Arrived in Puerto Natales with 2 objectives - 1) board the Navimag ferry and 2) see Torres del Paine national park. After booking some expensive ferry tickets we got on with planning for the national park. Torres del Paine is a Chilean national park in Patagonia filled with mountains, glaciers, lakes. Trekking though this park is a tough challenge. We were feeling rather underprepared as Puerto Natales appeared to be filled with gore-tex clad travellers carrying unessarily large backpacks containing tents, gas stoves and probably even a small donkey in case of emergencies... Undeterred [View Full Entry]

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El Calafate - pleasant enough place with one major attraction - The Perito Moreno Glacier one of the truly memorable sights of Patagonia. This is the highlight of the Parque Nacional los Glaciares which is contained in the Southern Patagonian ice field (which is the 3rd largest ice field in the world after Antartica and Greenland). The Perito Moreno glacier itself measures in at 30km long, 5km wide and 60m high above water. Also this glacier, unlike many in the world, is constantly advancing. Just watching the glacier has got to be one of the best sights - the jagged blue [View Full Entry]

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Ushuaia, Argentina. The most southern city in the world. The main attraction here is simply being at the end of the world. So here we are nestled beside the Beagle channel, close to Antartica. We hopped on a boat to sail down the Beagle Channel to see the bird island, yet more sea lions and then the highlight for us was the Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse, known as the Lighthouse at the End of the World (Faro del fin del mundo). The journey down here was no mean feat. Although we were already in Patagonia when we started, the journey still required [View Full Entry]

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So we have made it into (Northern) Patagonia (this was one of the areas I was secretly most excitied about...). Can definitally tell that we have arrived in this climatically challenged part of the world as the winds down here are incredible. (Apparently its just something we are going to have to get used to over the next month). So the main reason for visitng this area is for all the abundance of wildlife close to here. Peninsula Valdes is close by which is home to Nañdus, Llamas, elephant seals, penguins, dolphins etc.... but the star attraction around here are the [View Full Entry]

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We took a day trip out to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay (its just a short ferry trip from Buenos Aires). Its a beautiful place for a mini holiday from travelling. Little cobblestone winding streets, great restaurants, cute harbour with views overlooking Rio del Plata and beautiful weather - its enough to put anyone in a brilliant mood for a day. [View Full Entry]

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Righty ho... off to Iguazu falls we go. We have heard that the sheer size, power and noise of these 250 waterfalls must be seen to be believed so we headed up on the 18 hour bus ride to Puerto Iguazu. Let me tell you, this bus to Puerto Iguazu was THE best bus in the world. Ever. I mean, I feel we are letting it down by even calling it a bus - it was even nicer than a few of the hotels we have stayed in. The "Super Cama" seats we had booked had fully reclining seats and footrests [View Full Entry]

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San Pedro de Atacama - Chile It was heavenly to arrive in Chile after the dodgy food and accomodation on the Bolivian Salar de Uyuni trip. Our room was clean and cosy with and the hostel had a free pool table. We went out for lunch and found a wholefood restaurant with organic food and a yummy 3 course meal. The food was heavenly, really was, and not just because the taste of bad spagetti lingered in our mouths after the salt flats. Ok, well maybe thats part of the reason why. We just chilled in San Pedro, getting our strength [View Full Entry]

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So we left La Paz, not on a jet plane, but on a very very cold non-touristic bus. (Minus 10 degree cold outside + no heating + uncomfy seat for 14 hour journey = very tired Dimmings with numb feet). We arrived in Uyuni in the early in the morning. Uyuni itself isn't the most thrilling town, by far the best thing about it was Minuteman pizza which was the best place to eat in Bolivia. Our reason for being in this exciting place was in order to book a tour to the Salar de Uyuni (spectacular salt flats). Now, we [View Full Entry]

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Don't worry, this man is not to be afraid of. He just wants to shine your shoes.... [View Full Entry]

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Finally we decided to leave Peru and head over into Bolivia. Was a pretty tricky decision whether we would come over here or not as theres been a few protests and political disputes but after chatting to other travellers and checking the foreign office website we took the plunge and decided to stick to the westside and avoid the regions of Santa cruz and Beni where most of the troubles seemed to be. So we took our 'direct' bus (which involved a 2.5hr wait in the cold at 5am for a change of busses - clearly what we thought 'direct' meant!). [View Full Entry]

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