Our South America trip in summary

The first thought is how did 7 months go so fast and can it really be over already - its scary!!! The next thought is after a I take a few moments to think about my backpack is that yes its over and I'm glad cos I really dont want to have to live out of a pack, organise a trek, sit on a bus/plane for over 10 hours in a row, find a hostel, find our way around a new city (althou Cork is almost like that to me now), do the backpacker chat thing (you know the one - where ya going, where ya been, where you from, etc) for a very long time again! We have had an amazingly diverse and interesting trip, much better then we ever thought it would be (or could have imagined from reading guidebooks), much safer and friendlier and we even managed not to kill each other despite seeing each other basically all the time :)


Highlights
These are the bits of the trip that really stood out for us. They are not necessarily the most scenic or the biggest or the wettest or driest but for us they were a real highlight and something we always want to remember.

• Carretera Austral - this was just 5 epic weeks, each day better then the last and just the best scenery you could imagine. Very few tourists, basic tourist services so an adventure travelling and getting around there as well. The hiking is as good as it gets (altho do bring mossie repellant!). This was possibly the best 5 week run of travelling we have ever done. Best bits included
  
• walking in Valdivian rainforest in Park Pumalin & seeing dolphins
  
• continuous unbroken mountain scenery every day
• isolation of hiking in Lago Jenemeini and Tamango reserves
• around Cerro Castillo hike
• glaciers glaciers everywhere including O'Higgins day trip on a boat on Lago O Higgins
  
• PN Quelat day walks to glaciers - unreal
• the people experiences, the lovely and friendliest locals of our trip, the complete relaxed feeling and no need to care about being robbed -no locks or keys required
• skinny dipping in ice cold lakes and rivers after a hot days walking, camping with not a soul next nor near us for miles (well we think anyways!)
• walking 25kms across the border to Argentina, then hitchhiking with the border police on their high speed boat, followed by a lift on a dump truck into El Chalten
  
• Rainforest experience in Los Piedras - fantastic 2 weeks immersed deep in the jungle, miles and miles and days from civilisation (depending on what ya call civilisation and the power of your outboard motor) surrounded by huge trees, monkeys, birds of all kinds, frogs, all the creepy crawlies you ever dreamt (or nightmared) about and just great fun and adventure.
• Bariloche/El Bolson hiking - very well setup and organised huts and tracks, stunning scenery and forest, surrounded by mountains and also good for meeting Argentian people (as opposed to tourists). Refugio Otto Meiling was spectacular especially for ice walking and condors. Nahuel Huapi was beautiful and the walking near El Bolson was superb especially all the forest and potential for heaps more up here.
  
• Hiking over John Gardner Pass to see Glacier Grey in front of the southern icecap plus day hike up Valle Frances on the Torres del Paine grand circuit were absolutely amazing days. This absolutely blew us away despite the overcrowding on the rest of the track. Its worth doing the hike just for these 2 days. The rest of the hike has some other highlights such as walking alongside Glacier Grey for 10kms, watching the ice fall off the front of it, of course the Torres themselves and the view from Lake Pehoe of the Cuernos (a very famous view in Torres del Paine).
  
• At Fitz Roy in Los Glaciers NP, watching sunrise on Cerro Torre was stunning. Walking the section from Laguna Torre (Campomento de Agostini) to Campomento Poincenot (front of Mt Fitz Roy) was beautiful thru forest, alongside lakes and incredible views as Mt Fitz Roy came into view. The 3 hr return walk to Laguna Los Trece with spectacular views of Mt Fitz Roy, the glacier underneath its towering cliffs and looking down onto Lake Sucia was breathtaking and unforgettable. From Valle Electrico (super base for day walks and further if you have ice experience) we hiked upto (well almost) Cerro Electrico which rewarded us with a 360 degree panoramic view of the southern icecap, and surrounding mountains, valleys and glaciers. Unbeleivable and probably the best day walk of the trip, if ever that we have done.
• Salta and surrounds. Fantastic, lunar, desert, forest, high altitude, vicunas, traditional lifestyles and art crafts, historic villages, great places to stay, vineyards, good food (empanadas especially - prolly the winner of all the trip), amazing colours and landscapes, canyons, mountains and valleys. Seeing is beleiving how many different landscapes we drove thru each day.
• Salar de Uyuni - high altitude, volcanic landscape - gobsmacking. Volcanoes, flamingoes, dali -esque landscapes, lakes of sulfur, arsenic, etc, geysers, history - a must do of any South American trip.
• Machu Pichu and the Inca Trail. We expected tourist nightmare and tho it was packed it was still incredible. What a place and what a setting. Unforgettable. The mountains and cloudforest probably made the trip for us.
• Iguazu Falls - as big and spectacular as waterfalls get
  

