Please Sponsor Us ...
well not us but two guys we met here in Chile...
Jonny and Owen, who we met in Santiago, are cycling from Quito to Cape Horn. This is a staggering 12,000km from the equator to the southern most point in South America. They are doing the trip in aid of Cancer Research and have set a target of raising 1pound per km.
Having already been plagued with broken bike frames and grazed knees, Jonny has now taken a tumble and among other things smashed his pelvis. We caught up with Jonny today in Santiagos plush Clinica Las Condes hopsital and found him to be very perky and in a great frame of mind. He's really really lucky to be alive but obviously will not be finishing the trip. Owen on the other hand has gone off to continue the last 2weeks cycling.
These guys are an awesome pair and we would love for them to reach their goal in rasing 12grand.
They would be overjoyed if you would visit their blog at www.quito2capehorn.blogspot.com
If you are able to sponsor them then I'm sure you would agree that the Cancer Research Charity is a most worthy cause.

Another Passport Stamp - Argentina
We've met up with Harriet again and bused the 7 hours over to Bariloche which is in Argentina. The border crossing was a complete flaff and almost took more time than the journey. We arrived to the most spectacular sunset view as the sun dropped behind the mountains across the lake. Unfortunately from the bus we couldn't get any good snaps.
Bariloche is like being dropped into some Swiss village. You could even get your photo taken in the main square with one of the big St Bernard dogs. There's delicious chocolate every where too!



We took a great horse trek through the mountains. Nat was given the bucking bronco and was almost thrown a few times. She did really well though in "taming the beast". Jon's horse was a lot more placid and followed the trail superbly however the only credit goes to the horse that knew the trail like the back of its hoof.


Our plan from her was to head up to Mendoza and back in to Santiago, Chile. However we are here at the height of the summer and we heard through the grapevine that the next available bus is not until the 1st Feb so our plans change again. We took the same 7hour bus, through the same flaffy customs, and headed back into Orsorno Chile. Then from there we jumped straight onto a 12hour over-nighter up to Santiago. We took the 'Salon Cama' option which is one short of executive. The seats tilt back to 40degrees and are very comfortable so we got a good chunk of sleep.

Photos Photos Photos
Well we know that quite a few of you are hankering to see more photos so here we go. We've downloaded all our Chile photos. Check back over the last few blogs and have a peek.

Lake District Antics
Surprisingly enough the first part of our lake district travels have been a pretty germanic and you could almost believe you were in the English lakes, Cornwall or Germany. Addmittedly most of the houses are wooden tin clad buildings and the boats are much brighter than we are used to. They really brighten things up with an exorbitant use of primary colour paints.


Chiloe is a really quaint little town and we enjoyed a couple of days before returning to the grotty town that is Puerto Montt. Nat, not feeling to well had high expectaions of where she wanted to stay. She wanted it to be safe, warm, close to the bus station, free breakfast and lastly and very lazily English speaking.This place didn't exist so we compromised on the "close by" and set off to find that our choice hostel has burnt down and its neighbouring hostel had disapered. We ended up in a ladies house with no locks on any of the doors, no breakfast, no English, cold and as an added bonus had a resident Flea! At least we met one of Nats expectations as the place was close to the bus station. We stayed one night (which was one night too many) and met up with Harriet who had taken the four day ferry. We got straight out to the lakeside town of Puerto Varas which we found to be really beautiful. As a backdrop to the lake there are two large volcanoes that poke out above of the clouds. Really lovely.
Nat has been trying to rationalise the contents of her already small rucksack to save space and weight. So she has bought a pair of shoes to help!!?? They are gert lush though and were hand made sandals from a local stall. We had great fun trying on various sizes and the stall holder kept running back and forth to his van for another size, colour or style. He was really friendly.
Tonight we head for Bariloche where we hear there is Mucho Chocolate - woo woo woo. We hadn't originally planned on doing Argentina but are quite excited at the thought of getting another passport stamp! We've heard so many wonderful things about Argentina.
Bariloche is very popular with Argentinian tourists so last night we thought we would book ahead and phone to reserve some accomodation. I say we but we dumped the task on Harriet who is fluent in Spanish - were talking comparitavly here! By the 6th or 7th call Harriet reverted to the "hablar ingless" method which made us chukle. Anyhow we've got somewhere booked but are not sure whether they think we are arriving 10am or 10pm so we are hoping we will still have a bed.

Ciao for now!

¡Chilean Travels!

Mucho Spanish. Mucho dolor de cabeza.
Much has happened since we last blogged. We've failed miserably at learning Spanish but have seen some amazing scenery.
Our first week here in South America was sat in a class room being spoken to in Spanish 99% of which we "no intendes". We were supposed to be on the crash course but I'm sure we ended up on the intensive which is normally for people who are studying for months. By the end of the week we could say who we were and what we did, who our parents, siblings, and dog were (we don't even have a dog) but we couldn't order food, ask about transport, reserve a room, go shopping or anything else remotely useful in day to day life. I'm not convinced that every supermarket cashier wants to know that I have "dos hermanos" and that "yo soy ingenerro". Hmmm.
Anyhow we love the sound of the language and having spent a couple of weeks immersed we are now able to get by a little more. Its just hard for Nat who loves to talk! Her sign language is improving though. Hopefully there will be another opportunity to have some 1 on 1 lessons before we come home.

