Not a natural wonder, but a natural relief are the luxurious bus services in Argentina. One of many things that make travelling in this country comfy and easy. So I arrived in Buenos Aires from the border with Brazil in style even if a little tired from doing nothing on a bus all the previous day and having lived it up just a little too much on my last days in Brazil (oh how I miss Caiparinhas!) Buenos Aires, a contemporary South American city, with a very European flavour to it. I went out walking on my first day there, to orientate myself with the city and was asked 3 times just randomly (map in hand or staring at a street map) if I needed help in finding where to go. How nice were the people here, they genuinely seemed to care. The rest of my days in BA I toured around the city visiting tango bars and nightclubs, going to the Boca area famous for its colourful buildings and football club (Boca Jnrs), visiting the famous cemetary and crafts markets, and having a good time being in big city. It´s here too that I again got mixed up with some crazy australians and drank a couple of hilarious days into oblivion.

Needing to detox, I headed down to Bariloche, in the lake district of Argy. Lacking in sleep in the last days in BA, I had no problem snoozing on 22 hour bus ride down there. Everytime that I did manage to open my eyes during the morning trip, it was to amazing scenery always including a lake outside my window. No wonder they call this the lake district, they are bloody everywhere!!! Arriving in Bariloche I was immediately taken with its similarity to Queenstown in NZ. The same small city beside a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains with all the same outdoor activities available (except the jetboat and bungy) and all the same tourist shops and restaurants, the only thing obviously missing was the asian writing on all the tourist shops. It was really uncanny, and I wasn´t the only one who noticed it. I went for a horse trek the afternoon I got there on the bounciest horse I have ever had the pleasure to gallop on and an English girl who I met there also made the comparison. We had amazing views from the top of the mountain we´d trekked up and I felt good to be alive. I trekked (on foot) all the next day in the Llao Llao park, again affording stunning and serene views from the hills I puffed up. Luckily Bariloche is famous in Argentina for its chocolate and I made sure I replenished my weak body with loads of samplers. Then I would have attempted a four hour trek to a local summit had it not been that I was caught up by the aussie boys of Buenos Aires fame and sunk quickly into hangover city to the point where I actually missed my bus to Puerto Montt, Chile.

When I finally got to Puerto Montt, it was a sunday and it was dead, except for the shopping mall and so I had a look at some digital cameras. My video camera had been playing up for a month or so now and hardly ever worked when I needed it too. I wasn´t able to get my digital video camera fixed in this city, but buy a new one so that I didn´t miss out on recording the scenery I could. Ed would be proud of me, I did my homework and took a look online at the models and their prices around the world, and am now the proud owner of a Kodak digital camera. It is really fun to begin with and also really easy to download the pics, bonus for readers as photos are now being included!! Apart from the big purchase (US$270.00) I did little else in Puerto Montt except cowardly sneak out of the first hostal I had chosen, by making a shifty quick exit - after first having relieved myself and because of the state of the loo and rooms - to find somewhere half decent to stay.

Leaving Puerto Montt wasn´t hard, and made extra easy by the fact that I was taking a semi-cruise down the Chilean Fjords for the next 3.5 days. And it did feel like I was on a cheap cruise boat when I got on board the Navimag to Puerto Natales. There was a boarding lounge, and all our bags were taken onboard for us, while we boarded and within an hour of setting off we had a briefing about safety and where we would be going and what we would be seeing, and the programs that were set out for us each day including; documentaries and movies, meals, bar openning times, and evening entertainment like bingo and party nights!!! (The only thing missing was the pool and the gym.) It was very relaxing, just watching the scenery slip by, looking out for wildlife or watching the waters. The weather wasn´t great, but I had been warned about that, and just enjoyed the time relaxing out, chatting with new friends, going up on the bridge when they manouvered through the narrow parts. It got a bit exciting at the one stage where we entered the open sea, the Pena´s Gulf, which is renowned for its rough waters, and we rolled around and bobbed about in the crossing, sending loads of people off to the loos and to bed early but which just made me a bit thick headed and ever so slightly nausias. Because I had been enjoying myself so much on the trip, I decided it would be nice to celebrate on the last night with everyone, and ended up getting roaring drunk, joking and laughing with all my new friends, twirling round the dance floor until we were ousted from the bar, at which time I took a visit up to the bridge (at 4am in the morning!!! newsflash, they navigate in the dark otherwise they can not see anything out of the windows), and narrowly avoided being implicated in a fight in the mess!!!

Quite needless to say my introduction to Puerto Natales was a painful one. I awoke in such a state the following morning that I had to paint one of the boats numerous and very clean lavatories with my insides before I was able to get myself together enough to dissembark. I wasn´t worst off though, a young brit who had unfortunately relieved himself in his sleep on his bunk took about 2 hours to get off the boat. Puerto Natales, in a beautiful setting with sea and mountains is a nice little town, if a little non-discript. I stayed in a quaint bed and breakfast with stuffed animals all over the place but an otherwise comfy homely feel about the place. This is the town that I had to organise my trip into the amazing Torres del Paine national park for four days trekking, but because of my state of mind (absent) on my first day here, I just mooched about and organised it all the next day. It ended up being quite expensive, because I was going to stay in the huts (couldn´t manage carrying camping gear and food by myself for four days - not quite that buff yet). But because I wasn´t camping I decided to take in all my own food for the four days I was really excited about the chilean challenge.

