Confessions of a bad blogger

First things first; happy new year! I can't believe we're in 2016 and that I've now been travelling for close to half a year- it feels like forever and 5 minutes since I left England all at the same time. Second thing; I'm the worst blogger ever. I haven't posted anything since I was in Chile which was well over a month ago now. I have good intentions but I've done so much in the last few months that it's almost overwhelming to sit down and write about it all. I know, what a hard life I live.. Anyway I'm determined to post something today while I'm waiting for my bus tonight, even if I don't get fully caught up! Apologies if I do and this post takes you an hour to read...

Last time, I was in Santiago about to head down to Patagonia. I flew down there to avoid the 50 hour bus journey that the boys undertook, landing in the quiet town of Punta Arenas. The next day I took the short bus to Puerto Natales which most people use as a base for starting a trek around Torres Del Paine. Personally I'm not a big trekker. I'm happy with a good long day walk but multiply that by 5 and make me carry all my food and tent with me and you're looking at one miserable Hannah. With this in mind I decided the popular W trek wasn't for me, but I still wanted to see the national park. I booked onto a day tour which drives you around the main sights of the park with a few little walks in between. Call me lazy, you're probably right! I really enjoyed my day trip- the park was breathtakingly beautiful. For some reason I thought I might be underwhelmed by it but the sights were incredible. It's so untouched and when you realise you're about as far south as you'll ever get in the world (without actually going to Antarctica) it really feels special. The weather was also perfect- people say in Torres del Paine you tend to get all 4 seasons in one day but it was glorious sunshine all day, meaning the mountains were really clear. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. 

That night I met back up with Jack, Mike and a couple of Aussies we met along the way as they'd just finished their 5 day hike and we polished off a few 1.5 litre bottles of wine while we all caught up and they told me how great their hike had been. The next day, feeling a little worse for wear, we set off to our next destination across the border into Argentina. The town, El Calafate, is a popular spot for people to go to to see the nearby Perito Moreño glacier. It's supposed to be one of the most active glaciers in the world so you can see bits of the ice falling off all the time. However, we somehow kept missing the big bits falling off- instead just hearing the lucky ones who did see it gasp in awe. Still it was really cool to see- pardon the pun. The only problem with Calafate is that it really hit home to us how expensive Argentina was going to be!

The next stop after that came after a 30 hour bus ride- the longest of my journey so far. It actually wasn't that bad, apart from when we got off for a quick break and the bus pulled away without explanation with all our stuff on it. Luckily it turned up again 10 minutes later with all my valuables still there! The rest of the bus was pretty uneventful, though I can safely say that I'm sick of seeing films with Vin Diesel and The Rock in after taking so many South American buses. 

The bus was to a place called Bariloche which is in the Lake District of Argentina. 

The area was absolutely beautiful, although a little odd as the town itself looks like it could be a ski town in Switzerland. That may be something to do with the fact that apparently it was where a lot of Nazis escaped to after the war..

Anyway, apart from the architecture it also resembled a Swiss town as the main street was full of chocolate shops. If you ever go there you have to go to Rapa Nui- I can vouch for the dulce de leche ice cream and I think Jack would highly recommend the Baileys flavour chocolates! I did also find a caterpillar in my salad there but I'm willing to let it slide- what was I thinking getting a Caesar salad in a chocolate shop restaurant anyway. 

Aside from eating chocolate (and almost bugs) I also got a local bus a bit out of town to head up Cerro Campanerio, a big hill where you can get amazing views of all the lakes and mountains all around.

I'm not sure what I expected of South America to be honest but I'm not sure that I thought that I'd see quite as many breathtaking views as I have done- this continent really is an amazing place. 

After Bariloche came Mendoza- the wine region responsible for Malbec wine and therefore a place that I was very excited to visit. I think the day we did a wine tour was one of my favourite days of the past few months to be honest! Myself, Jack, Mike and a whole load of other people from my hostel headed out to Maipu, a nearby town, to rent bikes to cycle around the local vineyards. I know that wine and bikes doesn't sound like it should really go together but I can now say that I actually think wine makes me a better cyclist! First we visited an olive oil factory which made the best olive and garlic spread ever, before starting on the vineyards. We went on a proper tour of one, Trapiche, before sampling a few of their different wines and making very insightful remarks while doing so e.g. "so yeah it's definitely red" "I hear 2014 was a great year for wine". I did actually learn one thing- that you can make white wine from red grapes, you just remove the skins. Sufficiently happy with our one new fact for the day, at the last vineyard we decided to just buy 11 different bottles between the 14 of us and lay out on the grass in the sun. Bear in mind this was at about 3.30pm and we had to cycle back on actual roads with cars and I'm sure you'll agree it sounds like a great idea! We also just happened to get back to our hostel in time for the free wine they gave out from 7-9 every night. I don't think I need to explain how much of a headache I had the next day... Mendoza is also where I think I had the best steak of my life- they really aren't kidding about those Argentinian cows. 

This is the whole group at lunch, when we were considerably less wobbly on our bikes

After Mendoza, Jack and I headed to Córdoba to break up the journey to Buenos Aires. Córdoba is a big student city in Argentina so we thought it sounded like a fun place to head to. I'll be honest, we didn't do very much to speak of in Córdoba. We wandered the city and lounged around in the local parks, but honestly it was absolutely boiling when we were there so we just felt tired all the time. This was, however, where we discovered that Jack had managed to pick up bed bugs...

I'm going to leave this post on that cliffhanger. Tune in next time (it'll be up in the next 2 days I promise) for tales of Christmas in Buenos Aires and New Years Eve in Montevideo!