Well here we are. The last two days of our epic trip to Chile. we arrived back from the Futaleufu river last night and we are exhausted.

first things first though. about a month ago we went South to Torres del Paine national park. without really checking we figured that taking the bus rather than flying would obviously be cheaper. being COMPLETE morons though we left chile without any argentinian pesos or even knowing what the exchange rate was and how much a bus from bariloche (Arg) to Puerto Natales (Chi)would be. oh what fun it was when we were ripped off at the bus station in Bariloche when the exchange guy used an old rate and basically we lost out on about 50 quid. oh well .so lets just say that the bus ended up being more expensive than flying and that we were on it for about 3 days!!!!ugh. we flew back. we thought the extra 10pounds was worth our sanity. ANYHOOO after a long bus journey through the argentinian bush (which is actually really spectacular) we eventually made our way to Puerto Natales which is REALLY FAR SOUTH in chile and the jumping off point for the torres trek.we stayed in a really cool hostel run by an american chap called erratic rock and 2days after getting there, all tooled up with the info and food for 7 days we set off.

we had wanted to do the longer circuit trek that would take about 10days but info we got in PN said that the john gardener pass was closed becasue of snow storms and me and dave figured that although our equiptment was good we would be really misserable if we got stuck in a snow storm. also our map and compass reading skills are very rusty. so we decided on doing a longer version of the most walked 'W' route and turned it into the super 'w' (essentially adding 2 days on. we had really really good walking weather. it was grey and cloudy but whenever we stopped to take photos the clouds would miraculously part for us. it also only rained on one day and we only got the horrendous winds on one day too!! we were both cursing our s***ty rucksacks that we have both had for years though, another toy to buy when we win the lottery!!we ate rice, soup packets, and grated cheese everyday which actually taste pretty good, and had porridge with dry fruit in the mornings. and everything was measured out perfectly so that we werent carrying more than we needed!! we felt very virtuous!there was one guy who had to be evacuated out on horse back becasue he had brought in 40kgs of food for 4 days!!!!! he had a whole litre bottle of oil, whiskey, barbequing sausages, whole loaves of bread!!!some people are so stupid!!hah

the views were amazing. we got to see the glacier grey, but sadly on our day to see the torres at dawn it snowed so even though we stood in the right place you couldnt see anything!!oh well, on the bus ride out of the park we got some amazing views (it is just a shame our camera had run out of battery!!!)

once back in PN we were happy to have our first wash for 7 days and we made the decision not to fly home early but rather to try and get to futa depending on whether our boss could get his paper work sorted out so he could leave the country. so we caught a plane back from punta Arenas (even further south) to Puerto MOntt and from there a bus to Pucon. the planee ride was amazing. sooo much free stuff and it only lasted 2 hours!! we also got to see the amazing campo de hielo Sur. this absolutley HUGE ice field. so all in all a brilliant trip.

we were pretty happy to come back to pucon though where it was hot and familiar. and over the next week we were toally worthless staying up at bens house and watching Boston Legal and House. if you havnt seen it you have to watch Boston Legal. its soooo funny and it has captain kirk from star trek in!!! (im sorry i probably just made a mistake admitting that i like star trek) oops.

anyhoo finally ben said he was ready to go, we pursuaded one of our friends Miquel 'zorro' to be a shuttle bunny (or rather ben said he would buy his boat if he drove us) and we were off. apart from having a blowout and getting stopped by some strikes the trip was pretty smooth. it took about two days and we arrived in futa on the friday night.

my god the next day was a baptism of fire.

it was BIG volume. we were in playboats which was interesting but acco

rding to ben alot better becasue if you get flipped in a playboat you dont get puched off line as much as in a creek boat and when the holes are HUGE you dont want to get pushed off line.we were there for 6 days and we mostly did the bridge to Macal section which is class IV with one V. the grade V is called Casa de Piedra and on the first day we main lined it. as the name suggests there is a house sized rock in the middle of the river. And as is my way i didnt 'charge right enough' so went right into the house sized hole upstream of the house rock created by all the water going into it. as i rolled up in it all i could think of was Tom Parker saying to me on my 5 star training course ' Fran you need to get worked in more holes' well are you happy now!!!??? haha i did manage to roll and surf myself out of it but it took alot of energy. finally once i had rolled up feeling extremely dizzy from lack of air i saw ben and he said eddy out!! just before i went into the next hole!! my arms wernt working much at this pointand after a few more failed roll attempts i bailed. i have never been so out of air . it isnt a nice experiance. anyway as is daves way he came over to rescue me and smacked me right in the chin with his boat before getting worked in a hole of his own (that hole wasnt that big so he didnt swim)haha. ben picked me up and the rest is boring. but even though i didnt think i could get injured on big volume water due to the lack of rocks, i did. i have a MASSIVE shiner on my chin. that is how much dave loves me.

we ran the terminator section (i portaged the terminator) and dave ben and miquel ran the canyon on the last day. i have the terminator and the canyon to look forward to next time but this time i was totally burned out.

we drove home over two days and finally got to Pucon last night. we are both really excited about going home but it has been such a good 6 months over all especially the kayaking!!! there just arnt that many nice waterfalls to do in the uk. what are we going to do!!!!!