Snow to sunshine

Part two of the World Trip begins!

We flew out of Buffalo airport Tues Jan 28 in verrrrry cold and windy weather and flew into sunny, warm Los Angeles, California. We spend two days and nights in LA before we fly out to the islands of Tahiti. What should we do with our time in LA? Price is Right!!! Come on down!

Our plane at Buffalo Airport in minus 33 wind chills. 

California sunshine

Come on down! Spent all day at CBS studio for our chance to win a car...

Our vacation at home

What an amazing "vacation" we had at...home? The five weeks we spent with family and friends was something Shawn and I have never experienced before. As many of you know, the holidays are rushed and time spent with family & friends is short. In the past, 2 days would be all that we had to rush from one family dinner to another, and as much as we enjoyed all the food in a short time, we always felt we couldn't give the time everyone deserved. So these past 5 weeks (although still short and we still couldn't fit everyone in) was amazing! Thanks mom/Minke for allowing us to share your warm home and comfy spare bed with us:)
Here is a photo diary of some of the highlights but we can't go without mentioning some of these highlights first!
1) Our new niece was born Dec 31st just 3 hrs shy of midnight. Mia is the first baby for the family so we were all pretty pumped for her arrival. She is beautiful and healthy-we love you Mia!
2) Spending time with all the nieces and nephews (esp Monster Trucks!!!) was amazing! A truly  unforgettable experience.
3) Spending time with Arla - our best friend. We miss you already but know you are in good hands with grandma, grandpa and Uncle Clifford;)

Oma & Harrison (left)   Christmas dinner #1 (middle)   Uncle Shawn & Harrison (right)

Henderson Christmas dinner

Our new niece Mia 

Serving community breakfest to Brantford residents at Brant Community Chrurch

Shawn's dream come true. Taking the kids to Monster Trucks (and big kids too!)

Pit party at Monster Jam 

Spending quality time with our best friend Arla

Home for the holidays

We flew home Thursday December 19th from Santiago, Chile. Just in time for Christmas with the family;) ...And the big ice storm!

We are looking forward to catching up with with our family and friends over the next 5 weeks before we fly out to New Zealand for our 4 month adventure. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Santiago, Chile

A few highlights from our time spend in Santiago.

Best ICE CREAM EVER! 

Santiago's Emporio La Rosa is listed on the top 25 ice cream parlours in the world. 

Flavours we tried? Raspberry/Mint, Orange/Ginger, Dulce de Leche/Chocolate, Lemon/Mint, Peanut/Swiss Chocolate, Coconut, and most impressive Rose ice cream!

Chilean wines-my favourite!

Need TP? Everyone has something to sell on the streets. Anything and everything.

Best empanadas at Famosa with our friends from Ireland and England. 

The guys had to try the local soda-pap.

Valparaiso, Chile

Spending three days in the port city of Valpo-UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Valparaiso was once the largest, most important port city in the South America...

until the Panama Canal was built. 

Also on the most active plate in the world! In 2010, Chile was hit with one of the worse earthquakes in history; an 8.8 magnitude.

(Bottom right) Valpo's cerro's (hill neighbourhoods) are "easily" accessible by their many stairs, 

but also these (see pic below) 

Funicular ride to the cerro's 

City tour with our guide Wally (stripped shirt) and the "pack." (top right) 

Historically, South America's wealthiest street. (top left)

Typical brightly painted houses in Valpo. (bottom)

Boarder Crossing - Argentina to Chile

Catching the bus from Mendoza, Argentina to Santiago, Chile was "supposed" to be the least challenging part of our trip. Turns out, not printing your tickets before you get to the bus station presents a problem-even though they have your name printed on the sheet with your passport number, seat number, etc. I spent a stressful hour before the departure, right down to the last 2 minutes of boarding, running from agency to agency trying to print tickets! Finally, I gave up and tried to explain to the bus driver in my now broken spanish (stress), that I didn't have a ticket printed. Needless to say, he ended up eventually helping us and we departed for Chile 20 minutes late-oops!
Turns out that was the most difficult part of our boarding crossing-go figure!

At the Chilean boarder high in the Andes. 

Everyone on the bus was placed in a small room with all our bags while the dog checked our bags. (right)

On the way down from the Argentinean/Chilean boarder. So many curves that they had to place a sign on them! (bottom left). 

Beautiful and terrifying view of our road trip downhill. 

Mendoza Mi Amor

We won't get into all the details, mainly cause some of it is a blur;) However, here are some photos that will do some of the explaining...

Not 1, not 2 but 3 times on bikes in the Maipu region-plus one in Lujan to make that 4 days total.

 The third time in Maipu was for the olives;)

Bike parking at the bodegas (wineries). 

Vineyards, there were a few:)

Carmelo Patti-most interesting and fun tour in Mendoza...so we bought his wine. 

Wine & friends are the best mix!

These are our dutch friends that stayed in our dorm room in Mendoza at the Emperado Hostel.

 It's a toss up which was more fun-drinking wine with them or riding bikes!

We toured a few cellars-haha.

By far our favourite was the organic winery that that we tasted the wine straight from the barrel! We tried really hard to get him to bottle it for us...

Olive tours. 

See we DID visit more than just the wineries. This was our first visit on the third day of touring Maipu region. So good I bought the olives and oil:)

How to celebrate touring the wine regions in Mendoza? Steak dinner with more wine!