What we would do differently or not do at all
Hindsight - if only we'd known some of the things we know now but sure maybe if we did then we wouldn't have had some of the experiences we did have. Saying that there is a few things we could have done to help make our own travels easier so here's are a few things we learnt (or in some cases rediscovered) along the way that we want to keep in mind for the next time (if ever) we do something like this.

• Spanish - we should have started before we left and also maybe applied ourselves a bit more on the trip but with the basics we had it made our trip much easier, good to be able to have a few words with the locals and more fun in general
• Music - how could we forget to bring music. Our biggest mistake
• Earplugs and sleeping tablets - a sanity saver for long bus journeys
• Be more aware of the seasonal variations
• do Torres del Paine and Fitzroy in March (altho some of the huts are closed on the Torres del Paine circuit) as the numbers of people are way lower. Saying that if your in the region and the weather is good go for it!
• in Bolivia we were too late for Amboro NP as it was wet wet wet.
  
• in Peru we missed Ausangate due to rain (altho annoyingly it cleared up after we left) which is another point dont check what ya missed out on :)
• Bariloche is great from March to May and probably from Oct to Dec (for low altitude hikes) as well altho I think in Jan/Feb is possibly very busy plus loads of horseflies and mossies.
  
• In Bolivia, have very flexible travel plans!
• Places we found overrated - just because someplace is on a tourist checklist doesn't mean its the best.
  
• The hiking around Bariloche for us was the equal of Torres del Paine and Fitzroy even if the scenery wasn't so dramatic, the hiking for hiking's sake was much more interesting in a more beautiful setting with way less people (altho maybe if we were there in Jan/Feb it would be a bit busier).
  
• Ushuaia - its a bloody long bus trip to/from there and its not that beautiful, very touristy and arse freezing cold most of the time. The hiking is very enjoyable but nothing better then further north.
  
• Colca Canyon - unless your going to hike then dont bother - go and see condors at Refugio Otto Meiling and 101 other places anywhere along the Andes. Just look up and open your eyes (altho watch out for the big birdie poos - 2 litres of crap from a vulture on the head wouldn't be pleasant)
• El Chalten - what a dump of a town but the scenery is worth it. Book your accomodation WAY ahead. Try to spend more time out hiking and not in town. Also be prepared for swarms of large Israeli groups dominating all the free campsites (this goes for Torres del Paine as well). Staying at paying campsites helps avoid this problem for some reason ;) El Calafate is similarily drab but better setup town. Its worth the pain for the glaciers but remember there are glaciers elsewhere in Chile and Argentina that dont have the mega hordes of tourists.
  
• Cusco - very touristy but I suppose thats all we expected from it really. Worth a visit.
  
• Bring a stomach of steel!
• We dont like touristy, overcrowded places so we should avoid them :)
  

Places we'd like to see again (or do for the first time)
There are some places we didn't have the time (beleive me even in 7 months we ran out of time), the energy at that time or the budget or else just plain discovered for the first time that we would like to take a look at if we ever get lucky enough to do a trip like this again. Here they are

• The southern icecap - if global warming hasnt melted this area then this would be a fantastic region to do an expedition on, possibly from Villa O Higgins or else via El Chalten. This would require reasonable organisation, good weather luck, a good budget and either experience on snow/ice or a reliable guide/expedition company to show you around. Its a stunning area mostly in Chile. There is also a Northern icecap north of Caleta Tortel which runs nearly as far as Cochrane.

• Carretera Austral -
  
• hiking some of the more remote and unexplored areas in particular
  
• some of the valleys off of Chacabuco Valley such as Rio Aviles Valley, plus there are more valleys that we dont know the names of. This is all being conserved now under The Patagonian Foundation
  
• Valle Leones
• around Park Pumalin
• San Lorenzo (best with a hire car and very easy)
• Futaleufu
  
• potential for further exploration
  
• more of the archipelagos by boat
  
• south of Cochrane, some amazing photo oppurtunities and campsites if you had your own transport plus old horse routes to explore
• scenic flights
  
• Chilean IGM has superb 1:250000 maps which give a great overview of the area. Buy all the maps you need before your trip to save you hassle as these maps are difficult to find on the Carretera Austral itself

• Rainforest - either in Bolivia and/or Peru, would be funky to do a trip to/from Puerto Maldonado to Bolivia via a river boat. Manu would be amazing to visit. Potential up the Los Piedras as well.
  

