BULA continued...

The next day in Bariloche we caught a bus to El Bolson, a beautiful looking mountainous town which had pink blossoming trees surrounding a big artesan craft fair (to die for Alfajores for those who've been to Argentina). Returned to Bariloche for dinner and drinks out with people from our hostel where we met a suspect couple of Argentinians hoping to open a hostel just for women called The Nunnery. Interesting. Needless to say we moved away from them pretty quickly.

The next day we moved on after the mountain luge to Mendoza on the overnight bus. After bingo on the bus (which Emma won without realising and missed out on the prize) and some crappy films we arrived early Sat morning to the wealthy wine region of Mendoza. Spent the day looking around and had a great wine tasting in the evening with Matias in a boutique winery where we got through 10 bottles of wine (swirling, sniffing, gargling, examining and pompously defining) and generally came out very happy.

Things took a bit of a downturn the next day when we had a great time at the San Felipe vineyard and returned to Mendoza city for lunch. Here, while having lunch on the side of a restaurant I had my bag with all my valuables in it stolen by a guy with a pistol. After much upset and cancelling of everything, we left Mendoza the next day on the night bus to Buenos Aires to get a new passport from the British Embassy. Met the consul and had a cup of tea and the Great British network handed me a new passport the same day. Caught an early flight to Santiago and spent the next day looking around before flying to Fiji via Auckland. Santiago was quite a European and buzzing place and quite chilled, liked it a lot.

After a 14hr flight and 8hrs hanging out in Auckland airport we boarded the plane to Nadi, the main town in Fiji, on the biggest island. Spent the night there by the seaside where there was amazing seafood and a fire twirling dance display. The next day we boarded the boat to Waya island and the Octopus resort. Octopus resort went even beyond the idyllic pacific island stereotype, it was stunning. We spent 5 days here relaxing, snorkelling, swimming, sunbathing, reading 4 Harry Potters (blush), handgliding, cocktailing and eating. Will stop now, that's enough.

After a couple of days back on the big island with yes more chilling we caught the flight back to Auckland laden up with Fijian wood goodies and worrying about customs...

BULA from Fiji!

Perito Moreno glacier was stunning and freezing. It was a beautiful blue colour and bits kept breaking off making thundrous noises. Having not seen a glacier before I was suitably impressed. We then got the bus from El calafate to Torres del Paine where we spent one day going around the whole park looking at Lake Grey and its glacier and 'Los Cuernos' and 'Las Torres' mountains which were imposing and covered in snow. Day 2 we did a 20k up to the Torres and back. Brilliant. Not having time to do the full 5 day hike we headed upwards to Puerto Montt, port town in Chile, not very exciting place and the hostel we stayed in was shabby to say the least!

In the morning we caught an 8hr bus to Bariloche where we were rewarded for the long travel by oodles of the most amazing chocolate. We raided the chocolate shop street and had a big feast while we went to the cinema there. Bariloche is a town which looks v much like an Alpine ski resort so mostly sells chocolate and ski wear. Its the big skiing/snow boarding resort and we celebrated that by doing a snow luge thing down the mountain. Great stuff. Running out of time in internet cafe so will continue later! xxx