Touchdown in South America, and my first stop was Santiago in Chile. On recommendation I booked straight into the Hostal Forrestal - a cute and kooky hostel near the centre, which has modern facilities, free brekkie and regular BBQs (don't be a vegetarian in South America, not only are you unlikely to eat anything other than various forms of potatoes but you're also massively missing out).

The city immediately surprised me - there was so much greenery everywhere, in parks and tree-lined avenues ,and beyond the smog the Andes make a jaw-dropping backdrop to the city's high-rise apartment blocks and offices.

I immediately panicked. Not only did I have no plan about where to go next or how best to move about the country, but I also didn't speak a word of Spanish, something that had crossed my mind as being a potential issue, but one which I had severely underestimated. So first things first I began to look into Spanish courses. However, I didn't want to remain in one place for too long, so I needed something relatively brief. Luckily, an English guy in the hostel was doing a week long course at a nearby school and told me about their 3 day course too. A language in 3 days? That's the one for me! And so began my time in Chile - making abysmal attempts to cram an entire language into my already strained little brain every morning and exploring the city every afternoon. I'm ashamed to say that my first few meals involved things I could recognise, which means McDonalds, Taco Bell and Pot Noodles. Perhaps lack of translation was merely an excuse to pig out on fast food, who knows.

Santiago was an easy city to explore, and one of my favourite trips was to the top of Cerro Santa Lucia in the centre of the city. The hill housed a beautiful tower and lush parks and allowed for amazing views across Santiago. In the evenings I'd venture with some of the folks from the hostel into Bellavista across the river, where the bars would spill out onto tables and chairs in the street and street performers would pass by bugging us for cash as we enjoyed our beers.

Next step was to organise my onward journey, and luckily I stumbled across the Pachamama Backpackers Bus, which would take me South to the bottom of Chile in 5 days with a small group of travellers, stopping off at some of the key sights along the way. Perfecto. So, armed with still piss-poor Spanish and eager to explore the country, I boarded the mini bus, beginning my time with the Pachamama tour

My travel companions proved to be an interesting bunch to say the least. There was an Alaskan called Forrest who was kinda' like a box of chocolates - you never knew what you were gonna get; Tom from New York who has stayed with Norman Cook at his home in Brighton several times and is writing a book about living in 12 countries in 12 months; an English girl called Safeena who is writing a novel about a rent boy and had 8 hours of naked video diaries documenting her trip; 3 fab American girls, Megan, Elise and Maddie, (the latter of which we lost as she decided to stay and shack up with one of the Chilean tour guides that took us up a volcano); and then last but not least, Betty, an 80year old Canadian who used to be in the SS and is now backpacking around SA. Legend. So I felt incredibly boring amongst all this lot, but we all got on really well so the trip was already set to be tons of fun.

On the first day we made a couple of stops - in the picturesque village of Pomaire for my first taste of empanadas (it was actually the worst empanada I've had in my whole time in South America, and as such a fairly poor example), at the Rapel Dam for a few photos and then finally at the seaside town of Pichilemu. After a rather chilly nap on the beach - where I spotted my first South American llama - we watched the sunset over the ocean and headed to our hostel to eat some shark. It was nice, although Vanessa our tour guide said it tasted like chicken, and I really disagreed - I'd say it tasted like fish.. pretty much as I'd expected. I'm not really a fan of fish, but as it wasn't too fishy I ate most of it. I was hungry.

As a day of firsts, I also tried the South American favourite tipple - Pisco. I guess it's kind of like rum, which I don't really like either, but mixed with plenty of coke I could drink it straight down no probs. The pisco naturally led to a club where I tried my hand at dancing to Reggaeton, a Latino/Hip Hop fusion that, in all honesty, I am far too white to dance to. Still, I tried my best and had a great night and hopefully didn't make too much of a fool of myself. I think I may have bullied Tom into having a few more drinks that he was prepared for, so he really wasn't too pleased with me when we all faced our nice early start in the morning.

The next day took us to Santa Cruz to visit a fantastic musum, which was all part of a private collection from some arms dealer who pretty much owns the whole town. It housed my new favourite car - a 1956 Bel Air... if anyone's interested. The rest of the day was mostly driving - 8 hours all in all, so pretty gruelling with a brutal hangover. We finally settled in the picturesque ski resort town of Pucon and organised ourselves in preparation for the big one in the morning, the climb up the Villarrica Volcano.

I guess I knew it would be tough, but hadn't quite anticipated scaling 2000ft up ice, snow and rocks to reach the peak of an active volcano with gaseous fumes that stung the eyes and burned the throat pouring out from it's centre. It was hard. Lot of steps, icy winds and slippery footing, but it was all worth it for the stunning views across Chile to the Andes and nearby volcanoes. Plus, I actually climbed a volcano. I mean, I get out of breath getting into my car. The trip down proved even more eventful, as it mostly consisted of sitting our backsides in the snow and sliding down the side of the volcano until we either tumbled onto our faces or crashed into the person in front. If our arses proved too cumbersome we were given lumps of plastic similar to a sledge (and beautifully titled 'plastico'), which we planted firmly beneath our behinds, thus enabling us to hurtle our way down at even greater (and more hair-raising) speed. At first this was super exciting and exhilarating but after a time it became rather terrifying, dangerous and uncomfortable. Ice. Everywhere. Mmm... nippy. On our retur to solid ground I went to bed super early and slept beautifully.

So with achey legs, and nursing some rather inappropriate plastico bruises, we set off the next morning for the pretty city of Valdivia, with wild sealions grunting for fish along the river and a night on the tiles beckoning us out of the hostel. I shan't give too many details of that night, but I will note that it began with a tequila shot and I may, at some point, have done the Macarena. But I wasn't alone. That would have been tragic.

The last, rather hungover, day of the tour took us the cute marina town of Puerto Montt for a final group seafood lunch (I had steak). And this was where we said farewell. Well, what was left of us. We'd already lost Tom to Pucon, where he stayed for further explorations and Maddie to the volcano tour guide Marco, who seemed to do a fairly good job of sweeping her off her feet with more than just a slab of plastico. Forrest, Betty and I carried on to Puerto Varas to await our bus across to Argentina the next morning. Puerto Varas was, in a similar manner to many of the ski-based towns I had seen so far, much like I would imagine European alpine lodges to look, with wooden buildings and dark green pine trees. In fact, all of Chile had been far more European than I had anticipated, and came across more affluent as well.

I only spent 10 days in total in Chile, but the country was beautiful and the people friendly, and I'd definitely recommend the Pachamama Bus to anyone who might be in a similar position to me when I arrived - slightly intimidated by the prospect of launching themselves into an unfamiliar continent with no decent mastery of the language or culture.