Jumping out of aeroplanes

Pucon is a naturally blessed town surrounded by gushing rapids, snowcapped mountains and the omnipresent smoking Villarrica volcano. With an abundance of adrenaline pumping sports we knew it would be a fun (and expensive) stay.

We arrived late in the evening and headed to our hosts' log cabin. American skydiving instructors and rehabilitated rednecks Rob and Laura were a great couple to stay with and it didn't take more than a couple glasses of cheap Chilean Merlot to convince me to jump the next day.
Setting off to the airfield on a beautifully clear day, I hopped into the plane with Rob and a motion-sick Jim who had come along for the ride. It was a stunning journey up made even more thrilling by the empty and noisy space where a door should normally have been. As we climbed to over 9,500 ft it was time to wriggle around and hang my feet over the edge. Feeling your legs flail about is bad enough but the hardest part is resisting the urge to hold onto something or stay in the plane - fighting against your natural instincts to survive.
It was just one little push though and we were away, freefalling at around 120mph. Pretty exhilerating stuff.
After about a minute Rob pulled the parachute and everything slowed down. Like the moment when you stop shivering, everything was calm. It really feels like you are not moving when you are under the parachute and the world comes into view again. I started to notice mountains, lakes, trees, people's swimming pools and disorderly gardens.
Seven minutes descending to earth was not long enough. I would happily do it all over again.

Watch my video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwhQa26wSY4

We went white-water rafting, jumping off of large rocks into freezing rapids and drunk cool beer in steaming 40 degree volcanic thermal pools but nothing really beating jumping out of a plane.
Despite my adreneline hangover, we had a fantastic time in Pucon - a gorgeous place with far too many fun things to do.

And onto Chile

I did think Patagonia was completely stunning until we spent 36 hours on another bus trying to get out of it. The problem with Patagonia is that it is big and moonscape is only so interesting for so long. Oh, how a few hours of dead leg and compressed farts change things.

We spent a couple nights in Bariloche – a Swiss style city in the pine forests – hiking and enjoying the views. And then got back onto a bus on our way to Chile.

We crossed the Andes and high-tailed it to Pucon, an adventure paradise tucked up in the mountains among forests, rivers, lakes and a smoking volcano.

Coushsurfing with a couple of skydiving instructors I guess it was only inevitable that one of us would end up jumping out of a plane…

El Calafate

I think I fell in love. He’s pretty hard, cold and certainly a lot older than me but I couldn’t take my eyes off of this glacier. Completely awesome – there are no words to describe it but I will give it a go of course (I think that is the idea of a blog anyway).

We tried to sneak into the (loosely translated) Glaciers National Park before day break – yes, that is right, a national park full of glaciers, eat your heart out South Downs! So getting up at 4am we sped away in our hire car along the bumpy earth track by moonlight dodging hares on the way (apart from one, apologies Mr Hare).

Arriving nice and early we were disappointed to find that contrary to popular legend, the guard does indeed wait at all hours at the gate and there was no way to enter with the hire car. Pulling back away we tried to creep past the guard by foot pink panther style through the trees but frozen lakes, semi-darkness, an additional guard house and freezing temperatures made it more than a little difficult. Fortunately the park opened early and we were the first and only ones in! Getting up early does have its advantages occassionally.

Cruising along the winding 10km more of road we were relieved we hadn’t tried to walk it and started to get excited at the indicators of what was to come – lonely large chunks of ice drifting in the placid milky blue waters created quite a bit of anticipation.

And then there we were: running down the ramps in the semi-light like excited children; and then there it was…

staring straight back: the solid, cold, glistening high wall of blue and white ice stood firmly in its place smack bang in front of you, tearing through huge mountains either side on its way. Above the hard block you can see icy peaks sharply jutting out, piercing the sky. Beyond that thousands and thousands of peaks create a tangled, intricate ice cathedral. A few holes in the wall allow you a privileged peek into the deep caverns of the glacier, but hollow blue nothingness is all that you can see.

As the sun rose you could hear the glacier creak and groan, large chunks of ice plummeting to the water in thunderous grumbles and ear-piercing cracks of ice. Huge bulbs of ice rumbled under the floating glacier and forced their way out underneath thrusting themselves up to water level, creating an enormous splash. Floating iceburgs slowly bob in the water moving higher and higher until, overloaded on one side, they flip over exposing new rounded blue side which has spent years waiting for its chance to see the sunlight again. Completely phenomenal.

