We arrived at the appropriately named Hostal al Fin del Mundo in Punta Arenas. I say appropriately named because it looked like a bomb hit it - breakfast stuff was everywhere and it was 230PM. It took a while for the guy there to get our room ready and it had the district smell of Haze when he was finished. Punta Arenas is not very big and it doesn't have a lot to do on a regular day, so you can imagine how dead it was on a Sunday. It mostly exists, for tourists...

Our luck with buses ran dry when we got back to El Calafate town after the glacier. We hoped to get a bus out of there for the following morning, Thursday, but there was nothing available. So Thursday became an admin day; a day for Skyping home, writing journals, chilling out and eating giant Argentinian chocolate flakes. Puerto Natales is only five hours south of El Calafate, but it's in Chile, so another border crossing. Chile is the strictest of countries to ...

We couldn't leave Valdivia without visiting the fish and vegetable market. The story goes that 20 years ago a sea lion stopped by the pier and was fed by the fishermen. Needless to say he never left and now there are many sea lions that appear at the market, along with lots of pelicans and gulls. They have become a bit of a nuisance too, so there is a large fence protecting the market. We got to see a couple, then we were back on the road. A few hours later we w...

The night after finishing the volcano our clever guide thought it would be good after all our exercise to have a soak in the hot springs. She was right. She was wrong about being able to sneak in some alcohol - after settling at the pool furthest away from the office, an old lady came along, looked in our bags, then walked away with them all! Sunday was the day we realised that there was a downside to travelling with Pachamama By Bus. Pucon is one of the adventu...

We arrived into Pucon late, but not too late to book something for Sunday at the tour agency, Aguaventura. Everyone in our group booked some sort of trip, but five of us booked the main attraction - climbing Villarrica Volcano. It was an early start the next day. The weather was perfectly clear and there were plenty of other climbers assembled at the 1400m volcano base. Its a five hour climb to the 2847m high summit, but at the start we took a optional chairlift...