Hello everyone. Well we made it to South America safely and have had a great first 10 days of our tour.

After we left Auckland at 17:30 on the 10th June we flew east over the Pacific, crossing the international date line in the process, so we touched down in Santiago at 12:30. On the 10th June. We officially went back in time, which is quite cool. The jet lag isnt though. After stopping there for the night we completed our journey to Buenos Aires the next day.

We were both looking forward to seeing BA for the first time, and after the usual near death experience of a taxi ride, we arrived at our hotel, Hotel Splendid. More like Hotel Adequate, but this is South America. We had 3 days to explore this vibrant and fascinating city, and in between 6 hour afternoon naps, we managed to see quite a bit. We explored the famous districts of La Boca, San Telmo and Recoletta, took long Argentinian lunches and had great fun trying to speak Spanish. You could sense the rich history the city has, there are lots of statues and monuments to past heroes and ´ La Republica´ and in contrast to these and the grand buildings there is also a lot of poverty.

In BA we also joined up with our tour group that we will spend the rest of our trip to Lima with. Our group is mainly British, Canadian and American, and everyone is really friendly.

We could have happily spent a few more days in Buenos Aires, but it was on the road once more. We were taking a 20 hour overnight bus journey to San Carlos de Bariloche, a mountain resort town high in the Andes of Northern Patagonia. Unfortunately, Argentinian farmers had chosen that very night to protest about excessive taxation, and had placed a series of road blocks of burning tyres on the main roads leading out of BA. After our double decker bus was diverted down several dirt roads we made it to Bariloche 27 hours later. Luckily the standard of coach travel in Argentina is excellent, our seats reclined to nearly horizontal and were very comfortable, so in the end we just saw our epic bus ride as part of travelling in this part of the world.

Bariloche is famous for both its scenery and its chocolate, so my time there was spent with half of our group hiking in the great outdoors, while Sarah joined the other half and overdosed on chocolate. We also spent time chiiling out at our excellent mountain lodge style hostel getting to know our fellow travellers. Our last night there we went out for a meal and drinks as someone had turned the ripe old age of 27.

After an all too brief stay in Argentina, it was off to Chile the next day. Our first stop was our tour leader Marcel's home town of Puerto Varas, in the Chilean lake district. The town is only 32km as the crow flies from Bariloche but takes 6 hours through mountain passes and round Lake Llanquihue to get there. We had a lazy couple of days there, walking round the lake and the local markets, where I think about 10 of us all bought traditional woollen hats. We also discovered a 3 foot long pool table at our hostel, which took care of our evenings.

We arrived in Pucon 2 days ago. Like Bariloche we are staying in a lovely lodge style hostel, complete with wood burning stove in the living area, which as I write I am currently parked in front of. It is winter here.

Continuing the recent geological theme of our travels, Pucon is famous for its nearby spectacular volcano, Volcan Villarica, 2847m high. So yesterday we were up at 6am to be picked up by our guides and taken to the foot off the volcano, which is still active by the way. The intrepid 6 were myself, Hannah, Debbie and Mandy from Britain, Mike from Canada and Toni from America. This was my first real taste of mountaineering, and with crampons on feet and ice picks in hand we started the gruelling 6 hour climb to the summit. It was challenging but the views alomg the way made you quickly forget the pain in your legs. At 2:02pm, four of us had made it to the top, and were able to look inside the steaming crater of a volcano. The highlight of South America for me so far. So while today I am resting my aching 27 year old legs, Sarah is of for her first taste of white water rafting, and tomorrow evening it is another night bus to take us to the capital Santiago.

Love Blair (and Sarah) xxx