Pucon - el fuma Volcan

After spending most of the day at a border crossing between Agentina and Chile (everything that they say about South America being slow slow slow is true, these guys are VERY laid back!), we finally arrived in glistening Pucon. Pucon is a small town in Chile, with the active and smoky Villarica volcano in the distance. We stayed in a Chilean family-run homely hostel, where they insist that everyone speak Spanish there - so it was a good opportunity to practice some of our new phrases and see if we're understood! The Chileans are lovely people, very friendly, happy and genuine but speak this quite peculiar slurry Spanish.
We met a good group of people at the hostel and ended up in a local pub until 5am...we finally had a night out! whooopeee The next day we headed to Parc Huaquehue for some more trekking, although this time we decided to spoil ourselves with a stay at a refugio overnight, and so left the tent behind. Luckily for us, we had the whole place to ourselves, so we cooked dinner, had a sauna in the forest (!!) and parked ourselves by the roaring fire with a glass of red wine before our big hike up Cerro San Sabastian the next day. Now this was a big and challenging hike - it was just the two of us and we had a time limit to make it back to the bus by 5pm. The map indicated that it would take 5 hrs each way and the refugio owner recommended 3 1/2 hrs, however we'd still need to shave off an hour to make it in time. So Tom kicked off the morning with a cracking pace straight up the mountain. It was a really diverse trek with lots of clambering over trees and rocks - in fact the last hour was almost vertical, and we were surrounded by ice and snow. Always interesting when your best shoes are Nike trainers and you're wearing jeans!! We certainly did not look the part. The view from the top of the mountain made all of the wheezing, puffing and panting worthwhile. At almost 2000m in height we had a 360 degree view over the Andes and 2 volcanoes - Lanin in Argentina and Villarica in Chile. Needless to say we did make the bus back to town with an extra hour to spare - go us, we shaved a good 1 1/2 hrs off the trek time. We're finally starting to get our confidence back after the Torres Del Paine (rather painful) experience!!

2 little happy campers - road trip through The Lakes District, Argentina

We arrived in Bariloche after a short bus ride (5 hr bus rides are now seemingly short after the 24hr rides we have become quite used to!) from a small and sleepy town called Esquel. Bariloche is known for its Swiss Alps vibe and raging night-life - wooden chalets, gore-tex and chocolate shops adorn every street. It's the 'very very' low season - a shoulder period between summer and the winter ski season, so the town was quiet to say the least. That pub trip and taste of night-life that we had been looking forward to unfortunately was not going to be happening in Bariloche...so we resigned to the fact that we'd have to wait until Santiago for that!
However, luckily for us, the weather was beautiful which meant that we had picture perfect views of the moutains reflecting in the lakes that surround the town. So we hired our little VW Golf and headed off on a 3 day camping road trip on the '7 lakes' route to San Martin De Los Andes. We thought that our trip was doomed as we left Bariloche as Tom decided to join in with the locals and overtake a truck. Unfortunately his timing was out and he did this just before a police check point. Unbeknown to us, this is a big 'no no'. We were pulled over and Tom was frogmarched into the office, while I sat praying in the car that we would not be slapped with a massive fine. Luckily the Police found it hilarious and Tom was let off 'as a stupid gringo, not knowing the road rules '!
After a shaky start, we finally hit the open road and had an amazing 3 days, camping and driving. The views were truly spectacular and the campsites empty, except for the ....dogs! Our first night camping we had the company of 6 dogs and on the second night a wolf-like dog befriended Tom. hmmm the dogs in South America are like something else, they love to follow you around the streets for hours. In fact you can go into a restaurant for dinner and they wil be waiting outside to escort you home when you leave!


Our trusty little camp stove comes everywhere with us. A cup of soup, tea or noodles is only a matter of minutes away.

