We took a day bus to the pretty town of Puerto Varas. It is a typical ski town, covered in wooden chalets with restaurants everywhere offering fondues. What made this place even prettier was that it was surrounded by 3 snow capped volcanoes and a beautiful blue lake.

Our hotel was a vast improvement on the last place. Fortunately this one was built of stone and not plywood. We even had central heating (shock horror!) something we haven't seen in a long time despite some of these places getting as cold as the UK. It was a fairly eccentric place because everywhere you turned were antiques and retro items such as old jukeboxes, telephones and bizarre paintings. I was just happy with the heating to be honest.

After exploring the compact town, Bryan and I decided to climb to the viewpoint where there was a large cross to get a decent view of the lakes and volcanoes. It was nice 20 minute uphill climb but unfortunately you couldn't see the lakes or volcanoes because it was covered by trees! We were given a talk by a G Adventures representative regarding the excursion opportunities. After what happened to poor Julie's leg no one fancied attempting to climb another volcano and there was no skiing any longer much to Bryan's disappointment. We were left with an expensive 90 minute hike or a trip to a national park on an island to see penguins. Both were out of our budget but I fancied a decent hike so enquired as to options for longer hikes. He showed me a route for a 12km hike easily reachable by public bus. A few of us were interested in this so we prepared to set off the next day.

We left later than planned but went via the supermarket to get some picnic lunch. We then got on the bus easily enough and told the driver where we wanted to go. So far so good. But the driver didn't stop at the town we wanted to go to so we had to get off 2km after it and walk back towards it. The guide had told us we would go to a national park and pay an entrance fee and start trekking. We couldn't find this park so went to a campsite owner for directions. This guy told us the walk we had been told would be about 40km from where we were but he told us of a better walk which was only about 10km and then drew us a map. Why we ever thought following a hand drawn map would be a good idea I don't know! But off we went up a steep, continuously uphill road for what we thought would be 8km. That came and went but we didn't find our turning. We carried on but it never appeared. The worst part was we were walking on boring tarmac with no views. Eventually it flattened out and we could see the surrounding area and there was no trail. We stopped a couple of cars to ask for directions but they told us there was nothing around here!

Very tired and starting to get cold (we soon realised we had actually climbed up half the volcano) we decided to head back so as not to miss the last bus back to town. We had to keep a good pace because we were running out of time and Ian was seeking out "shortcuts". These were actually walking through thick, thorny bushes which took longer than walking on the tarmac. I was starting to wonder whether they had bears in the area and what I would do if I came across one when a guy in a pickup truck stopped in the opposite direction and shouted "lions" at us. I think he thought he was funny. On his way back down he stopped and said it again. He then offered us a very welcome lift so we all jumped into the back of his truck, barely even considering that he might have been a madman! Well I'm still alive so we weren't taken to his basement. We also caught a bus back to town before almost dying of exhaustion. However, everyone now blames me because it was my idea to go hiking! The moral of the story is exercise is never a good idea!