I max

Mr Cool rocked up fashionably late and helps us check in to our flight over to Los Rocques. The wife was extremely excited at the prospect of spending an extended period on the island archipelago - despite being in the airport i was already applying the suncream. The plane was small and noisey but the view out of the window was impressive. A distinct line where the reef begins signals the gateway to the islands and the onset of the bright turquoise water. The airstrip is relatively short and not for the nervous. The airport facilities at Los Rocques limited to a hut and a bench. We paid our park entry fee and met the chap from our posada who kindly helped us with our bags. At Posada Cigala we were met by Enrique, the epitomy ... read more

2 days of travelling to get to Los Rocques in Venzuela started with a morning on the beach before saying goodbye to Pucon, most agreeable. A trip in the taxi with The Bunk to the airport before flying to Santiago. Santiago appears surrounded by hills and looked impressive as the sun set in the distance. Our airport hotel did the job and the pain of the previous day's bike ride was slowly diminishing. 29/2 Back on the plane for the trip to Caracas. Finally managed to buy decent postcards at the airport but getting stamps is like searching for the holy grail. Our seats are 'H' and 'F' which indicated we be sat apart once more. Tough for the wife but a chance for some quiet time for me. Bizarrely H and F were together - ... read more

Right, We´re just about to leave Pucon in the Chilean lake district and head off over 2 ish days of travelling to Los Roques in venezuela. There´s been too much going on to put any decent info on everyhting we´ve done so we´ll do that properly upon our return to blighty. Very quick highlights, Patagonia was amazing Buenos aires - jolly good Glaciers - quality Pucon volcano climbing brill, mountain biking splendid although suffering a little today. Overall weather been good, food and wine and beer even better. Most random moment of the trip so far was when i was sat next to robert from venezuela on the plane. he is venezuela´s best U19 javelin thrower and had just started to learn english. I have left him with a copy of pies and prejudice to accelerate ... read more

An unpleasantly early start was a necessity for the Volcano trek. We arrived on time at our meet point only for the guides to arrive late. Marginally miffed. The rest of the group were extremely pleasant. 6 mountain bikers from Germany who spoke excellent english and spanish (show offs) and a US couple, the chap Mike had the George W Bush knack for mispronunciation - but was otherwise harmless. Communication was clearly not an objective of our guides who largely ignored us, we simply followed on behind in the hope we'd be ok! The pace was quick, but not too bad. It was however, a bit weird as after surging past numerous other groups we then stopped for ages. We weren't told what was going on just sat around. The miserable guides faded away as the ... read more

Despite the relative extravagance of our room I had a rubbish sleep. The wind was back and rocked the room from side to side. I was less than impressed, and my thoughts wandered onto our variety of transport methods to take us out of the park. Generally speaking its naff leaving somewhere when you've had a brilliant time. In anticipation of the onset of melancholy caused by leaving torres del paine our exit from the park was intended to be somewhat entertaining. Initlally we were to take a zodiac ride past the serano glacier before another boat would take us onto Puerto natales and finally a public bus (perish the thought) to Puerto Natales. At breakfast we were told the boat wasn't sailing beacuse of the wind, neither was the zodiac. So it was a bus ... read more

The last day of the trek would take us from Refugio Paine Grande along Lago Grey to refugio Grey behind which sits Glaciar Grey. The names might not be especially evocative but people we'd met had said it was spectacular. Added to that it was only about 3.5 hrs which suited our sore legs. The blue skies were gone but it looked pretty bright so we set off looking forward to an easy day with plenty of stops for taking in the views. As with day 2 that got walloped pretty quickly. Ascending away from the hut the weather got worse and the wind became pretty wild. The rain joined in properly and it got pretty nasty. We were getting soaked and it was tough going in the wind. A few precarious points didn't help the ... read more