We spent much of Monday wandering around Santiago unfortunately it is a holiday and most places including the museums are closed which made acquiring medication for my sick wife a difficult exercise. The Lastarria district was pleasant to wander through on our way to the Plaza De Armas the central square where many off the more stunning colonial buildings and museums are found. We then made our way up to the district of Bellevista where many of the cities bars and restaurants can be found for a chorrillana vegetariana and a huge Escudo cerveza. The rest of the day we chilled at the hostel before enduring a night from hell as everybody in the place got pissed and screamed their heads off at 4am. I asked the night manager to quiten things down to no avail, ... read more

After another unpleasantly long flight across the international dateline we finally landed on our fifth continent in the South American nation of Chile. Exiting the airport we easily found the airport bus which delivered us to the Parajahitas Metro Station where we changed to a coach for the 90 minute trip to World Heritage site and major port Valparaiso. We arrived late in the day checking into the Ibis hotel down on the waterfront, the hotel is modern and comfortable but choice of food is limited. We crashed out at 5pm not waking again till 3am when we watched a creepy pseudo-documentary about serial killers before going back to sleep till 7am. On waking we went down to a buffet breakfast before heading out to explore this strange city which is the home of the Chilean ... read more

Four nights in Paradise? Well perhaps not paradise but pleasant none the less, there is a mosque opposite the island which is a little annoying at 430am, the lack of running water and power during the day kind of sucked and the steamy mosquito filled nights were terrible but for $25 a night full board who am I to complain. The first full day we visited Malenge Island hoping to see some wildlife, there aparrently is some there we just didn't see any, the jungle hike was extremely hot and comfortable although the guide cracked a few coconuts open so we could have a drink. Finally we reached the other side of the island and popped out at an eco Resort where we had lunch and a lot of h2o. We then headed out to Hotel ... read more

Eggs on toast for breakfast then off to Ke'te Kesu for some very impressive traditional homes,granaries, a white buffallo, a friendly dog and ofcourse more human bones. Next we visited a number of other similar sites at Sangalla, Tampangallo and Suaya villages before visiting the Kambirra baby graves. Now that was a macabre site they carve a hole into the side of a fast growing breadfruit tree and place still borns and infants in the hole then cover the hole with burlap, eventually the tree grows and the hole seals. We then returned to Rantepao for lunch I have to eat at westerner cafes to get a vegetarian meal which is more expensive. Tonight I may have seafood pizza before bed. Today is our last day in Tana Toraja so we visited the market which runs ... read more

Six years I have been walking the trail and I am not half way to the end yet, still as I get further away from Adelaide logistics get more difficult. Today we completed a section of the trail heading north out of Burra, a town we have come to know so well and love having used it as a base a number of times in recent years. Ruth and I left home at 6 am driving around two 2 hours, placing a vehicle at each end of the trail we would traverse that day. The sixteen kilometre walk from the Wandallah Homestead in to historical town of Burra was tough due to the unexpectedly hot weather and the many hill climbs that we would have to complete that day. Initially we headed south a long a ... read more