The end is nigh. Having spent the last 2 days back on Ipanema and with all our important stuff packed away, bar a complete disaster on the taxi journey to the airport both our objectives of our time in Brasil are, you'll be glad to know I'm sure, complete. We treated ourselves last night to a meal at what is basically an 'all you can eat' bbq but in a restaraunt. You head to the buffet for some salad before an army of waiters come to your table with all sorts of cuts of meat and give you what you want. A nice touch is that you're given a small card green on one side, red on the other which lets the waiters know 'yes' or 'no' for more meats. This means that you're not completely pestered for more meat all the time which is nice.

And today, we've just come back from the beach and having a small farewell beer in the hostel before catching our taxi. I think that we just want to get there now. Personally I'm looking forward to a few things I've missed like fresh milk, salt and vinegar kettle chips, homous and those little pork pies from sainsbury's. The fresh milk is the big one though. Everything's UHT here! Rubbish!

So maybe, just to complete the trip, I'll post again after getting home. It's been an amazing 4 months and we cant quite believe it's over but here it is. 4 hours time and we'll be sat on our flight to London. Definitely looking forward to seeing everyone though!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Location:This is it.

A loaf of sugar and a visit to see Jesus.

I forgot to mention that when we visited the Museum in Niteroi we found the probable hiding place of Osama bin Laden. Alert the feds! The little sign hanging under the door says something along the lines of ´Where the taliban come to meet´. Great.

The Sugar Loaf in all it´s glory.

The clouds rolling in. They were moving pretty rapidly over that little ridge.

Jesus with some scaffolding.

Us two at the top.

We tried to visit the Sugar Loaf mountain but things didn´t go quite to plan in the end. We´d heard that you could climb up to the first station and so saving half the price of the cable car lift fee. We asked a handful a people on the way and everyone pointed us in the direction of a path so off we went. Unfortunately, the only path we saw upwards said that it required climbing gear including ropes and the such. So dressed in our beach shorts and flip flops, this route might be out of even our flip flop trekking league league (think back to Kat´s flip flop trek in Bariloche). The walk was nice anyway and we headed back to look at the price of the cable car up. At 20 quid each (of course only 5 for Brasilians) we decided we´d save our money for the visit to Jesus the next day. The mountain sure looked nice from the bottom though.

So today, sunny again and after the obligratory visit to Ipanema we headed up to see the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer. We had another funny example of how tourists are sometimes treated here when we got off the bus at the bottom of the hill. There are two options up to the statue, either a cheaper option of the train or a slightly more expensive option of a minibus. The minibus drivers all congregrate around the bus stop waiting for the prey and the first thing we were told was that the train had ´broken down´! We thought we´d check and of course it hadn´t! The cheeky bugger! So we took the train up and up and up we went. It got so steep at some points you started to realise how high up the statue is.

It turned out that we´d timed our visit perfectly. Just as we stepped out to see the view the clouds slowly started rolling in. It would have been desperately dissapointing to go up only to be up in the clouds! It was great to see the whole of Rio and the only pity was that the statue itself is under restoration and so is covered in scaffolding. Oh well, the view was still great.

So here we are, our last full day tomorrow before we head home on Thursday. We have nothing to do now but sit on the beach and wait for our flight home. Not that we´ve totally exhausted the city of everything to do but we´re sure that sitting at home in the UK next week, what we´ll want to remember is plenty of time on the beach. Milk it as much as possible! I´ll give another little post before we catch our flight..........

Reality check on Ipanema.

Well what a day. Amazingly, it was sunny again so it was the usual journey down to Ipanema. This time via the 'hippy market' which is on every Sunday. After hearing and reading good things about it, it turned out to be nothing special. Just another tourist market full of stuff that looks ok in Rio but would look completely out of place anywhere else. Bit of a shame really.

So we made the usual trip and headed on to the beach. Everything was going swimmimgly for the first few hours, wall to wall sunshine and nice dips in the sea but after a few hours we had an incident that would remind us again of where we are. While Kat was buying a new bikini top, the seller warned us about 2 guys that had just set up camp next to our spot. He said for us to look after our stuff which initially we thought was maybe a bit paranoid. However as soon as we sat down we saw that these guys were blatantly and openely going through the bag of the people next to us looking for something to take. We couldn't believe it, and worse we just physically couldn't do anything about it. After not finding anything in their bag they quickly took a chance and made away with the bag of another chap who had gone for a dip in the sea. We just couldn't believe it. The worst thing is is that everybody around saw this happen but didn't want to do anything about it or say something to them, including us. Unfortunately, the worry that they might pull a knife or worse on anyone who confronted them got the better of everyone. We were helpless and just had to watch as they took and quickly dissapeared with this guys's bag. I have never in my life seen such blatant stealing. They were obviously banking on the fact that everyone was too scared to confront them. It was a big reality check after spending 2 previous days on the beach being completely carefree. We'd already decided when we first came that we wouldn't take out camera about but seeing this today has made us even more aware. From now on I'll be carrying our cash in my pocket.

