This will be the last entry at the moment.

Alli was admitted into a hospital in Santiago on Monday 2 April 2007 following a visit Monday morning. She suspected she had a blood clot in her left again.

Her suspicions turned out to be correct. Alli was diagnosed with a blood clot affecting her from roughly 8 inches below the knee to about the same above the knee.

As a consequence of a blood clot above the knee, the Doctor insisted on immediate admission to the hospital as there is an increased risk above the knee.

The current situation is that Alli will be in hospital for a minimum of 7 nights, with 7 further days in Santiago for treatment, monitoring and review before she can fly home.

We will be returning to Australia around 16-25 April 2007 as a best guess at the moment.

However, this may be subject to change.

If anyone wants me to pass on any messages please send them to Alli´s email and I will pass on your wishes.

Apart from boredom and the fuss factor of being in hospital, Alli is in good form, no actual pain and is looking forward to getting mobile again. She is getting a bit grumpy over the amount of blood tests, but is quite chirpy.

Before you offer too much sympathy please consider that she has a 42" plasma screen, with full cable TV and better food than I am getting (it is rather gourmet)

:-) Humour aside, she is doing well and the Chilean hospital are really looking after her (I am not kidding about the food or entertain it is pretty modern and well equipped).

If anyone has any queries, contact Alli´s email and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I can.

Regards

Jason

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Chile must have some pretty ugly cities as this place was hardly that inspiring.

True it is not ugly, it sits on a river and there are one or two reasonable buildings (not to mention the elephant and fur seals that reside here), but Chile´s most attractive city?..... To be continued.

We spent 2 days here with not much to do other than reside and eat at a cheap restaurant called Schopdog that had the tackiest memorabilia since Fatty Arbuckles meets similar American diner. However, that is where the criticism ends.... they had awesome beer on tap and more avocado on their chicken burger than you can poke a stick at. This impressed the wife incredibly, and for Chile is a bargain.

Apart from eat and drink here, take pictures of the seals and meander around the City there was not much else to do here......

We decided to get to Santiago as quickly as we could, basically to get to a big city with big city trappings.....

Enough for now, will keep you updated.....

Jason and Alli

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We arrived fresh the next morning to be greeted by a 500 meter steep hill to our hostel with 20kg back packs and 5 kg of hand luggage. We made it but it was pretty tiring after a night on a bus!.

The town is like a little bit of Switzerland in the Andes. The town is surrounded by low Andean mountains and a beautiful lake with too many chocolate and outdoor clothing shops.

In the main square there were a couple of huge St Bernard dogs adding a little bit of extra Swiss character to the place.

The temperature is great ranging from 14-26oC most days with perfect cloudless skies all day.

Tomorrow, we are heading to the Llao Llao Hotel 25km by bus in the Andes to have afternoon tea on a lake. A splurge item that Alli is pleased to do. It comes highly recommended in Lonely Planet as a must do just for the bus ride and scenery. The limitless supply of cakes and sweet pastries is also an added bonus...... If that tickles your fancy.....

On Friday 30th March we will be getting a bus back into Chile to the river town of Valdivia (another must according to the Lonely Liar) before embarking on Santiago a couple or so days later. A point that will mark 50% into our trip.

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The peninsular is home to a national park which houses some pretty spectacular land and marine wildlife. Driving out to the park we encountered guanaco, Patagonian Ostrich, sheep (the merino sheep live on pretty dry grass down here, which is why they produce some of the leanest, best quality meat to eat...the famous patagonia lamb!).

The first stop was to say hello to the magellan penguins, a seaside cliff leading down the the beach below. The penguins stand around right near the fence, you could almost touch them if the signs didn´t warn that doing so is forbidden, as they are protected. Gorgeous, they are so cute! Hundreds of them waddle about and fluff their feathers in the wind. No explanation why they have chosen this particular cliff and carprk to live, it´s apparently only a recent habitation.

Stopped next for a picnic lunch watching the elephant seals do pretty much nothing at Punta Cartor. About a dozen of them were lying like big slugs down by the water. Things got exciting when 2 big males starting making throaty growls at eachother, but they obviously couldn´t be bothered moving as it stayed at just growls and they went back to sleep again.

Afternoon saw us camped out waiting for a sighting of the Orcas (killer whales, although they are actually part of the dolphin family). One of the only places in the world where the orcas come in on the high tide and swim right in to throw themselves onto the beach to catch a meal of seal before allowing the tide to wash them back out into the water, still chomping away on a seal. We were very lucky that there were 2 orcas cruising the coastline whilst we were there and plenty of seals lolling about as easy targets on the shore. Unfortunately for us (or fortunately if you were one of the seals!) the orcas must not have been overly hungry that day as neither of them felt inclined to come in for a dramatic feed. Paling into less excitement while everyone was so orca focused, we had a couple of armadillos running about and also 2 grey foxes. Surprisingly tame, both seemed keen on turning on the charm for visitors in the hope of a scrap of touristy food.

Long but very rewarding day, about 12 hours on the road but thoroughly worthwhile for all the interesting wildlife we encountered.

Over to Bariloche next, so our next blog will be from the chocolate capital of the Argentine Lake District....yum!!

