Short-term schedule:

10/27-10/31 Bariloche and San Martin de los Andes The Lake District in the mountains.
11/01-11/01 Santiago de Chile Just a first brief visit... more in December.
11/02-11/08 Rapa Nui (Isla de Pascua... a.k.a. Easter Island) The most remote archipelago on earth.
11/09-11/14 El Calafate Awesome Perito Moreno glacier and much more.
11/15-11/25 Rio de Janeiro And a side trip to Florianopolis.
11/29-12/14 Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica Well, we'll see about that.

Yowzadlidoo Mr. Kermit - what a busy 11 days since I last wrote. Safely returned from the Andes on another marathon bus trip before diving head first into... Washbear week!!! (inside joke, I know) Another River Plate game on Sunday, another 17-hour bus ride - this time to the spectacular Cataratas de Iguazu, one of the seven natural wonders of this earth. Absolutely breathtaking waterfalls, from the frightening Garganta de Diablo (Devil's Throat) main falls, to the Bossetti Falls and the San Martin Falls with its crazy power boats riding straight into them, to a walk right on top of the rim where the calm water still doesn't know what's going to happen within seconds. Plane ride back, more lomo and even more lomo in Bs.As., and now in Uruguay after a short jet cat ride across the Rio de la Plata. Quiet Colonia del Sacramento is a welcome oasis of silence and enjoys fourth-worldish slow pace after the craziness of BA, not to mention the air-cleaning tropical thunderstorm accompanied by the usual miniscule amount of rainfall to say hello today. Tomorrow Montevideo and back to BA at night.

Hola K... Mendoza. Caught a 13-hour bus from BA last night - nothing to complain about; better than business class on an airliner: Upper deck front row, fully reclining seats (only 3 per row), sherry and wine along with a full dinner, brandy and whiskey to tuck you in while watching a movie - they know how to make you sleep through the night! Some 1,000 kilometers west of BA daylight breaks and the breathtaking snow-capped Andes become visible, still over 200 kilometers away. The volcano Tupungato and the imposing Aconcagua (tallest in America) throne almost 7,000 meters above sea level (that's approaching 23,000 feet for all you SI-challenged) visible from everywhere - that's twice the altitude of most mountains in the Alps! It's Discovery/Columbus Day today, so most businesses are closed and I can explore Mendoza in all its splendor. Completely destroyed by an earthquake in the 19th century, the city was completely rebuilt with sidewalks wider than the streets in most other cities! Everything is lined by exotic trees from all over the world - it somehow feels like a big version of Alice Springs, an oasis within the vinyards of the 4th-largest wine-producing region of the world. Speaking of wine, I thought I start off this week on the proper foot by going on a tour of bodegas and winemakers this afternoon. Tomorrow will be a full-day adventure to the base of Aconcagua, the Puente de Incas and Lago Horcones.

Yowza Mr. K. Jr. - One week in Buenos Aires now. What an amazing place! Don't even know where to start... went to see a Tango show at one of the most classic esquinas in town, attended my first Boca Juniors game, hiked all over Palermo/Recoleta/San Martin/Microcentro/San Telmo, found an apartment, watched River Plate win, and basically went to bed at about 7 am pretty much every day. Oh, did I mention that the diet here is more or less 100% steaks, steaks, and more steaks? Not a problem, though, as the meat quality is impressive. Gonna do the girlie thing and go shopping for shoes these days - with all this beef there's plenty of good leather around here. My apartment rocks... kind of smallish but in one of the best streets of the city in Palermo, on a 9th floor overlooking the zoo and the skyline, very central, full security. Moving in tomorrow - they just completed a full renovation of the place with new paint, new hardwood floors, etc. Should have cable TV, telephone, adress, all that good stuff within a few days.

Springtime Kermit... Isn't life great - some 14 hours by plane and I have another whole spring and summer ahead of me again! Made it to Buenos Aires... have been here for just a few hours but it looks like a fantastic choice: Crystal-clear Monday morning here, streets full of life, everywhere in the city the trees start to show their green leaves and some even blossom, and it is cheap cheap cheap here!!! Pretty cool shit last night, as the flight from Munich was delayed and they had to hold the jumbo in Madrid just for me and one other dude for half an hour. It's 10:30am now and I am ready to begin exploring my home town for the next three months - taking it easy today but tomorrow I will find myself an apartment. Hasta luego!

Hola K - Catching my breath, now being back in Germany and soaking up Munich at its best... Oktoberfest time!!! Madrid has been just one big unbelievable blur, as always. I ran into old friends at Atenas, the terraza de jour, and never looked back: Nightlife until 9:00am every day, the most amazing flamenco and salsa dives, etc.pp. Ended up joining friends to head for the beaches of Benidorm, just south of Alicante, for the last weekend, and spent the day on a cable-ski platform... woohoo! Too bad there´s no beach in Madrid... Talked to Mr. Woody already; they got delayed from the good old US but we will all meet up tonight and warm up for the Oktoberfest at the fancy Augustinerbraeu beer party house. I''m already seeing myself gaining back those 13 pounds that I've lost over the past two months...

