Egads! How time flies.

Hi everyone, sorry we haven't been keeping things up to date. And we'd been going so well!

So we've been home for more than a month now, and things have settled into a bit of a routine, though of course, both of us are doing shift work and that does make it hard sometimes. The house is a mess, and we've still got 4 boxes sitting in the lounge room to unpack! But it's all good. We'll get there in the next 10 years or so.

Anyway, we have been keeping our photos up to date(ish) on Facebook, which you can see on the right.

Um, so let's see, from our last post, which was in Pucon, we did lots of stuff. This included:

• Climbing Cerro Tronador in Argentina. Brilliant mountaineering trip!
• Meeting up with Em and Leece again, and Mike and Tes. We hung out in Bariloche for a bit and did some riding and exploring.
• Headed down Route 40, for 24 hours of bus ride over 2 days. Epic boredom.
• Hiked the Fitzroy Circuit.
• Hiked the Torres del Paine Circuit (absolutely f$%*'n brilliant), and said goodbye to Em, Leece, Mike and Tes.
  
• Hiked the Circuito Dientes Navarino, in Chile, the world's southern-most trek. So spectacular it was ridiculous.
• Spent Christmas in Puerto Williams, Chile, the world's most southern town.
  
• Spent New-Year in Ushuaia, Argentina, the world's most southern city.
• Flew to Buenos Aires and spent a few days hanging there and seeing the sights. We stayed with Julia Worley in her flat (thanks Julia!) whom we'd met in Croatia, and ate the most expensive meal I'd ever eaten with Lee and Sonia.
• Flew to Los Angeles, USA, and met up with Steve from our mountaineering course. He took us around to see the sights, which was a lovely way to spend our 12-hour stopover.
• Flew home! The 6 hour wait in Sydney airport was tedium at its worst.

So there you go. We've got FB photos up to the Dientes Circuit. I suppose one of these days I'll get off my bum and put up Buenos Aires and Los Angeles photos too. One of these days.

As for now, I'd better get back to bed. Coming-off-nightshift-insomnia is killing me.

m.

Chile

We arrived in Santiago on the 1st of November and ended up staying there for 4-5 days. All we did was eat and eat and eat. It was good to have a bit of a relax and some recovery time as we'd been going hard at it since the start of the mountaineering course, which was early September.

We stayed in the suburb of Bella Vista which reminded us a lot of Melbourne, with cool bohemian cafes, great restaurants, and good coffee. We had the best lamb ever in a place called La Boheme. We also treated ourselves to a couple of nights in a nice hotel, called the Patio Bella Vista I think. I'd recommended it to anyone, but it's expensive. We didn't care.

After Santiago, we headed down to Pucon. This is in the northern part of the Patagonian Andes and there's meant to be heaps of fun stuff to do around there, like hiking, biking, kayaking, and it also has Volcan Villarrica at its doorstep which you can climb and ski on.

Unfortunately the weather was atrocious for the next 3 days, and we spent a lot of that hanging out in our hostel, "!ecole!" which had a great vego retaurant. While there we met another couple of aussie doctors, Lee and Sonia, and on one of the crappy days we headed out and did a little day walk to Lago Verde. It was a beautiful walk, with heaps of awesome Monkey Puzzle trees which are a kinda pre-historic pine tree. Very cool looking. We had to trudge through some snow near the lake, and on the way back we were walking through a blizzard. It was fun though.

Monkey puzzle tree on the way to Lago Verde.

The next day we went and hung out at some hot springs. They were hideously expensive but they were the nicest hot springs we'd been to thus far.

A couple of days later the weather finally cleared, which gave us a chance to climb Volcan Villarrica. It was a straightforward climb up snow, and the four of us (Lee and Sonia joined us) overtook a lot of guided groups on the way up by shortcutting up steeper sections of snow.

Jen enjoying using the crampons we'd been carrying since Bolivia.

It was a nice amble to the top, which was unfortunately marred by some poor route selection by yours truly - when we got to the top we were downwind of the fumes, so we had to pop down a bit and traverse across the lip which was very icy and quite sketchy. We were lucky we'd done some crampon work before. We finally reached the top after about 3 hours.

Sonia, Jen, and Lee at the summit.

For those of you who choose to do the volcano unguided, all you need to do is show the park rangers either a mountain guide card, or if you don't have one of those (we didn't), then they check out your equipment (you need crampons, ice-axes, helmets, and a story about how much mountaineering you've done).

The weather cleared beautifully and we finally managed to see the volcano from town.

Villarrica from Pucon.

After that we said goodbye to Lee and Sonia and caught a bus to Bariloche in Argentina, where we were going to meet up with Em and Leece again, as well as Mike Ashbolt and Tes Naidoo (all friends from med school).

