And then there were pictures...in this episode, Torres del Paine, Moreno Glacier (again) and Buenos Aires...

Jen as far as we got on the way up to the towers, the huge rock in the background is about 50m short of the viewpoint...followed by us in the snow



The lovely waterfall, and a shot of the 3 of us (us 2 plus Shana)



The moment it all cleared, you can just see the towers slightly to the right of centre in the background...in the foreground are the horns....and the 4 of us (us plus Lucy and Mark - spot the mullet!!!!)



Onto the Moreno...and 6 that don't really need an explanation...(nice crampons eh?)







Finally a couple from Buenos Aires, one of the big flower thingy that opens and closes, and one of Evita's mausoleum

Sometimes when you're in an internet cafe you get some almost strange people hanging around, some with their screens facing away from everyone, some clearly typing with just one hand but today I've seen the most unbelievable. On the surface he looked like a respectable Argentinian but when he started surfing he went to google and typed in 'Kenny G pictures'. He then spent half an hour meandering through literally hundreds of pages of the mullet-haired musician before ordering one of his CDs...very very odd.

We've booked ourselves on a trip to see Boca Juniors play Independiente at the weekend, when I say we I mean myself and Helen, Rich and Jen are going to wander around the markets or something...

Last night I continued my extraordinary beef eating skills by having another (fairly bad this time) steak, whilst the others had pizza, omelette (rather confusingly titled 'tortilla' here) and sausage, egg and chips (wonder who that one was...)

Helen's feeling a bit under the weather today so we're going to do some shopping and laundry etc... hoping she'll be better for our first Friday night out in BA. We're going to try to find some tango place or other and have a bit of a boogie by all accounts...will let you know how we get on. Amazingly enough this month this website has had nearly 1,000 hits (just under) so someone must be reading this drivel. Am hoping to get some piccies up either later today or tomorrow but seeing as they appear above the text you'll know if they're up anyway so I don't really know why I'm writing this...

We´ve spent the day wandering around Buenos Aires and it´s been great fun. the city itself has more traffic than you can shake a (very large) stick at, and you have to watch your step with cars, lorries, trucks, bikes, motorbikes, pedestrians etc... all going at 100mph. It´s a bnit reminiscent of some of the Asian cities; Phnom Penh, Beijing, Bangkok, but with it´s balconies with little plants, and leafy tree lined streets it looks more akin to the boulevards of Paris. We have taken time out to visit La Recoleta which is one of the worlds largest and most grand cemeteries. It is also where the Duarte family is buried, you may know one of them better as Eva Peron, or Evita. Evita is still ´worshipped´by many people as she transcended the barriers of class within the country, and from a poor family rose to be the wife of the President. She died aged just 33, and a few years later her husband was forced into exile. Not the happiest of endings but there you go...it´s not Hollywood you know!!!

After there we moved on to the Museum de Bella Artes, which had numeroud Degas and Picasso pictures, a section on Argentinian art (some weird stuff there!!), the first ever Rothko I´ve seen in the canvas, and a copy of Rhodin´s ´The Kiss´, or at least I presume it´s a copy, the original must be somewhere in Europe?

Next door is a huge park, sponsored by Tetrapak, which has a massive flower that opens and closes, we only saw it open, and it didn´t close anytime we were there but it does...apparently.

Helen and Rich have upped sticks and moved in at our hotel. It´s about 15 quid a night and it´s got en suits, cable etc...we couldn´t get in at any of the hostels so we´re pretty happy. the plan is to spend a few more days here before heading north.

In other news we had a British Airways experience that wasn´t all bad...we couldn´t get on a flight to Easter Island (all full for the whole of Nov/Dec, ahhhh well next time eh?) so we just re-routed so the plan is now:

12 and 13/11 Rio to Lima (via Santiago)

4/12 Lima to Quito (via Stgo)

This will give us about 2 weeks to go from B.A. through Iguazu to Rio, spend some time there and head over to Lima. We then have about 2 weeks in Peru to get around Nazca, Arequipa, Puno, Puerto Maldonado (rainforest), Cusco, and, of course, Macchu Picchu.

We have also finalised the Galapagos and a big shout to my brother who booked and paid for the whole thing whilst we sorted out a few money issues. The one we went for in the end is here , should be an amazing end to a hell of a year.

Our ´direct´flight wasn´t. It went via Bariloche and as much as we liked it there we didn´t really want to see it again. We ended up nearly 2 hours late arriving, and thus missed our rendezvous with Helen and Rich at our hotel (!?) at 8pm...howvere there´s a happy ending to this tale, as they liked the hotel so much they booked in about 10 mins after we arrived and we thus managed to meet up. Me and Rich obviously had a plate of steak the size of a house, and Jen did her best with a 14 oz. sirloin. We´re going to be in BA until at least Monday when we´re going to take the bus north to Iguazu Falls. What we´ve seen so far is like Bangkok on steroids, lots of pollution & treaffic, but with a great collection of sights, smells and sounds...intriguing.

If you´re ever in El Calafate and you want to eat like an American (so stuffed you can´t walk...bit like ´It´s a Kockout´...) you could do a hell of alot worse than try Rick´s cafe. For 17 pesos (that´s just under 4 quid) we had an all you can eat salad buffet and as much freshly cooked meat as yuo could possibly desire. I had a steak bigger than my plate (and it was one of the best I´ve had so far) a sausage, a 1/4 of chicken and a bit of Jen´s lamb. We didn´t quite manage the grand slam, although Ben and Andy gave it a damn good go. Incidentally Andy´s Dad is a cow farmer and they once had a whole cow in freezer. It weighed 700kg and took 2 1/2 years to eat. So I guess you could say he is fairly well qualified to tell whether it´s good or bad mat and he said it was excellent!!! Ben on the other hand is young free and single and has set himself a challenge of, ahem, enjoying the company of a different girl in each of the country´s he´s visited. No luck in Chile in Argentina apparently but he did manage Brazil and Peru (alog with Canada and the States.)

So off to the capital today, should be fun, meeting with H & R either tonight or tomorrow and Jen´s still convinced (deluded?) that she´s going to get me tangoing...

So after waterproofing our boots (they took 2 days to dry out) we settled down to dinner at the hostel with Ben and Andy - another recent graduate travelling before he starts his first job. He went to Sheffield Uni so a good old reminiscence was had by all...

