Breakfast at 05:45am after arriving back from our night out in Salta at 03.00am, it was a tough start to the day and the bus ride would be 12 hours, climbing to the highest altitude we had yet experienced. After an hour or so we passed the village of Purmamarca at the foot of the La Cuesta de Lipan. Purmamarca is a green oasis with many holiday homes and fruit orchards but it is most famous as the site of the Cerro de Siete Colores (Mountain of Seven Colours)....

We started early in the morning fully laden (packs front and rear) to catch a bus to Torres Del Paine in Chile …. Only 6 hours this time. The border crossing was fairly straight forward except that we stopped and picked up random Chileans just before the crossing point and they crossed with us - seemed kinda strange but nothing untoward happened and we arrived in the town of Puerto Natales on schedule, only to find that several people we had met previously on...

We arrived in Puerto Montt in the mid-afternoon, it was very much a working town with a low tourist count. Before we left our hostel we asked if the town was safe to walk - "Si" said the receptionist as he slid three bolts hometo lock the door behind us. The town was dimly lit and slightly scary but undeterred we entered a local bar for our obligatory "dos cervezas". Looking around the room our eyes came to rest on the man in the corner, his face full of charac...

We left Santiago early in the morning southbound to Pucon, a small town at the foot of a live volcano and bounded on two sides by a lake. The place had more stray dogs than you could throw a stick for but they were all sleepy and laid-back except for one, who made a rush at us through the night with snarling teeth and blazing eyes, luckily he was chained and was drawn to a halt a few feet short of us - Still, it scared the life out of us. We had a great day o...

We arrived in Easter Island a couple of weeks before Easter (have to work on our timing) and were met at the airport by our host Marcello, who greeted us with lays made from fresh flowers and drove us and Gary and Sheree (a really nice American couple from Colorado) back to our "home". The accommodation was quite basic but clean and the layout of eight rooms surrounding a common area for eating and relaxing made for a very friendly environment. Our fellow reside...