We are now officially back on the gringo trail, having arrived in Pucon. Pucon is a bit like the Wanaka of Chile - it sits on a lake, and has forests and skifields nearby. There are plenty of people at the bus station trying to get you to stay at their particular hostel or take their particular excursion. One of Pucon´s major drawcards is its active volcano Volcan Villarricca, which belvins (like us) are able to climb. We had heard people raving about the trip for quite some time. I was a little sceptical, since some of the travellers here had [View Full Entry]

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Valdivia. Well, the Spanish wanted to stay there, and so did we. Unfortunately, we arrived late at night, after the bus and our bags were given the royal once over by the police at both the Argentinian and Chilean border crossings. On top of that, the bus wouldn´t start as we tried to leave the Chilean post. I swear the bus driver managed to fix the problem with what looked like a piece of number 8 wire and a small stick. Lucky too, as the border was about to shut and few cars or trucks would have been passing through until [View Full Entry]

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Our latest journeys consist of a road trip along the ´Ruta 40´, a road that stretches up much of the Western edge of Argentina. The landscape is still Patagonian steppe (i.e. tussocky and dry), but you are tucked in a bit closer to the Andes and come across the odd glacial lake. Certainly more interesting than the tortured 40 hour bus ride around the coast! The first stop was El Chalten, a tiny town, complete with dirt streets, random horses and stray dogs, perched on the very edge of the Hielo Sur (the southern Patagonian ice cap). The town seems to [View Full Entry]

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We ditched Punta Arenas (being a little afraid of the more expensive prices) and legged it up to Puerto Natales. This town is nothing special, but it is an ideal base to either catch the Navimag ferry further up into Chile or to visit the Torres del Paine national park. The navimag was broken or something, so we weren´t going to catch the ferry for another two weeks. The weather forecast was pants (snow to sea level etc) so we ditched on seeing the park too. Both me and Ben came down with colds so we jumped on a bus and [View Full Entry]

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Oh, we have totally blown our budget! We were chatting to a couple from Luxembourg and they told us about a boat trip they were taking from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas in Chile. We couldn´t bear to take the bus back the way we came, so we did some further investigations. The ´boat trip´was actually a cruise, on board the Mare Australis (an almost brand new boat). The cruise went around Cape Horn then up through the Chilean fiords of Tierra del Fuego. Well, the price was pretty good (it being late in the season now and the weather pretty crap [View Full Entry]

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Well, 3020 kms of bus later, we are now in Ushuaia. This city reckons that although it is at the end of the world, it is where everything begins. Its a pretty cool town. Getting here was an arduous process. I seriously thought Ben was going to gnaw off his arm during the bus trip. We have done bigger bus trips than the 12 hour jobbie from Rio Gallegos to here, but because we were awake the whole time it seemed to take forever. We also had to cross into Chile and then back into Argentina, since neither country is willing [View Full Entry]

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I had always pictured Patagonia as being all mountains and rivers and trees. I have since discovered that a great proportion of it is flat, dry and very unpopulated. We have been doing some mission bus rides to get ourselves to the very south. The first 20 hour jobbie went surprisingly quickly. They played some good movies (with Spanish subtitles) and I got a good sleep in the super recliner chairs. We broke our journey in Puerto Madryn, a relatively small but sunny place that seems to exist in the middle of nowhere. The Welsh landed here in about 1865 and [View Full Entry]

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What an awesome place. We´ve been in the city since Sunday and are taking Spanish lessons each morning. I´m getting better, but I don´t know many words yet. We have been having hilarious conversations with a Chilean guy from our hostel. He speaks about two words of English, so we talk in a hilarious mix of spanish, english, spanglish, charades and drawing. Some gems from the lost in translation file: Ben, tried to explain to our teacher that he was hot from walking up the stairs. She started laughing. He had just told her so earnestly that he was horny. Me, [View Full Entry]

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After watching Ben's rogaine, I was itching to get back into the hills. This was probably going to be our last tramp before leaving New Zealand and we wanted to do something a little more challenging. I think we found what we were looking for... I dragged Ben into Lake Daniells, which is a nice 2 hour walk near Springs Junction on the Lewis Pass. I thought something was amiss. It seemed like I was charging up the track while Ben was lagging behind. Anyone who has tramped with Ben will know that he is always on your heels. For him [View Full Entry]

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After a week in Totaranui, we headed over to Blenheim for the Rogaining national champs. (Rogaining is a bit like orienteering, except you get to choose which controls you visit within a set period of time). We picked up Richie, Hannah and Brenda from Picton and stuffed them into the car. We were packed to the roof inside with packs, shoes and other gear. The car was sitting so low, people thought we were high beaming them. We camped overnight in Ward, then headed into the hills at the base of the Kaikoura ranges. It was a nervous drive along the [View Full Entry]

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