Dan & Rach's World Trip

Got back here again on our way through to Santiago. Went out immediately to get laundry done then spend the rest of ourfirst evening in our favourite brewery wasting away the time drinking homebrew and playing cards. Off to Chile tomorrow

Only stopped here one night to wait for our next bus. However turns out the whole world had as well and I got turned away from 9 hotels before finding a place to stay. Nothing else to say, didn´t go out except to check the football on the internet.

After another short bus ride we got to our most Southerly destination in South America, and it was bloody cold. Stayed in a really poky hotel with corrigated iron walls!

The whole point of coming here was to hike the Torres del Paine national park and do a circuit called "the W". Hikers from all over the world come here to do this really amazing walk as it is world famous for its beauty. On the coach taking us to the park there were all sorts of people (mostly European or American) in amazingly expensive North Face gear, hiking boots with ankle support, walking poles and special clothing to wick away sweat and keep you cool. Obviously neither myself or Rach are particular campers so we had to go to a hire shop to try and get the gear. It was comical.

There was Rach and I sat next to all these "professional hikers" in our Primark best, two macks that you can pack away in a sack to save space, trainers, enough pasta a sauce to last 5 days and pretty ropy old hire gear.

Got off the coach and promptly got lost as we were the last people to organise ourselves (Eventually I had to tie a plastic bag of rolls to the back of my rucksack in a carier bag and stuff the tent under the flap) so couldn´t follow the professionals. However we soon got into our stride and had 5 days of hiking and camping in a place where views were to die for.

The weather was really changeable, sunny one minute, raininy the next, but we made it to the end without any blisters from our trainers (the professionals looked a lot more in pain than us amateurs). Although we now have glacier fatigue having seen another 2 during the walk.

Back to civilisation, a pizza and then 10 hours of busses to our next destination

Finally got off the busses in this town in Argentinian Patagonia. The whole place is basically set up to visit the Moreno Glacier, which is one of the worlds biggest, or most active or something like that glacier in the world.

The whole place was pretty busy so we ended up staying in a 4 bed dorm rather than a hotel room. Not much to say about the town itself, pretty enough, but the Glacier was amazing. You get up really close and then watch in amazement as bit of it fall into the water surrounding it. We even got to go on a boat to look up at it, but the driver didn´t get us very close as I think he was worried of bit of ice falling on the ship. Amazing photos, although hard to describe - Massive - Icy? that about sums up my description. Rach reckons this is the most amazing and beautiful natural thing she has ever seen, which goes some way to showing how amazing it was.

Apart from that nothing else to say about the place

Got to Bariloche in the Lake District of Argentina a few days before New Year. The whole area is stunning, mountains, forests, lake, probably the most beautiful place I have ever been to.

Spent the first day relaxing before going for a hike up one of the hills. There was a cable car but I made us walk up as It cost 5 USD each! Although the views were amazing the walk wasn`t, they have these flies that are as big as your thumb here and don`t go away when you swat them, you have to kill them! When we got to the top it was such an awful walk that to get back down we snuck onto the cable car as they were not checking tickets. On the way home went to a local brewery and sampled all the local beer they brewed

Being the "adventure capital" of Argentina we went White Water Rafting the next day, not bad although try as hard as I could I couldn`t get the guide to flip the raft either acidentally or on purpose (the Americans onboard din`t think this was funny) so we will have to do it again in New Zealand. That evening we had a chocolate fondue as this place is alegedly world renown for its chocolate - Rach loved it.

Third day we went for a long hike through the forrests and hills surrounding the area before heading into town for New Years Eve. Rach was badgering me to hurry up and leave the hostel as it was nearly 9pm, but when we got to town amazingly everthing was shut! We hadn`t been told about this and it came as a surprise to find all the bars closed, bars closed on New Years Eve! Found one bar open but all the tables were reserved for a set meal so we just sat at the bar drinking. However we had no idea how we were going to eat until we got drunk and Rach had the great idea of asking if we could have the set meal at the bar. After some delibertaion they said yes but it was all such an anticlimax. Even after midnight (no chimes, no old langs aye, no kissing or dancing in circles) the town was still pretty deserted, seems all the locals go to their homes for parties so I have no idea what all the tourists did unless all the hotels lay on events. When we got up today still nothing was open, we cannot even buy water from the corner shop!

Anyway we are off to El Califate today down in Patagonia to see some glaciers do some hiking and go camping for a couple of week.