Lots of food in Buenos Aires

Chez Juanito

Check out this giant calzone napolitana!

This is the medium calzone, called a tarta.

Grande finale at El 22

 The "El 22" wasYves and Semu's favourite parilla (steak house),  so we went there again for our last night with Sofie and Yves.  They serve huge amounts of everything at this parilla. Sofie asked for a small piece of "milanese" (Schnitzel) and got that big ol' thing.

 The number 22 means "el loco" in Argentina. All numbers from 0 to 100 have a meaning here, originating from the Tango. People use them to interpret their dreams and choose lotto numbers.

A la playa

Playa La Pedrera in Urugay 

Playa la Paloma

We stayed in La Paloma, a beach town in Urugay, for about 5 nights. Our hostel was located right at the beach, which was pretty awesome! And we drank lots of mate, just like the locals. Uruguayans are world champions in mate drinking. Anywhere and anytime you see them, they always carry their thermos tucked under the arm and the mate calabaza in the left hand. Just like the guy below at the beach, early in the morning.

 
Hibiscus flowers

Uruguay

 We scored a really nice and colorful hostel with high ceilings in Montevideo, and it had this great roof top terrace.

The Barbeque Marcado in Montevideo. Carne y mas carne anywhere you look.

Urugayian country side. Looks kinda like anywhere, very green and open, and lots of cows.

Hola Argentina!

Buenos Aires

We started our South America trip off with a nice cerveza and delicious empanadas at a cute little cafe on the roof top with my sister Sofie and her boyfriend Yves.

On our bike tour

Visiting with a giraffe in the middle of a big city.

Dog walker

 

Playing with the street art of BA.

 Hand made bathroom sign

 

Mate

Mountains to Coast

 

You just gotta love living in California!  After the snow got bad, because it had rained on the mountain and turned the slopes into a huge ice field, we just took off and headed back for the coast.  Some days in January seriously felt like it was summer time, Swiss summer temperatures in any case.  Should I call it global warming or just luck?  Anyhow, we did enjoy ourselves at the beach, watching beautiful sunsets, hiking up hills and surfing.

 Reno is only an hour and a half from South Lake Tahoe.  We took a daytrip there, checked out some casinos and unfortunately didn't win any money playing the penny machines.  However, we did see this futuristic bus take off into the air.

 100 miles per gallon for half an hour straight while driving on curvy roads downhill fom Tahoe.

 Beach art in Santa Cruz.

Coffee art in San Luis Obispo.  Mmmmoca!

 Amy and I on Valencia Peak in Montana de Oro.

It wasn't just us who enjoyed the nice, warm weather. The animals got into the spring feeling as well, especially the elephant-seals and the monarch butterflies.

A huge cluster of Monarch Butterflies in Grover Beach.

And yes, they are mating.  But it looks a little like one big butterfly.

 Visiting with an Elephant Seal in San Simeon.

 There are hundreds of Elephant Seals at San Simeon at the moment, all different sizes from newborn babies to the big old bulls.

I can sense a fight coming on...

 Sunset from Hwy 50 on our way back up to South Lake Tahoe.

It finally snowed again a few days ago and we made our way back up into the mountains.  It didn't exactly dump as much as we were hoping for, but the freshly groomed runs in the morning are great fun.  When it gets too busy or tracked up on the slopes, we go for a little hike to find some untracked powder, or we just go home for lunch.

Heavenly