In the midst of all of this though we met a really nice guy on the beach who went to share a few too many beers with after the clouds inevitably came over around 4pm. He is absolutely desperate to get a British or European passport and leave Brasil, which we find both hard and easy to understand. Being gay he'd be willing to marry either a man or woman to get the passport and made us think a bit of how, despite the weather and relaxed lifestyle here, all is not well with a lot of people.

So tomorrow we're hoping to head up Sugar loaf mountain for a nice view of Rio before heading back to the beach. An even bigger reality check awaits us in 5 days though!




-- Posted from my iPhone

Back in Rio de Janeiro. The final destination!

And here we are, our final destination. All we´d been hoping for was some sun and finally over the last 2 days our prayers have been answered. After a couple of days of cloudy overcasts and very bad weather forecasts our luck finally changed yesterday and we were treated to a morning of glorious sunshine and again today. Naturally, when it´s sunny in Rio, you head to the beach so we´ve enjoyed two days back on Ipanema. It was a strange feeling walking back on to the beach the first time thinking back to November when we first arrived in South America, we´ve been and done so much since last time we were here.

When the weather wasn´t so good we headed to the modern art museum which you can see in the photos. I absolutely love it! It looks like something out of a James Bond film doesn´t it. Dr No´s lair or something. Fantastic. It was completed in 1996 if I remember. The art inside wasn´t very impressive but we spent a while just sitting outside looking at the building.

So we´ve been really glad that the weather turned for the good in the end. The clouds still tend to roll over in the afternoon and we´ve just had the most amazing thunderstorm with amazingly heavy rain but the mornings are very sunny and hot. So this means that objective number one of our time in Rio is slowly being addressed. We plan to head up Sugar Loaf mountain and to see the Jesus statue over the next few days but, being quite high in terms of altitude, both are a bit weather dependant. There´d be no point going up only to have your head in the clouds, literally. Other than that we haven´t many plans. Maybe a few nights out and a trip to a restaraunt. The hostel we´re staying in is nice enough with a good bunch of people in it so it´s not hard to spend the evenings watching a film or chatting away.

We´re heading back to Ipanema tomorrow to visit a market and then hopefully back on to the beach. Look back at the photo of us there in November. The sight of that mountain as a backdrop to the beach really is fantastic. It surely has to be the best city beach in the world.

I´ll try and do another little update before our time is up. It´s a bit mad to think that we´re heading back to London in 5 days. Not somewhere else in South America which we´ve come accustomed to but London. Cold, grey London.

Parati.

Unbelievably, the rain continued. Yesterday I think I broke a personal record in that I watched 4 films in a day. It started raining at around 2pm on Sunday, carried on all through the night and all day on Monday and finally when we woke up this morning it wasn't raining. And when I mean it rained for 2 days, it wasn't a drizzle, it was proper rainforest type rain. Even in the UK, I haven't seen anything like it. So that is the reason for the record breaking day yesterday. We, and I think everyone else in the hostel, just stayed in the front room and watched film after film until it was time for dinner, followed by another film before it was time for bed. We actually enjoyed it! It was a great excuse to do absolutely nothing.

So finally today we had a break in the weather and decided to have a little explore of the 'historic town centre' followed by a trip to a nearby beach. The old part of the town is really very pretty with a nice relaxed atmosphere and an almost european feel to the architecture. It was once an important colonial port for gold trading followed by coffee so I assume there was a fair bit of money about at one point. There's no trading out of here now though I don't think so it's all tourism, although in a nice way. Not 'in your face' at all.

We were recommended the beach we headed to in the afternoon firstly by people on the salt flat tour and the also by a few people on our way here. 'Paradise' was how everyone described it and after arriving I think that especially with some sun, this would be very true. Unfortunately, after a pretty overcast morning the rain returned and put a bit of a dampener on our beach excursion. We met a really nice family on the bus on the way though so enjoyed sharing a few beers under the parasol and running around with the little one.

Back in Parati and we've just enjoyed a classic backpackers pasta dish. We had a nice surprise this morning too when the hostel 'upgraded' us from the dorm room to the private room so we're out of that dingy room I showed you last time. Tomorrow we're catching a 10am bus to Rio, our final destination. It's getting pretty desperate with the weather now. 8 days in Rio. We'd surely be the very unlucky if we didn't get any sun!

It was also with both sadness and relief that we saw the earthquake in Chile. Only 2 weeks ago we were in Santiago so it could have turned out very different for us. We were very glad though to hear that Hubert and Agathe and the family are fine. Let's hope that Chile can get things going again for themselves soon.

Some more photos.

A see through butterfly! Saw this on the bus journey from Sao Paulo to Parati.


For those who think that we haven't been slumming it enough on our travels. Our room here in Parati is a 9 dormer in a tiny room! You can just about see my bed at the top right and Kat's is at the bottom left.

Sushi wushi in Sao Paulo.

Unfortunately our only photo of Sao Paulo is some kind of carnival cow in the bus station when we were leaving. We decided to walk around with as little as possible which meant no camera and only loose change. It was a nice feeling actually walking around without being worried as much about something being stolen.

