Pucón September 22nd - 25th

We arrived in Pucòn on Monday evening and were pretty licky to end up the only guests in a really nice hostel, near the lake shore. We did plan to climb Volcan Villarica on Tuesday, but the weather was too bad. This wasn`t really a bad thing, as it is a very nice town just to relax in. It has a nice beach on the lake shore with black volcanic sand. In the evening we went to some hot springs about 30mins out of town. They were very atmospheric, as you had to walk down into a steep valley and there were 6 natural rock pools of varying temperature. Almost no other people too, so we almost had the pools to ourselves. Yesterday was another fantastic clear day, and we were able to climb to the top of Volcan Villarica. The volcano dominated the scenery around the town at 2800m high, and its has the classic cone shape. In winter is is all covered in snow however and we went with a guide, who also kitted us up with all the necessary ice axes etc. It was a hard slog from a start at 1400m, but after about 4 and a half hours, we were able to eat our lunch on the edge of the huge Crater at the summit. It is still quite active and letting out puffs of steam and strange noises all the time. In the afternoon it was time to come down, but definitely not walking. We put on these kind of giant waterproof nappy things, then slide the whole way down on our bums. Definitely a very amusing way to descend over a 1000m of volcano.Today it was time for us to go our separate ways. Strange for me, as it is the first time I have actually hung around with people for several days on this trip rather than just knowing people for literally a day or 2.So yes, i`ve taken a bus back into Argentina, to a town called San Martin de los Andes in the Argentine lake district. Its one of these holiday town for rich Argentines, in a very nice setting though. It is definitely becoming spring time now, with lots of blossom on the trees. Also a lot warmer as i am now walking around in a t-shirt.
O

The Boat....September 18th - 22nd

All,I have just finished a pretty amazing voyage from Purto Natales in the very south of Patagonia to Puerto Montt in the Chilean Lake district. A passage of 3 and a half days on board the Puerto Eden. It is in fact a cargo ship, converted to carry passengers (as well as still carrying cargo). This means there is no proper passenger boarding ramp, so at 9pm last Thursday a group of about 30 of us gathered at the port. After a brief talk, we were led into the hold of the ship through the rear cargo doors and onto a large metal platform. It took me a second to realise what it was, but after looking up to the hole in the roof I realised we were actually on a truck lift! going up felt a bit like being in the opening credits of Top Gun! Too start with we all had to have a safety meeting in the dinning/common room, which was to become the hub of social activity for the next few days. Then we had an opportunity to get to know are fellow passengers. In total there were maybe 30, with i think 18 backpackers. Of the backpackers there was a mixture of a few brits, irish, french, italian, columbian, american and canadian. A really good group actually and we all got on really well (if somewhat helped by a generous amount of alcohol). The other passengers consisted of a few older travelers and a few chileans.The Friday was spent in the southern Fjords of Patagonia, where the ship passed through some channels, barely wide enough for it to fit with just a few metres left on either side. The nice thing about the ship, is that almost nowhere was off limits and we were in fact welcome to visit the bridge, chat to captain and have our photos taken pretending to drive the ship etc. The bridge was in fact one of the best places just to watch the scenery drift past at a very sedate 12knots. In terms of on board activities, they showed a couple of film a day in the dinning room, we just sat about talking or playing cards. Although there was a bar on the boat we were allowed to bring as much alcohol as we wanted onto the boat, so there was definitely a `merry`atmosphere amongst the passengers. Of course 3 times a day we would all get together for meals, the food was actually really good, and it was nice for everyone to get together round a couple of big tables.On the second day the weather wasn`t so good, and it was also the day that we would leave the shelter of fjords for 12 hours and enter the oceanic region...This is where we were open to the pacific and the big swells. By about 2.30pm most people were either sick or just lying in their bunks to stave off the seasickness. The only people still `standing`as it were were me and a guy called Jon. He has spent a lot of time as sea, in fact a lot more than me, so we were both quite happy to play cards even though we had to hold ourselves into our seats as the boat rocked from side to side. Dinner that evening was quite exiting as our trays would sometimes slide around on the tables. Most people managed to get some food down though and by about 10pm the seas had calmed enough that people even started drinking again!I woke up on Sunday to an amazing day outside. A clear sunny day and a very slight wind from astern, meant that there was very little wind over the boat. The boat had an open top deck above the bridge, so pretty much all the passengers spent the day sitting up there. Later i the afternoon, we got to visit the engine room, which of course for me was pretty exiting..!Come Monday, we were all turfed of the boat at 8.30 am, and by 9am Purto Montt bus station had a pile of rather hungover backpackers literally piled up in a corner. Seeing as i hadn`t done any of the planning I was meant to do on the boat, i didn`t really know where I was going to go next. Kasey, an American I had actually first met in El Calafate was gig to go to Pucòn, which had hot springs. This sounded a very good plan, so i jumped on the bus along with Nick (American), Gordon (Canadain) and Jon (Brit/Canadian) up to Pucòn.
O

Map Update

Thought I should update my map a bit. I`m afraid the computers here don`t get any more hi tech than ms paint for editing the picture. It is the actual map I am carrying with me though, so at least its authentic.