So onto the ice for our glacier walk, somewhat belatedly, having originally planned to do it in New Zealand. We cramponed up and headed up and onto the Moreno Glacier. Apart from an Argentine/Spanish woman dressed like an extra from ski sunday (utterly hilarious lycra leggings) our group was all English and our guide gave us the usual background to the glacier, and other interesting factoids about it´s height, length, width, depth etc (up to 100m, 25km, 8-10km, and 700m in that order). We walked on the ice for about 2 hours, seeing caves, crevaces, sink holes, lakes, streams and so many different shades of blue. It was truely fantastic, and we were really pleased we´d made the effort to come back and do it. A really nice touch at the end was to chip a load of ice from the glacier and toast everyone with a wee dram of whiskey, using glacial water and ice to cool it. Great idea, great day out!

Tomorrow we´re flying up to El Calafate, another scarily titled airline (Southern Winds...who are these people??) where we have booked ourselves a hotel as all the hostels seem to be full. We should get to meet up with Helen and Rich who did the long haul from NZ yesterday.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a day of rest, we got up late, lounged around, watched the rugby with Mark and Lucy (how bad were England??), hazd a bottle of wine and then headed out for a really bad steak (it is Chile after all) served by some bloke wearing a costume more akin to `odd-job` in the Bond movies, than a waiter...so we said our goodbyes, and parted ways again...they´re a great couple, and we´ve invited them up north sometime mainly so Mark can meet Oscar...they´ve got some sort of party organised for the New Year which we´re going to go to too...

So we´re back in El Calafate, off trekking (again...) tomorrow, - the weather´s lovely today as for some reason it always is this side of the Andes...

So, onto Torres del Paine (in the arse)....

The following are all genuine quotes from various people before we headed out to Torres del Paine...

´It´s the most spectacular walk you´ll ever do...´, ´October is the dryest month ´ and ´It never snows on the ´W´ ´

Having spent 3 unspectacular, soggy, and snowy days in the park we can unequivacally say that all the above statements are absolute bollocks. It´s worth noting that when it snows in these parts it does so in force, and then of course some of that snow melts and becomes a kind of river that runs through the easiest point which of course tends to be shaped a little like a footpath. Thus we managed to cross a few rivers that weren´t marked on the maps...but anyhow to the trip...

After a couple of buses we made it into the national park (after paying 8 quid to get in, Chilean nationals don´t have to pay, and it was pretty difficult to understand what the fee went towards, we didn´t see a ranger for 3 days, the refugios were all self-managed and the tracks were in awful condition, maybe the 8 quid paid for the guy who cellects the 8 quid´s wages???) and headed off towards Las Torres (The Towers). It was an OK walk but the snow line was at about 500m, and we had to climb to 900m to get to the viewing point. It did not bode well. After reaching the refugio half way along the track (Chileno refugio) we dumped our bags, had a quick noodle stop and headed into the snow towards Las Torres. It soon became evident that it would be more than a little difficult, adn by the time we reached the ´45 mins to go´ point the snow was nearly a foot deep and there was little or no trail to follow. It is here that the trail then decides to go pretty much vertical, climbing the last 300m in about a kilometre. It was hard enough work without the snow, but said pawdery stuff just compounded matters and we found ourselves taking an hour and a half just to get within 200m of the viewpoint. By this point the track was not visible and we had to rely on the team of French people (more later) who had forged on ahead and ´created´ a path, of sorts, in the snow. They quit about 50m from the viewpoint when a blizzard struck that looked akin to those seen on Antactica documentaries... It was at this point we decided to head back too. It was about 4.30 and we still had a 2 hour walk back to the refugio. The French (who were obviously very experienced and a good deal fitter than us) then passed us, with their guide saying something patronising about our walking style (criticism not constructive) and not even offering an ´Are you both OK, do you want one of us to walk you down the mountain...?´ type comment. So there we were, on our own and in a winter wonderland of sorts. Of course all this weather meant the Towers were completely obscured from vision so we didn´t see them at all. If we weren´t so cold and tired it would have been great fun throwing snowballs and the like but by 5.30, and still an hour away from shelter, it was the last thing on our minds. Eventually the snow eased a little and we turned the corner from which we oculd see the rfugio and we made it back, a little more than tired and cold. After a bowl of rice and veg we settled down to a game of Scrabble which we were too tired to finish and we headed off to bed at around 9pm...only to be awoken by the French guys arsing around at about midnight , and 12.30, and 1.30...if there wasn´t about 12 of them and they weren´t all 6 foot 3 and built like brick shithouses I would have had a word...but instead meekly we fell asleep only to be woken by a dorm member going through another dorm members bag...or at least that´s what I thought he was doing...I hadn´t realised that our soon to be walking partner Shana had moved beds and in my confusion at 2.30 suspected this Brazilian chap of thievery. He was, of course, just going through his own pack, but too tired to intervene I just shined my torch in his eyes for a full 2 minutes while he stood not able to say a word (7 people in the dorm) just like a startled rabbit, before heading back to his bed withour whatever he went to the bag for. I of course didn´t realise it wasn´t Shana´s bag until the morning, and thought I´d stopped some great dorm robbery...

For day 2 we were joined by Shana, and Alaskan (by moving house, Californian by birth) who was great company for the following two days. Although we felt at times we were walking a little slower than she was used to she kept to our pace without moaning and opened up loads - enough to tell us some rather interesting stuff about herself, her gun-toting hunting fiancé, a challenge they´re trying to break when she gets back and other sordid tales. The walk on day two was stupidly wet and for the second day running we didn´t get to see the rock formations we´d trekked for - Los Cuernos (The Horns), at least not until we´d made it to the hostel, and were huddled around the fire, drying clothes, boots, legs etc... and one of them peaked through the clouds for all of a minute.

Today was possiby the hardest day of all 3, due to conditions (weather - snow, wind, rain, you name it...) deteriorating even more, the fact we had to set of at 6.30, and the tracks turning from rivers to Nile-esque deltas. To cut a long walk short, the 4 hour walk to the ferry took 5 1/2 and we eventually made it back, via boat/bus at around 6pm. Unbeleievably (and perhaps a little fittingly) just as we approached the best viewpoint on the main road back the clouds lifted and we got our first and only glimpse of everything, towers, gorns you name it. We bundled out of the bus, got about 10 photos and as soon as they had appeared they were gone...on the bus back we met us with a guy (Ben) we´d shared the bus into the park with. He was thoroughly pissed off, having tented it, and then adding insult to injury having lost his bus ticket. We seemed to get on well so we´re meeting for a beer or 2 tonight. He´s from Chesterfield and likes footy so sure we´ll get on like a house on fire...

So there we go, on the whole the walking wasn´t too difficult, although we covered over 40kms in 3 days, with considerable climbs/descents (the height we got to in day one is higher than the tallest peak in England)...but the conditions...add to that the fact that until the viewpoint on the bus we didn´t see anything...add to that just how cold, wet windy and just generally unpleasant it was...well you get the picture...

