Hablas inglés?

To which the answer is generally no. And given that the only Spanish phrase we know is “uno cerveza por favor” (a beer please), we’re not having too much luck!! Having said that, we have done everything we wanted to in Argentina, and more.

Don’t cry for me Argentina!!

We arrived in Buenos Aires rather drained after our long flight across the Southern Atlantic to find that Argentina is a lot more expensive than Africa. Despite everything still being cheaper than England, we have become the typical traveller type, thinking about every penny spent and saved, but we figured that we haven’t come here to sit in our dorm rooms, bemoaning the fact that the pound is so weak.

So off we went, walking around Buenos Aires, taking in the sites, the most remarkable of which was Evita’s grave. It is in a cemetery with innumerable other political and military figures, whose coffins are housed in church like buildings. Some of them are so grand that services could be held inside them and others show coffins that aren’t even underground but are behind glass windows for the public to view! Gem wasn’t too keen on this idea and couldn’t bring herself to look. We also walked past a demonstration about Argentina’s claim over the Falkland Islands; apparently the Argies haven’t come to terms with the fact that they are ours yet!! Still, we didn’t want to get involved with an angry crowd of protestors, so we wandered on at a pace.

We stayed in a quaint little hotel in the San Telmo district of the city. We found a gorgeous little cafe across the road where we had breakfast each morning, pointing at the menu to order what we wanted. The coffee here is amazing, but Gem is still a tea girl at heart. We ate out a few times too with a little help from our Spanish phrasebook, but we always dined alone as everyone else here eats so damn late.

El Calafate – who needs to be a millionaire?



Well, we do. We flew for 3 hours down to the south of the country. The mountains became more and more pronounced as we continued south and as we came in to land, the snow-capped peaks in the distance were incredible. The same unfortunately can’t be said of the prices. El Calafate is obviously catering for the fat American tourist with wads of dollars, not the world travelling backpacker. Everything from souvenirs and restaurant meals to a local beer was outrageously expensive. Disappointed we headed to the supermarket and bought steak, salad and a £2 bottle of red wine. And it was the best meal in town!!


El Calafate is good for one thing however. It is the base from which you visit the Perito Moreno Glacier. We took a day trip to the glacier and as the bus turned the corner into the National Park, we first viewed this huge wall of ice that ran back for miles. It was simply incredible. We jumped onto a boat that took us within 250m of the south face of the glacier. The weather put a bit of a dampener on it, but the glacier was awe-inspiring. We sailed up and down the face several times, watching and waiting for it to break apart. And it duly did several times with a sound ringing out like gunfire.

We continued on in the bus to the main viewpoint where the weather was still ruling the day. After our homemade (!) lunch the weather had died down a little and we walked down to the viewpoint. Up close the glacier was amazing. Its colour was a glassy blue shade due to thousands of years of snowfall compacting down and squeezing all the air out of it. Well, that’s what Gem said anyway who has again become the teacher. We waited patiently for over an hour while our fingers and toes became the same colour as the glacier for that elusive photo of an ice slab falling into the lake. And with minutes to go before we had to catch our bus home, it happened!! Here’s the sequence...

El Chalten – surely the windiest place on Earth

We escaped the casino town of El Calafate to the much quieter town of El Chalten. Well, except for the wind, which nearly knocked us over when we walked up the town’s one street. Our main activity in El Chalten was ice trekking. This was a 27km hike that took us 13 hours in total. The main event was trekking over a glacier in crampons and also a bit of ice climbing.



It took us a good few hours of trekking up the mountain, zip lining across a river and hiking through the moraines to get to the glacier, but it was well worth it. We put our crampons on and went trekking over the ice, looking down into deep crevasses. All we could think of was the film “Touching the Void”, where a climber falls into a deep crevasse, breaks all sorts of bones and barely makes it out alive. But of course we were fine and really enjoyed it. We also had a crack at ice climbing, which was great fun and had a "whiskey on the rocks", cut stragiht from the glacier. But after trekking for the whole day, the ice cold beer when we arrived back at the hostel was much appreciated!!

It’s chilly in Chile


For a few days we headed over the border into Chile. We went into the Torres del Paine National Park and basically got rained on the whole day. Not our favourite excursion, but we have vowed to come back and do some trekking here in the future. All the pictures show it as a stunning place with numerous glaciers and snow-capped mountains, beautiful lakes and all sorts of flora and fauna. But all we saw was cloud and rain.