We hadn't really expected to much in Sao Paulo other than wander around the Japanese area and each as much Asian food as we could. We did manage that on the first day but ended up doing much more on the second day than we could have hoped for. The japanese area really was very nice and had a real feel of Asia about it (I imagined, I've never been) but, to try and save on the remaining funds, we stumped for some sushi from a supermarket. It was ermmm ok, not great and unfortunately reminded me of those packets of sushi you get in Sainsbury's and thelike. Sounding like the complete food snob, it just doesn't compare to the real deal.

So the next day, on the tip of the hostel owner Mr Wong, we headed to the tallest building in Sao Paulo where you're allowed 5 minutes at the top to admire the view. What happened the rest of the day ended up being a complete surprise in the nicest way. Having got a bit lost we were asking the local Police for directions when a nice lady came up to us out of nowhere and said she'd take us there just after she'd taken her shoes back to a shop. So off we went following our new tour guide. Inbetween Kat's Spanish and her tiny bit of English we managed to communicate well enough and talked about this and that on the way. The building is now owned by Santander bank and basically looks like a small version of the empire state building, by which it was apparently inspired. At reception we showed some identification and up we went. The view at the top really was impressive and the sheer size of the city quickly became apparent. The sprawling mess of buildings and roads just carries on far into the horizon and actually at one point carries on through a mountain valley until you cannot see any further. This place is huge!!

Our 5 minutes were up and back down we went. It was lunchtime and our new friend said she'd take us to her friend's restaraunt/cafe in what was the Arabic area. So what followed over the next few hours was a nice little tour of the centre of Sao Paulo, including an amazing food market filled with the most colourful and lucious looking fruits I've seen. There were fishmongers with huge salmon and butchers with little piglets (dead of course). Basically any kind of food you'd want, I'm sure you could have found it.

Our time came to say goodbye and both me and Kat were a bit stumped when the lady started crying as we were saying our farewells. We're still not sure exactly why but hopefully it was for the right reasons! We were incredibly lucky to be able to have a Sao Paulo citizen show us around and there was no way that we would have seen so much without her.

Also, this week the rugby game between Wales and France actually was on. So after our day out we returned to the hostel to watch the game, this time with Brasilian portugese commentary. This made it a bit to watch Wales play so dismally in the first half as I couldn't understand what they were saying. I'm also not sure that they understood what they were watching as one thing I did understand them mentioning was the Football world cup sometime in the 2nd half. Either they were bored, or thought that the competition would be an absolute walk over for the South American teams considering this weird version of football that France had started playing.

A 6hour bus journey from Sao Paulo and now we're in a nice place called Parati which reminds us a lot of Jericoacoara where we stayed in the north back in November. It's kind of like Jeri but a bit bigger and with paved roads. The unfortunate thing is that it's been raining for basically the last 5 days, or whenever we left Iguazu. It's been non stop! We've even bought an umbrella!

We're staying here until Wednesday before heading to Rio for our final week. We have 2 objectives for our remaining time in Brasil

1. Get a tan (we're getting worried with all this rain though).
2. Not to get mugged (we've been really either very lucky or very careful so far and still have everything we started off with).

Iguazu Waterfalls.

One of the rare moments I managed to get a butterfly to stay still. Some sweet words of kindness did the trick.

Jurassic Park isn´t it!?

To give a sense of scale, that thing in the water is a huge powerboat maybe 20ft long.

The clouds are a coming.

I was right. It was whisky again, and this time the waitress just poured and poured until I had half a glass (yes proper glass) tumbler of the stuff. I had quite a pleasent night´s sleep as you can imagine.

The landscape had changed completely from Salta to proper tropical jungle. The mud on the sides of the roads are a deep orange and the nearby tress and grass a lucious green. Either side of the road is what seems to me like just jungle. So dense and full of different types of plants. I wouldn´t want to walking in it that´s for sure. If it´s even possible.

The main attraction of this town are the nearby waterfalls, of which a famous person once commented ´Poor Niagra´upon seeing them accroding to our guide book. A half an hour bus from the bus station in town and we were at the gates of the park. The price for entrance seemed a bit steep at 85pesos (around 15pounds), especially when Argentinians pay 15pesos, but we stumped up and off we went.

Nothing could have prepared us for the sheer beauty and sound of the waterfalls. It was like stepping onto the film set of Jurassic Park just without the dinasaurs. Absolutely incredible. The sound of being up close to a huge wall of water was mesmerising and coupled with being covered in the mist and water spray it was a real `experience´, maaaaan. The cool spray was a nice relief from the humidity too. I mentioned the humidity in the last post in Salta, well that was nothing. Here you were literally covered in sweat no matter what you did.

Aswell as the waterfalls, what really impressed was the wildlife that you could see. More so the butterflies. I´ve never seen so many different types of butterflies in one place. (Except for ´Pili Palas´on Anglesey maybe!). They were of all colours, bright reds and black, vivid yellows and some had the most amazing patterns. They came in all sizes too. The only trouble was getting a photo. For such beautiful insects they make awful models. As soon as you got your camera out and focused, wham, they´re off flying around all over the place again.

So a great day in the waterfalls park. Worth even the 85pesos I´d say in the end. We caught the bus back into town and back to our hostel.

