Karl and Kara in South America

Kara says: Mendoza. You really should come to Mendoza - fancy a bit of sun, relaxation, wine, good food? This is the spot. We got pretty excited after a few weeks in Patagonia when our flesh actually got to see the light of day again and the thermals were consigned to the rucksack. Mendoza is a ridiculously pleasant city of about a million people, so many trees you can barely see the footpaths, leafy plazas every second block, lots of restaurants and cafes (you can eat outside!!! without getting cold! even at night-time!) to just sit at and watch the world go by. And just when you think it can get any more perfect - wineries! And even an irish bar to watch the latest defeat. Ye olde time photo of me and my high nelly outside a winery and photo of the entrance to a huge and extremely pleasant park in Mendoza that has the Andes as a backdrop. So of course in between all the relaxing we went to hunt down some wineries. We hired bikes, I got my beloved high nelly and Karl got a vile contra...

Kara says: Pinguinos! Lots of pinguinos. And other animals too. We came all the way across the country to the east coast of Patagonia (on our way from the west to the northwest) because Karl wanted to get in touch with his inner David Attenborough. He did. And I got a little excited myself to be honest. Punto Tombo has the largest penguin ...thing....breeding place...rookery?....whatever....outside Antartica. There's acres and acres and acres (sorry, don't have the actual figures) of hills by the sea peppered with penguin nests. Most of the area is fenced off as a reserve for the penguins but alot of the little fellas still choose to build their nests around where visitors are allowed to walk. So you get to walk right by them, peer into them, the penguins come out every once in a while and have a bit of an 'oul stretch and a poo, a peer at the people, and then go back to sitting on the eggs. Bunches of them wander down for a swim and a feed and walk around completely unpert...

Kara says: Villa La Angostura. As in the bitters. Slightly disappointed to find out they don't make the bitters here and so the street's not lined with bars trying to outdo each other in the use of bitters in outrageously cheap cocktails. But a nice town all the same. Angostura means a narrows or narrowing (here it's the thin bit at the top of a peninsula) so maybe that's where the bitters get their name - 'cause they make your mouth temporarily narrow. There is a cheery snowman who greets you at the bus station who looks like he might have had the need to add some bitters to whatever he's been drinking to keep him warm and cheery. We arrived after dark in a blizzard and so saw nothing but the welcoming lights of our hotel. Then the next morning I looked out the windown and saw this! Beautiful view of the lake and peninsula, snowy mountains in the distance, a little boat harbour and pier just beside us. So gorgeous. We spent a lot of time looking out the window ...

Kara says: San Martin de los Andes - a little european-looking village on the edge of a lake surrounded by snowy mountains. Honestly! More stone and log architecture in a gorgeous setting at the end of a long, narrow lake surrounded by steep, forested hills and snowy mountains. And more walks to lookouts with views of stuff. We walked through some wooded hills and an indiginous (Mapuche - the ones who chased everyone off 'til the late 19th century. And incidently still causing trouble in Chile at the moment, roadblocks, shooting at trucks, general hassle) village to a little beach on the lake. Photo of a house surrounded by a sturdy fence, Karl's picnic lunch at the beach - a half a cow between two slivers of bread. Photo of the lake with some ominous clouds. We've had sun, rain, wind, sleet, snow and sun again in the space of about 20 minutes. Karl has to stop every 5 minutes to take off or put on various items of clothing depending on the prevailing conditions. Photo of m...

Kara says: Forgot to put this first photo up before, it's from the bathroom in our hostel in Puerto Varas, Chile. I think I'll get one for home. Anyway. Bariloche (or to be pedantic "San Carlos de Bariloche") in Argentina's lake district. One of the country's biggest tourist towns, ski resorts in winter and lakes in summer it pretty much has it all covered. It's a pretty, european, ski-resorty town on the shores of a lake backed by snowy mountains - sound at all familiar? Photo of me on the edge of the lake with the snowy mountains in the background and trying not to be blown away. Patagonian wind! Have I talked about this before? It's special, there should be another special word for it that's not just wind. The long, long gusts (but more like waves of wind) come from far off. You hear a sound like a very long crash of a wave on the shore. It comes closer and closer and then it hits you and nearly blows you off your feet and then subsides and you ...

Kara says: Valdivia. See how grey and dull and miserable everything looks in this picture? Well imagine this is the cheeriest, warmest and sunniest it gets. This is Valdivia. The people from Muerto Montt call it (and I have joined them with relish) Maldivia. In all fairness I'm sure it's a perfectly nice town, there's a walk along the river, they have real pubs and good beer, some nice studenty cafes/restaurants, I'm sure it's lovely. But for three days it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained. And then rained some more. But we had a great oul' time: photo of me with the first submarine to sail around cape horn, the O'Brien (an O'Brien with an O'Brien). The market had loads of fabulous fresh fish. There were sealions. Karl wants to say that he liked Valdivia. He was happy there. They were good times. Yeah, right. Karl says: No really, I did. Very pleasant town. Very Galway like (admittedly rain included). Great student vibe, plenty of in...

Kara says: Chile's lake district. Very pretty lakes and mountains and allegedly four volcanoes though the cloud only lifted enough for us to see two. Perfect domed volcanoes covered in snow, with a rim of cloud just below the summit, on the edge of a lake - can't really get better than that. They're still active and in fact this area also gets it's fair share of earthquakes. The largest earthquake ever recorded was here in 1960. They had I think five earthquakes above 8 on the Richter scale within a couple of days and the final biggie was so big they had to add some numbers to the top of the Richter scale to account for it (veracity warning: I have not yet checked this fact on google, it comes courtesy of Chilean guide on the ferry). This area also has a very strong German influence. The area wasn't settled by Europeans until the 1880s (have I written about this before? Getting deja vu.) because of the strong disapproval of the local Mapuche tribe. And even then onl...