Day 24:Bye Bye Argentina. Hello Chile. Another bus journey. This one marred with difficulties. First the ash cloud was so bad the border was closed. They reopened it and then the truck drivers from Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay blocked the border in protest. Our six hour drive turned into a 12 hour drive where we spent most of it sitting at the border. Was very happy to see our hotel at midnight.

Day 25: Pueorto Varas. Hotel was an old German schoolhouse and full of old school memorabilia. Quite cool actually. Breakfast was in local café covered in party wear, clowns hats, ties, balloons etc. despite the décor, it was here I had my favourite empanada to date. Very good start to chilian food. Day was spent wandering around this old town and admiring the lake and views from the hill. Dinner was in a local restaurant. Free pisco sour to start (a very nice local drink - pisco is a liquor derived from the wine fermentation process), bbq chicken and free dessert to finish. On to a local bar where myself and Ami downed the pisco sours - a decision we both regretted the following day!

Day 26: Bus to Pucon, a tourist town full of Patagonia activities. We rented a lovely house just for our gang with fully functioning kitchen. After dinner drinks and the addition of another gap group resulted in a party which got slightly out of hand. Gap group no.2 would not be welcome in our abode again after breaking our door, one guy relieving himself on our window, and being very rude and racist to a number of our gang. Was the first group of people we didn't get on with in our entire travels and was disappointing to say the least.

Day 27: Despite the rain, it was a perfect day for white water rafting. The harder course was closed due to the bad weather but this just resulted in the "easier" course being upgraded to level 4 and perfect for our group. Everyone joined in and was a fantastic day as you can tell by the pics. Poor Tina fell overboard after we hit a rock. Ill never forget the look of shock on her face!! Viv also hit the water but all were rescued although a little cold! The rapids were amazing, but so were the views. We were sailing in glacial waters surrounded by snow capped mountains. Julia (Aussie) prepared a lovely meal for us that night of a chicken and veg pasta bake. Drink ban for this evening due to insurance requirements for volcano climbing the following day.

Day 28. Up at 6 to get ready for our volcano climb. Kitted out in new fleece leggings, thermal trousers and jacket as well as enough snacks to get us through the day. No shops on the side of the volcano! Contrary to my prior perceptions, the volcano from the very bottom was covered in snow. We were given special snow boots, crampons, gaters, helmets, gloves and pick axes to help us reach the top. Five hours of hiking, one behind each other, we finally made it to the top. Poor Hooi and Ami got so sick due to a mixture of the sulphur and altitude that they had to turn around. The views were amazing. Fluffy white clouds below us as well as the most spectacular views of other snow capped mountains and glacial lakes where the clouds parted. The volcano itself was a little disappointing, but again this could have more to do with my preconceived notions of hot molten lava bubbling from within! The reality was more like a big crater in the ground out of which came whiffs of sulphur ash cloud. Still quite an experience. And the fun didn't end there - our descent involved sliding down the snow on special plastic slides. Scary at times when I lost control doing 360 degree turns and tumbles on the side of a mountain but amazing none the less. That evening we went to local guys house for another BBQ. This one was slightly more civilised than previous all you can eat/drink BBQ's. He brought us into our home and we sat down at a long wooden table where he then brought us the meat in batches once fully cooked on his BBQ. He had to run to the shop for ketchup as he had none. Neither had the shop! He then ran out of wine. An hour into dinner! Luckily the shop still had some after his second supermarket dash. Fun night though.

Day 29: Gordon arrived in Santiago. Yeah!! I on the other hand was in Pucon with what looked like surgicially enhanced lips. I woke up and I am not exaggerating by saying my lips were at least twice the size as the day before. Wind burn had done terrible things to my nose, upper lip area and lips. Red raw, blistered, p**** swollen. Exactly the appearance I was going for to meet my boyfriend who I hadn't seen in a month! Whats worse is when I finally came down stairs into the sitting room everyone fell silent, concentrating hard on the big brother facebook updates. No mention of my face. In case I imagined it, I just said to Adhuv, "look at my face". "oh yeah, it's a little red I suppose!" Apparently when things are this bad its best to say nothing at all!! Night bus to Santiago.

Day 30. We arrived at hotel at 7.30am and straight up to see Gordon. Was lovely to see him and thankfully without his contacts he couldn't see the full extent of my mutilated face. I was so so happy he came over and got to share this experience with me because it really wasn't right without him. He came down and had breakfast with the group and got to know everyone. After checking in we walked around Santiago seeing the various sites, Gordon playing tour guide after his visits to the main attractions the previous day. Santiago is a lovely modern city with plenty to see and do. Our hotel was perfectly located downtown next to santa lucia hill where the city was founded. Dinner night one was in a steakhouse in the bohemian area of Bella vista. Then onto a karaoke bar for more badness. Up singing and dancing until the small hours. Tom got a very special goodbye from the girls working in the bar! Great start to Gordons adventures. Sadly this marked the end of the trip for Tom, Mhairi and Ami. We will miss you loads. Six newbies consisting of Jeremy, Owen, Ruben, Katlyn, Kathleen and Rosie as well as trainee guide Nancy and of course Gordon will join us from here to La Paz.