I am sure in summer it´s lovely and really spectacular, but for us, from our experience, it just didn´t live up to the hype...

So back in Puerto Natales, going for a drink with Ben and...Lucy and Mark, who we´ve just bumped into in an internet cafe. They had emailed us about 10 minutes previous, saying let´s meet up and this will definitely be the last we see of them before we get back to the UK so we´ll have a few beers today and tomorrow no doubt...it´s really good to see them again...Mark updated me on all the rugby news, and Lucy and Jen have already had a good chinwag, we´re feeling better already!!

This trekking larks bloody expensive...these prices are all per person...

Entry to the park - 8 quid
Return bus - 11 quid
Ferry - 10 quid
2 nights at hostel (in an unheated dorm) - 28 quid (!)
Equipment hire (coats, sleeping bags, trangia) - 35 quid (!)
Which makes a total for 2 nights and 3 days of nearly 100 quid per person...

Rant over...it´s all booked so we´ll be incommunicado for a few days...hasta luego...

So we´ve booked our trekking but it wasn´t without incident...all I would say to anyone planning on coming here is get things sorted in advance or have more than a fixed 3 or 4 days to do everything. We tried to book in to 2 of the different refugios (didn´t fancy tenting it as it´s v cold and wet) and they were full, just 2 weeks into them reopening after the winter closure. We were told there´d be no problem getting in so we´re obviously a bit annoyed, but have managed to change the walk we´re doing so we´re only away 3 days 2 nights, not 3days 3nights...

The only downside is that we have to stay in Puerto Natales for an extra day which is a dump of the highest order. It´s not scary or unpleasant, just a real dump. I guess that when you are the only city in your country for 5 or 600 km you would be a bit unloved and unkept though.

Our hostel though is lovely, we booked it initially through Hans (Pucon) and although it´s a bit pricey for S.A. it´s really nice, the people that run it are great and the other people staying there seem to be nice too. If you´re wondering why we´re not ice trekking we´ve put that back a few days to the 28th and have booked a flight out of Calafate to Buenos Aires on 29th October.

We`re back in Chile. You can tell cos everythings run down and the people look miserable. The journey here was uneventful apart from stopping at a wonderfully `League of Gentlemen`esque store in the middle of nowhere. They did sell some wonderful chocolate though. We`re trying to sort the trekking and stuff out now although the weather ain`t grand...about 5 degrees and windier than a Heinz convention. I think www.weather.com says it`s going to rain solidly for a week...oh joy, glad we packed our windprrof waterproof gore-tex things then....or not as the case may be....

Thought I´d get a couple of piccies up...

First, us in Bariloche with a St Bernards (don´t ask, we didn´t), and this is followed by a couple of the wildlife ones, first a penguin closeup and then Jen´s ace whale piccie.





3 from the Moreno today...

And in this episode...

The bus journey from hell inclusing ´when films go bad´ 2
and One of the Wonders of the World (in our opinion)...

We left the hostel to catch our bus at around 5pm, but upon arriving a couple of guys we met at the hostel, one of whom spoke Spanish, found out that both their and our bus were delayed for about an hour (turned out to be an hour and a half late leaving Puerto Madryn...). This gave us enough time to get to know them both a bit better - Dieter from Belgium (who spoke a mind-numbing 6 languages) and the really amusing Charles from Holland (why are Dutch people always so jovial?) who decided to pass the time by drinking 2 litres of gin and tonic (but never really altered his jocular grinning state - amazing...) Anyhow after about half an hour the guy who runs the hostal we´d stayed at showed up out of breath after running from the hostal to the station. He went straight for me saying ´You didn´t pay me´, ´I need the money for my family´ and that kind of thing, despite the fact I had already paid up the other guy who works there. After a few minutes of him refusing to believe us and him calling me a liar (amongst other things in Spanish) I got him to recheck with his employee as I remembered a problem with the change when we paid, hopefully it would jog his memory. It did, and they apologised (of sorts) and bade a hasty retreat tail betweeen legs. Such a shame as we were going to write to the Lonely Planet and let them know how nice it was but after being called a thief, a liar and other Spanish things (a peso, a piella, a jug of sangria??????) we have decided against it...is you do happen to read this it´s called La Tosca in Puerto Madryn btw...

So eventually the bus came and we were on our way. No sleeper buses made the 16 hour trek so we were in a regular national expressesque one and it was bad. For starters our connection was at 2pm, and we were already scheduled to arrive at 1.30 (1 1/2 hours late) if there were no more delays), they also seemed unable to get the temperature right, with air-con on it was (ant?)arctic and with it off it was like Bangkok in the wet season - humid to say the least. Then the film to end all bad films (an d you thought Sniper 2 was bad...) `Exit Wounds` `starring` Steven Seagal - how has this guy made a creer for himself. Not only can he act about as well as the cast of Eldorado, his films are all the same, and the one possible savig grace of a bad acting film star, their looks, does not save him...he is seriously ugly. By the way I lifted this from www.IMDB.com as I thought it put it pretty suscinctly...

Where to begin? The acting? Don't go there. The action sequences? The film itself is an action sequenced intruded every now and then by neanderthal dialogue.

Nobody can get anything out of this film, I would have enjoyed myself more if instead of letting my friend choose the video, he simply pummelled me into a coma with the box. Insert it into the video and it does just that anyway.

Seagal can't fight anymore hence the crap close-ups and extended gun battles. DMX is nothing special. Still, the studio's make 'em, and the morons lap 'em up. Stop, and think before you waste your time with this, you could be doing so much more with your life. And if you see a friend in the same situation I was in, simply take the video from their hand, and beat them senseless with it. All the comments can be found here

And then at 2am the worst thing in the world that could have happened (barring us having an accident/breaking down), did. A group of gypsies and their badly behaved smelly kids got on seemingly with all their worldy possessions (the adults not the kids) and decided to disrupt everyone to try to get to their seats. It turned out our seats were double booked but we refused to move, having seen them transferred from another bus, and suspecting their tickets were from the other bus. Now I`m not great with kids at the best of times but these little buggers...Christ, by the end of the night we were devising ways to divert the adult´s attention so we could throw one out of the skylight. It wasn´t just that they were badly behaved (although they were...) it was the complete lack of attention the parents were giving them (especially the Mum, who obviously considered it highly normal for a five/six year old to scream all night, shit herself, and approach strangers and hit them). How we survived without killing (or at least maiming) them I`ll never know, but we did, just. Anyhow we finally arrived at 2pm, and fortunately our driver had the foresight to flag down the connecting bus and we arrived (on a sleeper bus during the day, oh how we didn´t laugh at the irony) in El Calafate at around 7pm. 24 hours of bus nightmare hell...we´d like to say never again, but unless we can find some cheap flights, and/or a pot of gold we are going to have to at least 3 more times...