Yowza Kermit... Madrid, Madrid! La vida, la noche, la Marcha, las Latinas - this is the life. Going out every night... been to Palacio de Gaviria, Joy Eslava, my beloved La Venencia, an awesome night at Cardamomo, witnessed a soccer pummeling of Valladolid by the royal ballet of Real Madrid (7:2), watched a bull scale the side walls into the stands at the latest Corrida at Las Ventas (oh, and also a torero getting dismembered by that same bull - they carried him out of the arena with the bull grinning), more soccer tonight (Real Madrid again, this time Champions League against Olympique de Marseille, again at Santiago Bernabeu in front of 100,000 fanatic aficionados), etc. pp. Never a dull day here! Going to check out the new terrazas, too - Bolero and Boulevard have closed at La Castellana, so now it's at Atenas below the Puente de Segovia. Hasta luego...

(Mr. Kermit Jr. speaking Tweety-style) "I thought he went bananas... He did!!! He did!!! He did go bananas!!!" Oh well, so I did go bananas - people buy fancy cars all the time, so why can't I blow money on traveling?!? Long story short, I will follow up my South America adventure with an all-business class, 5-continent, 150-day round-the-world trip... how about that, huh? You only live once! Here's the tentative schedule but as I am traveling in style I can change anything and everything as often as I want to, whenever I want to:

10-SEP-2003 Munich-Madrid La Marcha.
24-SEP-2003 Madrid-Munich Oktoberfest.
28-SEP-2003 Munich-Madrid-Buenos Aires South America, here I come!
18-DEC-2003 Buenos Aires-Madrid-Berlin To mama over b-day and x-mas.
25-DEC-2003 Berlin-Madrid-Miami-Cancun Tequila and sunshine.
30-DEC-2003 Cancun-Dallas-Tokyo Rising sun for New Years.
12-JAN-2004 Tokyo-Nadi That's Fiji, for the geography-challenged!
03-FEB-2004 Nadi-Sydney-Perth No worries, mate. Boink, boink, boink!
03-MAY-2004 Perth-Sydney-Johannesburg An old promise to the baronesse...
17-MAY-2004 Johannesburg-Nairobi Gotta do Kenya and that fancy white mountain!
01-JUN-2004 Nairobi-London-Berlin Catching my breath at mama's.
07-JUN-2004 Berlin-Zurich-Miami-Caribbean Going on visa-standby on the beach.

Note that there will be serveral major side-trips: While in Argentina, just about the entire continent is unsafe from me. Plus, add Antarctica to that. While in Fiji, I plan to hop over to Western Samoa, Tonga and Tahiti. While in Perth, Western Australia will be explored. While in South Africa, I will head to Capetown and to Kruger National Park, maybe Botswana. And, finally, while in Kenya, short hops to Tanzania and to the Seychelles are a real possibility.

Oh, I am in Munich right now. Visited the pre-Oktoberfest Theresienwiesen today - woohoo!!! They have cantinas open for the workers setting up all the shit, which is basically Oktoberfest beer and food at a quarter of the party prices... awesome! Beer really does serve as basic nutrition here. To beer or not to beer - shakes beer!

Yo KJ - just to let the last one know: The "J" obviously stands for "Jr." (if the real K was the real K and I am the original fake K then the blog can't be another fake K, got that?!?). Anyway, I survived Ios and the Far Out Club pool games (even though the last night at Flames was pretty wild and their Flaming Lamborghini truly is one downable and sexy-looking drink) and made it, fucked up ferry schedules and all, safely to Santorini. What an amazing island... truly postcard and Kodak moment material, even though the masses of stupid, emphasis on stupid, tourists are getting on my nerves. Visited the ancient settlement of Akrotori today and hiked down to overrated Red Beach (well, it's pretty but ugly commercialization with umbrellas and lounges kills it). Also did my second sunset today - yesterday's caldera version in Thira was spectacular; today's famous version of Oia was otherwordly to say the least, and I have seen my fair share of kick-ass sunsets. Bazillions of Asian video camera operators, though. Will see what the night life holds later tonight. Monday back via Athens and Zurich to Munich, then Wednesday on to beloved Madrid. Cya!

Yoodidlidoo Kermit... Just another 5-second thingy from the islands... people keep asking what kind of places I am staying - well, try these for starters: On Mykonos, it was a bungalow at Paradise Beach Camping, http://www.paradisemykonos.com. Right now, I am on Ios at Far Out Club, http://www.faroutclub.com. If you really want to know what's going on here at night, go to http://www.iospartyisland.com and don't tell my mom!!!