Huaraz

The weather was quite shite in Huaraz, but we decided to have a crack at the famous Santa Cruz trek anyway. It was a beautiful trek and we did get some patches of good weather. Jen and I also got absolutely thrashed at multiple games of 500, winning only one game in ten against the Queenslanders Rik and virgin 500-player Kath.

I think we took 5 days to do the trek, which included a side trip to Alpamayo base camp.

A cool mountain, day 4.

The pass. Countless false summits made it a long slog, but worth it for the views.

After the trek, Rik left us and we hung out for a few days, one of which we went on an ice climbing trip in miserable weather and then mountain biked back down. It was wet and cold, but a lot of fun.

Jen cruising up the overhanging ice wall.

We dried off in our hotel and then caught an overnight bus to Lima. We had a whole day in Lima waiting for our plane to Santiago, and spent most of this in Starbucks doing internet. Lima isn't a pretty city. We did venture out to the beach to watch the surfers surf through the fog, and also ate some fine cerviche (raw seasoned fresh fish), so it wasn't all that bad.

We also found ourselves in a shopping centre when suddenly everything started shaking for a second or two, and all the local shoppers ran out screaming. We weren't sure if it was an earthquake or a bomb, as it was such a short little blast. And we thought the locals would be used to tremors... we found out on good ol' abcnews.com that Lima had experienced a small earthquake, about 4 on the Richter scale, but that it didn't damage anything. We walked away with nothing but 6 new T-shirts.

Arequipa Part 2 - Colca Canyon

After we said goodbye to Rick, the three of us booked into a 3 day mountain biking tour of the Colca Canyon, apparently the world's second deepest canyon, which is only pipped by another canyon just next door.

They advertised that there'd be lots of singletrack, but unfortunately it was mostly just dirt road. Fun though, and lots and lots of fast downhill. The bikes were disappointing given that the website advertised Shimano XT groupsets on all the bikes and other such crap, but in the end they were just slightly better-than-average hire bikes.

On the road out to Colca Canyon.

The trip was plagued with car troubles. In what was the newest looking car we'd seen in South America for a long time, the Toyota Land Cruiser was dodgy as hell. It did mean we got to see more condors, as we were stuck at the condor viewing point for almost 4 hours waiting for the car to be fixed, and since the first 3 and a half hours only gave us 1 condor in the first 5 minutes and then nothing else, it was worth the wait when 4 condors came back to their nests about 15 minutes before the 4WD came to pick us up.

The Canyon itself was pretty cool, but perhaps a bit over-rated. On the last day we had a lot of fun riding about 20km downhill, and ended it with a nice 2 hour walk to a little guest house that had some hot springs we could jump into and relax in.

Chilling out in the hot springs.

On the last day we did a bit more riding, all downhill, fast, and fun, and jumped into the car for the long drive back to Arequipa. Unfortunately the radiator in the 4WD had developed a crack, and after going back to the village and filling up with 40L of water, we drove very slowly back the 100km on slow 4WD track back to the main road. We stopped every 8-10 minutes to pour more water into the radiator. It was epic really.

One of the many radiator refills on the long road back to Arequipa.

The tour company felt bad, and luckily for us they had pizza and drinks waiting for us when we arrived. We got back around 9pm, and had a 10pm bus to catch out of Arequipa so we hurriedly packed our things and ate the pizza while we were waiting for the bus. It was comfortable overnight bus that brought us to Ica, which is about 4 hours south of Lima. We were headed to Huaraz, about 8 hours north of Lima, where we were going to meet up with Rik again and hopefully do some trekking.

In Ica we went sand-boarding and dune-buggying and also wine tasting. It was a nice little interlude that broke up the long journey from Arequipa to Huaraz. Unfortunately Peruvian wines aren't really all that much chop. But we nodded politely and said they tasted nice anyway. Dune buggying was heaps of fun; kinda like a free-style roller coaster. We'd never been to a desert like this before, with huge sand dunes as far as the eye could see. Sandboarding was fun too, but unfortunately we only got to slide down the dunes a handful of times.

Kath on the dune buggy.

After Ica, we jumped on board a bus for 4 hours which took us to Lima, and from there we went straight to another bus station and booked an overnight bus to Huaraz.

Arequipa Part 1 - Misti

Ok, sorry we´ve been slack. I don´t know why. We´ve had plenty of time to do blog, but sometimes, you know, you just can´t be bothered.

After we finished the Ausangate circuit, we said goodbye to Leece and Em (who were flying north into Columbia and then on to Equador) and hello to Kath White, a good friend from Cairns who we worked with and hung out with lots. She was only in South America for 5 weeks (her annual leave), arriving in Cusco the day we left for the Ausangate circuit. She´d been accimatising and checking out Machu Picchu whilst we were gone.

