23/04/04- 24/04/04 Concepción

Arrived late, having gone through Temuco- not a very interesting place and the central market can not surely be the best place to eat. We booked into the strangest hostel and grabbed a bite to eat and went to bed. The next day we explored the town. Having done that we had breakfast. No not really, but not far off it. Concepción is very small given that it is the third largest city in Chile and not that interesting though we did have one of the nicest days on this trip so far just sitting in the university grounds reading and learning a bit of Spanish.

Temuco was a place with a lot of blind Karaoke singers in the streets. Only place in S. America I have seen this. Voices like angels they had too.

Concepción - the most popular restaurant we found there was really busy and expensive and was just a burger joint with graces. Obviously we weren't in the know but we did become the talk of the town after Fiona killed a policeman.

20/04/04-22/04/04 Pucon

Pucon is a tiny little town dedicated, it would seem, to tourists. On our first day here it rained very heavily and given that we were banking on sitting on the side of a lake and chilling out we were none to pleased. However on the second day the sky cleared to reveal a huge snow capped volcano right next to the town, so like the healthy outdoorsy type that we are (now) we decided to take a walk out of town so that we could see the other two volcanoes. After that we took a trip to the local thermal baths which was amazing. Apart from the fact that it was freezing because this was a night time excursion that baths were spectacular because we could sit outside in, I think minus temperature, to star gaze. Also I got to go into a mud bath which was great fun, but a bit smelly.

Funny- when it rained here we thought the place was a bit crap but a bit of sunshine and a few volcanoes later we didn't. Or not that funny.

18/04/04- 20/04/04 Valdavia, Chile

Crossed over to Chile and our first impressions were that the Chilian lake district looked a lot like the south east of England. I am sure that it was just the contrast with Argentina and that we are the only people on earth to think that, but parts of it did remind me of home. We were due to stop in Osorno but one look at the place and we decided to head straight for Valdavia. On arrival we were press ganged into staying and the worst hostel on earth, but it gave us an opportunity to test out the sleeping bag covers. Valdavia is fantastic, the buildings are all really old and colonial looking, like something out of a wild west film, which is made even more authentic by the fact that the whole place is clouded in smoke so it appears sepia. They also have sea lions at the quayside waiting for the fishmongers to throw them scraps and amazing birds presumably doing the same.

The woman who ran the hotel / hostel thing we stayed in was a right freak. She was always on at us to do a boat tour and when we told her we were leaving on the last morning she went spare over breakfast- which also meant as a consequence we didn't get any scrambled eggs; her portly maid didn't stop giggling and the walls of bathroom billowed out in huge hemispheres. They also had an unhealthy obsession with horses. I think the hotel woman's husband was sleeping with the plump maid. Recommended.

The town itself looks like a picture of your home town c. 1907. I know as I have seen pictures of all your home towns from that time.

14/04/04-17/04/04 Bariloche

On our first day here we saw 2 tigers by the side of the lake. On the second we did a 4 hour trek in rainforest, on the third we walked around two lakes to get to a waterfall and then found a revolving restaurant where we were able to enjoy a view of the desert, lakes and forest all whilst having a bite to eat and a couple of very nice glasses of wine. Have I mentioned yet that I really love Argentina. On our final day here we took a boat trip across the lake to another lake (Lago Fria) and then walked up the side of a mountain to another lake via a very impressive waterfall. Bariloche is one of the most beautiful places ever, the town is extremely touristy and resembles a European ski resort, which isn’t really that surprising given that it is a ski resort, but the surrounding area is just breathtaking.

I also thought Bariloche was great

10/04/04-13/04/04 Puerto Madryn

On our arrival we were in need of two things, a shower and a launderette. Managed to find both very quickly and then set about exploring. Not surprisingly the exploration was cut a little short when we found a nice restaurant/bar overlooking the sea. The next few days we took it extremely easy and mostly sat on the beach. We did take a walk up to the beach where the welsh settlers landed and explored the ecocentre near there. I also managed to find a welsh tea shop for my first decent cup of tea in the southern hemisphere. Hooray.

There is a site here showing where the Welsh settlers first went over and they lived in buildings constructed into the caves along the cliff. This was obviously a very long time ago and there wasn't a town there then.

Lots of cars with ridiculous body kit here but it turns out all of Latin America has this- good fun to laugh at as they crawl noisily up and down the coast road. Not much else to say about the place except that the beach isn't all that nice. It sounds like Southend- but it's a lot better.

08-09/04/04 El Calafate

We arrived by air which gave us an amazing first impression of the Patagonia desert and found a fantastic hostel. Also managed to find a couple of drinking partners so proceeded to get very drunk, which as we had to be up at 5am to catch a bus, proved a very bad idea. The bus trip was not too comfy either, but it was worth it as it was to the national park containing the Perito Moreno Glacier which was spectacular. After another couple of hours on a bus we returned to El Calafate to decide where to go next and have a look round the town. We took a walk down to Lake Argentina which was stunning and decided to face our first big bus trip of 26 hours.

Glacier was amazing- we haven't got any pictures but here are some on someone else's site:

http://www.bildungsservice.at/faecher/geo/Staaten%20und%20Landschaften/Argentinien/photogalerie%20argentinien%2038.htm

05/04/04- 07/04/04 Ushuaia

This was the first place that it dawned on me that we were going to be away for a while. It was like nowhere I have ever been before and totally brilliant. All the buildings were made of corrugated iron and I kept expecting a moose to come around each corner like in Northern Exposure. Whilst we were there we took a trip to the national park at the “End of the World” and, because we got there early, we had the whole place to ourselves. It was quite weird but extremely beautiful. After that we took a boat trip to the southern most tip of Tierra del Fuego to annoy the colonies of sea lions, seals and penguins that lived there.

Fill in the gaps with these words:

Penguins
Sick

We went on a boat trip to see _______. It was bumpy. We felt _______.

Well done!

1-4/04/04 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Following an unscheduled stopover in Frankfurt airport we made it to BA on the 1st April and went straight to bed. Then after a much needed rest in the Hotel Goya we explored the town. We managed rather quickly to find the bars down by the docks and settled in to watch the sun set. The following day we decided to be cultural and visited the art galleries. The MALBA gallery was impressive both in its architecture and exhibits. Then we did the ultimate tourist trip in BA and went to see where Madonna, I mean Evita, was buried. The rest of the cemetery was far more impressive. On the walk home we found another great bar and sat in a leafy enclave sipping cocktails. The next day we intended on a lazy day in the park, only we misread the map and ended up going to the nature reserve. This would have been lovely had we gone the right way. Instead we ended up walking about 5 kms in sweltering heat. On the 4th we traveled to La Boca which was an experience in itself, during a home game. Great place but I was sure that a war had broken out with all the fireworks that were going off. I think they even managed to half blow up one of the buses they were traveling in by setting something off inside it. On the way back we stopped onto a café for a bite to eat and a bit to drink. I was thinking it would be a bit like little bay in Kilburn, but it was more like the Albert Hall, very posh but thankfully very cheap.

I really liked Bs.As. - lots of people going through the bins though. Fiona said that they should be more careful not to throw things out that they want. Luckily they seem to get the children and old women to search the rubbish instead.