After one letter, a very accepting meeting with management for leave approval, a frustrating house move in which was spiked by bad luck at every opportunity (and perhaps a little thrift via the Scottish heritage - but that’s a story for another opportunity), one month of house sitting, we were finally off, Off and AWAY!

The thrifty flights provided us tickets on the most time economical route (not on the roof racks or aeroflot either) but there was still three stops and two overnight flights in it. Fortunately, for us the Scoones’s were flying home from Sydney and Zoe managed to keep us busy at the airport for a good three hours, finally, we met her and got to catch up with David and Lou. Our next stopover was in Santiago, this could have been our destination if I didn't win a paper scissors rock to fly for to Buenos Aires. Even after a 4hr wait in Santiago, Air Canada wanted us to stay there in a "resort" for $160 but, we kindly refused, 8hrs later we made it!

We were quick to learn the first lesson of the trip- the burn of the ATM fee. In an attempt to combat inflation there was a maximal withdrawal of 3500Persos, $200 AUD give or take, with a hefty \240$10-$15 withdrawal fee! I was sure there were citibanks in the city, my google search had told me so, the first google fail. Citibank no longer existed and in its place stood $10 fees with EVERY $200 withdrawal. I researched every possible way to get around this nasty surprise, Hamish just shrugged his shoulders and uttered my most hated phrase "It will cost what it will cost."

Buenos Aires was a hustle of activity, new sights and smells. A colour cosmopolitan, whose favourite food was clearly Helados (Ice Cream), we were in dessert heaven. To combat the bodyweight equivalent ingestion of ice cream, we did more walking than our feet knew what to do with. 4 walking tours over 4 days and 56km later, we had just scraped the surface of Buenos Aires. We had strolled through the bright art lined streets and learned the stories of the city, the role street art played in not only rebuilding a city but a country after the civil war. With our bellies full of ice cream, coffee and microbreweries it was time to depart and head to Puerto Natales for our first big hike- Torres Del Paine.

The O!

El Chalten.

Heaven.

After 8 days hiking, you’d think we would have had enough of hiking, but after ten hours on the bus, we had arrived in El Chalten our home for the next four days. The town only became a town in the 80s because it’s on disputed land with Chile so a dictator put a house on it and when he got to 4 he made a hotel, if people are there you can’t just walk in and take it, unless it’s not yours and unless it the Falklands (same guy). The town basically exists to support those who come to hike, like Mt Cook, every angle from the town is stunning, towering granite peaks all accessible from the town for day hikes.

We never like to start with the predictable, so we took the advice of our hotels receptionist, her favourite hike in the area. Two hours of up, up and more up, we reached the lookout- and she was correct, it was stunning. With views of Cerro Torre and Mt Fitz Roy, we sat with our trusty thermos and to our morning coffee. Cloud covered the top of Cerro Torre, stubborn we sat for ninty minutes hoping to see the top of the peaks. No such luck, but we had a great time chatting with an English couple sharing tales of our journey so far.

Day two Patagonian weather decided it was not a day for walking. Grey, cloudy and raining we ended up having one of the most fabulous days. We met up with new friends at the Waffle House, every type of waffle you could imagine. Blue cheese mushroom steak waffle.. say no more! Did we mention the berry, sorbet extravaganza? So delicious it never had a chance at a photo. We quickly discovered our brunch had turned into 6 hours at the Waffle House! We thought it best to move on.... to the pizza pub to carb load where we sat for another three hours watching the world go by \240until our friends caught the dreaded night bus.

We had planned to get up extra early the following day and do both hikes in one. Alas someone woke a little grumpy and needed more beauty sleep. We collected pastry treats and with our trusty thermos, filled with coffee we were off to complete the Fitz Roy hike. Up and up and up we went. We stopped and casually had a lie down under a tree admiring the impressive view. Who doesn’t like a snuggle under a tree!