Anyway onto El Calafate where we now reside. We are staying at the youth Hostel (believe it or not the first time on the whole trip we have stayed at an HI affiliated hostel) which is really nice although a bit out of town. They do massive steaks for tea though for 3 quid so they´re top grade in my book. Anyhow today we went on their tour of the Moreno Glacier, one of the few advancing glaciers in the world. As I (think I)´ve written before it is the famous one where all the ice crashes into the lake as it advances at about 2m a day. Our tour guide, Diego, sporting O´Higginsesque sideburns, was genuinely funny, cracking jokes in both English and Spanish. some of his best quips were self-depricating humour about the population of El Calafate never incrasing much (due to heavy drinking and fighting with knives) and the like. The trrip we took went along the back road so we avoided most other tourists and got to see some local fauna...mainly birds. We saw condors swooping, hawks hovering, and many other species I forgot to write down (lapwing, yes I think that was one...) We also saw a group of 10 or so flamingoes, we´ve never seen them in the wild before. Despite the 2-tiered foreigners Vs nationals pricing system that Argentina seems to have borrowed from Asia we thought the national park entry fee (4 quid) was reasonable even before seeing the glacier. Our first view was from about 7km away and the size of it was amazing, some 20 kms deep, 60m high, and 4 kms across. It made the NZ glaciers we saw seem like childs play. The glacier itself was named after Perito Fransisco Moreno who first explored this area. (Perito means expert bythe way, as he was an expert in exploring obviously...) He is held in really high regard here as he was paid for his exploring in land, including alot of land near the glacier itself. Being a thoroughly decent chap he then gave the land back to the people of Argentina with the only proviso that the land remain as it was then for evermore. This created their first national park. Our group had a little walk to the right handside of the main trails and as we turned the corner to view the glacier close up for the first time it decided to advance a little and icee came crashing down. Although we were still 500m away the noise was deafening and the sight enthralling and we stayed and watched, and even caught a couple of clips on video. It´s difficult to describe how amazing the whole thing is really but just take our word...it is stunnning, on a scale you can only imagine. We then continued around the boardwalks for a couple of hours before finding out that the boat trip had been cancelled due to the fact that icebergs had obstructed the launch. Diego then tried to get us on another boat that left from a different pier but it jetted off just as we approached the car park. There were no ther planned launches today so we left a little downhearted....but we had such a good time we have decided to go back tomorrow. this time to do an ice trek on the glacier, somethign we wanted to do in New Zealand but didn´t get time to. The one we´ve chosen also has a boat trip which goes from the good pier so we´re pretty happy all in all.

In other news we got an email saying the Galapagos cruise we thought we´d booked has been reserved for someone else, we´ve got to wait until Friday to find out if another 2 spaces have become available. We´re not too happy as you can well imagine. Every cloud though, as we have also found out that some of Jen´s patients have paid up (some 10 months late) so we´ve come into a small amount of cash.

We've booked the Galapagos trip, have a look here, we're doing the Thursday to Thursday one I think. We're just waiting for confirmation on some of the diving. Watched the rugby, and then headed into town to go to the market but the stallholders obviously took one look at the (very rainy) weather and decided to stay in bed as there's no-one here at all. Off to Rio Gallegos tonight and will try to pick up a connection to El Calafaté tomorrow afternoon, that'll mean 24 hours on a bus...can't wait...

OK well what a day it's been. Up and out early and straight over the the Valdés Peninsula for our Wildlife extravaganza day. First up was the whale watching which we've done a few times now I think this was our 5th!!!) but this one was really good. We went out in a craft that looked like it might just survive a metre wave withour washing us out to sea and thankfully we didn't have to test that theory out, as the sea was relatively calm. after about 10 mins we saw the first of the whales, we perhaps weren't ready for what happened next. About 5 or 6 approached the boat and swam underneath, clearly visable from the surface. Then they started breeching (jumping) in the distance, and at one point we were surrounded by about 10 whales with many more visable further afield...it was truely amazing.

Back to shore an hour later, everyone wearing the biggest and most elated of grins.

We then travelled around the peninsula to a colony of elephant seals with the face only a mother could love. They grunted a bit and rolled around but unfortunately none of the pups got eaten by orcas....this is one of only 2 places in the world where the 'killer whale'intentionally breaches itself to eat little seals. Only they don't usually bother turning up until January, and they weren't there today. The seals amused themselves for a while until the big daddy of them all woke up and decided he wanted a bit of nookie. It was far from consensual as he went through his harem slapping them about and grunting like a premiership footballer....may have been the relection but I was sure it looked like he was wearing a newcastle kit....???

So that was that, a fun day out, some great wildlife spotting and a superb English/Spanish guide....we're off outof here tomorrow, and off now to eat another brick of cow.

Here follows a review of Sniper 2 for your delectation.

Berenger is back in "Sniper 2" taking on an assassination mission in Eastern Europe unaware that his superiors have a secret agenda. The story is convoluted and messy and the screenplay doesn't help with events unfolding more as afterthoughts than as part of a coherent plan. During the run it's never quite clear who the bad guys are, what their cause is, and, most of all, why we should care. There's a babe in the flick for a heartbeat but no titillation; some sniper vs sniper action lacking the cat and mouse psychodynamics; and the usual pyrotechnics, fire fights, and stunts all seem token. Not as good at the original which was Razzie material anyway, this sequel is a minimal watch even for jarheads, action junkies, and Berenger fans.

Seems I wasn`t wrong, even in Spanish it was awful.

So we left Mark and Lucy in Bariloche and took the 15 hour bus to Puerto Madryn where we are now. The bus itself would have been a great and comfortable bus when it was built, sometime in the late 1980s. For some reason they started serving coffee at around 11pm and decided to follow up the first okish movie (Changing Lanes) with the woefully bad `Sniper 2``starring` Tom Berringer...maybe their thought process was that without the coffee noone would stay up for it...

We were rather conveniently at the back of the bus meaning that we didn`t get disturbed too much and we both managed to get some sleep, Jen about 6 hours, me about 4. On disembarking for some utterly bizarre reason we decided not to go and find a hostel but to book ourselves onto a 2 day wildlife tour...and they booked us into a hostel instead. Thus we dashed over to the other side of town, had about 1/2 an hour to lock everything up and then jump on the minibus.

