Another day, another bus journey. Crossing over into Argentina was definitely an interesting experience. Customs were not happy bunnies. They had a go at poor Vijay and Marcel for not speaking Spanish - “In Argentina, we speak Spanish.” Totally didn't care about the girls speaking English though. Got to Bariloche and was put in a six bed dorm which was fun (although I still maintain that I'm too old for a top bunk.) Hostel was called Perikos and it was lovely- very cosy and cute (gezellig). Went to check out the town which is honestly chocolate heaven!! Every type of chocolate you could possibly imagine (except,strangely, orange) in every form possible. Amazing! That night, everyone went out to eat large cows in a restaurant with no vegetables so I just stayed back and cooked with Molly ... read more

Last day in Pucon. Lazy day for me. A group of people went rafting but because I'd done it in Banos, I stayed behind and saved my money for something I'd never done before. Got told off by the receptionists for using the internet for too long, after waiting over an hour for the person before me to get off it - a 15 minute rule that only applies when they don't want to use the computer to play card games. Ha. I then went for a walk to try and find Sarah who, with Mike, had caught us up in Pucon! But failed. After hanging around the hostel and doing nothing more interesting than eating last night's leftovers for lunch, I decided to go on another mission to find Sarah and just happened to bump ... read more

Pucon! A very pretty little town not to be missed, overlooked by the active volcano Mount Villaricca. We arrive and are taken to our new accommodation which is a little house- with a kitchen! I was really tired and and really missing my old group and really didn't feel like doing much. But I then end up going canopying (swinging from trees on a wire like zip lining.) As with most things, I was utterly useless at it. And especially when one guy, I think his name was Nico, was waiting to unhook us on the next tree. On the first try, I actually made it to the other side as I did on the second attempt. But on the next turn, I almost made it across but started to drift back in the opposite direction. ... read more

After a long night bus, (in which I had the front seat on the top deck so I felt like I was in a video game) I arrived in La Serena. The hotel wasn't exactly my favourite what with the mold on the walls and stench of damp. Spent a bit of the afternoon watching football, browsing the super-size supermarket (seriously, this super-market novelty does not wear off in South America!) and watching TV (exciting times) until going out for dinner that evening. When we got back to the hotel, we decided to try the 'mentos in a diet coke' trick. Dropped the mento into the bottle and the coke exploded everywhere. In addition to finding Cadbury's chocolate, that was probably the highlight of my first day. At around 5.55am the next morning, there was a ... read more

SALT FLATS! 12000km squared of salt to experience. We had two 4x4s come pick us up and Pablo had told Callum and I that we were to be in one car to speak Spanish to the non-English speaking driver and he would go in the other. The cars arrived and we chose the back one - the one that happened to have no music outlet whatsoever (the other had an Ipod plug in!) Anyway... we left at 10.30am to go to the train cemetery. Put simply, where all the old trains go to die. We got to treat it as a big kid´s playground, climbing around on the dead trains, pretending to drive them and pretending to fall on the tracks in front of them. Think the boys enjoyed it the most and it was the ... read more