Costa Australis Hotel Puerto Natales

... south and here our luck began to run out. We had a list of things we wanted to do in Chile.
1. Climb a volcano
2. Snowboard down a volcano
3. Take a ship through the Patagonian fjords
4. Do a 4 day hike through the Torres del Paine national park (Glaciers, ice fields etc)

Our first stop was Villarica. A chilled little town in the Lake District (a bit like the lake district at home but more active volcanoes and less traffic ...

... at hostels. It didnt occur to me until Ryan decided that he had to buy me a backpack and that I left my hairdryer at home that we were going camping. As I read the chapter I became more and more scared. I had never read the words under the pictures where I had to hike for hours a days in a row while sleeping on the ground just to see these things. We arrived in Punta Arenas a very southern town, with a huge duty free shopping zone. Once we found our ...

... but we could already see from the surrounding scenery that this place was all about its natural beauty. The famous Torres del Paine mountain loomed in the background, based in apparently South America“s “finest“ National Park. It was Torres del Paine we had come to see and there were a few options on how to see it: 1) The popular 4-5 day trek called the “W“, not after the seminal Wu Tang Clan album, but because the trek route pretty much looks like a “W“. 2) The 10 day ...

... the plan was to cross the straight of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego and back in Argentina towards Ushuaia but due to a dia feriado in Argentina (Dia de las Malvinas), it will not be possible to cross the border, therefore, I will make a little detour a spend the night in Punta Arenas, the most southern city of Chile, home of the very good Austral beer (la cerveza del fin del mundo), especially the Austral negra is worth a try !

... by a glass of Chilean wine! We left Puerto Montt the following day and started our journey towards the Patagonian Welsh colony, travelling through the famed Lake District that straddles the border between Chile and Argentina. We had heard so much about this district that we wanted to stop at one of its principal towns, San Carlos de Bariloche, for a couple of days. From the bus, I stared in awe at the scenery as ...

... guy at the agency was quite surprised by this and thought the Navimag people might be saying it“s full so as not to book any more people because they“re not sure it will even run on Tuesday ... the ship is quite notorious for not running to it“s schedules. He said to come back on Monday and we will talk to the Navimag people and see if there is still a place ...

... um less deep than the ocean I'm guesing. But then again the ocean isnt uniformly deep so thats a bit of nonsense really. I think what I've done there is sacrificed accuracy for cadence. Its my style. In one ...

... to the PC to check the Champions League draw which had happened on Friday but which I had no way of finding out in the park; I was desparate!

I wanted to avoid Barcelona & Man Utd, anyone else would do, but I REALLY wanted Schalke or Fenerbache...

I was so nervous hitting ...

... fan. He definitely got to the right place since this region is called "The Lake District" and I can confirm that it's full of lakes around here as I saw plenty of from the sky. Once in Puerto Varas, we secured a guesthouse room for ourselves in "Compass del Sur". It sounded extremely attractive when reading the brochure but turned out to be rather old and badly ...

... to go back to my house right away, however, as my Chilean parents were still on vacation in Temuco, Chile and Argentina. I had made arrangements to stay for four days with my friend Natalie, who was one of the girls on the trip. I'll write about some of those experiences later - I really want to post all of this! And like I said, check back periodically for new pictures that I may have posted. Ciao for now! Let me know how all of you are doing! - Bethany