We had an excellent day, and tomorrow sounds even more fun. The road to Porta Tombo is mostly unsealed and over 180 kms one way so we finally made it to the Magellenic POenguin reserve at around lunchtime. This reserve is so different to the other ones we have seen mainly due to it´s size. At the moment there are over 200,000 (!) penguins, and when the adolescents return and the eggs hatch in a couple of months that figure will be nearer a million. The reserve itself is much more open plan than others we`ve seen although it is warden copn trolled. Whilst you do walk on specified walkways the penguins can go where they want as the fence is designed so they can walk under it. No area is off bounds to them. We saw many couples taking turns warming their eggs, a few swimming in the sea and preening, and many many that just came up to you (within a foot or so) and looked quizzically before waddling off. It was wonderful and the hour and 1/2 we had there flew by.

Now we obviously were`t listening when they described the rest of the trip as the next port of call was a Welsh Tearoom (!!!). Gaiman (what a great name for a village...) along with Trelew and Puerto Madryn were first inhabited by Welsh settlers and thus they still have `original`tearooms. The one we were deposited at had been visited by Princess Diana at some point (wasn`t her Stepmum Argentine??) but we declined the 4 quid service fee (payable regardless of what you had to drink) and had a quick bit to eat and soft drink near the town sqaure. It set us back 2 quid and we were far happier than we would have been in some fake touristy pseudo-Welsh place...

The last stop of the day was at the local natural history museum which was basically like the one in London on 1/100th of the scale. It was excellent though although we could have done with an English speaking guide.

Tomorrow is whale watching (is this the 5th time???) and elephant seal spotting. We`re told we may (if we`re mega lucky) get to see Orca too. The hostel we`re staying at is excellent and they are even showing England Vs South Africa on Saturday so I`m a happy bunny. We`re outta here on Saturday, the long trek (16 hours) south to Rio Gallegas where we hope to jump on a 5 hour bus to El Calefatè - home (well it`s 80 kms away but it thought of as the home) of the Moreno Glacier, one of the only advancing glaciers in the world. You will have seen it, the one that has all the chunks of ice fall off it and into the sea.

How tall is Craig David? According to all the websites we´ve read he´s 6 foot 2...????? Mark thinks he´s 5 9 and I think he´s about 5 1...answers on a postcard please...

Turned up at the cathedral, found it wasn´t open ´til 5pm - even God has siestas here apparently.

We spent Tuesday wandering around Bariloche, the weather was lovely (again) so we walked down by the lake, to the town square, where you can have your photo taken with St Bernards and huskies, and then we visited the Cathedral which was built about 10 years ago. Now I`m not one for churches, mainly due to the fact that I had to go to cathedral twice a week when at school and I was mentally scarred as a result, but this one was excellent. It had a number of stained glass windows, and even plaster sculptures depicting the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. It was really peaceful and we spent a good half hour just sitting, taking it all in, and trying to take the odd surupticious photo...

In the evening we headed to tthe Irish Bar (yes they even have them in Argentina) and then onto a restaurant where I had a chunk of cow the size of a brick for about 2 quid...it was magnificent. I can`t tell you how much better the food is over here. Jen had some creamy rice and chicken combo which was excellent too. With drinks, bread, a main course and service (for 4...) the whole lot came to about 14 quid...BARGAIN!!

We´ve booked ourselves onto a night bus to take us to Puerto Madryn today. This is the drop-off point for the Valdes Peninsula, where most of Argentina`s wildlife casn be found. We`re hoping to get a glimpse of Magellen Penguins, Elephant Seals, Southern Right Whales, Dolphins, and possibly Orca which are sometimes seen just off the coast. the plan then is to gradually head south towards Torres Del Painè and the Moreno Glacier. We will bid farewell to our traveling chums, Mark and Lucy tonight as they`re heading north before south so we might not see them again. It`s been really great to have good company over the last week or so especially as Lucy speaks great Spanish!!!!

We´ve tentatively blown our budget into orbit with a Galapagos cruise and diving trip - have a look here . We're doinjg a 7 night cruise on M/V Seaman leaving on 27th November. We're just waiting for confirmation but it looks amazing and should be a great way to end the trip. We´ve also brought our flight to Europe forward a couple of days so we don`t arrive on Xmas Eve...

All taken in Pucon on the Villarica volcano.





Valdivia wildlife and Niebla, the forts at the confluence of the rivers.







Two in Bariloché, one from our hotel room and the other from the town square, note the Andes in the background.

Argentina is our 10th country on this trip, and having arrived a few hours ago, it seems quite European, and if Bariloché is anything to go by quite (over?)developed. That said the route into Argentina, and the town itself is quite beautiful. Bariloché sits on a lake on the other side of the Andes, and their snow capped peaks are clearly visible. It used to be THE place to go for skiing in Argentina but has suffered from newer trendier resorts opening up nearby. The guys at the border were friendly enough, and even wished us a good stay in Argentina...how time heals, the Falklands War was only 20 years ago.

After a cab into town from the bus station we struggled to find anywhere to stay until Lucy and Jen found a great little place that´s got the rugby channel in every room as well as en suite etc etc...bliss! (It´s even got fluffy white towels.) It´s cheap too as their peso crashed last year and is worth roughly half of what it used to be worth, the room´s cost us under a tenner a night...just off to try to sort the flight south to El Calefaté, we were thinking of doind some fishing but the season doesn´t start until Nov 1st so we´re going to miss out.

The guest house we´re staying at is great although we were a little worried when Mario, our host, was caught ogling some school girls. We were even more worried when I remarked ´They´re a bit young...?´ to which he replied ´They´re never too young...´ Remind us again why you left Germany Mario, not wanted by the police were you?

Anyway, the weather yesterday was pretty rubbish so we kind of wandered around town, initially looking for somewhere to watch England Vs Turkey, and then, after resigning ourselves to the fact that not everyone is obsessed with Beckham et al, I sent a text message to a friend from home (cheers Andy) who kept us updated both on the football and the drunken state of mancunians. We visited the ´sea-lion´ market again, and then crossed the river to the 2 museums, one the museum of contemporary art, and the other of local history. Both were excellent, the former now housed in a brewery that was (wait for it) destroyed in an earthquake in 1960.

The four of us headed back, and after our home made pizza tea we had a game of scrabble that me and Jen were winning before we all got bored and quit half way through a game. We ended up watching some sort of MTV rundown which got from 30 to number 2 before a bloody power cut so we´ll never know what´s number one in Chilé.