• Bolivia
  
• Hiking in Bolivia - hike from the Yungas down to the rainforest. Need guides
• Noel Kempff National Park, also Amboro NP
  
• Bus trip in the dry season in the northern rainforest regions
  

• Peru
  
• Ausangate Circuit, also maybe the Salkantay (buy the topo to see there are multiple interesting possibilities up here)
  
• Huarez region altho needs altitude acclimatisation
  

• Argentina
• Bariloche and El Bolson - heaps more fantastic, easy to organise hiking here
• Salta - explore more of the region via car especially the cloud forests
• Mendoza, Cordoba and San Juan - funky areas to explore if ya had your own transport plus plenty hiking potential
  

A final splash in Buenos Aires before heading home to Cork

Reached Buenos Aires after 22 hours on a bus from Salta which was fairly mind numbing. The last 3 hours were particularly slow as there was poor road visibility due to extensive grass fires further north in Argentina. Did I mention that the Retiro bus station is more like an airport then bus station with a huge number of gates and buses. Found out on the way to the apartment that the Boca Juniors game we were supposed to be going to the next day was already on so the STUPID football agency told us the wrong date (I did check and it wasnt me getting backpacker dates fuddled) so didnt get to see the footy after all ... doh.

Spent the next week hanging around Buenos Aires with Nan, Helen and Robyn in a blur of shopping, sightseeing, walking, eating and drinking. Did a little walking tour (by ourselves of course but no need for tents on this one!) out to Palermo and Recoleta and also one with Nan down to the Costanera Sur Wildlife reserve near the port which was actually really good. There was heaps of birds down there altho the air quality is still quite poor. We did a trip out to Boca as well. Its very colourful but a bit tacky tourist with everything geared at taking your tourist dollars. The Museo de Bellas Artes Benito Quinquela Martin which is a muesum set up by the guy who the muesum's namesake was really good tho. Good views of Boca from the top as well and some interesting paintings that he did. For shopping we found loads of funky little design shops and markets (especially at the w/e) around San Telmo so managed to buy what we needed without too much pain (altho any type of shopping that involves clothes is always somewhat painful for me). For eating we stayed pretty much local in San Telmo with a couple of trips back to Petanque (French restaurant ... excellent) and also to Parrillo 1880 which was very good. Other then that we ate in the house as the food markets in San Telmo are great.
We did try a few of the local bars as well and even ventured out to a microbrewery - the Cruzat Beer House - in a different burb one night. It wasn't as good as we expected as the beers really weren't too our liking at all. We did a sampler of their 10 beers on tap (got a little minitature pint glass style glass with a taste of each beer on a round stand) and found them all to be very sweet and heavy. Maybe we're just used to the crisp, cold beers of Aussie but most of the beers made us feel sickly. We did order a pint each of Koala's (a local BA beer) but the head went flat in seconds and it was warm and too sweet. Gave up at that point and headed back for a pub crawl of San Telmo which was good craic.

Flew out of BA on monday evening with Iberia and this time everything went much more smoothly then on the way out. We didn't get bumped or put on standby, put in seats on different rows, the airstaff on the flight were really friendly, the food was palatable (seriously it was ok for air food) altho the entertainment still sucked, the seats are awful and the leg room is ample for hobbits (althou their feet would get stuck under the seats). We only had an hour to spare in Madrid so whilst we managed to catch our flight our luggage got left behind. This suited us perfectly as we could now fly to Cork and not get charged 140 euros more for excess bagagge (always a silver lining in every cloud!). Iberia delivered our luggage by courier to Cork the next night - quite impressive really and so much less hassle for us - would recommend losing luggage ;)

So we're back in Cork about 3 days, haven't done much yet except catch up at home and trying to lose the last stomach bug that South America gave me (thankfully it didn't kick in til we reached Cork) so hoping to catch up with everyone very soon so watch out!!

Its great being home and despite all out stuff being in boxes and all over the house (sorry Mum) its way better then living out that pack!