After a fantastic week on Easter Island, it was back to the mainland and the bright lights of Santiago. It was nice to return to a proper bed and hot showers after seven days of camping. Ruth's parents had come out to visit us for two weeks and had arrived by the time we were back in the capital so we lost no time in going to the hotel to meet up with them. We had been in Santiago for a few days before Easter Island, but had left proper exploration of the city until now. I know Santiago isn't everyone's [View Full Entry]

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The most remote island? Located almost 4000 km from mainland Chile, and well over 2000 km from the nearest inhabited land (Pitcairn Islands), Easter Island has a fair claim to being the world's most remote place. Remote it may be but isolated it is not, as daily LAN Chile flights from Santiago and Tahiti, not to mention the huge numbers of tourists that visit, mean you never feel the solitude that the earliest inhabitants of the islands must surely have felt. Indeed, until 1968 the island was visited only once a year by a ship from Chile which brought supplies, something [View Full Entry]

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A long, thin country When you look at Chile on a map its strange shape makes no sense. From Arica in the north to Puerto Williams in the south, Chile reaches over 4000km in length. (Interestingly, the official centre of Chile is not just south of Santiago as you might expect, but way down south in Punta Arenas as the official bottom of the country is at the South Pole - Chile takes its Antarctica claims very seriously). This shape makes Chile an ideal country to travel through as you're usually never more than 150 kilometres from the mountains or coast, [View Full Entry]

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Lonquimay The Central Valley area of Chile stretches south from Santiago as far as Temuco, and contains some of Chile's most interesting, though often overlooked, sights. Chillan was our first stop in the Valley. It's a busy town, birthplace of Chile's first President, Bernardo O' Higgins, but with little to attract travellers. As in other regions of Chile, it's the landscapes of the Central Valley rather than the towns that capture the imagination. We hired a car (a striking red Chevrolet Aveo) in Chillan and spent four days exploring these landscapes. We drove down the Pan Ameri [View Full Entry]

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Back to Argentina Travelling across international borders in South America on a Sunday is never a good idea. Our journey from Pucón to San Martin de los Andes in Argentina, which normally takes 4 to 5 hours, took us a whole 8 hours. We were delayed for three hours outside Pucón waiting for cyclists in the Ironman competition to finish their cycle. They had a worse journey than us though, having to cycle 100 km, swim 3.5 km, and run 40 km on a very hot day. The border crossing at Tromen is surely one of the most beautiful in the [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Chiloe behind we moved onto one of Chile's most visited regions, the Lake District. We had taken things relatively easy in Chiloe, so we were looking forward to plenty of hiking and climbing after leaving the islands. The Lake District in Chile lies roughly between the cities of Temuco & Puerto Montt. The main towns are connected by the Pan American highway, running through the western half, while most of the lakes, mountains and volcanoes are found within a series of national parks and reserves, in more remote areas closer to the Argentinian border. Access to these parks is often [View Full Entry]

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Cruising the Chilean Fjords The first weekend of the New Year found us crusing Chilean fjords on a 3 day, 1500 km journey from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt. North of Puerto Natales the road runs out as Chilean Patagonia becomes an impenetrable mix of fjords, glaciers and mountains. We had to choose between flying from Punta Arenas, going by bus via Argentina or sailing through the hundreds of fjords and islands that make up this part of Chile. An easy choice! We boarded in Natales at midnight on a Friday night, 3 hours late, giving us 3 hours to play [View Full Entry]

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Christmas in Fireland After returning from Antarctica we spent six days in Ushuaia, including Christmas Day. These six days were probably the laziest of the trip so far - we managed a grand total of two hikes and visited only one museum. Most people from our cruise had immediately left Ushuaia, though Valery, our Zodiac driver, was still around, as he had another trip on December 26th, so we met up with him on two consecutive nights in The Galway or "The World's most Southern Irish Bar" as it liked to call itself. Such a claim makes you think it's a [View Full Entry]

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Day 0-1: Ushuaia: Gateway to Antarctica Our Antarctica trip has been booked for a good few months, but we've had little time to think about it what with travelling around Argentina. Until now. As the plane left El Calafate airport and crossed Tierra del Fuego towards the world's most southern city, Ushuaia, the excitement started building. There's plenty to see and do in Ushuaia but we decided to postpone all that until after Antarctica, when we would be spending another 6 days here. That first night we stayed in Hotel Albatross, a 4 star hotel included as part of our trip, [View Full Entry]

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La Cuarenta Before we began our trip, I remember reading Charles Darwin's famous description of Patagonia, a description which made me want to see this intriguing area: In calling up images of the past, I find that the plains of Patagonia frequently cross before my eyes; yet these plains are pronounced by all wretched and useless. They can be described only by negative characters; without habitations, without water, without mountains, they support merely a few dwarf plants. Why then, and the case is not peculiar to myself, have these arid wastes taken so firm a hold on my m [View Full Entry]

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