This has been our cheapest hostel so far at only 2.50 (pounds!) a night each so we have been impressed that the place isn´t a complete dirty hole. What makes the place almost unbearable is the woman who runs the place. She has to be the most incompitent hostel owner in the whole of Argentina. To give you an idea, we were greeted to our ´breakfast´this morning by a plastic cup from the top of a flask sitting on top of a plastic saucer surrounded by the toasted crusts of a tiny baguette. All of this on a table that had been wiped with the dirtiest rag imagineable. Good Morning dear guests!

We´d met a nice older couple from Devon, Rob and Jo, who´d been there a night longer than us and after here an argument from our bed this morning between them and the lady they obviously couldn´t hack it any longer. Accompanying our lovely breakfast this morning was a note saying ´We couldn´t bear it any loner, have a nice trip´.

It´s one more night for us also before heading off to Sao Paolo. This also sadly means the end of our visit to Argentina. I think we´d both agree that Argentina has been our favourite country of the trip. It is a great great country, but unfortunately also has deep deep problems that are really holding the country back from progessing. Politics is still completely corrupt (President Kerchner was on trial a few weeks ago for stealing money), the bureaucracy of getting the simplest things done is unbelieveable, there´s no loose change AT ALL which means you get small change in the form of sweets and there doesnt´t seem to be a seriousness in anything. In spite of this the people are, on the whole, extremely kind and generous and our time in Buenos Aires especially was without doubt one of the highlights of the trip.

So, Brasil here we come. A nice little factoid for you is that the city of Sao Paolo has the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan. Around 1million I think. Avid readers might rememeber our love of the Sushi in Buenos Aires so we´ve decided to stay in ´Japan ´Town in Sao Paolo. There must be even better Sushi there!!! Adios!

Sunny sunny Salta

Well what a nice place Salta is. I think we were both expecting some kind of tourist town as it´s a big stop off point for backpackers on the way up to Bolivia. It´s actually really really nice. We were recommended a hostel by new found friends in Bolivia and it´s turned out to be exactly what we wanted. A quiet and calm hostel right in the middle of town over the road from a big green park. We had a bit of a walk around town yesterday and the difference in the heat between here and Bolivia, only 6 hours up the road, is really something. It´s so humid here, completely different to the dry heat of Bolivia.

We haven´t done much really. Being back in Argentina we just had to indulge in another Bife de Chorizo steak which was as it should be, amazingly tender and delicious. That might possibly be our last one before we head home now. I was also dead keen to watch some rugby last night only to make my annual blunder of forgetting about the rest weekends. All sat down in front of the tv, asking someone to change channel only to be told `It´s next Friday!'. A bit too keen.

So this morning we had a bit of a walk around again. Saw a pink Cathedral with really impressive architecture inside, treated ourselves to a little Alfajore biscuit and now we´re about to have lunch with a french couple who were on the Jeep trip with us but delayed a day coming down to Salta by the same stomach bug. It´s a strange one, I´m still not a 100% and Kat doesn´t seem to have been affected at all.

At 3.15pm it´s another bus ride to Puerto Iguazu waterfalls right at the most easterly point of Argentina (I think). It´s a 24hour one again and of course it´s Champagne and Whisky again after dinner, `We´ll take the drinks in the drawing room tonight please Jeeves'.

One week in Bolivia.

Around 9.30am in the morning after 2 hours in a queue to get out of Argentina.

How about that for a road?

There were Lamma´s everywhere.

One of the many mineral lagoons in the around the Salt Flats. This one had a dormant volcano behind it.

Was it Kat letting off wind or the geysers that smelt of Sulphur?

Apparently this was once a tree. I´m still not convinced but it´s beautiful nontheless.

As the Salt Flats are so huge, there´s next to nothing on the horizon at some places. Hence some classic perspective photos. In this case, pocket size me for Kat on her Birthday. Pity that my feet have gone missing. The sun was so strong on the salt flat that I managed to get burnt through my t-shirt. Altitude was around 3000m.

A bit of a surprise on the way home, 10minutes from town. The cliff´s fallen on the road! A quick reverse and a detour by Alfredo and we were back on track.

I finished the last post thinking that things were going to get very interesting as we entered Bolivia. Well, I weren´t wrong. It took 2 hours to clear Argentinian immigration to get out of the country followed by a meer 5 minutes wait to get into Bolivia. We were in, and as soon as you crossed the border it was obvious that this was a very different place indeed. The women dressed in the traditional Bolivian gear (bowler hats and all), the feeling of slight chaos and a strange smell that Kat told me was the ´Bolivian smell´, a strange mix of cocoa leaves, sweat and that kind of muggy smokey smell you get the morning after a wood fire when you´re camping.

We needed to get to Tupiza so this was going to be our first intoduction with Bolivian buses. It cant have been more different to the last bus where we enjoyed champagne and whisky and the comfort that we´d been used to. As only 3% of Bolivian roads are paved the buses are jacked up with high suspension and off road tires and the general idea is to get as many people in as possible. So you end up with passenger in the isle standing and sitting trying to hold on as the bus rocks back and forth on dirt tracks. It´s also not guaranteed that the driver will be awake or sober so it feels like a bit of gamble at every turn. To sum up Bolivian public transport, we heard through a French tourist at the hostel that the train drivers were on strike due to a fellow driver being caught over the limit while driving and being sacked. Now they weren´t striking because of unfair dissmissal, they were striking because they thought they SHOULD be able drink while driving the trains!