The weather was much better when we got up this morning, so after a bit of a lay-in we all headed back to the fish market, where this time the sea lions were joined by about 5 pelicans and numerous other birds. The market was in full swing whereas on the other days we have visited just as it was closing, and we stood, watched and photographed the animals for a good half hour. Valdivia, as I wrote a couple of days ago, stands at the confluence of 3 rivers and was a really important straegic port many years ago. Thy built a series of ports just down the river at Niebla, and we spent the afternoon hopping on and off buses and ferries and visiting the two main ones. There was loads of original (and a couple of fake) cannon and we even saw dolphins in the harbour, making for a great days wandering. We´re off now to get the biggest fillet steaks you can find, to prepare our stomachs for the redmeat fest that is Argentina. Hopefully they´ll be a little more interested in the rugby world cup (the 5th!!! sports item on CNN, behind, baseball, football, collage american football, and WOMENS GOLF!!!) than they seem to be here in Chilé. At least they´re competing I suppose. We head off to Bariloche tomorrow via a 7 hour bus journey that should go pretty direct, and for the moment at least we´re staying as a foursome. Mark and Lucy might be heading north to San Martin when we arrive in Argentina, but we´re basically doing the same route for the better part of a month so our paths will surely cross.

We finally made it up the volcano at the third day of asking. The weather was bright and airy and we managed to stumble out of the guesthouse in time for our 7am equipment fitting session, and soon discovered the others on the trip a) looked considerately fitter than us, and b) consisted of mostly Californians (at least two of which were embarrassed Arnie was now running their once proud state) and c) had already tested their equipment. Thus we left a little dis-spirited. Our guide, Claudio, who turned out to be an egotistical prick (!) decided he would go with the slowest group (us, obviosuly) and a jolly fat-bloke from Chile called Rodrigo. After hanging around at the top of the ski lift for 40 minutes for no apparent reason we headed up Volcan Villaricca, some 2984m high and completely clad in snow and ice. Claudio then decided to do his version of uphill running, and left the three of us for dead, clearly deciding it was much more important for him to reach the summit for the 1,300 (and first) time than to help guide the unfit people towards their goal, after all we clearly had paid for a guide (HIM) to help us get to the top. By now it was nearing 3 o clock and with still 2 hours trekking ahead of us (we wasted over an hour at the bottom waiting for the cable car to heat up...) and suffering with the altitude (now at about 2,400m, 7-8,000 feet) we decided to eat our packed lunch and wait for Claudio to realise we were missing and come back down to us...which he didn´t do, instead he asked another guide on the way down to go back down with us whilst he proceded to the top. As it happens Rodrigo, the new guide, and a group of attached Israelis (yes nice Israelis, a first for the trip!!!!) were superb and we started our descent. The descent was the best bit...we got to slide down pretty much vertical slopes (or at least they SEEMED vertical) on our backsides, using our ice-picks as brakes. This is more like it we thought!!

We eventually got back, utterly shattered, at around 7pm, and although we didn´t get to the top it seems no-one else did either as the smoke coming from the volcano was too acrid and people had to stop a couple of hundred metres short. It was a good but knackering day and our meal at our wonderful guesthouse (La Tetera) was really welcome. We shared it with Mark and Lucy who also had a go at the volcano (they got a fair bit higher than us) and are now in a shared house with them...in Valdivia, a university town on tha coast. Our stay at La Tetera was wonderful, and we can thoroughly recommend it to anyone staying in Pucon.

So far here we have been to the fish market where fat lazy sea lions live and get all the left over fish, they´re so lazy that they study the bit of fish thrown their way before deciding whether to leave their plinth (where they lie all day sunbathing) to go and eat it...although they look friendly enough they{ve got big teeth so we didn´t want to get too close...After this we bought some local chocolate which was devine and pottered around for a bit before finding t´internet...

We´re probably heading into Argentina over the course of the next couple of days, the only pain in the proverbial being that we want to go on Sunday and you can guess the only day of the week with no direct buses...so that´ll mean an extra day here and we´re a long way from being convinced there´s enough to do here for a few days. Tomorrow we´re heading to the beach area, Valdivia was an extremely important strategical port in the 17th and 18th centuries as it is at the confluence of three rivers, and there are some great little forts and a nice coastal walk which the four of us will attempt tomorrow. As long as there aren´t any vertical ice climbs or Chilean guides we should be OK...

The Finn Brothers once sand ´Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you...´, and whilst this would have been amusingly ironic whilst still in New Zealand it´s just plain irritating in Chilé. It´s rained for 2 solid days now, meaning we can just about escape t´internet but not alot else. Today is another ´reading´day. Met a really nice English couple who´ve been through Peru so they´ve given us a few hints and tips. They´re now doing roughly the same route as us for a few days so we´re sure our paths´ll cross again. One of them had their bag nicked the other day off a bus in broad daylight so we´re being extra vigilent now!!

Here we are in Pucon, the weather´s turned a bit poor, so bad we can´t go up the volcano for a couple of days. We´re staying in the nicest guesthouse we´ve stayed in for a long long while. It´s similar to a Swiss chalet, all pine fittings and comfy cushions, they´ve got a book exchange a fab restaurant AND SPEAK ENGLISH!!! We´re going to be here a few days we think before heading over into Argentina or taking the boatr down south to Puerto Natales, we haven´t decided which yet but Bariloche (Argentine) is the current favourite.

Here are our first piccies from S.A.

Two of the parade of Indiginous groups in Santiago.



Valparaiso, and Jen enjoying candfloss in Chillán



Bernardo O´Higgins in all his glory, Chillán...first in the Mexican School mural and second in the Old town where we nearly got killed en route...

After the taxi/old town experience we decided to sit in the town square and people watch for a bit, it turned out to be a great couple of hours. For a start every town square needs a nutter, one that runs around and hollers incoherently at everything and everyone and we had one, and boy was he mad. There were a few ice-cream stands which was a bonus as we got a couple of magnumesque lollies for about 40p. They were a little on the sweet side but did the trick. Hell there was even a candyfloss maker and we duly sampled his wares for about 9p!!! To be fair it´s a much more realistic price than you pay at the fair in the UK (1 or 2 quid?) as after all it is ONLY SUGAR!!! The saga of the day began to unfold in that a photographer with a papier maché horse (replete with Chilean hat and poncho) kept trying to lure kids onto said dobbin for a polaroid. We sat there for 2 hours and he did not succeed once poor chap. Just as he´d packed all his stuff up some little brat wandered up and professed some sort of interest in a photo. Old bloke couldn´t believe his luck and re-setup his stuff. Then the calamity, on what was obviously his last shot of film one of the local BMXers drove past at the exact instant he took the kids picture. Cue kid crying, old bloke cursing, and us desacending into fits of laughter. It was a bit like watching a Chilean Mr Bean or Señor Frijol if you will.

So back to the hotel and another evening when we couldn´t be bothered to walk back into town for a bite to eat (the food is THAT bad), it´s doing wonders for my diet...

So we´re all packed and enjoying (?) a final stroll around Chillán before heading to Pucon this avo, should be climbing a live volcano wither tomorrow or the day after to get a good look at the lava, should be fun...