So the three of us caught an overnight bus to Arequipa, where there´s meant to be lots of stuff to do, like mountain biking and climbing volcanoes and stuff. We stayed at this awesome hotel called Posada Misti House. It was small, clean, extremely cheap, and the staff were super super friendly. That afternoon we met up with Rik Lane, another doc who we´d worked with in Cairns.

The first thing we did was head off for a day´s rock climbing. Unfortunately Jen had the shits so she missed out. So Rik, Kath and I, plus 2 other lasses from the UK headed out with our guides Ivan and this other dude who I can´t remember what his name was.

The climbing area was a small, shitty pile of choss. Our guides were dodgy. Their top-rope anchors constituted of one rusty bolt at the top plus a single quickdraw hanging from it. Disgusting really. I had to ask them to back it up, and luckily they did (albeit reluctantly). They had the bright idea of using a screwgate at the top (how novel) but of course forgot to screw it up. Oh and they failed to tie us in properly on at least 2 occasions. Go you good things.

The next day we headed out to climb Volcano Misti, a 5825m high pile of ash that overlooks Arequipa. We were going with the same company, with Ivan "Guy Smiley" guiding us again.

It was a couple of hours drive which was delayed by a police check point who deemed our 4WD unsafe. They weren´t going to let us go on, and in hindsight, we probably should have listened to them. I think an exchange of currency took place and we were on our way.

It was a 3 hour hike to the first camp. It was pretty hot in the blazing sun, and steep, and the fine volcanic ash made the going slippery and tough. Dinner was at around 4pm and we were in bed by 7pm.

View from of the Arequipa lights from camp.

It was a horrendous 1am wakeup call for a 2am start. Ugh. We managed to get going by 2:30am I think. Everyone was feeling ill due to lack of sleep; Rik and Kath´s tent wasn´t set up properly and was in effect a cyclone simulator. I think they go about 30mins sleep between them. Jen didn´t get much sleep either. I slept like a log as usual and was the only one feeling vaguely refreshed. It was a long, slogging sufferfest.

Rik and Kath´s cyclone simulator

To cut a long story short, Rik began vomiting at around 5500m, and had a shocking headache. Ivan "Guy Smiley's" response was: "Vomiting is nothing!" and blamed his vomiting on Rik's refusal to put on a warm jacket when Ivan asked him to. We got to the edge of the crater and Rik couldn't go on any more.

Rik's headache was unbearable at this stage, the rim of the crater. The top is the right peak in view, about 15 minutes more away.

Then I overtook Ivan near the top (I was sick of crawling along at a snail's pace) and the girls went "up" the "down" path for about 15 metres. From the top onwards, Guy Smiley was no longer talking to us. We're not sure as to why he chucked this hissy-fit, but chuck it he did.

After askin Guy Smiley 3 times to take our photo, he begrudgingly said yes. So here's us at the top.

The way down was fun. We got to run down the black volcanic ash slope, kinda like a huge big black sand dune. What took us 6 hours to climb was smashed in 45 minutes on the way down.

We got back to camp, and Guy Smiley told us he "had to keep going" and left us at the campsite with our porter. What a dickhead. The porter was cool though. We packed up our things, and headed back to the carpark which took about 2 hours, again surfing a lot of ash downhill. It was about midday when we got back to the carpark, and it was hot and cloudless. Of course, Guy Smiley had probaby taken the 4WD back with him, as there was no-one waiting for us in the carpark. I think we fried in the sun for about 2-3 hours before the 4WD came back for us.

Suffice to say we cancelled our next trip with that dodgy fucker Ivan. So for those who are heading to Arequipa, please avoid an adventure company called "Quechua" something. Dodgy, dangerous, and childlike.

The next day was a rest day, and we organised to go for a cruise down the local grade II-III-IV river, the Chile River, which started at the same place we went rock climbing the other day. Jen and I were in kayaks, and Rik and Kath in a raft. It was a beautiful river trip, with lots of fun grade III creeking. We portaged one grade IV and had a crack the other one; obviously Jen cruised it and I managed to get pinned on a rock and swam. But it was fun anyway, and luckily the sun was shining and the water was warm.

After that we said goodbye to Rik and the remaining three of us headed off to the Colca Canyon, for 3 days of mountain biking.

Slackers

Egads, we're in Bariloche now, which is in Argentina.

Since we last wrote we've done a whole heap of stuff. Have a look at our FB albums for an idea of where we're at. I'll write more soon.

Oh and Jen added some more photos too just then:

Volume 34 - Around Pucon and Volcano Villarrica

New Photos!

We've put some more photos up on Facebook. The links are on the right hand side, or you can click them here:

Volume 32 - Arequipa

Volume 33 - Huaraz