Ushuaia – the end of the world

We ferried across the Magellan Strait and drove back over the border into Argentina, to Ushuaia - the most southern city in the world. And even though it’s summer here, it’s still bloody cold. We have done 2 excursions while here and for both we have looked like the Michelin man, wrapped up in all our layers!!



Our first expedition – after a terrible night’s sleep (the hostel may have actually been a club with beds) – was a navigation on the Beagle Channel, named after the ship that took Darwin on his epic voyage nearly 200 years ago. We cruised up the channel looking at sea lions swimming past our boat, learning about the local flora and fauna, much like Darwin must have all those years ago. The captain had concocted a coffee-style liquor for the journey back, which gave a welcome heat to Elliott’s stomach.

The next day (after a better night’s sleep after we asked to change to a quieter hostel – how old are we?!!), we went on another hiking expedition into the Tierra del Fuego National Park. It was a very relaxed trek through the woodland and along the coast of the Beagle Channel, again learning about the local birdlife and of the Yamana people who lived here nomadically only a few decades ago. There is only 1 pure blooded Yamana woman left in the world. She is now 97 years old. The weather was again pretty rubbish so when we got into the canoe to row along the bay, we were fighting a strong wind, so we had to pack it in early and head home.

More wine tasting – what must you think of us?!



We are now heading off on a 14 hour bus ride to Argentina’s wine region of Mendoza. We will blog again from Peru to tell you about the “vino” and our hiking in the Andes.

Love Ells and Gem xxx

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 BUNGY!!!!!

It’s been a very exciting few weeks for us both!! Not only has the sun come out to play, but we’ve both done some awesome activities on our way down to Cape Town.

Coffee Bay – surf’s up!!

We arrived at the Coffee Shack Backpackers where we were given a free drink and told that they had a strict policy of Buffalo Rules. Anyone caught drinking with their right hand had to down it on the spot and buy a new one. It was going to be a good few days!!

We signed up for surf lessons, which at £1.70 for 2 hours was almost stealing! The sun was well and truly out for the first time in a few weeks, so getting in the water in our roasting hot wetsuits was very welcome. We both fared pretty well - standing up a few times, falling off a few times and face-planting the ocean floor a few times. All part of the learning curve!! We were a little disappointed when the instructor called us back to shore, but when he told us he’d seen a SHARK (no word of a lie) we were pretty happy with the decision to finish a bit early.

We headed out again the next day, with an extra eye out for the fin of something that could end our trip prematurely, but there was no drama and we slowly honed our surfing skills – we’re still rubbish though!!

Storms River – adrenaline capital of South Africa

After a few days of travelling down from the Wild Coast to the Garden Route, we arrived at Storms River. Given its reputation as a place to please all adrenaline junkies, the town is actually very small and quiet. We set up camp at a nice backpackers a short walk from the town and enquired about how we could best go about getting that adrenaline rush. We booked ourselves on a black water tubing trip and the world’s highest bungy jump (well, Elliott did anyway!!).

The tubing was unfortunately not the high octane activity that we were hoping for. Despite all the rain we’ve had here, the river level was not that high, so we were forced to walk over the would-be rapids – rather that than a bruised bum. It was however a relaxing activity and Elliott did a few cliff jumps into the river in preparation for the next day!!

Bungy day – nerves are holding firm so far. We got to the bridge just before lunch time and had a beer with another jumper, Marcus, who we’d met at the backpackers. We stood at the viewing area and watched a few jumpers until we were called up about an hour later. The nerves were still pretty good up until the bridge walk out to the middle. The walkway is basically made of wire mesh and bounces up and down as you look down below your feet at the 216m drop to the valley floor. The confidence fell away with every step of the bridge until we arrived at the middle where the legs had turned to jelly. There was a lot of nervous laughter and false bravado at that point. Then Elliott was called up to go first!!

Within 5 minutes they had strapped him up and he was dangling his feet over the edge, then the call “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BUNGY!!!!”, and with that he was gone. Four seconds of freefall travelling at 120kph until the reassuring feeling of the bungy cord pulls your ankles tightly together. At 185m from the jump point, the cord yanks you back skyward. What an incredible feeling, the speed of the air rushing past as the ground gets ever closer, and then the silence as you bounce up and down in solitude. Awesome!!! Gem wouldn’t be coerced though; the walk across the bridge was enough adrenaline for her.