So eventually we made it Tupiza in one piece. We booked a 4 day jeep tour of the Salar de Uyuni (Salt flats) so the next morning we were off. There´s too much to tell on here but what followed was 4 days of amazing otherwordly sights, the worst headaches in our lives due to altitude (kat was sick one night due to the pain were we slept at 4500m), nosebleeds, cocoa leaf teas, a bunch of great people, and a fantastic guide and cook in Alfredo and Marlena. It was truly an amazing trip but after consistent 5am starts (although I admit that all we did was sit in the jeep all day) we were shattered when we returned to Tupiza to our hostel.

The next day I fell ill, along with others from the group, with a strange stomach bug which put me in bed for most of the day where I was cared for by a lovely nurse called Kat. Still recovering 3 days after, together with a lack of time and not feeling great about travelling on Bolivian buses (especially at night) has meant that we´ve had a change in plan. We´ve decided that it wasn´t worth the huge distance up to La Paz for the sake of 2 days in the capital before a massive 35hour ish journey on the buses back along the same route to Argentina. So, we´ve headed back to Argentina early and are now in Salta (again, 5 minutes to get out of Bolivia, 2 hours into Argentina). It´s a shame that we didn´t manage a visit to La Paz but I think we´ve been pretty lucky so far with doing everything we wanted so you win some you lose some. It´ll have to be next time!

Bolivia was really a great place to visit but is by no means an easy place to visit and travel in. Nothing is easy and you really do feel like a gringo or tourist wherever you are. However, with more time it is somewhere that I´m sure has a lot more to offer than even the fantastic time we had.

Now that we´re back where communication and access to email is easier, doesn´t take 15mins to load a page and that we´ve only 3 WEEKS left, I´m hoping to post a bit more regularly. It´s the home run now.

Tandem tourists in Mendoza

Not much to report on really. We arrived in Mendoza at 5.30am at the bus station and that felt rather dodgy for both of us. Not a nice place to be at that time in the morning. Thankfully we got to the hostel non problemo and hit the sack straight away. The heat hit though, well maybe more the humidity compared to Santiago. Really really stuffy.

The main attraction in Mendoza are the many Wine Bodegas (Vineyards). The way to do it is by bike so the next day off we went with some new friends, one French a Belgian and a nice little Israeli to find 'Mr Hugo' who rented the bikes. Having never been on one before we decided to opt for the tandem. It took a while to get used to but after that it was a lot of fun. The hardest part is getting going so there was a wide berth given by everyone else whenever we started off.

We visited a nice olive oil producer, tasting some really nice olives, before having a tour of a wine bodega with some 'testing' of wines at the end. Cycling back seemed a bit easier than the way there.......

After a bit of cycling coupled with intense heat, humidity and wine the next day was a bit of a washout so we hung around the hostel playing a new card game called 'Yaneef' with the Israelis. As there was a pool in the back of the hostel too it was a really nice way to spend the day.

It was by far the best hostel we´ve stayed in so far with a good atmosphere and good people too so we were a bit sad to leave but we had another bus to catch. What a bus it was though. Huge seats, Star Trek the film on the video, spaghetti bolognese for dinner with an 'aperetif' of champagne and whisky! On a bus!

S0 13 hours on the bus and now we´re in Tucuman and the humidity has got worse. It´s hard to find the energy to do anything during the day. The hostel owner told Kat that the heat coupled with the humidity gives a 'thermal' heat of 45C, not sure if it´s that bad but it´s definitely warm.

It´s a nice place Tucuman. We had a walk around last night, were dissapointed by a light and sound show which was rubbish and had a beer in the square.

Tonight it´s off again to the border town with Bolivia. Things will start to get a bit interesting from here on I imagine.

No photos this time sorry. Computer at this hostel isn´t happy with the prospect. I´ll update this post next time.

Goodbye Chile.

The big girl doll floating by on a boat.

'No mullet por favor!'

A bit of a change for us both at the beach.

A good luck sip of home brewed cherry liquour before some fishing.

Alfredo fishing. Better luck next time.

We're going to miss the infinity pool at the house a lot. What an amazing view.

Our time in Santiago and Chile is now at an end. We're off on a short (only 7 hours!) bus ride over the Andes to Mendoza tonight at 8.

To be honest, we've had a very quiet week in Santiago. Hard to believe but it's very nice to have a bit of time to completely relax (relax from the burden of travelling I hear you say!?) in one place for a while. We've had long days by the pool watching the building work and a few jaunts into town to see a few things and get a few bits and bobs.

We were lucky enough to catch the big giant girl doll who walks on a crane come through on our first day back. It was a pretty impressive sight seeing this huge doll walking through the park before gliding by on a boat and the atmosphere was like a music festival. Lots of cheering and such like when she was going past. Apparently 1million people went to see her over the 3 days of her visit.

