Hello Argentina....

Hi everyone

So after a long break, we are just going to do a quick update to the blog as this is a slow computer in the hostel. We will try and find an internet cafe in the next few days to post photos etc.

So quick update of December so far!

After buying our compass in Puerta Natales, we went to the national Park Torres del Paine and spent 6 days hiking with huge backpacks on - often uphill on difficult trails - and it was absolutely amazing, the best thing by far. Hopefully the photos will do it some justice, but we saw impressive mountains, beautiful clear lakes, and glacial streams (and obviously glaciers).

We stayed in little refugios, which are basically hostels providing basic accomodation in 6 bed dormrooms - Glenn always had the top bunk as less likely to bump his head! We carried food for brekky and lunch, and some of our favourite memories are meals outdoors - such as pasta and soup in the sun, cup of tea by a glacier and noodles halfway up a valley. The 3 course dinners we had in the evening were brilliant robust food, which is what you need after 12 hours of hard trekking (well, other days, it was more like 4 hours!). The refugios had a ski-lodge type atmosphere in the evening which was cool - lots of people tired but happy after being outdoors all day wanting to have a drink or two... We generally went to bed early-ish before 10 as we were getting up for 6 am or so, but we still managed to have the odd glass of wine, beer or Glenn´s Glenfiddich (small hip flask for ´emergency purposes´).

One of the highlights was a day we covered a lot of distance with 12 hours trekking, the midpoint of which was a trek up the tip of the valley frances (middle of the W) which involved trekking up a snow covered piste to reach a mirador (viewpoint). It was slow going upwards - imagine walking in deep snow in trainers, without walking poles (which we noticed, everyone else had) but coming down was ace. We basically skied down but on our posteriors. We have a couple of wicked videos for when we get home. It was probably dangerous with submerged rocks and glacial streams but it was totally fun and so much easier than walking down, we don´t care. We couldn´t feel our freezing backsides for half an hour but, hey, it was cool.

Overall, we had great weather - sunny but often really windy - but it would have been a totally different experience in rainy, snowy, foggy weather.

So we finished the W circuit and then got up at 5.30am (driven out by the worst snorers we have ever heard) to do a 5 hour trek to get the bus back to civilisation. We then spent a few days travelling back up to Santiago via Puerta Natales and Punta Arenas and then a 7 hours bus ride across the Andes to Mendoza, Argentina.

We are staying here for a few days to have some fun - and have booked up for some rafting and horse riding (Glenn only convinced after 6 weeks of nagging) and will be doing a wine tour as well. This is serious wine country and we are looking forward to doing lots of tasting of top wines. The weather is beautiful and it is nice to walk around without packs on our backs (all our cold weather gear is being stuffed down the bottom of our luggage).

Love to everyone and hope the xmas parties are going well!

Nina and Glenn xxx