Torres Del Paine

Day 1 - Transfer only Bus ride in, easy. Got stuck at park administration for a short while when my transfer left me behind, but sorted it out in time for me to take the boat up to the Grey Glaciar. It is impressive from afar and looks so big, but you can´t really appreciate it until you are right up there underneath the 20-30 meters sticking out of the water. The way is treacherous, as there are icebergs everywhere jutting out of the lake that makes me feel like I am in the antarctic. The sun came out for us just long enough to appreciate the bold blue of the ice. It was freezing out on deck, the wind sweeping off the glaciar made me feel like I was standing in a huge refridgerator with the fan on, but it was majestical and worth staying out for. To top off the tour they gave us all whiskey or pisco sour (chile and peru are still fighting over who´s national drink this is) or any other alcohol over glaciar ice, mmmmmm, a bit of warming before I get off and skip into my first hut, dump my gear and go out walking up to the lookout over the glaciar. Its so cold this far south in the world, and while I am looking out over the glaciar it starts to rain a bit and I am surprised it isn´t snowing. Late to eat, and I chat to the hut staff till late...its good to know spanish sometimes.

Day 2 - First Day trekking Oh, my god! 10 minutes in and I thought my back might break. Immediately aware that the more I eat the lighter my pack will become I started to plan my meals as I pushed myself up the 500 meter hill (felt like a mountain to me), and thought hard on why I had insisted on bringing 4 cans of beer as afternoon treats instead of more chocolate. Actually it wasn´t all that bad, beautiful scenery, with the glaciar and lake always to my right, sometimes exciting and slightly treacherous wet parts of the track, and I made it to the next hut only 15 minutes over the recommended time of 3 1/2 hours. In fact I even did another 2 hour walk around Lake Pehoe just to take in the amazing scenery. Secretly hoping the extra excercise will help me out for the next 3 days...

Day 3 - The big one Started out as early as possible. It was a stunner of a day compared to the last slightly grey and cloudy ones. And I wanted to do as much as possible of the Frech Valley, get far enough to see the inner circle of mountains. Pushing through the more than crisp morning, passing more lakes and getting to the camp at the base of the mountains that is still frozen over in two hours, lock my pack up a pole structure (because of the rats you can´t leave them on the ground) and start the ascent. Over boulders and up alongside the river as the glacial valley opens up beyond. After an hour I reach and open sunny spot and take a break watching and listening as avalanches boom there way down the opposite valley. It is incredible and mezmerising watching them, they are so loud and shake the air around. I continue up the the valley in the blazing sun blue skied day, whence upon I meet up with Will and Becca. Becca had to go down as her knee was playing up, so I continued up with Will, through the forest, and swamps till we got into what I call the Inner Circle - majestic!

The two hours down from the valley and then with both my bags for the next two hours to the hut, tested me, I was tired, getting cold, and my feet were killing me, but I had walked for over 8 hours today, and was also really proud of my effort - many people had not even bothered to make it up to the Inner Circle.

Day 4 - Up to the famous Torres almost Not so hard to get up and back into my hiking boots, but I really felt the general fatigue as we went up and down, up and down, until we finally just went up up up. I pushed and pushed, but my little legs would only go so far in front of each other, and although I had finished all the cans of beer and all the tins of seafood, my pack weighed down on my shoulders. On the map it looked like 6 hours to get up there, but thanks to a well marked short cut and perserverance, we only spent 4 hours walking through a drizzly but not really wet day. Once at the hut, it was rest and hope like heck that the thick cloud over the the famous Torres (towers) would be gone in the morning when we wanted to go and get intimate with them. Last night of the trip, we had a few wines and were that rawcaus group everyone else wishes would stop having so much fun.

Day 5 - The Torres del Paine Every hour or less from 5AM we were up to see if the rain and clouds had cleared from the mountains above. Finally at 8.15 dutch Rob yelled at everyone to get up, it was clear on the mountain! Quickly fuelled and out of the hut, I was on full form this morning, practically running having rested up the rest of the day yesterday. We got to the boulder climb and it said 45 minute to the top, will and lunged towards in and cleared the top in 30 minutes! I was running on pure endorphins. The three towers are quite something to behold, there is only a small freezing lake between you and there sheer ascent.

I felt wonderful to be alive, elated, and although it got cold very quickly I enjoyed every moment up there. As the cloud started moving in on them again we decided to leisurely go back down to the hut, lunch, pick up our gear and got down to the admin hut this end within another 2 hours. Sore, tired, but feeling like I had really achieved something, it was sad to see the dark take the view of the park from me finally.

After a couple of days of rest in Puerto Natales I my was on my final bus south to the Land of Fire (Tierra del Fuego - called this because of all the fires along the beaches the first expeditioners saw when they came in their ships), southern most tip of South America, southern most destination for me, Ushuaia. The trip was fairly relaxed and a little boring, horizon to horizon of crazy clouds, rolling feilds and very beautiful native geese. I was back in Argentina, the land of grills, and in this part particularly sheep, so I feasted on racked up lamb... mmmm taste of home. In Ushuaia, I did a bit of hiking, checked out an awesome museum of the old prison. The prison museam also included an interesting section on the amazing local indians who lived down here is this extreme cold swimming and surviving almost entirely naked most of the time, but were wiped out by western diseases brought by the missionaries. Down in the deep cold south of the earth I also went out to watch Beavers - a definate highlight!

From here my journey starts heading north again in search of warmer climes. As you will see, it will take me a long time to find them...