Queenstown, New Zealand. 19/09/11 - 22/09/11 Our 7am flight from Auckland landed about an hour later at the smart and modern Queenstown airport nestled below the spectacular "Remarkables" mountain range. The bus into town passes by beautiful lakes that remind us of Bariloche. The similarities end there as Queenstown is full of modern low rise apartments painted an ugly grey, tour agencies, shops and bars. Our hostel, Pinewood Lodge, looks worryingly like a uni...

Pucon to Santiago to San Pedro de Atacama to Vicuna to Santiago The evening JAC bus from Pucon was possibly one of the quietest and hassle-free journeys we've had yet. We'd decided at the last minute to extend the tickets for Santa Cruz that we had purchased earlier in the day so that we go straight through to Santiago and skip the planned trip to the Colchagua valley wine route. We pulled in to the bustling Santiago bus station around 7:30am the next day and af...

Pucon (aka Dean and Katy versus the Volcano......) We arrived in Pucon and were pounced upon by representatives from local hostels.We fended off one, but the second in line grabbed our hands and led us the few steps to his front door. It's a decent place for a decent price and conveniently he also runs tours up the volcano. We agreed a price and whilst Katy sorted some stuff out, I head off to explore the pretty town. Not much to it really: a nice lake, a black ...

Bariloche to Esquel to Futaleufu to Chaiten to Puerto Montt. The Argentina to Chile border crossing. As we couldn't find any help for this border crossing in either guide book or intenet, here are the facts for anyone who stumbles across this blog when trying to research their own way of getting into Chile..... Bariloche - Esquel (Bus Via Bariloche AR$77) 4.25 hrs Esquel - La Balsa (Jacobsen Bus AR$28) La Balsa - Futaleufu (Local minibus AR$27) 2hrs (Mon &am...

The Tramat bus to Bariloche may as-well have been named "Trauma Bus". Before arriving in South America we had expected the Argentine buses to be better than the rest of the continent, but whilst the screaming brat child in the seat behind us prevented sleep, we considered how this was not the case... Frustratingly, we were shown films not only dubbed, but also subtitled in Spanish. There were no toilet or leg stretch stops for the entire 20 hour journey...