The trip: the best part of the sabbatical! Read more about it below! (see photos here) Matt's time off (officially) began on January 1st, 2006. Renee's 3-month sabbatical commenced on February 1st. To celebrate our time off, we undertook our most adventurous trip yet, 5 weeks total: traveling Patagnonia for 3 weeks by van, then 12 days via Russian boat to Antarctica and back, and ending the tour with 4 days at Iguazu Falls and the surrouding area. Elsa over at Patagonia Adventures was simply amazing at organizing our tour for us. Their itinerary online will help you get a sense of what we did for our 3 week van trip. Their site is complete with great maps of the area, as well as wildlife and scenery photos to knock your socks off. Check out the details on the Expedition Tour when you have a chance! Elsa also helped us join up with Quark Expeditions for our tour to Antarctica. We did the "poor man's" trip there, merely seeing the peninsula of the gigantic continent. (I know you're wondering, but, no, we didn't see any Emperor Penguins on our trip, nor did we cross into the Antarctic Cirlce; we stayed too far north for both of those things.) Still, we're excited that we'll be going to a place colder than Iceland (a feat in and of itself). Check out the details on the Classic Antarctica tour when you have a chance! Our chance to thaw came at the very end of the trip, when we headed way north to Iguazu Falls and the surrounding area for a few days. We found this amazing personal site with the most beautiful photos of Iguazu Falls for you all to see (our photos don't quite match in awe)! We wrapped up the trip with a two nights stay at Estancia Rincon del Socorro near the Ibera Wetlands (twice the size of the Everglades!), before coming home. .   .   .