Easter Island was a spur of the moment decision, inspired by Wendy´s cheap flights, we made in Puerto Natales. We knew that going there would mean something would have to give and it probably means that Venezuela is out of the question, but in keeping with the Discovery Channel and National Geopgraphic theme which has tended to dominate our decisions of late Easter Island fitted. Well the flight over started pretty well (aside from Ann trying to smuggle her Swiss army knife onto a plane........it may be South America but some things are not meant to fly!) with the three of us getting a very lovely upgrade to Business Class on our flight over.....shame it was a morning flight because Champagne is a struggle and rum was just not going to happen! Though it was a ... read more

Well after the intense hiking of about 10 minutes per day in Antarctica we decided the warm up was over and it was time to advance to the hiking terraine of Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia. No penguins or whales here but the scenery with snow, rock and ice capped mountains bottomed with lakes, glaciers, even some icebergs and flamingos it was impressive enough in its own right. Despite the fact that hardly anyone actually lives permanently in the 181,000 hectare national park, I doubt it was more than an hour at any time of the day that we didn´t see another set of hikers passing us (working in the opposite direction OR just over taking us...well Gordon at least stayed with Ann, walking at her snail´s pace for most of the way whilst the ... read more

Day 3 of Ruta 40 was a short hop from El Chalten to El Calafate. El Calafate is where we catch our flight down to Ushuaia. Our day in El Chalten was not to be wasted and it was with some relief that, as dawn broke, for the first time in 3 days we we weren´t up before it! Our previous 2 starts had been 6.30 & 7am, so it was with some relief that our excursion to the Viedma Glacier left at 8am. By this stage we were used to the Agentinian schedule of adding 30 mins to a scheduled departure and managed to squeeze in a breakfast at the hostel in time for 8.30. The Viedma Glacier is in the Parc Nacional de Glaciers, which is in both Chile and Argentina. The Viedma glacier ... read more

Now we undertook the expensive alternative trip back to Argentina........the Cruce Del Lagos......(Crossing the lakes). Expensive but worth every peso. The views were amazing and to be travelling on mostly catamarans, with a bit of bus made a very welcome change to the previous 3 weeks of travel. The only slight put-off to the trip was we had been transported into an American retirees´ travel tour bus (they being the majority of people who can afford these luxuries), so we felt we´d lost a bit of our adventurous explorer status (but do not fear we more than made up for this with our next trip!). Cruce de Lagos leaves Puerto Montt by bus pasing through the town of Puerto Varis.....where the majority of the people travelling got on. The bus then heads into a National Park, ... read more

We arrived in Santiago (Chile´s capital) with little expectation. People who we had met along the way had all indicated that there wasnt a huge amout to see or do. That the city was dirty and polluted and that it was a convenient stopping off point enroute North or South. Personally I (Gordon) have disagree and in a lot of ways prefered it to BA......not needing to avoid setpping in dog poo is a really good start! Arriving early in the afternoon from Quintero we dumped our gear in the hostel and headed out for a a walk around and bite to eat. The staple diet of Empandas (not a patch on the ones we had made in Quintero!). The walk was very nice. We wandered down to town. It was very quiet on account of ... read more