We've been quite lucky so far in terms of not getting our bits stolen, but our closest shave by far came when walking back from seeing the doll. We were walking in a big crowd when Kat suddenly heared a ripping sound, instantly looking down at her bag she saw that a 30cm ish hole had been cut into the back. Quick as anything she grabbed her bag and immediately walked out of the crowd to a quieter area. Both our hearts were racing at this point, petrified that the camera, with ALL our photos was gone. Thankfully, no doubt due to the quick reactions of Kat, everything was still there. I didn't hear the initial cut at all and I'm sure that had Kat not been so quick everything would have been gone. For the remainder of the journey home I carried the camera tightly in my hand and the first we thing we did when we got back was put all the photos on to a DVD. We don't want to go through that feeling again! Losing wallets with cards and cash we could deal with but losing all our photos from the trip would have been truly devastating.

I forgot to mention how the trip to the seaside with Kat's friend went. Of course, no surprises really, it was very very nice. Lots of fantastic food on the asado (bbq) and plenty of sun too. We also enjoyed a bit of fishing with Alfredo and his new rod, ahem. Although we came close to catching what felt and sounded like a huge fish, the line snapped right at the end. Next time Alfredo!

I had a haircut in Santiago, thankfully she didn't give me a mullet or a rat's tail as seems to be the fashion for the young latino lads. They look so bad! Kat was busy giving instructions throughout and I think she mentioned 'Classic English Schoolboy' once too. Well it worked, and I had a shampoo rinse at the end to boot. Wan't used to that.

Also in the news. Kat's been offered an interview for a place on a PGCE course of her first chouce when she returns. Very chuffed indeed.

We just watched Wales lose to England in the rugby too. Bit funny watching Rugby with Spanish commentary. We (Wales!) could have won in the end! Ah well, could have, should have. Atleast Liverpool won.

So that's it for now I think. We'll be sad to leave Chile, we've really had a great time and we'll certainly miss the home comforts and generous company of Hubert and Agathe. Merci beacoup!

Back to Argentina tonight then we should be in Bolivia towards the end of newxt week if all goes to plan. It's the long road back to Rio now although I cannot wait for some of the things we'll see along the way. Till next time!

Bariloche, flip flop trekking and a return to Chile.

Nice to meet you too.

The flip flop trekking hero! Look how strong she is!

Seeking repentence for the flip flops?

Definitely worth it.

As we'd heard, Bariloche turned out to be a bit of a tourist town. Although not a bad one at all. The surrounding scenery was really magnificent and the town itself had the feel of a Swiss Alpine resort to it. All new old wooden buildings. The town is also famous for its chocolate so we inevitably had to try a few from here and there.

As I'd mentioned in the last post, we'd been keen to do some kind of organised trip from here and the hostel had various organised activities available. We decided on doing a bit of kayaking in the end, we thought it would be fun in one of those double sea kayaks bombing around seeing waterfalls and the like.

'Pleasant' is the word we'd use to describe the kayaking I think. Turned out there wasn't a waterfall to see so it was just a matter of kayaking around the edge of the lake for a bit before turning back to shore for a coffee and a biscuit. We didn't exactly earn the coffee and biscuit but if they're 'free' then get as much of them as you can.

We had less time in Bariloche than we'd first anticipated as the bus for Santiago was leaving at 2.30pm the next day (we'd hoped for a evening bus), so it was up early on our last day for the 'must do' part of the town which is the view from one of the chair lift stations up in the mountains. Now you can either get a 10 minute chair lift up to the view (which costs 5 pound return) or you can walk it. Of course, with us two now being 'highly experienced ramblin' hikers' after our experience down south we opted for the walk. Kat was so confident that she went up in flipflops. Turned out that it wasn't that easy and it definitely got the heart pumping again and flipflops definitely weren't the ideal choice of footwear but Kat battled on in her pink dress passing descending walkers with all the gear with a cheerful 'Hola!'. This girl is unstoppable!

We reached the top and sure enough the view was worth it. Bright blue skies and the sight of the snow topped Andes miles away was magnificent. After snapping away with the camera and catching our breath, a bit of sweet talking from my lady got us a lift down on the chair lift for less than half price for the both of us. Flip flops going up the mountain might have been ok but going down would not be good. Most importantly though, we had a bus to catch!

So now we're back in the very kind company of Hubert and Agathe in Santiago. We had a little excursion with them to the beach yesterday and today we're heading back to the coast with Kat's friend from the newspaper. The plan is to stay in Santiago till Saturday before heading up north towards La Paz. The weeks are rolling by now, we'll be back in the UK before we can say 'Bloomin heck it's cold'.

Sorry for the delay in the posts too. Will give a little update before leaving Santiago.

A small taste of home in Gaiman.

A picture of Rhuthun up in the living room of the Hostel!

An evening with the Hughes´s

Firstly, I´ve added more photos to the Torres del Paine post. Hope you enjoy them!

Well the last few days in Gaiman have been a real treat for me especially. All the way back in 1865 a group of Welsh families decided to come over to Patagonia and establish a new Welsh settlement out here. I don´t really know the reason, I probably should, but just under 150years later their descendents are still here and still speaking the language. I´d heard from people who have been here previously not to expect everyone here to be speaking Welsh, and that is still the case, but it was still very nice and very strange to step off the bus and immediately spot a small tea shop called Cymru Fach (Little Wales) on the street opposite.