One thing Chileans are not too bothered about, seemingly, is food. We can´t find anywhjere to eat out, although last night we stumbled on a fairly okish cafe. I went for the trusted favourite (empanada pino) as usual but they´d run out...I hadn´t bargained on that eventuality so went for about the only thing on the menu I understood - dos huevos y papas fritas, 2 eggs and chips, which had a mysterious inngredient - cebello (sp?) which turned out to be onion. I managed to try a Pisco Sour (pisco - kind of grape brandy, lemon juice, sugar and topped with merenguesque egg white) it was surprisingly nice. I also asked for a beer (grandé) which came in something more similar to a bucket than a glass. It was bloody good though and oh so cheap, under a quid! Jen had pasta which was OK, and we left fairly full for the first time in South America.

Finally got a good night´s sleep as well...no dogs, fewer cars, and only a few drunks on the way home at 5am (why do the South Americans speak quite soooo loudly??) so after a brief lie-in we headed out into town. With it being Sunday there were loads of people out in their ´Sunday best´, most on their way to mass at the numerous churches in the town. There was also some sort of cave next to one church which I presume was a replica of Lourdes or some other place where the Virgin Mary was spotted.

Pur first port of call was at the Escuela México, the school donated to Chillán by the Mexican government back in 1939, after the devastating earthquake. Paplo Neruda, a famous Chilean poet, lobbied David Alfaro Siqueiros, a Mexican muralist to decorate the library, and he did. One was is a tribute to Mexican figures like legendary agrarian rebel Zapata, whilst the other depicts Chilean heroes, such as our mate Bernardo O´Higgins ((much) more of him later...) Although not in the greatest state of repair the murals themselves are stunning and well worth the trip. We offered a donation to the bloke who´d let us in and the 2,000 pesos (just under 2 quid) was duly accepted...and pocketed...not sure how much of that will go towards restoration!!!!

The market that the lonely planet reckons is the best in Chile was a real let down even for market lover Jen. Yes the produce was pretty, but the Chilean local craftwork left us a bit cold to be honest, all straw hats and saddles. Jen did however find some lovely tasting walnuts, so that´s alright then...

After a stop at the local delicatessan for lunch (McDonalds - literally nothing else is open on a Sunday) we decided to try to catch a local bus to the old town to see the now heroic Bernardo O´Higgins and his memorial. An illigitimate child of Irish descent he was born here some 200 years ago, and was central to Chiles independence, in fact it was he, who in 1818 signed for their independence. In every town there is ´O´Higgins Av.´ or the like. The sad part is that he was forced into Peruvian exile by a mixture of the military and aristocracy in 1823 and then died in 1842, never returning to the land he helped free. And he´s called Bernard. Sort of. So off we went, except in my starling Spanish I thought ´Rio Viejo´meant old town but in fact it means old river (nice one Dan...) so we ended up quite literally in the middle of nowhere, apart from a few locals looking bemused at the idiot gringos...eventually we managed to flag a bus down who refused to take money from us and then took the bus out of service. I had visions of ending up on a backstreet with the cast of West Side Story waiting to carve us up but to be fair to the bloke he took us to Av. O´Higgins (I kid you not - this guy is such a hero) and flagged down a cab for us that was going to the old town...and we eventually made it. The monument itself, which marks his birthplace, is very grand, kind of Bernie on a horse (he´s got a lovely pair of sideburns by the way (think that bloke out of Emmerdale)) with 3 flags behind him (one nowadays Chilean presumable the others rebel or first confederancy flags). Bordering the whole thing is yet another mural, some 60m long and 6m high which was pretty cool. Couldn´t work out what any of it depicted but there were some really intricate rock mosaics. Interestingly enough there is alot of graffiti around (very different to Asia for example) with daubings similar to those found in most primary schools in the UK.

Sated (and relieved) we eventually squeezed our way into another share taxi and found ourselves back in the centre of town where we are now.

Maybe I was a bit harsh on Valparaiso, I´ll admit that much...only a bit though...After t´internet we walked around some more tight little alleys and backstreets for a bit and saw a church with missing tiles, buckloads of graffiti and loads of dog crap everywhere. This aside it was an interesting half hour or so in which we got to see how not to build a town prone to earthquakes. All the houses were built on sheer rock faces and stood about 5 stories high. I may be wrong but if another biggie hits I don´t think there´ll be a whole lot left of Valpo. We retired to the room where I promptly fell asleep only to wake around 11pm. Figuring I´d missed another tea and that if we felt a bit unsafe at noon it´d probably be worse at 11 we did the only thing we could...went back to sleep.

Now after 5 hours sleep in the afternoon I suppose I shouldn´t have expected a great nights kip anyhow but the sheer level of the outside noises and the frequency at which they occured was absolutely astounding. No sooner had you closed one eye than a taxi would hurtle round the cobbled streets seemingly with a microphone attatched to it´s exhaust, amp and speakers on the roof. When it wasn´t the cars it was the dogs. Now I love dogs as much as the next man (unless the next man happend to be, say, Chinese) but these bloody mutts decided to practice their barking all night, almost in time with the cars coming past. In fact every now and then a dog woulod bark itself hoarse only for a car to come past and start it up again. This must be the Chilean version of Chinese water torture.

We got up at 7 and, having seen all we wanted to of Valpo, decided to head to the bus station and try to bring our trip to Chillan forward from 9pm to something a little earlier. We got there at 8.30 to find a bus was going at 9.15 (RESULT!!) so we booked on it and here we are, now in Chillan. Off to the market and Bernardo O´Higgins monument (this bloke has everything named after him so he´s already become a bit of a legend chez Cornwell) tomorrow as well as a school donated by the Mexican government in 1939 after the other one was destroyed by...an earthquake (sense a theme here...) The hotel we´re staying at is really nice though so if Chillan´s really bad at least we´ll get some kip. I´ll let you know if the earth moves...

Valparaiso is ´the most interesting place in Chile´ (quote, unquote). OK so it´s got a few furnicular lifts and narrow streets but that is truely it. To be honest we´ve found it all a little threatening, scary looking blokes hiding behind every corner, we were warned not to take our camera out by the hostel we´re staying at etc etc... We also feel we´ve ´done´ the whole place in an afternoon, there´s only so many ´ascendures´ you can do without falling into a boredom induced coma. We are also starting to have a few language problems, in that everyone talks so bloody quickly. It´s hard going, wish I´d done Spanish not History for GCSE now... booked on an overnight bus to Chillán tomorrow - home of the ´best´market in Chile apparently...can´t wait.