I will update you on the the last week or so, I can`t get my photos onto this computer so its a lit delayed i`m afraid. I`ll do it in the next day or two I hope.

Dry Land

I have made it back onto dryland, after my 3 day voyage up the western patagonian coast line. A more detailed update will follow soon....

North to Fitzroy (and back) 13-17th September

Well, i`m back in Puerto Natales now after a 5 day jaunt back into Argentina. On Saturday I made it up to El Chalten, a very small town which basically only exists because it sits on the edge of the Fitzroy national park and some of Argentina´s best scenery. So keeping with the general trend of the week I set of on a 9 hour hike through the park, hoping to get some good views of Mount Fitzroy itself. Similar to the Torres in Chile, Fitzroy is basically a huge granite spike, sticking up over 3000m in altitude. Unfortunately this means the top is normally covered in cloud (which is was on Sunday!), so no really fantastic views were had. However I also walked to Laguna Piedros Blancos. which is at the bottom of the Piedros glacier. Quite an amazing place as you have to climb through a moraine field with boulders the size of hours to reach it. Once there you are completely surrounded by huge mountains of moraine and a stunning view of the glacier clinging to the side of the mountain. This of course meant more avalanches and I spent a god hour, watching and waiting for huge chunks of ice to crash hundreds of metres down the mountain. On Monday I took another trek to the Lago Torre, but again views of cerro torre (one of S Americas hardest climbs), was obscured by cloud. After walking 7 out of the last 8 days and having done about 100miles, I was pretty fed up of walking and took the bus back to El Calafate on Monday night.Yesterday I took a trip to Perito Moreno glacier, the only one on the world still advancing. This is really Patagonia`s showpiece glacier and it is pretty damn impressive at 5km wide and oer 30 long. Although having seen a glacier pretty much everyday for a week, i was suffering a little of glacier fatigue.Well today I came back to Puerto Natales as tomorrow I am taking the Navimag ferry to Puerto Montt. It is a cargo/Passenger ferry which takes about 3 days to pass through the hundreds of islands on Patagonia`s west cost up to Puerto Montt. I have h4eard very god things abut it, as long as the weather holds out, otherwise it might be a bit of a seasickness nightmare. I`ll let you know how i get on..
O

Super Bonito!! Torres del Paine National Park 8th-12th of September

All,Well i`m back from hiking the `W` in the Torres del Paine (Towers of Paine) national park, and to be honest the title says it all, super Bonito! The Torres stand apart from the rest of the andes in a giant mountainous outcrop of their own. The huge granite spires reach straight up for over a thousand meters from the glaciers below and are topped with another several hundred metres of black volcanic rock. All of which is being gradually eroded with time by the weather, creating impossibly sharp crags and an absolutely stunning landscape. I set of early on Monday morning, getting a ride into the park a couple of hours away with the friendly Humberto. I was hiking from West to East and was the only person to set of that day, meaning I only saw a couple of people hiking the other direction all day. Starting this way you get an incredible view of the Paine Massif as you approach from the south, apart from that it was a relatively easy 20km or so along flattish trail. My only other companion in the campsite that night was a an extremely un talkative Korean. The main thing I noticed was that he could hardly walk after being in the park for 3 days, this I thought was rather ominous.....On Tuesday I hiked up the first arm of the W to the Glacier Grey. Now i`ve seen glaciers before in New Zealand and the alps, but this was something completely different. It is literally a `mountain eater` several miles across and stretching way beyond where I could see up into the clouds. Below it the Lago Grey is full of ice bergs which are constantly crashing from the mouth of the glacier. For a couple of hours walking along the edge of the valley towards it you have this amazing view, and I was lucky enough to be the only one there to enjoy it! I pitched my tent on the lake shore and headed up to climb the valley above the glacier. After an hour or so I was stopped in my tracked however. Unfortunately a combination of winter avalanches and landslides had completely obliterated the path, leaving an impassable gorge. However I was still able to enjoy stunning views across the glacier, again alone in this incredible wilderness.Wednesday was a pretty long hard day, hiking to the middle of the W to pitch my tent at campamento Italiano before heading up the Valley Francais in the afternoon. Within about half an hour, the trees open out into this amazing view across to Paine Grande and and the Glacier Francais, which is literally dripping of the side of the mountain. In fact every 10 or 15 minutes the valley is full of the sounds of crashing ice and snow as huge chunks break off and tumble several hundred metres down into the valley. Another few hours hiking up to the glacial bowl, again brings amazing views well worth the long slog up. There is literally a 360 panorama of los cuernos, fortaleza (the fortress), paine grande and also the aleta del Tiburon (the sharks fin). The last is an amazing razor shape edge of rock arching a thousand metres into the sky. That night I met a group of 3 Catalans (from the Pyrenees in fact) who were also hiking the W, but`had started a day earlier. The campsite was deserted (it is in fact late winter here, and therefore not hiking season, although I had perfect weather for 5 days) and Xavi had discovered that the window to the refugio (where the rangers stay in season) conveniently opened if you pushed it hard enough....This meant instead of a freezing cold evening in the tent, I got to enjoy the company of some other people in the nice warm refugio. Day 4 (Thursday), I set of alone to hike to the last arm of the W to the base of the `Torres`themselves. Not far from the campsite I met up with the Spaniards again and walked the last bit with them. This campsite was at about 700m,so unfortunately was completely covered in snow. There were no conveniently broken windows that Xavi could find, but there was a small open sided shelter fortunately that we could bivi in. The evening was spent trying to keep warm in front of the fire and drinking neat pisco (a Peruvian spirit) to celebrate Dmitris birthday.The last day, unfortunately brought some cloud. But there was still a good hike up to the Torres with their tops mysteriously shrouded in cloud. The long walk out was a bit of a drag and seemed to go on for hours. Also the guy who drove us back to Puerto Natales must have a hard a hard time putting up with the smell of 4 people who hadn`t showered for 5/6 days!` A pleasant, but rather tired evening was spent in the others hostel, eating loads of good food and wine. 5 days of noodles tres minutos was starting to take its toll on my taste buds..Well Now i`m on my to el Chalten. I`m currently having a pit stop in el Calafate, but will carry on later this afternoon. I`ll let you know how I get on in a few days
O