Picturesque Patagonia!
Travelling down with the lovely Harriet (who we met in Santiago) we arrived in Puerto Natales (or as we now pronouce it Purtoe Natals - put on your best zomerzet accent!) with nowhere to stay and took up the offer of accomodation from one of the bus stop local touts. Marias hostel was in fact her home. We felt very intrusive especially at breakfast the next day when we sat quitely whispering as the clock loudly ticked away.

Getting to and around Patagonia was an expensive little trip but it was so astounding that it was one of the best things that we have done. Arriving in the national park the next day we were amazed by the stunning scenery. Get a load of this ...

The treking up to the huts and camp sites was beautiful with the back drop of the snow capped peaks and the lush green foliage. We did a walk called the "W" walk which took us right up to the base of the "Torres del Paine". These three peaks jutt straight out of the mountain and at the base there is a turqoise melt water lake.

We met lots of lovely people on the walk including a small bunch of Brits who led us off the beaten track, through the undergrowth and up some scree in order to refind the path.
Heres a mug shot of Lynn, Harriet and us ...

¡Buenos dias mon amigos! ¡We're in chile!
No ablo espagnol. Which makes travelling in Chile pretty tricky. So thats why we´ve just had two days of our weeks Spanish course. Its quite intense and hard work but we are hoping that the outcome will enable us to get by with the basics.


¡Back to The Future!
Crossing the worlds date-time-line meant winding our watches back 18 hours despite the flight taking only around 11 hours. This meant that we suddenly went from being 13hours ahead of the uk to 3hours behind. Neither of us has been feeling that great since we got here but as the jet-lag dies we are catching more sleep and feeling much better.

Mum has been getting rather frustrated that she can´t get the upside down ¿ and ¡ symbols that she´s seen in my emails. She has found it difficult to understand that its the southern hemisphere that does it. The gravity is all upside down here. I´m wondering if you try turning the keyboard upside-down it might help. ;-)

Next stop Patagonia, in southern Chile where we are hoping to get some text book photos!
Its scary to think that in only 11 weeks we´ll be heading home. And we´ve got so much cool stuff planned until then.
See you soon!

End of a NZ era!
With New Year under our belts we picked up a second Toyota Hiace van from Auckland and drove it up to the Northland. It was really kind of the Steve and Elaine (who we met on the White Island trip) to let us borrow their van, and in turn it helped them out by not having to take a 4hour return trip to Auckland to drop relatives off at the airport. Their van was a lot nippier than TinTin as it was one of the lighter short wheel base versions. On the way up after a lunch stop and a lovely walk we hit our first real traffic jam for 4 months. We must have trundled along for 20mins before the traffic got going again! Imagine that 20 mins!! It wasn´t too frustrating but has made us wonder how we´ll cope in the UK with the traffic especially as we were not in any rush here, just tootling along!

Ceidlidh
Who would have thought that on almost exactly the opposite side of the world, we would find ourselves joining a Ceidldh as part of a Scottish festival! Well actually the story goes like this...
In 1817 a ship set sail from Scotland under orders of one Norman McLeod who by all accounts was a bit of a rogue preacher and was kicked out of bible college. After 37 years, various mishaps, illness and a stay in Nova Scotia, the ship pitched up in Oz where Normans brother was deep in the gold rush. But that was too expensive to settle and what with a bout of typhoid they carried on round to NZ. The trip took between 1817 and 1854 and since then the town has only ever missed one celebration of its Waipu Scottish History, which was during WW2. Pretty amazing!
What was also pretty bizarre was that we bumped into a lady who´s husband used to be the NZ sales person for Mira Showers! To top off the day Jon took a quick midnight dip in the hot tub an it was off to bed.

Bay of Islands!
Once again, as well as putting us up for the night, Steve and Elaine extended their warm friendly NZ style nature and lent us their van to do the Bay of Islands. Thank you guys.
We took Katy, a family friend, up with us and took a rainy trip to view Dolphins and the 'hole in the rock' feature. The Dolphins were not playing ball that day and whilst we did see a couple, the tour boat stuck to their guarantee and gave us complimentary tickets to return again. So Mum and Dad can use these when they come out to NZ!! ;-)

Back on Public Transport!
A short bus ride took us back to Auckland where we re-jigged our tickets, sorted a few items, washed all our clothes and generally prepared for south america. On the 7th Jan we were kindly picked up by Neil (who we met in Christchurch) and went and had coffee. It was very kind of him to drop us out to the airport and was another reminder of the generosity and friendlyness of the Kiwis. That is certainly how we will remember NZ, as a place of friendly warm people with stunning scenery around them!

Happy New Year! Woo Woo Woo!
What a night ... We partied with some funky Swedes and many other people from anround the world. It was a really crazy evening and we ended up at the waterfront with thousands of other people to watch the fireworks. Skoal Tamafan!!

We've just chucked a load of photos on the blogs from the past month or so. They are a little bigger than the past photos so you can open them up in a little more detail.
Would love to hear your comments ...
Love Jon n Nat