), went to artesan fairs, and had lots of free time. I was also able to accompany one of my friends, Miguel, to an event for his internship with Arcor, one of the main candy producers in Argentina. On Sunday night, all the UT students left, except for me, Shivani, Ashley, Albert, and Denise because we were taking the week to do some travelling.

And so our journey to the south began Monday...

First stop, Puerto Madryn.

Honestly, I didn't really know what to expect anywhere. Why? Because I really hadn't done any research about Argentina. I know - that sounds really bad. On the bright side, I wasn't disappointed that I didn't get to see something I really wanted to!

Our first day in Puerto Madryn, we took a trip to see the sea lions, or some animal that looked like sea lions. It was pretty sweet because we were right on the beach next to them, crouching low so they wouldn't feel threatened.

Our second day, we took an excursion to see the whales. Unfortunately, the waves were really strong, so we weren't able to to go out to sea on a boat. But we did see some whales jump from the beach!

From Puerto Madryn, we took a bus to Neuquen, and from Neuquen to Bariloche.

I was definitely not prepared for Bariloche.

Each time I opened my eyes on the bus trip to Bariloche, the scenery got even more beautiful.

Barren land to clay colored mountains to snow topped mountains surrounded by icy blue waters. I felt that it was all so unreal.

I instantly fell in love with Bariloche. The cold didn't even bother me because the scenery was breathtaking. On the first day, we took an excursion to Tronador - a glacier a few hours from our hostel. It's called tronador because you can often hear it rumble, like thunder. It shifts a lot because it's on water. Getting to the glacier was a lot of fun. We were on a little bus with a guide and people from Brazil, different parts of Argentina, England, U.S., and France. I must say, if it weren't for the French, I don't think the excursion would have been as fun. When we made our first stop, Shivani and I decided to play in the snow, even though we were frozen. We rolled down a little snow hill, and the French guys started a snowball fight with us that lasted the entire day (continued on our various stops throughout the day), and eventually even the people who probably thought that we were acting like little kids couldn't help but join in the fun of the snowball fight =)

Leaving deep imprints in the snow, we journeyed to El Tronador. When I first saw the gray mound of ice in the water - I was in disbelief. Was that really all ice? It was. For about 25 minutes, we still played in the snow while admiring the glacial creation. Because of all the racket we made, we didn't hear el tronador until we decided to have about 5 minutes of silence to remember the moment. As we were leaving and our backs were towards el tronador, we heard a great thunder. I thought it was going to rain heavily, and I definitely thought I'd be sick the next day. But the guide told us that was the sound of the glacier moving - it was incredible!