I sat entranced for hours just watching. Unable to lose it from my sight. After six hours, Jim finally tore me away kicking and screaming. I am still a little bit heartbroken...

Only half an hour down the road in the other direction we landed upon a beautiful estancia overlooking an utterly different landscape with dry, flat plains of purples, reds, yellows and browns set against the turquiose lake, snowcapped mountains and bright blue sky.

We stopped at the ranch to drink coffee with the gauchos and eat fantastic lamb empanadas while looking just as open-mouthed at the gorgeous colours of the landscape.

Patagonia was all I had imagined it to be and more.

End of the World

Landing in Ushuaia (the southernmost city in the world) is a pretty unique experience. The clouds part and all you see is water and a few islands, then appear the mountains of Chile and Argentina stalwartly staring at each other from either side of the plane windows, and all of a sudden you are starting to touch down - landing strip only now coming into sight.

Coming off the plane in our flipflops and shorts we felt instantly underdressed for the freezing weather and quickly tore apart the bags piling on every article of clothing that looked vaguely warm.
Ushuaia is an odd town, steadily growing on the great marketing implications of being the at the ‘fin del mundo’ (end of the world). Cruise ships pull up daily on their way to Antartica and tourists come to collect their ‘end of the world’ stamp in their passports (yes, I have mine).
Another very exciting reason to come to Ushuaia, which we only discovered on arrival, is the cheese! Finally somewhere that has taken its European heritage seriously. Gooey, almost smelly enough, brie and goats cheese quickly blew our budget but every dairilicious mouthful was worth it.
However far superior to the flat pack town and brie is the other worldly landscape and varied wildlife (including giant crab, yum!).
We climbed a glacier (in my longest trousers: zebra print pyjamas), visited a penguin colony via speed boat to their windy island (by now our host had taken pity on me and lent me some thermals), hypothisised about what the impossibly enormous bones could be from (we can only assume dinosaurs) and saw some amazing trees (making Salvador Dali’s look positively unimaginative in comparison).
Tierra del Fuego has a stunning landscape which is unlike anything else I had seen but it still didn't prepare us for our next stop...

Back to BA, via a 24 hour bus

We were back to BA after 24 heart-breaking hours on the hot, bumpy bus. The city was sweltering. To escape the 40 degree smog sauna we went to see the new 3D film Avatar... in 2D, oops! However the cinema was so hot (broken air-con) that almost everyone stormed out.

We die-hard Brits were left in the auditorium alone, so I stripped to my bikini to handle the heat. Believe me it felt reasonable at the time.

Half way through the film the security guard came poking around with his torch. Strangely enough he didn’t seem to mind the bikini and instead asked me to keep my bag and personal possessions closer to me. I guess in case we didn’t notice, from our seats high up in the empty cinema, any opportunistic thief sneaking in in his swimming trunks.

Anyway, a quick stop back in the city and then off (by aeroplane thankfully!) to the end of the world.

Florianopolis – Beach Living

Two weeks of surfing, sun and caipirinhas… not to make you jealous at all.

On arrival we couchsurfed with a friend then went to find an apartment with two other friends a few days later. In high season everyone living on the island moves into tents and rents out their houses for a tasty profit that will feed them for the rest of the year.

Sounds easy enough, although try telling an old lady that her cherished house isn’t quite hygenic enough and you would prefer a sea view… Much easier to view the ‘rentals’ where people build what is essentially a hotel on the side of their house – 5 or 6 identical looking tiny apartments which remain empty for 9 months of the year but fetch an extortionate rental during the Summer.

We happily found a cheap ‘granny annex’ style apartment at the back of friendly surfer Mario and his wife’s house. They even threw a cheap surf board into the deal – perfect.

Florianopolis is a gorgeous island with beautiful and wild beaches with translucent waters, a tropical lagoon, colourful rivers and lively people. Families all hang out by the river seeing what they can catch during the day and in the evening they move up stream to the lagoon and start on their prawn hunt with headtorches and buckets in tow. Eating or selling off their catch to one of the many fish restaurants. Prawns factor a big part on the menus and we couldn't leave without trying the 'secuencia de camarao': a sequence of prawn dishes cooked in any way you can imagine.

Typical Brazilian weather of flash floods and hot sun made us feel at home and we had a great stay.