We´d booked to stay at a place called Plas Y Coed and I´d already been in contact with Ana from here through email to arrange everything in Welsh so it was very nice to finally meet her and get to speak some of the lingo face to face with someone. I´d been a bit worried on the way of it all turning into a bit of a mess with me not understanding the accent (I have enough trouble understanding the accent from South Wales sometimes never mind here) but all turned out to be well and we had a nice chat about our trip and our plans while Kat stood there, roles reversed for once, not understanding a word.

As part of the hotel/hostel they also run a tea shop downstairs so of course after lunch we had to try some Welsh high tea and cakes. Wonderful they were too, nearly as good as Nain´s cakes at home! The interior of the tea shop was full of Welsh memorabilia, from tea towels to love spoons to stiching. Great!

As we´d been on a 30hour bus ride before arriving we didn´t feel like doing much. Strange I know but somehow sitting down for that period of time is very tiring. So we had a bit of a wander around, had a beer with a nice couple from the Wirral we met (the wife was learning Welsh) and then had a great dinner at the restaraunt across the road. Of course the menu was also in Welsh.

I´d been given some contacts from my Mum (diolch Mam!) of a Welsh speaking family out here which I was keen to get in touch with so after a quick phone call the man of the house Billy Hughes came out to Plas Y Coed to meet us and to arrange something for the following evening. What happened when we met I still now find completely strange yet very funny and something I just wasn´t expecting as it was completely new to me.

We waited outside and he arrived in his 4x4. We shook hands and of course as I knew who he was started chatting in Welsh, he sounded just like a local from home in Rhuthun! He explained that he doesn´t speak a word of English to which I replied no problem Kat speaks fluent Spanish. Now this is the funny bit for me. He would understand exactly what me and Kat were saying to him seperately but I wouldn´t understand what Kat was saying to him and she wouldn´t understand what I was saying to him. So this meant that we had to clarify what we were both saying to him in English, of which he wouldn´t understand a word! Fantastic!

Billy´s lack of English came as a complete shock to me. I´ve never met anyone before who speaks Welsh yet doesn´t speak English but of course here in a Spanish speaking country it´s completely normal. What I found strange was that he would switch between perfect Welsh and perfect Spanish, something I´d never heard before.

So, in the end he invited us round to his house for a Asado (Argentinian bbq) and to meet the rest of the family. We had a great night and really enjoyed meeting the kids and also the Grandmother who sounded just like any Welsh speaking Grandmother but of course speaking to Kat in Spanish. I just can´t get over it! I realised also how littered with English words my Welsh can be when I´m speaking with friends and family at home. The problem was here that I had to think more about the proper Welsh words as of course they wouldn´t understand the English words.

We had a great piece of lamb cooked by Billy and enjoyed hearing their stories and sharing various experiences and differences in culture. The whole family is coming to Wales in July so we really hope that we can meet them again. Diolch yn fawr!

Tonight we take another bus ride northwards to a place called Bariloche. A night´s stay there and then we should be back in Santiago on Thursday. We´ve heard that Barilocke is a bit of a tourist trap of a town so we shall see what we find. We were talking today that we still haven´t done any ´proper´tourist stuff like tours and boat rides and like so this may be a good chance.

The trek to the Towers of Pain.

The boat trip on the way over. I told you the water was blue!

More sights from the boat across the lake. Pretty amazing eh?

My first glimpse of the glacier. There was also the strongest wind I´ve ever experienced on this ridge.

Kat enjoying the view.

The bluest blue!

Guess what my favourite colour is.

Kat really enjoying the walk.

One of the few moments it wasn´t raining on the third day.

We did it!

The walk back to the bus.

As much as I was expecting to do a bit of walking during our time in the Torres del Paine National Park, I never imagined that our 3 days would turn into one of the hardest, wettest, sometimes scariest yet also the most amazing period of walking I´ve ever done. We left the hostel bright and early on the Monday morning with our back packs brimming with food, tents and sleeping bags eagerly looking forward to what to me was going to be a pleasent stroll around some nice looking scenery in the sunshine. I was very wrong about the weather but very right about the scenery and what we saw. Maybe better if I go through it briefly day by day.

Monday (Day 1) - Take the 3 hour bus to the entrance to the park, sign in and collect our maps then take a 30min boat ride across a lake to the first ´Refugio´or camping spot from where we´d start our walk. Already on the ferry ride I knew that we were in for something special. The lake was the bluest blue. A very ´mineral´blue which makes sense as it is apparently the minerals in the water that causes it. The colour of the lake against the backdrop of huge white mountains was breathtaking. Already though the wind was a hootin. Very windy indeed.

We met a nice Belgian couple on the ferry who were going to do the same trek as us up to the glacier the first day so we tagged along and it was nice to have some company for the first day. They happened to have both been sent to Santiago for work reasons and so decided not to waste the opportunity to come and visit the park. We chatted while we walked, saw an owl on the way and before we knew it (actually 3hours walking later) we came over a ridge and spotted our first ice berg. It was so exciting for some reason! The colour of the ice was incredible, the bluest bluest blue. Yes! Even more blue than the lake we´d just been over!

