North to South and over the Andes

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So after a lovely few days basking in beautiful sunshine and with a couple of weeks on our hands we decided to fly south to Patagonia.

Taking an overnight bus down to Santiago we then took to the sky to go to Puerto Montt, with stunning views of the Andes as we flew. We headed straight to Puerto Varas on the recommendation of one of the many German hostel owners (it can be all a bit 'edelweissen´ in some parts of chile, ver are your papers as you check in sounds a bit scary) we met along the way and found a nice small town by one of the many lakes in the region. We came all the way to South America to go to their version of the Lake District, brilliant! And it even comes complete with drizzle and cloud. Ah but it also has many volcanoes and lots of good cheap wine (cream teas weren´t great though)...

We stayed at Sirocco, a hotel in the centre of town with beautiful rooms and good food. After checking out all the other hostels and hotels in the area in the pouring rain we smugly decided it was definitely the best in show.

After a boozy late lunch and too much time on our hands we booked ourselves to go across the Andes to Argentina. Our steepest and possibly longest journey lay ahead of us. Four buses and three boats later we crossed the border from Chile to Argentina.


It was spectacular and well worth the whole ´on off on off on off´ part to the journey. Slightly irritating was the overuse of the guides microphones, who had a muchos liking of his own voice. There are only so many times you need to hear where you´ve just been where you are and where you are about to be.



Argentina is wicked, and cheap cheap cheap. We´re loving Bariloche (home of hot chocolate). Dinner and drinks last night cost us a whopping three quid I even got to sit opposite Gringo Starr whilst i ate my steak (lots of star spotting going on - saw al pacino the other day he was driving the catamaran across the chile /arg border). We decided we should just jack it all in and retire here!

On the move again in search of sunshine. We´re taking a famous drive north via more lakes.

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