Each and every corner we turned the massive Fitz Roy became even more impressive, The first day we didn’t have clouds. We reached the fork in the road and Mr Dillon had an idea. We could complete the Fitz Roy hike and do another 90 minutes up, or we could cross the 6km across the park to see Cerro Torre or what we had dubbed valley on the clouds for the last four days.

We reached the lookout of Cerro Torre and it was impressive. We didn’t think there was enough daylight to reach the lake, but fellow hikers told us it was so impressive we should push it. And we did! So much so Hamish thought it was time for a swim in the glacial waters, while I stayed high and dry on the banks!

Never have we moved so fast worried we’d get trapped in the park after dark we made the 11km hike out in under two hours. 32km later we had earned our dinner. El Chalten had firmly cemented itself as one of our favourite destinations for the trip early on. It would be hard to beat.

Tracey will only know when she reads this that on the six km linking track, I tried several times to ask her to marry me however, waited for another day. We found out today that Clare and Mim got engaged!

El Calafate- Perito Merino Glacier

Having completed the O-trek and five days exploring El Chaltén it was back to El Calafate. A drab town that was purely a hub for getting somewhere else. The town had a bustling centre that could be a tourist strip in any mountain town anywhere in the world i.e Banff, Queenstown or Wanaka. About three blocks out of the main strip it was a mess of incomplete concrete roads and scattered buildings and many dogs. We talked to one Dog and it followed us into town 30minutes, kind of nice to have Argentinian Ellie with us. El Calafate was our first introduction into the Argentinean version of pizza. We ordered what sounded like a delicious lamb pizza and got what can only be described as nanas chop suey sprinkled with Olives, Argentina was defiantly not colonised by the Italians.

We made the trip out to the famous Perito Merino Glacier. What an impressive site! After being removed from mass tourism for the preceding three weeks it was a shock to the system to be surrounded my bus loads of tourists. It was a little overwhelming for these kids who enjoy a simple bit of silence and paradise to themselves. The selfies people were taking were insane! So redicious it became a game and a way to pass the time when we were done watching the impressive ice carve off the 70m tall glacier. The challenge- replicate the selfie and get in the photo without them noticing, Hamish was a pro but often the photographer was too slow. 

Is the booking legitimate? Yes, yes it was.

After weeks of hiking, it was time to rest our tired feet- aka black toenails. We flew into Ushuaia over the Beagle Channel- what a stunning view! The ride in was certainly like a roller coaster! There was a reason each seat had a vomit bag!

After booking an unreal deal, cheap, from an online travel agent, with no reviews, cheaper than anything we could find, we’d travelled literally to Fin Del Mundo - End of the World, was this booking even ligit?

We arrived at the hotel and got to the front of the queue, this is it, handed over the credit card with a hope that it somehow still worked, the words WELCOME Mr & Mrs Dillon, the booking was legitimate, we had a PLUSH roof over our heads, and a boat to Antartica! This was only just enough to get past the part where Tracey spent months working on this deal, whereas I just showed up really, and not only was it under my name, she was Mrs Dillon.

Antarctica! The final frontier!

We arrived nauseous into Ushuaia after decending into the bumpy Begel channel fjord with sore legs and blistered feet. Straight up to the hotel as part of the tour package, Sweet as, that thing that looks like Hitlers eagles nest was our hotel!

We stayed two nights and only left the hotel twice - to head into town to drop off our washing and pick it back up. Between swimming in the infinity pools and sleeping post hiking there was no time for anything else. Our feet and legs felt better for it.

We headed to the boat and spent time meandering around Ushuaia and found my obligatory jug of beer in the shape of a penguin. Ushuaia is an interesting place, frontier wealthy and redneck. From the Islas Malvinas (Falkland island) memorial, to the Isla Malvinas es nuestra (Falklands islands are ours) billboards and rough bars and restaurants away from the tourist areas it had is own charm.

We found our boat with the 5star room and room and set sail.

Antartica, words cannot describe. \240. \240.

