Hola amigos! Picking up where we left off.....following about 15hrs of busing broken up briefly by an overnight stay in a city called Valdivia we reached Pucon. Pucon is a super popular summer vacation spot for people from all over Chile but especially the capital city, Santiago. We had been promised sun and warm temperatures (AKA the complete opposite of the past 4 weeks). Unfortunately upon arrival, although not to our surprise, it was raining again (if I sound a bit worn down from the rain......it's because we were!). Like I said, since this is a super popular time of the year for Pucon, we spent a good chunk of time on arrival walking around in the rain looking for a hostel. After finally finding a place, luckily enough that ended up being a great hostel ... read more

Hola! We have crossed into Chile and are starting from the south and working our way up to the north of Chile. Our first stop is Puerto Natales, a small town on the coast that is the jumping off point for the main attraction...Torres Del Paine National Park. Considered South America´s premier National park, and one of the best trekking parks in the world, Torres Del Paine NP draws people from all over the world. There are 2 popular treks for this park: The Circuit and the W. We decided to do the W. As you´ll see from the picture of the map, the route forms the shape of a W, hence the name. The Circuit includes both the complete W route plus an additional 3 days trekking the backside of the moutains you see during ... read more

Hi everyone! We survived our 33 hour bus ride from El Bolson with swollen feet (Dale: Laura needs ted stockings!), sore/cramped legs and serious bed head. Our next stop after our marathon bus ride was the small town of El Chalten. El Chalten is known for one thing, and one thing only, trekking! It´s considered the trekking capital of Argentina, and people come here mainly for 2 big attractions - Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy. Both of these mountains are fairly easily accessed by day hikes from the town center, and then more experienced climbers can actually scale the rock faces (obviously this was not for us). We decided to head towards Fitz Roy in the afternoon after arriving from El Bolson simply because the weather was improving and we didnt want to miss our ... read more

Hey everyone, Thanks again for all your comments, its great to see that people are enjoying the blog and following our adventure! After Mendoza, we headed into Patagonia region, first stop, Bariloche! The drive was beautiful through Patagonia´s Lake District, turquoise waters, mountains and rolling terrain. We arrived in Bariloche and stepped off the bus into surprisingly different weather. It was our first introduction to Patagonian winds and quite a temperature difference from the 40 degree weather in Mendoza! Bariloche is a beautiful town - situated right on a lake, with mountain back drop and the entire town on a hill facing these incredible views. We stayed at a great hostel, Hostel 1004, which was on the 10th floor and overlooking the lake. That day we walked around uptown (discovering that this area is famous for ... read more

Before we begin: We wrote this nearly a week ago now but have just published it because of our biggest mistake packing for our trip- not bringing a netbook (small laptop). It has become increasingly difficult to find a) a free computer at our hostels long enough to upload photos and b) a computer that is functioning well enough to upload the photos in the first place! So....you´ll have to be patient. I realize most people enjoy the photos more than the text so I don´t want to post blog entries with no photos. We appreciate you guys reading the posts. We put quite a bit of effort into writingpreparing them (as does Ben if you´re following his blog) but we enjoy doing it. Sometimes, it´s just a bit of a wating game when you don´t ... read more