Chile has been full of highs and lows so far. The highs have been incredible: In Chilean Tierra del Fuego we saw king penguins and the wind-dried body of a 16 metre sei whale on a beach. The painted tin houses in the little town of Porvenir, about as far from civilisation as it is possible to be, were beautiful. That was followed by six days hiking and camping in the Torres del Paine national park: another highlight of the trip. We walked alongside glaciers, up mountain passes and round cloudy aquamarine lakes full of icebergs. The place is so otherworldly, especially the granite towers the park is named after, which were formed by the scrapings of glaciers and wind eroding the sedimentary rock, and are so steep that snow can't settle on them. The nearest town to the park is so far away it's the equivalent of basing yourself in London to see the Lake District, and as you approach, the huge mountain range rises up from the steppe - incredible. It's also very romantic to think that until the 1950's the place was just part of one man's sheep estancia. I felt our walking was quite hardcore - an average of 16 miles a day - and you develop a real comradely spirit with your fellow walkers, people from all different countries and all ages. Admittedly, the trek also briefly became a low-point of the trip after torrential rain and a night in a soggy sleeping bag. Our little tent failed to withstand 110km/hour gusts of wind on an exposed campsite (tourists accidentally burned down 10% of the park in 2005, including the trees we needed that night). But Joe was man enough to withstand my whingeing, buy me several cocktails and rally my spirits with a night in a mountain refuge bunkbed - relative bliss.
Torres del Paine was followed by a four-day boat trip through the Patagonian fjords, travelling almost a third up the length of Chile. You travel on a mixed passenger and container ship, complete with a live cow-cargo, and we had the cheap beds in the corridor by the toilets. All in all an interesting olfactory mixture. But the scenery is so incredible and the people so friendly, and the bar so, well, open, that you don't mind roughing it a bit. I learnt a valuable life-lesson after shouting my way through Roxanne on the first night's karaoke: If you're going to embarrass yourself, make sure you can get away the next day. Several people remarked on my 'brave' singing the following morning, and the crew members seemed to know my name after that. For the record, Joe also did some Bowie, although not nearly so badly. We spent the four days chatting and birdwatching on deck, and the crew do lectures and turn a blind eye to people breaking out 2 litre boxes of cheap plonk at lunchtime. Throughout the whole trip you see just a handful of houses, and mountain after wooded mountain reflected in still water. On the last day things hot up as you cross the Pacific, with huge rolling waves and noticeably fewer people at dinner. On that stretch we saw volcanoes, southern royal albatross and in the distance a blue whale with its back glinting in the sunlight. Amazing.
Since then we've been in the Lake District just south of Santiago, and the pace has dropped somewhat. Chile really knows how to rain. I thought Ireland was bad, but this place is something else: up to 4 metres a year in some places. Mostly where we are. Since leaving the boat we've hired a car for a week and been moving from park to park, and the camera is full of pictures of us in full raingear standing next to enormous trees. I've dragged Joe to see a 3800 year old Chilean false larch tree (huge) and a 1800 year old monkey puzzle tree (soggy). The best park, called Conguillio, was full of monkey puzzle trees covered in lichen like fur coats on their trunks. Really stunning. But after a few days, walking up hills in the rain and looking in vain through the cloud for the volcano above you palls somewhat. The Chileans don't seem to mind so much, hordes of students and families think nothing of hitchhiking in torrential downpours in the middle of nowhere, carrying camping gear and dragging a cool box behind them. I can't understand it. Anyway, we've now moved on, to an island called Chiloe, famous for witchcraft and seafood cooked in a hole in the ground, but the rain persists. In a few days we set off for Santiago for a week's language course, and hopefully some more fried doughnuts stuffed with dulce de leche (another highlight). But for now, it's chicken in a bag.
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