We arrived in Ushuaia just on time, after three days on the drake, we were happy to be on land! Sitting in a cafe downtown, we were quickly joined by boat people and that damn rocking motion. After putting the washing in, reality struck, $55 accommodation in a frontier town may of well have been camping after that boat, at least the bed didn’t rock but for three nights we thought that it did.

Enter 24 hours of food fails. After walking the 4kms to collect our laundry, we wandered to find the “best Asian” in Ushuaia. We were saddened to discover it was closed for renovations. Walking the 5km home, and not passing an eating establishment along the way, we found pizza across the road - what could possibly go wrong. A lot - We wandered in and the man looked very confused to see two clearly foreigners in his establishment. Full of excitement he rushed out the back and came back beaming holding up a bag of frozen vegetable ravioli for our approval. We declined and politely said pizza, to his reply “1?”, we asked for a menu, there was no menu. With no other choice at 10pm we ordered 1, whatever that was going to be. Hamish returned 40 minutes later with our surprise pizza! Ham, cheese, tomato… sounds normal right? Then it was covered with approximately 7 shredded boiled eggs, sprinkled with salt and topped off with olives! It was beyond revolting. It turns out pizza isn’t a failsafe choice now, and we had the salt dry horrors to prove it. 

After walking downtown to the bus terminal and asking for a ticket north, the reply was “you are 15 minutes late, we just sold the last 7 tickets. Tracey was hungry fuming and myself laughing. To my surprise, booking the bus for the day after and for an extra 400pasos didn’t help. Hanger was fast setting in and when her hot chocolate was a curdled mess and they added the optional 10% service charge and a 2% charge for using cutlery (a special economic zone extra tax), I thought that she was going to go postal on them

Prison in Ushuaia is pretty rough, cold with open windows but 3squares a day. Na, just tricks but Cyclone Tracey was really hangry!

Post another (different) coffee it was clearly all meant to be as our ship friend was in the hospital waiting for her aunt to be medivac'd out to the US for a broken hip. We visited the hospital which was interesting. Although it was probably the main hospital for the Argentine Isla Malvinas / Falklands campaign it was like a small 60s country hospital but not a clean one, the toilet soap - BYO. The Dr was being a pork chop and wouldn't complete a verbal hand over to the retrieval Dr for the plane to pick up Wilma. With the plane in Lima we were getting ready and hatched several plans to steal the medical notes and do the handover ourselves but it wasn't required which was good because Tracey is terrible at breaking the rules.

Ushuaia was a beautiful place but things are always different at the end of the world. After walking 5km to a swimming pool we laughed at the $70USD price and went to the movies, what a beautiful spot but it was time to go.

Oh now the mighty have fallen. After departing Ushuaia and the memory of five-star luxury that was our Antarctica adventure, we boarded yet another 12hour bus. There were certainly more buses on this trip for Mr Dillon’s liking. A fairly unremarkable journey our accommodation for the night was laughable. A “double room” where the door to the bathroom opened directly into the loo, and one needed to shimmy around the edge of the bed, the finest feature was the roof, that went from regular size to a reverse funnel with a 50cm squared window at the top the only natural light.

We were pretty excited to discover sushi, oh how we’d missed the. Hamish spied “especial” across the top, I suggested we translate it. “It’s the special, it’s got to be good”. For the first of sadly many times, we discovered the Chilean interpretation of sushi varies significantly from any we have experienced. The “special” sushi rice with seaweed in the middle rolled in a THICK outer coating of cream cheese rolled in breadcrumbs and then deep fried, hello cotton mouth!

Punta arenas was a nothing sort of town a place to collect the beast- our camper for the next 18days. Filled with excitement, and fairly clueless about the journey that lay ahead we collected the Hoff and finally hit the road at 3pm. Our plan was to cover the 1500km of Argentinian Patagonia in under two days to enter the Carrera Austral, one of the most remote roadtrips in the world.

We quickly discovered South American 1500km did not equal Australian time. Driving the vast open planes of Argentina the beast was struggling to get above 70km/hr into the wind, he’d skimped on the octane and had never driven another vehicle with his foot to the floor so much before.