Mount Fitzroy beauty

We took a 3 hour bus to El Chalten and decided to stay for a few days. It's low season, so the hostel and bus company were offering a whoppa deal for 2 nights which was too good to turn down. We had contemplated camping, however we were glad to have been in the comfort of the hostel after hearing the howling winds that came through the valley at night.
El Chalten is a small town in a valley surrounded by mountains and appears to be growing at a phenomenal rate - 10 years ago 3000 people visited the national park, this year over 100,000 people visited!! After exploring the area it's really not surprising, as the treks and the views were awesome. On the first day we did a couple of treks to lakes and through forests and on the second day we trekked to Lago Torre, a lake with icebergs floating in it and Glaciar Grande in the distance. It was truly a postcard view, and utterly freezing! We whipped out our little camp stove and cooked up noodles to warm up, and filled up our water bottles straight out of the glacial lake. Bliss.

Enormous glaciar - Perrito Merino

The Perrito Moreno glaciar is one of the only advancing glaciars in the world and it is utterly HUGE - 30km's in length and 5km's wide. We took a boat to get up close and personal and then took a seat to watch mother nature's show - huge chunks of ice come away from the glaciar everyday and make a deafening sound as they fall into the lake below. To top it off we had a stunningly beautiful day - apparently most of the time the mountain peaks are covered in clouds, however someone was looking out for us on this day!

Torres Del Paine - Towers of Pain (literally!) - Patagonia

'WOW' is all I can say about Patagonia. The size, the vast open space, the changeable weather.... and the lack of people is quite astounding. We're close to 'el fin del mundo'- the end of the world and you can really feel it. We arrived in El Calafate last week and headed straight to Puerto Natales in Chile to do a trek in Torres Del Paine, a massive National Park famed for its beauty and challenging treks. And believe me, this was the most challenging thing that either of us has ever attempted. With ridiculously heavy backpacks - carrying our tent, sleeping bags, mats, cooking stove, food etc, we trekked through howling knock over winds, (gusts of 100km that literally picked you up and throw you) across cliff faces for many many KM's. In fact over 2 days we walked over 40kms, and then slept in the tent in zero degrees. If this does not test your physical strength and endurance I don't know what will as it was just the two of us, a map and our backpacks. Unfortunately Claire got a big blister on the first day, so with the constant water seaping into her trainers, and the feeling that it was getting infected we had to cut our trek short. However, we would truly recommend this to anyone who wants a challenge, though it is certainly not for the faint hearted! I hope that the pics speak for themselves.......

Hippy days

For a bit of a rest from the travelling, to save some cash and also get a bit of zen time, we opted for a short stay at the Eco Yoga farm outside of Buenos Aires. We spent 4 mornings building an eco tree house with bamboo, wood scraps and plastic bottles. We spent the afternoons doing yoga, relaxing and eating LOTS of organic vego food. Upon arriving we realised that it was a Hare Krishna commune. While it was a great opportunity to de-tox, we have no temptation to become borne again Hare Krishnas!!

Iguazu highs

On our way back to Argentina we had a pit stop at the Iguazu falls. These falls sit across 3 countries - Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. We spent most of our time in Argentina - the food is a lot better and it's cheaper than Brazil. We did however manage to fit in a trip across the 3 countries in an hour to buy a netbook in Paraguay...which was an interesting experience in itself. We weren't sure whether we'd get back to the hostel to find that the computer had been swapped for a brick. Luckily, it was all good.
Anyway, back to Iguazu.... the falls are truly spectacular and come highly recommended. As the United States First Lady reportedly said;'Poor Niagra' upon seeing Iguazu. The falls just keep on going and going and there are continuous photo opportunities. The most exhilerating is the 'Garganta del Diablo'- devils throat. It's 82m high, 150m wide and 700m long - at one point you can stand and be surrounded by 260 degrees of waterfalls. And you get very wet from the waterfall spray! Check out the photos and short vid below.
Next stop - back to fab BA and then to a hippy Hare Krishna vegetarian yoga farm for some zen, building huts and $$$ savings...