09/04/08 Puno - Our base for visiting the floating islands made from reeds The reed islands on Lake Titicaca are impressive works. Each island can house between five and thirty families. We were givien a tour showing how the locals live followed by some friendly haggling for various wares. The main reason for the existence of some islands now is purely for tourism but historically they were a form of protection against enemy attack. Its easy to escape an enemy...

31/03/08 Vilimar - Our first stop in Bolivia On our way here today i think i discovered the birth place of dust. Man it was dry and dusty and just when you thought you would never see water ever again we would come accross an amazing lake. Villimar, in the middle of nowhere was a nice place to meet our first Bolivian locals. We arrived here late but that didn´t stop the local kids from putting on a musical performance. I thought one of them would drop off to ...

23/03/08 - 24/03/08 Dragoman Begins! Today we left santiago and headed north to the beach side resort of La Serena. We have two nights here. While there is not a great deal to do and see it is a great chance to relax on the beach and watch the pelicans and other birds drop out of the sky and dive into the water for fish. My first swim in the ocean for a long time. The body surfing was fun even though there was a lot of rubbish in the water! 25/03/08 Vicuna ...

Well i will start by saying that the below is partly taken from a log put together by our guides. Our ship was initially meant to be the Maryshev but as you know it failed to pass the Russian surveyors checks. So, the Professor Multanovskiy it was after an extremely painfully two days of we might be going, were not going, were going, and finally WE WENT woohoo!! 12/03/08 We boarded in Ushuaia, known as "El fin del mundo", "The end of the world&...

01/03/08 Today we headed to El Calafate. Flew to Buenos Aires, updated my diary at the airport and flew on to El Calafate for the start of the Patagonia adventure. Day 1. Meet and greet. Calafate is an interesting town formed out of nothing. It is a town were some roads are dirt and some are sealed and where everyone applaudes when the plane lands...i hate that. Downtown Calafate is quite nice though! 02/03/08 This morning we left Calafate at 8am and heade...