Andrea: "Hello. Welcome. The owner's not here, but I will show you to your room. There are no dorms available so you've got a private room. Your lucky day. This place is full of Israelies." These were the first words spoken to us by the ever-so-stoned replacement hostel proprietor when we arrived in Pucon at 11:30 at night. We followed him up a flight of stairs to our room, while trying to decide if he was racist, and then sat there and listened tentatively as ...

Vern: After a 28 hour bus journey (the worst part of which was 'Killers' - an awful Ashton Kutcher movie - which one has to watch because the volume is set for everyone's enjoyment) we set foot in beautiful San Carlos de Bariloche. The town is set on a massive lake and is the largest in the Argentinian lakes district. Bariloche inherits a lot from Switzerland, having apparently been forged by Swiss-German immigrants. Stone and wood buildings adorn the slopes, th...

Vern: I was stressing my boots off on the bus trip to Puerto Natales. I had a small bag of contraband in my backpack and I didn't know whether the Chilean border was three minutes away or three hours away. I knew that if discovered, the fine for each unit was at least 10 000 pesos (CH$). But I'd broken the whole into several parts for ease of consumption. Could I be fined CH$10 000 for each part?! Maybe I could slip the bag into Andrea's backpack. But she wasn't ...

Andrea: We got up early the next day to catch our bus to El Chalten, where we would be hiking to catch a view of the famous Fitz Roy. We had a hard time waking up because we were up in the middle of the night with the sound of someone jumping from a top bunk, running for the bathroom and then vomit hitting the floor. Shared living is great! But, we relaxed a bit as we listened to her clean it all up and eventually fell back asleep, so all was good. Everyone see...

Vern: We flew from Ushaia to El Calafate, and unfortunately got stung with the hidden costs of flying: shuttles to and from the airports, and an airport tax which annoyingly wasn't included in the ticket. Nonetheless the alternative was a multi-day bus trip and we were pleased to have avoided this. After finding our hostel, we ventured out to explore town. The powerful cold winds battered our North Face jackets as we kicked stones down an incomplete concrete road...