Our most comical border crossing came when we tried to enter Argentina for the first time near Puerto Natalies. We’d been warned that crossing with a car could pose difficulties and extra interrogations. With all of our paperwork and our best smiles, we went in. It’s 8pm on a weekday, three men sat behind three desks killing time until close, each watching a different movie on the adjacent screen. Our man was in the middle of the latest Thor, admittedly it was an excellent scene, he was so engrossed in the film he barely looked at the passports stamped them and we were on our way.

As we started so late in the day we were forced to drive in the dark and quickly found ourselves in a slow moving jam in the middle of nowhere. Up ahead we could see fire, Hamish suggested I go check what it was and if they needed help. I decided it was safer to stay inside the trusty beast. As we drew closer we quickly discovered the fire was coming from coal miners union protesters with drums beating as we drove through men lining the roads. Extra glad I’d remained inside the vehicle!

By 10pm we had reached a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. Estancia- what a place. Tired and no where further to go we popped the tent and settled in for the night. Three nights earlier we had a turndown service with chocolates on our pillows- now we were at a truck stop complete with lights, petrol fumes and a constant supply of trucks braking passed, this was to be the first of a few petrol station sleeps, oh how the mighty have fallen.

We woke tired and we were off and finally made it to El Calafate for catch up with Antarctica boat friends a delicious breakfast and some real coffee to help keep our eyes open for the camel deer things.

Chefs!

San Pedro de Atacama

Five nights in one place! Sucre was a breath of fresh air. After the hectic schedule of San Pedro and the salt flats, sucre was a great place to recoup. Our hotel was ridiculous! Our room was three times the size of a normal hotel room complete with a super king size bed and marble double shower bathroom all for a bargain basement price. We were the only people in the hotel!

We got into a routine of sleep ins, late breakfast and Spanish classes in the afternoon for five days. While we are still fairly rubbish we can now construct and sentence and say more than “dos Cafe con Leche por forvor”.

Sucre was filled with delicious food and catch ups with friends we had met along the way. We realised the only photo we had taken was Hamish getting the 5 star treatment at the hotel when we were the only ones for breakfast!

Next up is la Paz where we have three jam packed days of adventure!

Oh what a place. La Paz- crazy, chaotic, overcrowded yet somehow we loved it and were sad to go. The city sprawls for as far as you can see, built between the mountains, at 4000meters above sea level, a feat of architecture.

We hit the ground running (jokes, who could run at this altitude?!) with the free walking tour! As always our first activity to orientate ourselves with the city and learn a bit about the country and our temporary home. This was one strange tour! We soon discovered that the Bolivians were very superstitious and many witch doctors still practised today.

First bizarre fact: When building a house you must make an offering to the god of the earth- Pachumumma. To build a house the offering must be a llama fetus! It must be a fetus who died naturally, Llama is a favourite for a small building. To build a big building or construction site the offering must be much larger! A live human. So the tale goes someone would find a homeless person, or an intoxicated individual and place them into buildings foundation and then pour the cement- while the person is still alive! That’s messed up, too many coco leaves I reckon. The guide stressed multiple times not to drink alone at night in case you ended up in a building site!

Day 2- We found real coffee! A taste of home, a Melbourian man has settled in la Paz and opened a very Australian cafe- complete with smashed avocado- though one could still afford to buy a house with smashed avo with Bolivianos! After filling out bellies coffee and avo we became five years old- and spent the entire day exploring the city via cable car- we rode every single cable car in la Paz. Hamish has to add not through some Sheldon Cooper like fascination but 3 of them were to get home- though on arrival he had said he wanted to ride everyone!

On our first day we saw these crazy people rap jumping down a building in the main square- we thought they were crazy! Yet on day 3, I found myself donning on a Spiderman suit and exiting the window on the 17th floor heading face first below! I can’t recall being so terrified I. My life, halfway down the wall I thought I was going to vomit- which would have been most unpleasant for the man below! And then came the free fall from the 6th floor to the bottom! I most definitely squealed! I had done it! And somehow five minutes later found myself strapping in for round two! What a thrill!

