On 27 September we arrived in the town of Pucón on the eastern shore of Lago Villarica. Pucón is in the Chilean Lake District region. The town is nestled amongst beautiful mountains, and across the lake we could see the conical, snow-capped Volcan Villarica. The next day we undertook a guided hike to the top of the Volcano. The peak is at 2,847masl and the walk involved an ascent of 1,400 meters. After a short ski lift ride we began the walk in snow. We were k...

As we are heading south, we thought we couldn't miss out on Valparaíso with its hills and Unesco World Heritage Site buildings. The day bus from La Serena to Valpo (as it's known here) allowed us to see the scenery change and become increasingly green. We arrived as the sun was setting. On the trip down we had struck up a conversation with a lovely French couple who had been travelling the world for the past 6 months and who gave us some useful tips for Vie...

We arrived at La Serena after a 17 hour bus ride from San Pedro de Atacama. I had food poisoning on the bus and was sick into a variety of containers during the night. The other passengers were glad to see me get off. After a day of rest we did a tour of the nearby Elqui Valley and saw the vineyards, orchards and took in the beautiful scenery. We stopped at three Pisco distilleries and tried various spirits and wines. The highlight of the tour was our amusingly d...

Due to the distances we again had a number of flights ahead of us to get to our next destination, San Pedro de Atacama. From Cusco, we flew via Lima to Santiago. Our plan was that after a night's stay in Santiago we would then catch an afternoon flight to San Pedro. However, what we hadn't anticipated was that the airport hotel across from the terminal would be completely full. Apparently lots of people were travelling due to Independence Day celebrations in Chil...