A few more days were spent on the beach before we decided to take a day trip to a nearby island called Isla Mujeres, from where we are staying in the hotel zone the port where you get the boat is only 5mins away and the trip to the island is only around 30mins. When I arrived to the port it seemed a bit familiar and after a while I realised that I have been to the island before although last time it was in the night and also for a booze cruise so slightly different circumstances this time. As soon as we set foot on the island after listening to a Mexican bloke with a guitar during the crossing we were immediately pounced upon by different tour people trying to sell their tours to us. ... read more

A short bus ride away from Santiago is the city of Valparaiso and the well known beach of Vina del Mar. It’s been a good few months since I can say that I have been on a proper beach and also in the sea so it’s been a nice change of scenery. We arrived in Valparaiso in the afternoon around 3pm to glorious sunshine so our first thoughts were to get to the hostel, dump our bags and get to the beach. We did manage to do this although after waiting a fair while for a taxi to take us to the hostel and also a while navigating our way to the metro, so we got to Vina del Mar around 5ish. After meeting some Chileana’s in Santiago we found out they were going to ‘Valpo’ ... read more

I am currently in Pucon which is a small city in Southern Chile 7 hours north of Bariloche. Many travellers come here to do various adventure sports similar to Bariloche but with the main difference being you can climb and active volcano in Pucon and you don’t need any previous experience. Before arriving we had the volcano climb in mind and also wanted to do some white-water rafting. After checking into the hostel we had booked because it had a swimming pool and a gym (that was true although the water was bright green and the gym was a broken bench!) we thought we would find out about the 2 activities. Once we explained our interests we found out that the current rafting conditions meant they can only offer grade 2 rapids, all of us agreed ... read more

From Puerto Natales we made our way to El Calafate which is the gateway to the mighty Perito Moreno Glacier which is the biggest advancing glacier in the world. Our visit to El Calafate is only a short one as the only reason for going there is to see the glacier. The trip only took 5 hours and that included crossing back into Argentina once again although I must say it was the quickest and smoothest boarder cross I have had, we didn’t have to take our bags off to put them through a scanner or line up like convicts while our day bags are also searched so we were pleased with that. We just walked in got our passports stamped and we were away. I have lost track of the amount of times I have ... read more

31hrs of travelling on a bus through 2 boarders which included a boat and we’ve made it to Ushuaia...the most Southern City in the World! The journey wasn’t the greatest as we had semi-cama seats the whole way due to the cama ones being sold out so bit of a downgrade to what we have been used to. There are points in the journey that you wander if you’re just driving into nothingness and there isn’t anything at the end of the road. Nearly the whole way from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos there is nothing apart from a few small cities and fields as far as your eye can see with the odd sheep walking around. Once we arrived in Rio Gallegos we had to change to a smaller bus which would take us through ... read more