Our final activity in la Paz was the extended off the beaten path tour and Cholita wrestling. So we went to a cemetery- we’ve been to more cemeteries on this trip than ever intended! After the first tour- yesterday we heard about the llama fetus- today we saw them! Everywhere. In varying stages of development. That wasn’t the strangest thing for the day- at the cemetery, we learnt you could adopt a skull- yes a human skull. Take it home and build a shrine. Try explaining that on your way back through Australian customs!

The final activity which we went to was the Cholita wrestling. It’s like Normal wrestling but with indigenous women dressed In their everyday indigenous clothing, It was funny as a watching bad theatre All though scripted it was humorous and brutal- don’t mess with the Cholitas.

Nothing is ever straight forward in South America, our bus out of La Paz needed to come up with some impromptu alternatives as protesters were blocking the roads out of the city. We went through the middle of nowhere and learnt from the bus in front who found themselves in a ditch with all the passengers spilling out onto the road.

What an incredibly beautiful place!

We’ve never seen so many tulips in bloom!

Serious

After such a hard life of swimming, snorkeling, and tropical fruits and seafood we decided we needed a rest in the sleepy coastal town of Capurganá, in the middle of the durian gap bordering panama. No road access. So laid back is immigration to enter Colombia is a shop on the main street, no rush though, check in have some lunch and then get around to legally entering the country.

Two nights soon became three with the charm of this little coastal village. We decided a day hike up and over the hill to a beach in panama was a good idea- where else can you casually stroll from one country to the next to visit a secluded beach? It took two attempts before we were good to go. Oh Lordy- we under estimated the sheer challenging of hiking up hill in 35 degree heat and 100% humidity. Dripping after the first gentle incline we were beyond grateful for the Colombian man sitting 3/4 of the way up selling cold water. Did we mention that the jungle was muddy and slippery as we trudged up hill. The view at the top was pretty spectacular and we casually strolled into the town of Sapzurro the last point before panama. We enjoyed a quick dip in the Caribbean and a delicious menu Del dia- our staple lunch \240in Colombia a soup, grilled meat/fish with rice and salad and homemade lemonade for the grand price of usually $7.5!

We finally reached La Miel, the secluded beach of panama. Whilst it was rewarding to jump in the water it wasn’t the pristine cove we were hoping for and had more rubbish than we liked. The idea of hiking the return 3 hour trip back over the hill was pressing on us not wanting to be stuck in the jungle in the dark when we realised there’s a boat for $5 to take us back! Best $5 ever!

We made a wonderful new friend on the San Blas trip. So well in fact we kept her for the next three weeks. I’m sure our ugly mugs were just what she wanted for her month of annual leave. What a lucky lady!

Everyone and blog we’d read and told us to bypass Santa Marta, and industrial port city. We booked for two nights and had planned to check out the diving. We were not disappointed. Our new hotel, had a roof top infinity pool over looking the city and right outside the door was the best street food stalls we’ve come across in South America.

Filled with fresh juices everyday and night times giant slices of pizza- who knew caramelising pineapple before cooking the pizza equals the most delicious Hawaiian $2 can buy!

The diving was awesome! We were treated to beautiful healthy coral walls, loaded with colour and multiple types of tropical fish. We were so impressed with the diving and our instructor that we came back four days later to our advanced diving cert (and eat more juice and pizza).

After the 6 hour bus ride that took 9 we needed some chill!

We hadn’t booked any accommodation thinking we would get in earlier enough to wander around, but alas the bus trip from hell meant we were so exhausted we walked into the first place we saw. Rookie mistake. Did I mention neon lights above the bed? Green velvet pillows and scalloped velvet blinds? And possibly the hardest bed in South America, I’m still not convinced it shouldn’t be rented by the hour not the night!