We´ve travelled thousands of miles since the last blog update, so we´ve got lots to tell you about.We got to Rio Galllegos from Ushuaia earlier than expected so we got on an earlier bus to El Calafate, and didn´t have to hang around Merced 2 (Rio Gallegos) very long :o)

After wandering around the dirt-track roads of El Calafate for a while with lots of dogs barking at us, looking for our hostel that we had booked, we gave up and got a taxi for about one minute to the "I Keu Ken Hostel".It was up a very steep hill so the taxi was a good idea in the end! The position of the hostel gave us a lovely view of the lake and mountains though.On our first day we planned to just look around the town and book things (like the glacier tour and our onward bus ticket).As we stepped out of thehostel a very big dog bounded up to us and sat down very obediently.We were a bit wary because of the rabid dogs you get in South America, but this one had a collar on and wasn´t frothing at the mouth! ;0) hehehe.So he ended up escorting us to the bus station, and waited for us outside while we bought our tickets.On the way dogs kept coming up to their fences and barking at "our" dog, to greet him I think, but then they retreated back in their front gardens - so we felt like we were in safe hands - he seemed like the alpha dog of the neighbourhood! Then he walked with us all the way to the main ´downtown´ bit, which consisted of just one main street.It was very very pretty though, with lots of nice shops.The dog left us at this point to escape to some shade as it was prettyhot and sunny that day.We named him "Poco" (which means "Little" in Spanish).The next day we went on a tour to the national park to see the Glacier (Perito Moreno).It was a very touristy place again, with lots of walkways (although less tacky than the Iguazu Falls walkways) but the glacier was amazing to see (look at the photos when we put them on Flickr).The glacier is constantly growing (somehow) - I don´t quite understand it, something to do with the back of it growing and it pushes the whole thing forward (up to 2 metres a day!), inbetween a peninsula, and this causes big chunks of the glacier to fall off at the front of it.There are still debates between the people who study it as to why its still growing.So everyone congregates around the front of it and waits for a chunk to fall off.Its pretty cool when it does happen though, and it causes a big tidal wave in the water!It felt a bit like waiting for the Northern Lights in Alaska but at least you knew this was probably going to happen as the glacier is there in front of you - and it was a lot warmer. We don´t understand why the glacier doesn´t melt because it´s not very cold around it - if anyone knows, please tell us! We didn´t do a lot else during our 4 days El Calafate, it was nice to just relax and go to the cafes.

Our next stop on our journey north was Bariloche. It is due north of El Calafate, however we had to go back south to Rio Gallegos and change buses there. The whole journey took about 26 hours (fortunately we only had to stay in Rio Gallegos for about half an hour!) We didn´t get much food on the journey, only a sandwich for dinner and ham flavoured crackers and a small cake for breakfast. Not much considering we arrived at 8pm in the evening. We were starving when we arrived in Barriloche and got a taxi straight to our hostel. The town is very big, and not as pretty as the ones we´d visited so far so we only had a couple of nights booked. As soon as we unpacked and showered we went to the nearest restaurant that did meat. We knew we were in for a treat as soon as we arrived. There was a photo of the owner behind the desk holding up two big pieces of meat, menus made of cow, and placemats made of cow. The food was fantastic - Dave had a brilliant steak and Shil had pork. Shil had food envy so we went back the following night when we both had steak! During our only day in Bariloche we went on a bus to the outskirts of town where we got a chairlift up a nearby mountain. The views were spectacular - we were surrounded by lakes and rivers, it was a lot like the Lake District. We walked down the mountain and towards the National Park. It was further than we thought and when we got to where was supposed to be the entrance, we couldn´t work out where to go. We found out later that there was a small path that led to a short walk up a hill. Apparently we didn´t miss that much.

We left Bariloche early the following morning and went to our next stop - Pucon in Chile (where we are currently.) The journey was only 12 hours, so we got here early in the evening. We´d booked a hostel that according to the hostelbookers website was half the price of all the others and had a couple of good reviews. We weren´t entirely sure we were booked in though as the confirmation email response didn´t make much sense. We were very happy when we got there though. The hostel seemed more like a guest house. It was run by an old lady and her son and was very homely. We had our own ensuite room (our first since San Francisco) and best of all they had a dog with 5, 1 month old puppies. Shil was in heaven! Pucon is a beauitful town and is really well kept - lots of flowers and tree lined avenues. There are no traffic lights, lots of nice shops, very little touristy stuff and lots of cafes and restaurants. It´s been our favourite place so far. The town is next to a big volcano (2,300 ft high) which constantly has smoke bellowing out of it. On our second day here we climbed the volcano. It was a very early start and we had to take lots of kit with us - crampons, ice axe, extra clothing, garters and a helmet. There was supposed to be a chair lift that took us 1/3 of the way up however it wasn´t working and so the journey up took longer than expected. It was tough. The ground was very gravelly at first and it was quite steep. After a couple of hours climb we got to the snow part of the volcano. We had to use our axe for this part to make sure we didn´t slip down the steep slopes. Unfortunately by the time we got ¾ of the way up Dave was suffering - his legs were hurting too much and he had to stop. Shil got all the way to the top though and saw the crater and all the steam bellowing out, however she didn´t see any molten lava. The views of the town and the other surronding volcanoes was amazing though.It took a lot less time to go down the volcano as we just had to slide down on our bums most of the way - there were slides dug out in the ice for us!In the evening we went to one of the many hot springs in the area - it was very natural, just several rock pools of different temperaturas.It was very nice and relaxing though after our tough climb - however to get to the pools you had to walk down a lot of steps, so it wasn´t very welcome when we had to walk all the way back up them at the end (after climbing the volcano!).We´re going to Santiago next which is a relatively short bus journey (11 hours overnight) - so our next blog will be from there!