Southern Chile and Argentina

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Hello and Happy New Year!

It seems like a long time since we last caught up with our blog - in fact we haven´t done it since last year! Sorry, this might be a lit of a long one...

Hope everyone had a fun and festive break and is looking forward to a happy new year. We can´t believe what we managed to pack into 2008 - mine and Jen´s 30th, a month in NZ and Borneo in February, our wedding in August, along with those of several friends the same year, a trip around the world (almost), and the arrival of our niece that we still haven´t met - what a year! 2009 has a lot to live up to.

We are now in Buenos Aires, having arrived here yesterday afternoon at the end of a 17 hour bus trip. Sounds horrendous but actually the coaches here are really quite plush with fully reclining seats, pillows, DVDs, an attendant to serve food and drink...although our hot dinner of beef and mashed potato with a cup of red wine was much better received than the breakfast which comprised a chocolate bar, cake, crackers and jam. Breakfast, we have discovered over the last few weeks, is something neither the Chileans nor the Argentineans do well.

Since leaving Santiago, we have climbed a perfectly conical volcano covered in snow, been as far south as either of us have ever been in our lives, hiked through Torres del Paine National Park, watched a glacier crumble into a lake, and watched sealions, penguins and seals from as close as a few cms! Read on but only if you have ten minutes to spare!....

So after leaving Valparaiso on Boxing Day, we caught an overnight bus from Santiago down to Pucon in the Chilean Lake District. It was raining and a bit chilly when we arrived, but cleared up the following afternoon when we hired bikes to cycle around the area. We had decided to head to a blue lagoon and waterfalls but somehow understood the bike hire man to say 14 km when it was actually a 40 km round trip. 20 km and several hilly gravel roads later we reached the lagoon, feeling pretty pooped and not relishing the thought of the long ride home along the main road. Still, the lagoon was beautiful, clear and blue and the views of the snow-capped volcanoes on the way there and back were well worth the effort.

Less than 12 hours later, and aching before we even started from our cycling efforts the day before, we were up before dawn to climb Volcan Villarrica, the stunning volcano cone near to Pucon. We had been kitted out the night before with full mountain climbing gear (boots, waterproof trousers, jacket, hat, hard hat, two pairs of gloves, gaitors, crampons, a strap-on ´sledge´ and an ice pick) so I was feeling a little nervous, but following our guide we trudged up the scree at the bottom of the slope to the top of the ski slope as the sun rose, and from then on the views took our minds off the effort of walking up the very steep, snow-covered slopes. It took us four and a half hours to get to the top, zig-zagging our way up, and from there the views across to the other volcanoes and lakes were incredible. It felt like a real achievement! After a few celebratory photos and some lunch, avoiding the sulphurous fumes pouring out of the still-active crater, it was time for the best bit - sliding back down to the bottom! We donned our strap-on sledges (basically a piece of padding you clip around you) and down we went, reaching the bottom in about an hour - what fun!

Next we moved on to Puerto Montt, from where we flew south to Punta Arenas (53 degrees south, the most southerly point of our trip!) then caught a bus three hours north to Puerto Natales, the jump-off point for the Torres del Paine National Park. We arrived on New Years Eve and found the town pretty quiet - in fact most places were shut. So we had dinner out in one of the only restaurants that we could find open (even that shut at 9pm) and retired to our hostel for a night in watching films on satellite TV and drinking a fine bottle of Chilean red which set us back a princely 2 quid. Crazy.

In spite of almost everything still being closed on New Years Day, after much searching around town we managed to book ourselves bus tickets to the National Park, hire a tent and roll mats, buy a few food rations, and find the only cash point in town that was working, and the next day we set off for Torres del Paine. The first day turned out to be the most energetic - after pitching our tent and booking ourselves in for dinner at the refugio (a bit like a ski lodge, they are all over the Park), we walked 7 hours up and down the valley to the viewpoint for the ´Torres´ - the three huge chunks of rock that stick vertically up out of the mountain range, which the Park is named after. They really are impressive bits of rock! Although the weather was perfect, the wind was relentless and we nearly got pushed off a rock at the viewpoint with one bug gust! The next day we woke up to rain and packed up our soggy tent to move on to the next campsite, a minibus, bus and catamaran ride away. By the time we got there and set off walking, it was very cold, very wet and very windy, and the views of the Grey Glacier we had hoped for after 2 hours walk were a bit foggy. We half walked and half ran back to get into the warmth of the refugio and didn´t particularly enjoy our camping experience that night! The third and last day was supposed to be our biggest walking day but after an hour and a half of walking in the rain, we wisely decided that the weather wasn´t going to clear enough for good views of the mountains, and we copped out and caught the early boat and bus back to Puerto Natales. Never has pizza and a pisco sour (the local tipple) tasted so good as that evening!!

We didn´t have much time left before we had to catch a flight north from El Calafate in southern Argentina, so we crossed the border the next morning (my birthday!) into Argentina. I chose some very nice Patagonian woolly legwarmers for my birthday present (yes I know I will probably never wear them, but I like them anyway!) and we went out for a lovely meal to celebrate my elderly-ness. Before we flew out the next evening we just had time to visit the nearby Perito Moreno Glacier. It was far more impressive than the Grey Glacier - it´s 5 km across at the front, stretches back as far as you can see, and you can sit a couple of hundred metres away listening to it creaking and cracking and watching huge chunks fall off as icebergs into the lake in front with a loud boom! And we had plenty of time for watching it - the only bus there drops you off at around 10am and doesn´t come back to pick you up until 3.30pm!

It was nice to get back to a warmer climate in Puerto Madryn, but due to poor research on our part we got there too late to go whale watching which we had been really looking forward to :-( The Southern right whales that breed close to the shore there leave in mid December, so we´ll have to come back another time to see them. But never mind, we shared a hire car with another couple and there was plenty of other marine wildlife to see including some grizzly sealions, some fat and lazy elephant seals and some hilarious penguins. The penguins have such great personalities, we sat for ages putting voices to each of them as they waddled around in groups, getting lost on the way across the beach ("I thought you knew the way?" "No I was following you mate"), and tried to sneak into eachothers burrows.

We´ll be spending a few days in Buenos Aires now, seeing the sights, soaking up the atmosphere, marvelling at some tango dancing, and planning our route from here to Rio, our last stop. I can´t believe how quickly the time has gone - only a month left! But at least that means you won´t have to read too many more of these ridiculously long blogs!

Lots of love to you all
Kirst and Tim xx

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