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Back in Santiago for a few days before heading on the Pachamama bus north to San Pedro de Atacama. From there I will then be heading to Bolivia and then onto Peru for the Inca Trail on the 28th.
The southern trip was enjoyable, and I am glad that I took the opertunity to jump off the bus in Pucon and Puerto Varas, though it is a shame that the bus was only twice weekly as the time spent off the bus was more than enough, and had there been some more buses I would also have liked to stop off in Valdivia for more than the afternoon that we had there. Whilst in Puerto Varas a group of us that had jumped off the bus hired a car and went to visit the island of chiloe for a couple of days, and I had my first experience of driving on the wrong side of the road, in fact the first experience in a car since my test, though I only drove on the extremely quiet dirt roads.

Arriving into Santiago four hours before departing and without getting any sleep on the plane wasn´t too bad, though all those long days with over night strikes for Dramsoc events probably helped. I spent a couple of days looking around the city and one relaxing before starting my journey south.
I found out about a company that offers a twice weekly “hop off hop on” service with an english speaking guide so as I don´t speak mach/any spanish I have abandoned the method of getting myself between places using public transport and decided to use this service. The route is a seven day route visiting Pichilemu, Santa Cruz, Pucon, Valdiva, Peurto Montt, Peurto Varas, Saltos del Laja as well as a few other towns en route. I have currently stopped off at pucon and will rejoin the next bus in a couple of days, and will probably do another stop off later on.
Not speaking spanish has been a bit of an issue, but I have been able to get by. Unfortunately I don´t think that this will be the case in some of the places later on in the trip.

The last couple of weeks have seen a trip up the west coast of New Zeland’s South Island stopping off to visit family on the way, and then a dash up the north island in order to make it to Aukland in time for my flight to Chile Tomorrow.
I had been hoping that I might be able to do another of the Great Walks the Tongariro Circuit, however there was not going to be enough time to fit the three day walk in, so the one day walk the Tongariro Crossing, which is supposed to be New Zeland’s best one day walk, would have to be done instead. Unfortunately the conditons were not great with very low visability, and we only managed to get just under half way along the walk before having to turn back as the wind was too strong for us to cross one of the ridges. So wether it is the best one day walk I will have to leave judgement untill I return here again.
Tomorrow will be the longest day of my trip, with my flight from Auckland to Santiago Chile. The flight is the longest of the trip at 11h20 however due to crossing the date line I still manage to arrive almost 5hrs before I take off.