WOW, what an amazing tour. The story starts in San Pedro De Attacama, Chile. This is a small town in the middle of the desert. Below are some pics of the scenery around the village.

The faces carved into the rock are pre-inca. Below you see San Pedro as the Oasis in the desert.

From San Pedro we started our 3 day tour into the altiplano of Bolivia. Our tour consisted of Jose our guide, James, Jessica, two Irish ladies, two Scotish lasses and a Jeep. On the tour we saw; numerous lagoons, the sprawling desert, flamingos, llamas and alpacas, volcanoes, smoking sulphur vents, Dali rocks (inspiration for Dalis artwork), thermal baths of 38 degrees, mahusive mountains....

Pictures tell it better...

...on our final day we got up early for sun rise over the Salt Flats

Some fun memories such as sleeping at nearlly 5000m above sea level and meeting this little monster in the salt flats....

We are now in Bolivia and its very different, you really notice the difference moving from the richest to poorest country in South America. Stay tuned for more.... (oooohhhh)

We Couldn't not put these up!

As the last blog was oober brief we have now set aside some time to upload the good stuff - the photos.

As mentioned Mendoza


On a visit to a winery we learnt about the wine making process. To the left you see the bottles maturing in one of the old fermenting casks. We opened a small doorway and inside were 4,000 bottles. We sampled lots of Melbec (as seen below), a local grape as well as others.

As mentioned, Val Paraiso.

The last blog mentioned the sprawling colourfully painted city. The image here gives you an idea. This is one of our favourites. Although we did not fall in love with the city due to its messy backdrop, it certainly had a charm of its own.

To The End's Of Chile

We are now coming to the end of our time in Chile and Argentina, and are about to begin the Bolivian leg of our journey.


Since our last update we have been prettttty busy. We went from Pucon in the lake district up to Valparaiso, which is a Bohemian town on the Pacific Coast. Lot's of buildings covered in artwork and an amazing city design, built into the side of various hills facing the port. James found a new hobby in our hostel as there was a trapeze bar and those fabrics which you can climb up and fall down like in the BBC advert a while ago. Two floors up the building using the fabric after 2 litres of beer is no easy task!

After leaving Valparaiso we then went to Santiago de Chile where we were able to enjoy the poolside bar and bbq at our hostel. We did some exploring of the city and then got on a bus over the mountains to Mendoza (Argentina). The journey was amazing, winding up and up over the pass.

In Mendoza we went on a wine tour, by bicycle! It was a really fun day visiting an olive oil factory, a family vineyard and a chocolate and liquor factory...lot's of tasting was done!

We then took an overnight bus back to Santiago (8 hours) and got the first bus up to La Serena (7 hours). This would have been much more manageable if we hadn't had to wait for nearly 2 hours at the border at 3am while someone had 2 huge suitcases of illegally transported clothing counted, and counted and counted!

In La Serena we went on a really great tour out to the Isla Damas, where we were able to see Humboldt Penguins, Sea Lions and Dolphins up close and personal. It was Jess' dream come true. James then had the chance to swim in the Pacific on a white sand beach while a whole school of dolphins swam past our to sea, diving up into the air! We were then treated to a lovely fresh fish meal in the tiny coastal town miles from anywhere!

We are now currently in San Pedro de Atacama, and tomorrow we have a 3 day jeep tour into Bolivia through the salt deserts.

We will upload lots more pictures soon!

James & Jess

Bocca Fans!

For those footbal fans, a glimpse Latin American football supporters.

The Lakes - Chile

It has been an eventful last week. We arrived in Puerto Varas after a cheap flight from which we could see the Andes mountains and the Perito Moreno Glacier! Puerto Varas was lovley but the weather was mixed, it is a lovely town on a lake in the shadow of a two Volcanoes. A highlight was on a very sunny day taking the local bus to Lake Petrohue. This was a much more isolated lake and we spent the afternoon kyaking and swimming.




Next stop was Pucon. We loved Pucon so much we spent four jam packed day here. On our first day we went on a cycle ride to local waterfalls and beach called Playa Blanca. The sand was white and the water fresh and blue.


The best day was when we climbed Volcan Villarica. This took us 3 hours to reach the summit, including almost 2 hours of climbing up the glacier in crampons with an ice axe. It was pretty tough going and very very steep, but we made it and the crater was amazing! There were also great panoramic views across the surrounding lake district. We felt like we were on top of the world! The guide walked us round the crater, during which we walked right across a vent which was pumping out sulphur, which the guide later told us was 'muy peligroso' (very dangerous!)
On the way down we were able to slide down the natural crevases in the ice on our bums, using the ice axe as a break. Although we nearly slid off the edge about 15 times, we made it to the bottom safe and sound (and to James' satisfaction, we were one of the quickest groups up and down!)

Other activities in Pucon involved visiting a local national park and hot springs with some hostel pals. On our final night we checked out the sunset over the lake which we heard was spectaclar, and it was:

Torres Del Paine

Hello avid readers (ha)... anyone?

The last few weeks have been eventful…and itchy! The main event was our 6 day camping and trekking expedition in the Torres Del Paine Nacional Park. Within these 6 days we had 5 uncomfortable nights sleep, 1 good meal, 1 night of rain, 105km of walking/stumbling, 5 tins of Krispos (SA crisps) and too many hills to count. Highlights; we saw some amazing condors and witnessed the most beautiful scenery. We even saw an avalanche.

There were also some ‘amusing’ moments along the way, one being James’ tent clostrophobia. The 100 odd fleas we pìcked up on the way and are still accompanying us. Sleeping one night upside down on a slope like a bat

We will let the photos do the talking….

(NB you can click on the photos to see it bigger!)

The final shot here is the Torre - we camped below this point on our final night and got up at 6am to climb to a view point. Here at sunrise the rocks turned red! It was very cool!

Photos Galore

Hola Chicas, here are some photos as mentioned of El Chalten and Perito Moreno Glacier discussed in last post.

El Chalten:





Perito Moreno Glacier:





News of our camping expedition to come......