Into the Wilderness

The following day we travelled to a small place called Wilderness. We stayed at possibly the best located backpackers’ place in the world. The view from our dorm balcony took in about 25km of pristine beachfront. Absolutely stunning!! Whilst there we didn’t really do much apart from lie on the beach. The weather was scorching!! This travelling is really hard work!!

Outdshoorn – ostrich country

We arrived at our next backpackers – Karoo Soul – and it was amazing. The place was all newly decorated and the sunset from the balcony was incredible. The next day we set off on an adventure around the local area. We hired a couple of bikes and got dropped off at the Cango Caves. We signed up to the Adventure Tour, which takes you further into the caves than the regular tour. This involved crawling through holes that even Gemma struggled to get through. There was one slightly larger guy who almost got stuck through the so-called Letter Box, but with the guide pulling his legs and another guy pushing him from above, he eventually squeezed through.

After manoeuvring ourselves through the caves we set off on our 30km (yes, that’s not a typo and it was 40oC). Along the way we stopped off at a camel farm where we were led around the grounds on the backs of 2 gigantic camels. We then headed a bit further on and had lunch at a lovely tea garden. We had a dip in their pool to cool off, then went to the ostrich farm. We toured the farm, which included Elliott trying to stay on the back of an ostrich while it ran around its pen and Gemma getting a “neck massage” from 2 females.

We cracked on with at least another 12km to go. Not long after, a lady stopped her van and asked if we wanted a lift, but we stubbornly insisted we could make it. And with a little sun burn and VERY sore bums, we did eventually arrive back. In fact, we enjoyed the ostriches so much we decided to have one for dinner. Yum yum!!!

Stellenbosch – the Winelands

Given our love of a fine bottle of £3 plonk from Tesco’s, we decided to test our taste buds on a wine tour. We went to 4 vineyards throughout the day and tasted some 25 different wines. Our favourite wine of the day was aptly named the Redhill Pinotage, one we will no doubt never forget!! We were both pretty drunk by the end of the day!! Stellenbosch itself is a lovely area surrounded by mountains and beautifully landscaped vineyards. A must-see for anyone visiting South Africa!

Cape Town - the final stop of our short tour of Africa

Our stay in Cape Town was the first time we’d seen a familiar face in a long time. We were able to meet up with Vicki (Elliott’s uni friend) and her family. They treated us to a lovely dinner and a relaxing afternoon chilling at their beachside villa. What a treat (and thank you very much Vicki). We also met Abi (gappy from RGS) who lives in Cape Town. She also treated us to dinner and an evening watching TV at her house. Thanks to you too!!

Whilst in Cape Town we didn’t just laze around and get freebies from our friends. We did the Cape Peninsula Tour, which took in the lovely Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope, the most south westerly point in Africa. We saw some African penguins and also took a boat ride out to Duiker Island, which is inhabited solely by seals.

Table Mountain is also a must see in Cape Town. We managed to go up the cable car one evening to watch the sunset, which was amazing. We bought a small bottle of red wine and sat on the side of the mountain watching the sky go from orange to red to black. The city lights all came on and the views were incredible.

We also went to watch a live Super 14 rugby match – the Cape Town Stormers vs. The Joburg Lions. It was a great match, we both bought Stormers shirts and they won 56 - 18!! That was the beginning of our last night in Cape Town and Africa. We headed home and started writing this blog when we smelt burning in the hostel. We initially thought it was the heat of the laptop on the wooden table or someone burning toast, until a staff member saw plumes of smoke through the window. We were on the 6th (top) floor of the building and the fire was on the 3rd floor. We rushed down the fire escape and got to the 4th floor where the smoke was really thick and hot. We managed to get out onto the street and looked back, where a 3rd floor office was completely ablaze. We then had a long wait until the firemen put out the fire and the engineers deemed the building structurally safe to enter. We were finally let back in at midnight, but you could still smell the burnt plastic in our dorm the whole night. A lucky escape but we’re still alive and kicking!!

The journey now continues...

... to South America where we are spending 10 weeks exploring Argentina, Peru and then Brazil.

We’ll blog soon after our long flight to Buenos Aires.

Adios!!! Love Ells and Gem