Where the Wild Things Are

In the past 10 days, Alec and I have had the great fortune of traveling throughout Argentina. Through our new friend Simon, we met his brother Jose. When we met Jose, who is a kayak guide in San Martin de los Andes, Argentina, he happened to be on vacation, buying a car, and hoping to go on a road trip. What more could we ask for? Nothing.We were pleasantly surprised to discover along the way that Jose is a funny, extremely patient, and easy going guy. He is also an amazing Spanish teacher, an unbelieveable driver (drove the entire way), and must be given tons of credit in the creation of this blog (Thank you Jose: check out his website: http://www.paralelo40.com.ar/, and be sure to pay him a visit if you are in Argentina!!!)

So we packed our bags, bought some food, and set off on an incredible adventure. Little did we know that by the end of the trip, we would cover 5000 km (3,125 miles); more miles than across the United States! The amount of things we saw, the experiences we had, the laughs, the cries (pretty much only me), cannot be summed up in words. So, for this blog, Alec and I decided that pictures were the best way to bring what we saw as close as we can to you. (At the end of the text we have written a list of all the places and animals that we saw).

Before the images, we want to leave you with a message that Alec and I have taken from these past days. Along our journey, we saw the most incredible landscapes, and the most beautiful animals. We witnessed the wild living in the wild; animals in their truest forms.

And then we witnessed the other side; animals living on farms and eating from land that could be mistaken for garbage dumps. It was awful. It is awful. All over the world we are mistreating our environment. We feed animals waste and then eat them. It is a cycle of unhealthiness, uncleanliness, abuse. Human construction becomes natures destruction.








And we seem to forget that we are a part of nature. So we leave you with this. Alec and I try our best to separate our garbage. We believe this simple practice will make a large impact. We would love to encourage you to do the same:) Create a compost for your food scraps, a recycling bin for your cardboard, bottles and cans, and a waste bin for the rest. These simple steps will minimize the amount of waste you accumulate which will be positive for the environment. The environment will be receiving our waste one way or another, so the less the better.

We also try to bring our own bags to the supermarket to reduce the amount of plastic bags we accumulate. If you don`t already have these systems in place in your community to handle your needs (recycling, compost, etc..), you can be the beginning through petitioning for the creation in your local community. There is even money to be made for recycling buisnesses, and that is always a good way for inspiration.

If you already do these things (most of you in San Franciso probably already do), maybe you can try to find someone you know who doesn't and educate/inspire them. If you don't already do these things, we believe this simple change will make a difference...

Here are a few Places we visited that we will never forget:
Iberá Wetlands, Iguazu Falls

Quebrada de Cafayate:

Ischigualasto (native language) (aka: valle de la luna)(moon valley)...

Ruinas de Quilmes(largest preserved indigenous ruins in Argentina),

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Animals we saw (organized by province):

-El Palmar : viscacha (vizcacha), armadillo (armadillo)

-The Wetlands in Entre Rios (in between rivers) : camel cow (vaca)(nota real name, but a cow with a camels hump), american ostrich (ñandu), alligator (yacaré), capibara (capibara), scavenger eagle (carancho),ant houses as high as 4 feet (casas de hormigas)
-Iguazu Falls: monkey (mono), raccoon family - looks like ant eater(coatí), butterflies (mariposas)

-Salta: snake (vivora)

-Tucumán: donkeys (burro), condors (condores)

-La Rioja: foxes (zorros), in the llama family (guanacos)in the rodent family (mara)