Well we're in Southern Chile in a hostel and we're getting ready to travel by bus to Puerto Varas. We had a few bottles of wine last night and some popcorn as a treat. When we get to Puerto Varas we plan to go out for chocolate and coffee to celebrate.
I just wanted to say thank you everyone for the cards you sent over with mum so I have something to open!! THANK YOU!!! I miss you all terribly and wish I could see you all to give you a big hug and kiss for my birthday cards and wishes. An internet *hug* and *kiss* will have to do me.
Mum has put together the following pictures of my previous birthdays!!! Enjoy...
The witches party at Mapledurham Hall was my 7th birthday. Can you tell I loved dressing up for Halloween for my birthday?
I will update this blog with more recent pictures of me enjoying the famous chocolate here!!
We arrived in Pucon (Chile) on the night bus from Santiago and the first thing that emerged to us was the giant steaming Volcan Villarrica!!! This meant only one thing.....Summit Time... The peak rises to over 2800 metes and steams most of the time.
We were waiting for our friend Johannes to arrive so we could do some trekking, what transpired was that late October is too early to trek around Pucon and you really need to be here in December, oh dear!
However the Huerquehue national park was half open so we headed out confident we would be fine....
The first hour of the walk saw us walking along a beautiful lake with forest lining it.
The walk starts around 400 - 500 meters and winds its way up through several look outs around 1000 meters and then up to the snow line!
We really didn't expect to find that much snow but in places it was still up to 1 meter deep..
At the top of the pass there were three large lakes, some covered with ice still and others crystal clear and reflecting the images of the mountains perfectly.
The national park also helped us realise we're definitely happy with the new camera!!!
Due to the worsened weather (clouds now covering the volcano) we are going to head south again tomorrow and then on Friday join our ferry cruise through the fjords to our most southern point in Patagonia.
Needless to say we didn't climb the volcano, maybe on the way back up :-)
Also we wonder if this volcano explosion will hinder our views too? We are going to pass it on the Navimag Ferry!
So we have not posted in a week or so but have been very busy!!
We got the 24, yes 24 hours bus from San Pedro De Atacama in the far north of Chile to Santiago, so that's not even half way down this country....It's crazy!
When we arrived in Santiago we were greeted by 28 degrees and very hot :-) Plus all the luxuries of a first world country (we have been 3 months in 3rd world countries now). So we spent a day seeing the sights and exploring the city.
One of the many parks with gorgeous fountains!
Now, Santiago is the wine capital of Chile and until the city started sprawling most of the area was vineyards. Wine in Santiago is very cheap, most bottles are around £2 - $4 obviously you can spend a lot more if you want. So you can imagine we went wine crazy!!
Our first task in Santiago was to visit a winery, we chose the winery Udurraga. It is set in very old grounds as the winery has been there for many years. But unfortunately several earthquakes over the years have lead to devastating losses in terms of millions of gallons of wine and infrastructure.
The winery is huge and covers from the city limits to the foot of the Andes mountains, we enjoyed a few small glasses of wine and headed back to Santiago. We then proceeded to pick a selection of wines from the supermarket and taste several bottles more....over a course of 4 days.
23rd-24th October
Our next stop (nursing a hangover) was the small seaside village of Val Paraiso famed for its colourful buildings and graffiti.
This is a collage of grafitti that James put together
When we arrived back in to Santiago James unfortunately dropped the camera which proceeded to refuse to turn on...ooopss
So the entire next day saw James running around Santigo trying to find a new camera so lets see how the pictures are after this blog post... We got in the end another Panasonic Lumix TS8 or in European TZ18 apparently! OUCH!!!!
So with our trusty Huayna Potosi climbing buddies Johannas, Lindsay and Lea we left Sucre and headed for Uyuni the gateway to the worlds largest Salt flats and our link to our final country in South America, Chile.
The bus from Sucre to Uyuni was 9 hours and due to the first government elections for judges the entire country was due to close down, so we got the last 5 seats on one of the last bus out of town.
James unfortunately had an upset stomach and 9 hours on a bus with no toilet was going to prove hard work, after 7 hours the inevitable happened and he turned grey and ran down the aisle shouting "Nesicito usar el bano!!" the rest does not need explaining needles to say a few people saw James's bum.
We had a shared room in Uyuni for £2 per person our cheapest night so far!
Day 1
Uyuni is a very small desert town that exists for tourists, the morning of our trip we had some fun with the trains around town and in the local children's park.
Yes my good old ankle!!
Our first stop in the jeep was at the train grave yard, this famous spot has the remains of many trains that have been left to rust and decay in the Bolivian desert, they make for great photos.
The next stop was the Salar. The Salar De Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world with over 4000 sq miles. The salt flat is so flat that across this entire area the altitude varies by 1 meter. The salt crust is meters deep and below sits 50 - 70% of the worlds Lithium reserves.
We sped across the vast white desert in our jeep finally arriving at the Incahuasi Island, this island is made of coral from when this giant plain was a salt water lake or some say the sea. The island is exceptional due to the variety of cactus that grow on the island up to 1000 years old.
After a brief visit we took the obligatory perspective photos that the Salar is famous for.
We now left the Salar and headed to our first night stop in the village of San Juan, unfortunately we were greeted with "there is no room at the inn"... Uh oh!! We tried another hotel with the same response, things started to look desperate! Our guide went to one last hotel and came back and asked us to check the accommodation, so Sarah ventured in. Her face when she returned said it all, she likened it to a pig sty.....oh dear.
We now had to drive 1 hour back the way we had come to try to find accommodation, the Salt flats and desert are very remote regions as they sound so this was not so easy! Eventually we found a closed Salt hotel that was willing to open for us.
The hotels in the Salar are totally made of Salt which makes for an interesting stay.
Day 2
We awoke at 6.30 to leave and make up the hour we were going to loose due to our detour the previous night.
Today's itinerary was to see volcano's and volcanic lakes, we also visited several sites that are breeding grounds for thousands of pink flamingos.
After some lunch we headed in to a remote area of desert, and as we did, our jeep decided that it wasn't going to behave. Every time we went up a hill the engine would loose power and stall, oh dear.....in the middle of the Atacama desert with no phones, no radio, and a broken jeep great! We all started to panic that we would have to sleep the night.
After several attempts to fix it we managed to limp on with a little fresh/clean petrol.
Our final stop before the hotel was for fun at some rocks that have been carved and shaped by the vicious sandy winds of the desert.
Our hotel was located on the Colorada lake, a huge red lake surrounded by volcanoes. This site was truly spectacular.
As we explored the lake the guide and his friends tried to fix our ill jeep! Literally taking the engine apart bit by bit.
As soon as the sun disappeared the temperature plummeted. We all sat huddled playing cads in our hostel until we could stand it no longer and got in our sleeping bags.
Day 3
Our final day was to start early, we were heading to some geysers for sun rise, that meant getting out of our sleeping bags reluctantly at 4.30 am. It was so cold outside that the inside of the jeep had frost on the windows.
Luckily our guide had fixed the jeep so we were good to go, unfortunately we left the hotel a little late and arrived at the Geysers after sun rise. The geysers are located around 4900 m so again altitude was to make us all feel a little sluggish. Unlike most attractions like this there are no railings or barriers to stop you getting as close to the geysers as you dare!
From here we descended to the thermal pools where we could swim! It was so cold outside that all the water on the ground was thick frozen, but the water was beautifully warm and we relaxed until our breakfast was ready.
The final stop before Chile on the tour was the green lake, this made for a great final attraction and some stunning photos.
We now left Bolivia and headed to the Chilean border to start our last adventure in South America.
