We set of north towards Parque Congrullo. It is known for its volcanic landscape, the result of a rather active Volcan Llaima. The whole area is covered with evidence of eruptions, the last being in 2008. A massive eruption in 1927 covered most of the area in a thick layer of lava together with rocks and ash from a pyroclastic flow. The landscape in places looks lunar. Several rivers were blocked by lava and the result was some beautiful blue/green lakes, some with sunken forests. There is also evidence of a previous massive glacier having carved a path through the park leaving a very wide flat dusty valley which is strewn with the large boulders it left behind as it retreated.

Next day we visited an even more bizarre landscape at Crater Navidad. This is a massive black ash filled crater adjacent to another volcano (Volcan Lonquimay). The half a mile wide crater appeared as a result of an eruption on Christmas day 1988. We walked right into the centre of the crater and in all directions is black ash.

We then returned to Argentina and made our way towards Volcan Copahue. This is the volcano recently in the news for grumbling, spluttering and setting of eruption warnings in Chile and Argentina http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-a merica-20828832 It is now only puffing out large white sulphur smelling plumes. We stayed in a campsite in the town of Copahue, which sits in the crater of an old volcano. The area is still geothermically active, so no shortage of hot water at the campsite. In fact best showers we have had. The town has nine thermal baths. Some are full of grey bubbling mud (very popular with Argentinians tourists) and two had temperatures in excess of 90 degrees. All around the town and on the rim of the crater are bubbling puddles of hot water. The town reminded us of a Russian Sanatorium. When Peter went to visit one of the pools he had to go to a massive medical centre to have a medical examination and sign a waiver before he was allowed in.

On leaving town we visited a water fall (Salto de Agrio). We have visited lots but I haven't thought them worthy of your attention. This one if only for the colours of the water and rocks was brilliant.

Gerties head is getting very big as the number of her admirers increases. The other night at a campsite in Argentina we had so many admirers asking questions and wanting to see inside that our bean stew boiled dry.

Camping in Gerty is proving to be a bit of a learning curve. One new thing I learnt is do not open the lid of the portable toilet until you have released the build-up of pressure caused by the heat of the day. I am sure you can picture the consequence – it was quite unpleasant and I will NEVER make the same mistake again. Now we are free of gas rationing cooking is not a problem but we are getting more adventurous with cooking on the engine. Last week we tried curried potato. It took all day driving to cook the potatoes but they were lovely. Only problem was the engine smelt of curry for a day.

This last Friday was the first day we got really lost. Despite 2 maps, the SATNAV and a compass we really didn’t know where we were for a couple of hours. Road signs did not help. At one point we were 20 Km from a town called El Huecu. But after driving another 30 or so we had not found it and eventually turned off the road to follow a sign and after another 20 or so Kms we saw a sign saying 9 Km to the town in totally the wrong direction according to the compass. Even waving down one of the 3 cars that passed did not help. He gave us vague directions and shot of. After 4 hours we finally managed to get the maps, SATNAV and compass to agree.