Update of our Travels

Gerardo #1

It has been a while since we last updated our travel blog but a lot has happened since the end of September!

We went back to Spain in the beginning of October so that I could see a cardiologist in Barcelona, who told me that I could travel safely if taking some precautions, like drinking no alcohol and only taking one cup of coffee a day. The first part is relatively easy for me, but just one cup of coffee is quite an ordeal.

It is not yet clear which type of Tachycardia I am having and that is why they can not do an ‘ Ablation operation’ until I have had a well recorded third attack. (mentioned in the first post).

While in Europe we spent a few weeks in Mallorca, where we encountered a prolonged summer. We also visited Barcelona with the girls so that they could see the schools we are interested in for next year. We had the chance to speak to a number of dutch families attending the international schools in Barcelona to get a feel of the schools and life in general.

After some preparations we left again for South America. We did not have much of a plan but wanted to go to Chile. Since I had to see one more doctor on the very last day in Holland and KLM’s flights to Chile were very full, Yvette and the girls flew to Rio de Janeiro and enjoyed the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches for two days. (click here for Rio de Janeiro gallery) I flew to Sao Paolo the day after and since we were now so close by we decided to head for the famous Iguassu Falls on the border of  Brazil and Argentina, where we all met again at the airport.

We were very lucky with the flow and amount of water and the Iguassu Falls were simply terrific and overwhelming! What a force of nature and what a tremendous amount of water! We visited both the Brazilian and the Argentinian side while hiking, biking and boating on the river. (click here for Iguassu gallery)

The sister city of Iguassu is the city of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, connected by a famous bridge, and there we visited one of my former Unilever business partners, who is a very well known distributor in Paraguay.

We had several dinners with them (with loads of meat!) and while having dinner they suggested we should visit Mendoza, the capital of the wine area Valle del Uco in Argentina, so we took the plane and after spending two days in Buenos Aires we arrived in this very dry city. 

Water management is very important there and the melting water of the Andes is essential for several industries and also for all the carefully irrigated trees and parks in the city.

The girls did quite some homeschooling and after 4 days we left for the Valle del Uco area (the wine area) and spent two days in a wine estate or bodega, Salentein, owned by a well-known Dutch family. Obviously we had to do a few wine tastings in the beautiful wine estates of  Salentein, Andeluna and previously in Zuccardi in the Maipu area. (click here for Mendoza gallery)

It started to get very warm and so we finally left for Chile, which is only an hour’s flight over the spectacular Andes. We skipped Santiago for now and went straight south to the area of the Viarrica volcano. We are now in Pucon, next to the Viarrica volcano, where we will stay for the next two weeks. Julie and Maura will write the next updates about this beautiful area.

~ Gerardo