After waking up at 3.45am we realised our body clocks had still not adjusted to the new time. We couldn´t get back to sleep so we did a bit of planning and, after breakfast, headed out into Santiago. Our expectations were low, most people we´ve met describe variously as (this is verbatim) ´a hovel´, ´the biggest dive in South America´, and perhaps most poetically, ´a shithole´. Well we´ve found it to be none of the above, and we´ve had a great day!

We started by headed onto the Metro (clean, quick and you can get a mobile signal - are you reading this London transport?) where we did a bit of a dry run for catching our bus to Valparaiso tomorrow. It all seemed fairly easy to negotiate and our pidgeon (more like small pathetic sparrow to be fair) Spanish got us a room booked for tomorrow, a phone card, bus info, and copious bottles of water )even the non-fizzy stuff...) so we´re quite chuffed...We then headed into the hub of the City - Plaza de Armes. It is basically a big square filled with all manner of artists, some doing caricatures, some landscapes, one even painted little scenes, on glass, with his fingers. Being a sucker for this kind of stuff we bought a glass thingy for about 90p. By the time we bought he had a crowd of 10-15 people watching but with no-one buying until I stepped forward in my now magpie (slightly better than a sparrow) Spanish and set the ball rolling. He made a further 5 or 6 sales, I should have asked for commission...! The whole area reminded me a little of parts of Paris, quite Bohemian with some great architechture as a backdrop. Whilst walking through the square we noticed a few people dressed up in what looked like indiginous clothes (Jen remarked how some of the women looked a little like pantomime dames...!) so we followed only to find ourselves at the start of a prossession for (my translation here...) Indiginous Culture Festival. Various ´tribes´then processed to loud pan-pipes, brass bands and drums. The music and general all round hubbub was really catchy and we found ourselves watching the wonderfully adorned groups for an hour as they danced and played their way through the city. It was fantastic, a real chance finding but one of the best things about travelling, you always chance upon little bits of cultures you have no experience of and invariably it is a real highlight - this was!

On our way back through the square, looking for some lunch, a chap come up and was incredibly friendly, all handshakes and nods, and gave us a load of tips on where to go in Chile, what to do, where to stay et al...couldn´t be for free we thought and indeed it wasn´t as at the end he asked for some money for ´children´s plays´. Being the hardened travellers we clearly are by now we feigned ´no cash´ and then watched him watch us for 10 minutes or so before we thought it´d be safe to head into a shop for lunch. For lunch we had ´empanada´, which is basically a Cornish Pastie with hard boiled egg and an olive in, it was great, and all for 50p (with a can of Pepsi). Everyone we´ve met has also told us how expensive Chile is, and granted, nice accomodation isn´t cheap but the food, internet and transport is very affordable...

We sat in the plaza having lunch and decided to go to Cerro San Christobal which is about 850m high and looks over Santiago. It was a bit of a walk (couple of kms and hey it´s so hot here I got a little sunburnt today...) but was really worth it. We chanced upon another Cerro (hill) en route (who´s name escapes me for now) which was like a real oasis in the middle of all the traffic (both pedestrian and vehicular). There was a lift you could take to the top, and from there is was a nice stroll around and down, passing couples taking a siesta, wonderful terraced gardens and all manner of flora.

After another km or so after passing through some pretty dodgy looking areas (walking a little quicker, head down) we arrived at the base of the furnicular railway which they rather wonderfully titled the ´FUNicular´which was maybe stretching it a little but it was great fun... At the top of the hill, where Pope John Paul II made an address in 1984, is a 36m statue of the Virgin Mary, and whilst not as visually impressive as I am sure Christ´s statue in Rio will prove it was still nice enough. The views of the city were amazing, although you couldn´t see some of the Andean peaks less than 30 kms away thanks to the smog (which apparently wasn´t too bad today - hate to see it on a bad day...) After the ´fun´, came the cable car across the whole of the park which was in the world scariest cars, which didn´t seem to have any locking mechanism at all, although I stress we didn´t try to open the doors whilst in full flow... The round trip lasted an hour or so and, absolutely thrilled at the fantastic exploration of the city we´d had, headed back to the hotel and for a little siesta. We were greeted at the front door by the manager who we believe to be in some way related to Basillette, he´s camper than a pack of scouts at jamboree but a nice chap who speaks excellent English and he helped us out with a few questions on our route.

So, tomorrow we´re off to Valparaiso, and more (hopefully) FUN-iculars as it´s basically built on two levels. From here a plan has formed which takes us through Chillan (best market in Chile apparently), Pucon (horse trekking in the Andes), Valdivia (University town - meant to be delightful) and a couple of other places before heading over to Argentina - Bariloche to be precise. From there we´re heading south and around to Beunos Aires with what looks like a whole host of 20 hour bus rides currently...we´re going to spend some time looking for cheap flights, we maybe didn´t realise just how big this place is (for the record, Chile is only 200 km wide but over 4,000 km ´long...)

Hola, Bienos Noches, we are now in South America. The flight (on an A340 - LanChile) was memorable for a couple of things, namely the uncomfortableness of the seats (total lack of pitch) and the temperature in the cabin...Nelly would have had a field day, there´d have been naked people everywhere...

The drive from the airport to Santiago City was unremarkable, the first thing that was a little different from our preconception was the number of huge and nice looking homes, there was also what looked like a Barrett Estate - surely the bottom hasn´t fallen out of the UK housing market and they´ve felt the need to come out here? There was also shedloads of graffiti, it´s safe to say while it doesn´t feel as rough as perhaps we´d have thought, Santiago is not the most salubrious of places. We arrived at the International Youth Hostel only to find all 120 beds were full, the (stupidly un)helpful chap at the desk informed us next time we should phone ahead...yeah thankkkkkkkksssssssssssssss So we pushed on, feeling absolutely knackered, until we found the Hotel Tokyo which is good enough for a night or two. We couldn´t manage to stay up late so crashed out for a few hours before heading out into town for a bite to eat and a drink. It´s already apparent that they don´t realise you are foreign and are obviously retarted when it comes to Spanish linguistics, so they babble on at you for about 5 minutes before you have to shrug, smile and say por favour or the like. Our Spanish will imrove´- we hope, if not, it´s gonna be a long 3 months. Also their bloody keyboards have things in weird places (the ´( ´and ´)´signs are one key to the left, the @ is only available through alt 64, the place where you normally do an apostrophe comes out as a ´{´ . When you´ve already experienced over 35 hours on October 1st (we will in the end have about a 40-hour day - just like being back at Michael Page really) it messes with your head...

No real plans from here - we might hang around for a day or we might get the hell out, I guess it really depends how we feel in the morning. It is worth noting that the woman who runs the hotel is certifiably mad, if incredibly nice at the same time, think Hannibal Lechter crossed with Basil Fawlty and Carol Smilie and you´re not far off.