South America Flythrough

We started our South America trip by doing the Inca trail in Peru which was a four day hike through the Andes. We travelled with horses and llamas and alpacas, and stayed (camping) in local villages surrounded by smiling kids with grubby faces and colourful knitware. I'd never been anywhere that high before (up to nearly 5000m, or 16,000ft) and you really notice the thin air. Usually when falling asleep and your breathing slows and you wake up suddenly gasping for air. Exhausting but some amazing views. The trek culminated with a visit to Machu Picchu, the famous lost city of the Incas, a spectacular site hidden amongst the mountains.

We had a bit of trouble leaving Peru, as we were travelling with a tour company and our truck had been slowly falling apart on the way down to meet us. While we were on the trail, they rebuilt the engine - all new cylinders, gaskets, and whatever else. The old cylinders were a complete mess with large gouges scored into them. Because of that, we had to travel two days by bus rather than the truck, but eventually it caught up with us.

We then went on to Lake Titicaca, seeing people who live on floating islands made out of reeds, a more traditional island, Isla del Sol, that was the centre of the Inca empire, and then onto La Paz in Bolivia. It's a crazy city up about 4500m in a bowl formed by mountains, and hectic, noisy, dusty but enjoyable for a couple of days. We actually spent longer there than we thought we would. There was a strike in Bolivia, and when there are strikes the road are blocked by road blocks and nobody passes (you get attacked if you try). We were going to get out before the blocks were set up at 6am, but the truck screwed up again (loss of air pressure to the brakes) so we missed the window of opportunity. The next day we left even earlier (4:30am) and made it out fortunately. Things have deteriorated since and the roads have been blocked there pretty much since. I say roads - most of them are not what you'd think of as roads. They're very long dirt tracks, pitted with ruts and holes and you have a top speed of maybe 15mph. I can see why the trucks get a rough ride.

We then went to the salt flats which are a weird place indeed. Huge wide expanses of salt, set hard, as the result of an entire sea evaporating when the land got pushed up from below sea level to over 4000m.

We crossed the border into Chile and the Atacama desert, where we tried horse riding for the first time (good fun!). The desert was a strange place, but good. Our truck had full camping equipment, stoves, drinking water and so on, and we camped in the desert under the stars.

Then it was on down to the coast, to a place called La Serena. This was a nice enough seaside town and the first real civilisation we'd seen for some time. They had a full shopping mall, restaurants and so on.

Next was Santiago, the closest thing to a European city we'd seen in South America. Many people didn't like it, but we did. It's surrounded by great mountains and has parks, cable cars up the mountain in the middle, good restaurants and so on.

The next couple of days were in Pucon near the Argentine border in the Chilean lake district. It's very pretty. Imagine Devon's rolling hills but with a mountain backdrop and a huge volcano in the middle, all snow capped. We climbed the volcano which was absolutely exhausting. We were all kitted out like you'd expect for mountain climbers - tough boots, balaclava, ski jackets and crampons (spikes for your boots) and climbed for about 4 to 5 hours through snow and ice. Near the top it got hard to breathe, not because of thin air, but because the volcano was chucking out sulphurous gases. It's the most active volcano in South America, but hasn't errupted for 20 years or so. I was hoping to see lots of lava in it, but I think the lava's too deep. Still very impressive, and the view from 2800m is fantastic. We then came down again, by wearing giant nappies we strapped on then slid down on our bottoms, using ice picks to slow us down. A great experience.

The next day, aching all over from the climb the day before, we did some more horse riding. We rode for about three hours, stopping at a 84m waterfall that thundered into a pool that we stood next to, getting soaked.

After all that activity, we were more than glad to spend an evening at an thermal spa pool with a glass or two of wine.

On leaving Pucon, we drove over the mountains into Argentina (a stunningly beautiful drive past perfect mirror lakes) over to Barriloche for a spot of skiing. Shame we only got the one day, but time was pressing so it was then over to Peninsular Valdes on the East coast for a spot of whale watching, seal viewing and penguin visiting (a huge colony of up to one million birds!)

A long drive took us up to Buenos Aires for shopping, sightseeing and of course tango, as well as some great steak in a local restaurant (or parilla to use a local term). Three days (and late nights) later we headed further north and west back into the heart of Argentina for a four day stay at an estancia, or ranch where we rode horses, drank local wine and marvelled at the results of a huge bushfire that almost consumed the entire ranch.

Next stop was the Iguacu Falls, the biggest water cascades on the planet, and truly awesome - over 200 waterfalls, all in full flood thanks to the rains that had made the previous night's camping incredibly muddy. By now we were in Brazil and headed for the Emerald Coast, south of São Paulo. The town of Parati was very pretty, with cobbled streets and pastel buildings, surrounded by lush green mountainsides, perfect for boat trips around the many bays and inlets.

Nearly two months had passed in South America, and the last stop was Rio de Janiero, which lived up to the hype - packed beaches full of bronzed bodies wearing little more than dental floss, Christ the Redeemer looking down over the city, edgy favelas and insane Ayrton Senna-like driving.

It was a shame to leave our new-found friends behind, but by then we could do with a bit of time on our own.