After Puerto Natales we spent another few weeks in Patagonia with Punta Arenas the first stop. We met up with my dad here and spent a few days exploring the town and its surroundings. We visited a penguin colony where we also saw a skunk and a nandu (which is a bit like an ostrich). We also went to a good museum here which explained something that had been puzzling us. In Puerto Natales they seemed to really like sloths, all the street signs had a picture of ...

So we left Australia behind us on the 17th of October and flew to Santiago. After a 24 hour flight we arrived about four hours after we left which we still don't really understand. It took us a couple of days to get over the jet lag, not helped by a hangover on the second day. We headed south on a very long bus journey to Bariloche which is just over the border in Argentina. We were expecting the weather to be a bit cold but weren't expecting the heavy snow...

Last stop in Bolivia was a trip across the salt plains at Uyuni. The trip involved a landrover for three days towards the Chilean border, it is all cross country as there are no roads. There were six of us in the landrover us, Jack and Joe a couple from Bristol and Matt and Val from Cambridge. Jack grew up in the circus (that's right Stevie a proper carnie) and now earns his money as an elf. Joe was a new age traveller and former Freegan, which is someone who...

At Lake Titicaca we went out to the Isla del Sol where the sun was apparently born. This is also where the Inca empire started so plenty more ruins to see here. We spent the night there before heading to La Paz, the capital. The bus journey to La Paz involves a crossing of Lake Titicaca by boat. It was pretty strange to see your bus sailing across the lake on a raft. This was all organised by the Bolivian navy who don't have a whole lot to do any more since ...

From Arequipa we headed on to the Colca Canyon. It is the second deepest canyon in the world, the deepest canyon is the one next to it. Why did we not go to that one? Now we have to settle for telling people that we once visited the second deepest canyon in the world. The canyon is famous for its condors, some of which grow up to three metres in length. We were pretty lucky and saw about four or five flying just above our heads. It was pretty strange that a...