What language do you laugh in?: Northern Patagonian Adventure

Hi! We traveled northern Patagonia for nearly ten days, and it was a blast...but now I'm in the midst of midterms at school and need to be studying. I know, I'm thinking the same thing: since when was I actually in school? So forgive me, but for now this entry will be mostly a photo collage style entry.
In true Latin American style, we started the trip with a little protest that held up our bus for a couple of hours. We never did find out what it was about.

Bariloche is the Aspen of South America, it's a ski town on a beautiful lake and that's where all the vacationers go. They are known for their chocolate which was really delicious.

We took a boat tour to an island where there was a forest of rare trees. The bark was very cool and it gave the whole forest a strange glow.

We also went kayaking on a serene lake, and we were the only ones around. It was incredible, and the color of the water was something I have never seen before. I don't have any pictures because I didn't bring my camera.
Next we went to El Bolson, a sleepy little hippie town tucked away in the mountains. We took a bus there, and the bus would stop in the middle of nowhere and people would run out of the trees and just hop on the bus. That's a different way of doing it. We went hiking looking for a waterfall and got ourselves totally lost, but we ran into some locals who pointed us in the right direction. They told us, "first cross that bridge, it looks broken but really it's okay to walk on."

Then we found the waterfall... and this sign. It says "Please don't yell, enjoy the nature."

In El Bolson, our lodging was rather primitive. We stayed in a lovely, cozy cabin in the woods, with the nicest family. I was sad to leave, as if they were old friends. Here is a picture of the "telefonica".

We went to Puerto Madryn, known for having tons of unique wildlife. This is a picture of a whale swimming underneath our boat. The were Southern Right Whales. The second picture is that same whale swimming around on it's back near our boat.

Then we had a scallop lunch, it was the best I've had in terms of scallops.

This is me.

This is a momma and baby Elephant Seal.

This is a guanaco, related to the llama and alpaca. He's running around among penguins. I can't even tell you how beautiful it was. Totally untouched.