Over the last week or so Andy killed a bird, made our hotel receptionist cry and had a row with a hippie. Now that's a good start to our Chilean trip !

But let me go back in time and tell you about the tragic ending of that poor bird. Our first stop in Chile 5 days ago was in the little town of Puerto Varas. Nothing special to it apart from the huge snow capped volcano that overlooks it. A rather pretty sight. We only spent a day here but it was enough for Andy to create some drama at our hotel.

At our arrival while I was talking to our friendly receptionist, Andy got drawn by the conservatory where he could see birds flying around. He enters the conservatory to have a closer look. That's when he suddenly spots a pretty cat looking intensely at the birds. "That's weird" he thinks "cat and birds don't usually get on...". But soon forgets all about it. Only 1 minute later, he sees the cat jumping on the birds cage, all claws out.

Now, at that point anybody would have had an alarm bell ringing inside and thought of asking the reception whether it was normal to have an open birds cage with a cat jumping around after the birds. Not Andy. In Andy's own magical world, the cat was having fun, only playing with his mates the birds.Next thing you know the cat throw himself in the air and catch one of the prettiest yellow bird, killing it on the spot.

Start of the Drama. The receptionist realising what had just happened enters the conservatory yelling. Followed 30mn of cat's pursuit to recover the dead bird, by which point the receptionist burst out crying.All in all it would almost have been a 'funny' story if the receptionist hadn't at that stage convinced herself that Andy had on purpose opened the birds cage thus causing the death of her dear dear pet.That was the end of her friendly attitude towards us and the start of a very very very cold night for us. Eyes still red from all the crying, she gave us (undoubtedly on purpose) a freezing cold room without heating in the most isolated aisle of the hotel... Needless to say that we didn't dare to complain, Andy feeling guilty and I happy enough not to have been thrown out of the only hotel opened in town !

To recover from such a dramatic experience and so much hatred we consoled ourselves with a 3 fondues meal. Big cheese fondue + meat fondue + chocolate fondue for dessert !! Greedy b*****s ! We felt much better after it, and the owner of the restaurant rewarded us with plenty of loving smiles, kind words and a big fat bill....

Our next stop was to be Valdivia. Supposedly dynamic student town where we spent 2 hours in empty streets on a Saturday evening, trying to locate a lively bar....(without success). The main attraction of this town, the morning fish market under siege from HUGE bull seals that sit by the fishermen to eat the remains of the gutted fishes. Entertaining. They're pretty impressive. They look ugly and they smell very very bad. Check the pics!!

After this short stop in Valdivia we headed towards Pucon. Pucon, hometown of the most active volcano in the whole of South America. During the day you see the smoke coming out of it and at night you see a red glow around it generated by the lava that regularly spurts out ! Pretty cool. In the street, you have bright green evacuation signs all around showing you in which direction to run if it decides to erupt (I would have thought it pretty obvious : AWAY FROM THE VOLCANO !) and every night they test the 'volcano eruption' alarm that sends all the stray dogs barking for half an hour !

Most people come to Pucon to climb the volcano, and take pics of the lava. Not us. We came to see it from far far away...First of all, climbing it seems to be an unnecessary strenuous business of 8 hours involving cords, ice crampons...etc. Secondly , you get a much better and safer view from the bottom !

Nevertheless, Pucon's only attraction is its outdoor scene : hiking, riding, rafting...you name it they offer it ! So after 3 weeks during which our only physical activity consisted in folding and unfolding our legs to get on and off the bus, we embraced the opportunity to do a bit of exercise while discovering Pucon's beautiful natural surroundings. We started on our first day by a 50km ride around the hills of Pucon to go and see hidden cascads. Great day if it hadn't been for the intense winds that made us feel like we had done 50km constantly uphill.... On our second day (today), we decided to do a nice resting walk in the forest of the nearby national park, to go and see pretty lakes. Now, we just wished that they had warned us that this 5 hours walk actually involved 3.5 hours of steep hills climb. Tonight we can hardly walk !!

And it's not even like if after a long day out exercising in the fresh air we were to come back to a nice, cosy and warm hotel where we can just relax. If it was the case, it wouldn't matter too much how much pain we're in.... But it would appear that in Chile they do not know about heating, particularly in those cold Southern regions. In this latest hotel, the only source of heat is a small fireplace in the living room around which a crowd of 16 people gather, (which makes you very lucky if you manage to secure a seat at less than 5m from it). That's when the heated row with the hippie comes in...

Andy, having an incredibly low tolerance to cold, carefully planned his moves to secure a seat close to the fire. His only mistake : getting up half a minute to make himself a cup of tea, only to come back to find a hippie on HIS seat, singing away with his guitar. Hell's broke loose. As it happens, the language barrier didn't turn out to be a problem since Andy's murderous looks spoke for themselves... He got his seat back in the end but unfortuately the relief is only short-lived since we still have to wear more clothes inside than out, and we still end up sleeping fully clothed in our sleeping bags in spite of the moutains of blankets provided.

God it's a hard life ! Almost makes you wish you were back home, going to work everyday........almost.

Lots of love xxxx

Andy and Soph