As we carried on our walk we finally made it to the end of the glacier. Again we came over a ridge and there it was. A huge flowing river of ice coming down the valley and just ending suddenly in the lake. It was a fantastic sight. Look at the photo.

After a nice dinner of some sort of rice soup thing we´d found in the supermarket and a few beers we collapsed into our tent excited about tomorrow would bring.

Tuesday (Day 2) - Our plan had originally been to trek the short 3 hours down to the first Refugio (where we were dropped off by the ferry) , have lunch and then a short 2.5hour trek over to the next refugio, pitch the tent and go have a look up the valley at the mountains. The first part went swimmingly, we must have bolted it down as we arrived early for lunch but just as we were arriving the heavens opened, and they did not close for a long time. We donned our waterproof trousers and jackets (lucky I actually packed them!) and headed off to the next campsite. 2.5hours later we arrived and it was still pouring and the clouds were low. There was no way we were going to see anything up there. We thought ´no point in going up the valley, what shall we do?´. What do you do after treking for 5.5hours with 2.5 in the rain? You trek another 2.5 hours to the next campsite of course! That´s what we decided to do as it would save us time the next morning. At the time it sounded like a reasonable thing to do but I think in hindsight we´ve come to realise that it was absolute madness. Still it was pouring, still we walked. The photo of Kat by the lake is an absolute classic and captures the feeling at that time, still with about an hour to go.

Finally we arrived at the campsite, pitched up, took our sodden clothes off and headed into the warmth of the refugio cafe. I´m not sure we said a word to anyone or each other for a good half hour. Just sat, staring into space and thinking ´what have we just done?´. We saw on the map that we´d walked 23km. Maybe doesn´t sound like much on a road, but with a heavy bag, horrible rainy weather and hard terrain it felt like 123km!!

Wednesday (Day 3) - After the heroics of the day before, this day turned out to be a lot easier and shorter than we firstly anticipated. Again the rain was pouring so within 15mins of leaving the camp at 10am, after waiting a good hour to see if it would calm, by feet were sodden with 6 hours of walking to go. We got a bit lost leaving the campsite, ending up on a horse trail until we finally found it again crossing a bridge over a river to see a tent wallowing around in the white water. Someone had a very unlucky night!

We battled on, being joined by Kath a fellow Brit we´d met in the refugio the night before, crossing huge overflowing rivers ´stepping stone´style (very scary) and doing our best to get through bogs with our feet reasonably dry (not so scary). A couple of hours up the trail we caught up with what at first looked like an absoulte mad man of a camper, dragging black plastic bin bags full of pots and pans and with more bags stacked high on his backpack. Turned out that this ´madman´was a local Chilean and some kind of a Sherpa fellow who was transporting the gear of 7, yes 7 Italians from one Refugio to another. The more impressive thing was this guy was going at a fair lick, not stopping for any river or big puddle. Straight through thank you very much. This is how we trek in Chile. We lost him just as we were heading up the final big climb of the day to the campsite.

The purpose of the final trek was to see the famous ´Torres´up high in the park. 3 granite pillars carved out of the surrounding mountain by a descending glacier. As the weather up to now had been so dreadful we´d all but given up hope of seeing anything but as we arrived in the campsite the weather finally began to clear and you could just about see the tips over the surrounding mountains. However, after the hard day before and another hard day today in the rain we had absolutely no more energy to get up there. We decided to risk it and hope that the weather stayed half descent for tomorrow morning, our last chance.

Thursday (Day 4) - After a good nights sleep we woke up to see that finally, our luck with the weather had broken. Clear blue skies!! So at 8am, still half asleep we sped up the mountain as fast as we could, drinking water from the streams Ray Mears style as we´d forgotten our water bottle. We felt so close to nature, we had become one. Up, up and up the trail went and the closer and closer we got although it did feel at a few points that we would never make it. It was one of those classic ´Just over that hill´moments, where over that hill lay another hill obscuring the view.

Í cant do anymore Rhys´ Kat said.

Ýes you can´I replied. ´This is what we did it for, this is what we live for!!!´ ´FFREEEDOOOOM¨!

Finally, after the 500th hill we made it to see the most amazing sight. 3 huge pillars of granite standing proud over a glacier lake. We thought that after what we´d battled through the previous days we thoroughly deserved it. It was a fantastic ending to the trek.

So, after a quick descend back to the camping we made it back to the bus stop with half an hour to spare. Walking back in blazing blue skies and knowing how lucky we´d been to see those pillars, our legs didn´t hurt anymore (mine didn´t, kat´s did) and our bags felt lighter. Although our bags were actually a lot lighter. Less food you see.

We had a great huge pizza with lots of beers in the evening to say farewell to Kath before collapsing on our hostel beds ready for the bus the next morning. 30hours of busing later and we´ve made it to the small Welsh colony town of Gaiman (no funny jokes please). Strange to see Welsh written around the place and even stranger to be speaking Welsh with the hostel/hotel owner. I´ll write more of our experiences here at a later date. I think the words and photos of Torres del Paine will suffice for now!

Late edit : Sorry but the computer here doesn´t seem to want to upload anymore photos. I promise that I´ll get them up as soon as I can so you can see the bluest blue and also the bluest bluest blue!