still alive

Hey, just to let you know i`m still alive. however i need to go to bed for a few days now to recover, therefor my experiences will be documented at a later date (in the next day or 2)
O

just popping out for a walk, September 8th - ......?

Just to let you know i`m about to go off for a 5-6 day (weather depending) trek in the Torres del Paine national park, so therefore I won`t be updating this for the next week or so. I hope to be back in civilisation next weekend some time. For now, i`m all loaded up ready to go (6 days of food is damn heavy you know).
O

Back on the Road, 5th-6th of September

Yep, so i`ve started my long trip back north. This started with a horrifically early bus from Ushuaia (5.30am) to Punta Arenas in Chile. Most of the 12 hour bus journey was actually spent waiting, firstly for the border crossing and then for a ferry to take us across the straights of Magellan to the South American mainland. This of course is the most interesting bit, and the only part I have photos of. I feel I should point out that the minefield is just behind the sign that says `Welcome to Chilian Tierra del Fuego`....After arriving in Punta Arenas it took a while to find a hostel which was actually open. Managed to find a really nice one in the end, with the only other people staying there being a friendly couple from the states (Mike and Cari). I can`t say there is a lot to do in Punta Arenas, although I did find some amusement while waiting for the post office to open (which coincidentally was a rather daft exercise as i hadn`t realised i`d changed timezones!! i know i`m a dafty). anyway there was a small soap opera going on over the street between and elderly street vendor and another elderly guy who obviously wasn`t welcome near the vendor. He would hang out on a corner about 30 yards away, and gradually move ever closer to the vendor. However when got he got about halfway there, the vendor would get out a big stick and chase him off down the road (but this is all done in a rather elderly shuffle like run). This was repeated about 5 times!This afternoon I took the bus to Puerto Natales (still in Chile). From here I have access to the Torres del Paigne national park, which is apparently stunning. I hope to do some hiking in the park in the next week or so. This is also the departure point for the 3 day long ferry to Purto Montt, which I may be taking in the next week or 2. Well that's it for now, i`ll be in touch again soon.

O

Ushuaia, last days 1st-4th of September

Well this is my last day here in Ushuaia, tomorrow I am heading over to Punta Arenas in Chile. The bus leaves at stupid a.m (about 5 i think), sothere will be very little sleep for me tonight i think.The main event for this week was that I managed to go snowboarding yesterday. This is one of the few places in the world that you can ski/board within site of the sea. It was again at San Martial, that I walked up to on saturday. Although there is only one chairlift and only one run really, there is lots of opportunity to climb up higher and find some excellent offpiste, which I of course did. I´m afraid there arn´t any photos, but I am in the process of trying to upload a video, which may or may not work. This week there has also been another student in the house, Terresa from Brazil. It has been quite funny to talk to her in Spanish, as it is neither of ours first language, so we both have to struggle to get words out. This evening I am going in to help with some english classes again, which I have already been doing this week. Its quite fun really and it means I get ot talk English without feeling guilty..!