Hello folks; long time no updates eh? I've just had my 1st shower in 3 days (mmm, nice!), have not had internet access in almost a week and I'm 2 weeks behind on my blog updates. Who said this travel lark was stress-free?! Anyway, it's now 13th April and I've just arrived in Salta where we have 3 nights of civilisation in a hotel (well, in the loosest sense of the word) and internet. Yeah! I'll be posting a number of blog entries in the next day or so but you'll only get 1 notification. For those of you avidly following each chapter of my adventure, I would suggest you use my world map to follow each entry in sequence (God how anal am I?!) until I'm back up to date. Photos so far will also be uploaded on picasa.

Right, so where was I......

On Sunday 29th March we had another drive day to Chaiten where we camped in the grounds of some thermal pools. It was pretty chilly outside so it was great to sit in the warmth with some wine! It was my cook group's turn to do dinner so we made a veggie chilli (and added meat later for the carnivores!) which went down really well, especially in the cold. Some of the younger nutters were sitting around in their wet swimming stuff and then wondered why they then got sick! It was actually one of the coldest nights we've had camping and I couldn't warm up, despite sleeping in my thermals, fleece and hat!

The following morning we spent a bit of time in the town of Chaiten. There's an active volcano here that erupted in 2008 (apparently nobody knew it was active until then - eh? Go figure, surely the smoke would give the game away?!). Anyway, it erupted during the night buy they'd already evacuated most f the town so there were no deaths which is pretty amazing when you look at the state of the town now. The vast majority of the damage was caused by flooding. There are now only about 400 people who live there during the summer as most residents have relocated further along the valley to a safer zone as the government try to figure out what to do with them. Anyway, got chatting to a local guy who said that there are a lot of politics going on with the town as some residents have refused to leave so came back to Chaiten. The government apparently refuses to supply electricity and water to the town even though the systems are all in place so they all have to buy and run generators and pump their own water which is tough. If you look at the photos, you'll start to get a feel for the damage caused in the town. Steve and I wandered to the end of the town where a load of houses had collapsed and were half buried - there's a pic of me looking through the upstairs window of one place and a lot of homes are just full of ash. We then both had an incident where we almost disappeared into the ash - in Steve's case he was trying to jump across a stream and misjudged. In my case, my foot just sank. Very funny.

We then spent the next 9 hours or so on a ferry to Puerto Montt. Not too bad and we got to see a huge pod of dolphins frolicking around the boat. The view from the deck as we drew closer to Villarrica Volcano was pretty impressive. In Puerto Montt we literally stayed in someone's house which was quite funny - we were sitting at the table in her lounge while her family watched TV! That night I felt an earthquake (well a tremor really) as I was lying in bed but I seem to be the only person who witnessed it!