... the truth is I never left you. Well technically thats a lie, seeing as I have stamps in my passport that say I left for 2 weeks to visit Chile. But you get the idea, and I'm now back in the land of steak. Except I'm now camping in the land of steak, which means that steak is kind of off the menu. At least for the time being. Otherwise I could have called this entry steaks and lakes, which would have had a nice ring to it. From Petrohue, we got a bus to Puerto Varas, intending to get [View Full Entry]

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Although this says Puerto Varas, its the closest place on here to where we actually were for this entry, which was Petrohue. The journey from Ancud to Petrohue took 3 buses and a ferry, taking me back to the days in Central America where you had to take multiple bus journeys to get places, I'd got quite into the habit here of jumping on a bus and ending up exactly where I wanted to be! Anyway, we arrived at Petrohue, which is on Lago Todos los Santos, supposedly the most beautiful lake in the southern lake district. And on first impression, [View Full Entry]

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I mentioned towards the end about my wallet going missing in Puerto Montt. I didn't however mention that I did get the tent and camping equipment I needed, so it was time to head to Chiloe, where my camping adventure could begin! The ferry across the narrow stretch between mainland Chile and Chiloe was pretty cool, and we spotted a few seals frolicking in the water, as only seals can. Our bus then took us to our destination, the small town of Ancud on the north coast of Chiloe. My first revelation about camping is that instead of being in the [View Full Entry]

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A few hours after leaving Pucon, the bus arrived in Valdivia, as buses tend to do. I therefore got off, as people tend to do when their bus reaches their destination. The first thing to note about Valdivia is that it contains the most difficult to find hostel I've encountered so far. It's supposedly the most popular in town, but we managed to walk past it three times before spotting the tiny sign above the door that gives away its location. First task completed, it was time to hit the streets of Valdivia. In a touristy sense, I'd come to Valdivia [View Full Entry]

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Firstly, some of you seem to take great pleasure of pointing out I seem to have become a bit volcano obsessed over the past 4 months. So I thought I'd write you a nice story about my last ascent. Tens of tour groups do Villarrica every day, and as it was quite expensive, I thought about trying to climb it on my own, and just hiring the equipment. After all, I'd just have to follow one of the groups up, and it'd be easy right? Sadly, regulations about having to be a member of the British mountaineering society put paid to [View Full Entry]

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After a nice week in Mendoza, I (just) caught the night bus to Santiago. Unfortunately, a 4 hour hold up at the border meant not much sleep was had, and as it turned out, I arrived with only seconds to spare before my connecting bus to Pucon left. So much for having 3 hours to kill! Anyway, as my bus motored its way towards Pucon, it was very clear that the Chile I had entered this time was very different to the Chile I left up in San Pedro. Gone was the vast expanses of desert, and in its place were [View Full Entry]

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A slightly delayed night (and next day) bus eventually dropped me off in Mendoza on the 3rd. The cause for the delay was that Argentine police decided that our bus was the one they wanted to search through every single bag on. Worse luck. It's always nice when you turn up at a hostel and find out people have already bought steak and red wine for you (and themselves aswell of course). Admittedly, this was the only time it has happened so far in my life, but it was nice all the same. It also turned out that Mike and Ellie [View Full Entry]

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So, we got back to San Pedro, and went looking for a bus to Salta. Only problem was that there weren't any until 2 January. Not wanting to stay in San Pedro for over a week, I had decided to either try and hitchhike, or go down to La Serena with Rob and Beth. I went to bed on Boxing Day pondering this decision. About an hour later I got woken up by Mirte, who had come across 2 girls in the street that had a car going to Salta tomorrow, and needed 2 people to fill it up. After a [View Full Entry]

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After the previous night, it was probably quite lucky we'd only been able to hire a car from 2pm, as it gave myself and Rob (the named drivers) time to shake off any wool betwen the ears. By 2 though, the wool was gone, and we went to pick up our very own Christmas sleigh. Or Nissan, as this happened to be called. And there were no reindeers either in case you were wondering. The bags were loaded into the back, and the 6 of us piled in. Which was a bit of a problem as it was only meant to [View Full Entry]

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And so to Uyuni, the last stop in Bolivia. It's all gone a little fast for my liking, and especially now in Chile I'm missing the low low prices. Ah well. We had a day to kill in Uyuni, so we hired out a couple of shotguns and went to look for it. God I'm funny. But seriously, we wandered around town, which isn't really that special, and found ourselves a tour operator for the next day. With that mission complete, there wasn't really much else to do there. We met up again with Bryce and Molly, who we'd met in [View Full Entry]

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