We had heard a lot about Bariloche in the Argentinian lake district beforehand and it did not disappoint. Bariloche is set among 7 lakes and some spectacular mountains including Cerro Cathedral which is one of the most famous South American ski resorts and it´s just beautiful but also fairly touristy with lots of tourist shops and some gorgeous chocolate shops - yum! We stayed in a great Kiwi run hostel and metlots of great people there and also on our Spani...

Well after our first long bus ride where I struggled with sunburn we arrived in beautiful Pucon and thought we were in heaven. It's such a picturesque town with wooden chalets everywhere, a beautiful lake with a black volcanic sand beach and the Villarrica Volcano towering over the town. In the main street there's a special traffic light whose sole purpose is to tell you if you need to get out because the volcano is about to blow! Seeing as the Volcano Llaima ...

Well Valparaiso is a crazy place. The city is located about 1.5 hours northwest of Santiago by bus, and is right on the coast, so the port is one of it´s most important assets. The houses are all over the hillsides just stacked one on top of the other with very little in terms of segregation. You can find the nicest new houses beside or underneath something that is about to fall down. We did our research and found out that there were only two of the Cerros...

Our South American adventure begins in Chile. Flying across the timezone was a very strange start to our time here, and living Wednesday twice was not good for our jet lag! But we´ve recovered and managed to see some of the sites of Santiago. Our first taste of Chilean food was the BBQ in the hostel - for $3 we ate as much delicious meat and spicy sausages cooked over coals as we could manage and drank lots of local beer while I made a fool of myself tr...

Happy Christmas everyone! Napier hasn't managed to turn on the sun for us but nevermind! Still have managed tennis and swimming so hey keeping in the spirit of a Southern Hemisphere christmas. Hope you all have a magic day wherever you are and that santa is kind to you all. We have had an amazing time with all the New Zealand friends and family. We managed to pick a perfect day to take on the Tongariro Crossing - anybody visiting the Cenrtal North Island - thi...