Day 31: Myself Gordon Hooi and Jeremy took a local bus out to Valpariso, a city two hours outside Santiago. Its main attractions are the communities living in surrounding mountains, where all the buildings are various colours, which reminded me of the Brazilian flavellas. These communities can be reached by cable car and some of them have fantastic graffiti artwork covering the walls. I tried the local Valparisso speciality of steak, chips and two eggs (without the eggs!!) and quickly dashed back to catch our bus. Back to Bella vista once again for a wander through the streets. Great atmosphere. Gordon got a local fruit drink made with peaches and sweet corn. The rest of us found an amazing French creperie where I couldn't say no to a crepe with strawberries, nuttella and vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Day 32: Today we went on a winery tour visiting two different wineries outside Santiago. We started by visiting the second largest winery in the world, where Castillo de Diablo among other wines are produced. As you can imagine this winery was geared up for tourists and we were herded through the tour as quickly as possible. We did get to see the vineyards and where some of the wine is stored but no detail on how the wines are made, the process etc. We tasted a red and a white wine and got to keep a wine glass as a souvenir. We will see if we can manage to transport it safely enough to get back to Ireland in one piece! For lunch we visited a traditional Chilean restaurant where I had a traditional Chilian soup with a full chicken breast, corn on the cob, potato and other vegetables. There was also traditional music, singing and dancing. The second part of our tour brought us to a much smaller local wine producer. We were the only tourists and the tour started off by the winery owner giving out about the large wine producers (such as the winery we had just visited!) and how their actions were driving down the price of wine and grapes for local producers by using lower quality grapes (table grapes), by bulk producing and by their dealings with foreign buyers, making it impossible for small producers to survive. However this was followed by a top quality tour of his winery and processing plant. He produced just 6 wines and discussed in detail the fermentation and other processes involved in making these six wines. All machinery was very simple and all grapes were hand picked. Labels are put onto bottles by hand and can be customised for special occasions. We tasted all wines and we bought four bottles for consumption at a later date!

Dinner that evening was in an Asian restaurant where stir fried vegetables were very welcome! Back to Bella vista for another crepe and drinks to mark our last night in Santiago.

Day 33: Up early for seven hour bus journey to La Serena. It's a small town with cobbled streets and little markets dotted throughout. It is a seaside town but the beach was approx. one hour from our hostel and not the prettiest beach in the world. As for our hotel - it was more like a building site. Banging, hammering, drilling. Our room was dirty and noisy and I would definitely would not be recommending Colon hostel. La Serena as well as Chile is known for its fantastic fish and seafood. Seeing as I don't eat fish, this was slightly wasted on me but I believe the rest of the guys enjoyed the fresh local cuisine. Back to the hostel where we sat on the roof terrace for drinks. Good fun.

Day 34: Very uneventful. Both myself and Gordon were sick - I am blaming the hostel and cam only imagine we picked up a bug here. Was doubled over in pain for the day in bed. Some of the rest of them took a bike ride along the coast but I believe we did not miss much by not partaking in this adventure.

Day 35: Night bus to San Pedro de Atacama. Three hours into our journey the bus broke down on the side of the road. Given the large number of us we were unable of get alternative transport direct to San Pedro and ended us waiting by the side of the road for three hours before catching a bus to a town five hours away from San Pedro. Although annoying, its all part of the South American experience. And the views and scenery as we entered the northern desert was amazing. Travelling with the locals on long bus journeys was also part of the experience. In our case this involved a local taking Tina's backpack in the middle of the night, prising open her lock and stealing the two bottles of wine she was carrying from the winery in Santiago. Gordon, the hero of the hour noticed this man behaving very suspiciously and alerted Tina to the theft. Before leaving the bus Vivi and Frazer confronted the guy and after several denials, the man eventually handed over the wine. We eventually arrived in san Pedro a lot later than planned and just had time for dinner before bed as we still were sick.

Day 36: Fair play to Vivi and Nancy for a fantastic homemade breakfast of fresh breads, cereal, homemade pancakes, eggs, and everything else you would want. First activity of the day was a visit to the Cejar Lagoon, a local lagoon where we got our first sightings of flamingos and got to swim in the lagoon which resembled the dead sea. The salt content was so high everyone just floated. The experience was topped off by mid day mojitos were we could lie in the water and drink them without sinking. Pretty cool!

In the afternoon we went sandboarding in death valley. We drove right into the desert among amazing sand dunes and rock formations. Sand boarding involved standing on a board and sliding down a sand dune. Great fun until I toppled head first banging my head and giving myself mild whiplash! Everyone got into in and we all came away relatively uninjured! After death valley we drove to another desert area, valley of the moon to see the sunset. Amazing is the only word to describe the views. The pictures speak for themselves. Amazing finish to our Chilian adventure.