Alli and Jason

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Some interesting facts: the glacier is 257 square kms in size, with a span of about 5km at the front and ranging from 55m to 70m in height above the water. It grows about 40cm each day on the edges and even more in the middle apparently.

We have taken some really cool photos of this glacier, and our other travels so far, which Jason is in the process of trying to upload to a new yahoo-linked website (we´ll provide details when it´s set up so you can see them).

The glacier is awesome, there are a series of boardwalks you take to get as close as is safe to the glacier....not too close though, you should see the size of the chunks of ice regularly cracking and falling off into the water! The sounds are amazing, really loud and the size of the waves in the water below is an indication of just how huge the ice chunks falling off really are. The first hour we were there was sunny, and the glacier looks pristine white. Unfortunately grey skies and showers set in after that, although the change in the colours of the glacier was impressive as it looked much bluer without the sun on it.

Not much else to write about El Calafate town itself, quite cute and touristy but fairly small and really just the base for glacier viewing.

Alli and Jason

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The Park is simply sensational but this part of Chile is unfortunately a cash cow. The entry fee for a day was a whopping US$30 on top of the tour costs. The accommodation in simple refugios even more expensive than the digs at Uluru in the red centre.

That said, the National Park was fantastic. On our day tour (we were the only ones there - ¡ was full of a cold and alli would never have camped! so a 4 day trip around the 50km W circuit was never a bona fide option) we saw a grey fox, guanacos (like Llamas) plus Chilian Condors in the fields. We also saw wild ostrich looking things '- the name escaped us.

We were shown a waterfall and some spectacular lake and mountain views - not too dissimilar to South New Zealand. The lakes contain excessive salts and minerals, hence the water appearing blues and greens and then greys depending on the wind and orientation of the sun.

The glacier there was impressive as was the ice cold wind. Bloody freezing to say the least. The glaciers were 15 km away with large chunks of icebergs left over in the Lakes.

We got to see the Torres (not too dissimilar to the 3 sisters at the Blue Mountains in Sydney) and we were happy. Especially as the forecast for the day was rain rain rain. We got sun sun sun.

I could write a paragraph about the town of Puerto Natales but at best the place is sleepy, windy and not much a happening to report!.

Our next report will be the amazing Perito Moreno Glaciar at El Calafate. Simply sensational............

Speak soon y'all.

Jason and Alli xx

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As we had already seen the penguins and sea lions this was plenty.

Apart from a duty free zone that offers outdoor equipment (I.e. shoes, tents) at ridiculously cheap prices...... there really aint much else to this small town other than being a gateway to the Beagle Channel.

The weather was horrendously windy 120Km+ and the heavens opened 10 minuites before we left to Puerto Natales.

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Ushuaia is not really on the mainland but on an archipaelago called Tierra Del Fuego (translation meaning Island of Fire). This place was inhabited with peoples similar to the aboriginies of Australia. But the European gold diggers and Sea Lion hunters soon put paid to them with murder and disease. Gold panning was the business here. It is now tourism.

The weather is slightly more ¨fresh¨is here compared to the summer heat we´ve been used to so far - about 10 degrees during the day as the Antarctic breeze and snow capped Andes keep things pretty chilly. Jason thinks I am mad, but I am loving getting out the fleece and goretex and shopping for a beanie and gloves!!

Ushuaia is a fairly touristy town with lots of local excursions on offer. We ventured out on boat cruise on Monday to visit the penguin and sea lion colonies. The penguins were gorgeous, just like in the movie, Happy Feet! The sea lions are quite blobby, smell fishy and make some disgusting noises. Yesterday we did a hike in Tierra del Fuego national park, which was great. Wasn´t a particularly hard walk, quite flat really as it followed a lake along the bottom of the Andes. The scenery was just spectacular though. The end point of the hike is the border of Argentina and Chile, although I have to admit we were a bit disappointed when all that marked the border was a plastic orange witches hat type thing. Not sure what we were expecting (a ¨Welcome to Chile¨sign maybe??, or armed border officers.... he he...) but a number of other hikers also expressed their let down at the official border so it wasn´t just us!

Remember that TV show, Northern Exposure? That´s pretty much what Ushuaia looks like, very cute with chalet style houses, although without the moose walking down the street of course. Penguin are definitely the selling theme of the town, every shop sells penguin statues, jumpers with pictures of penguins on them, giant fluffy toy penguins dressed in hiking gear....and there is even a guy who dresses up as a penguin and walks down the main street.

Chat to you later.....Alli & Jason

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The weather in B.A. was horrendous. Prolifically P-ing it down. We got a cab to a different hostel and stayed more central on Avenida Corrientes, the opera and cinema district of the city - only minutes away from the shopping and the sights.

The next morning we were ambling around relaxing and killing time for our Sunday flight (this was Friday am/pm) reading in parks and going down to Puerto Madero as the weather had vastly improved the following day.

Alli was walking along and heard her name. She turned around to see Marnie´s sister and her hubby who live in Sydney. It turned out they are on a similar expedition as we are. We met them later for dinner and drinks and wished them Bon Voyage.

On Sunday we got on our plane (eventually after being given the wrong ticket initially by the check in clerk) and got half way down the aisle. The usual Jason lack of patience at idiots kicked in as no one appeared to be sitting down. After several minutes and an extreme desire to push my way through the evident problem came to light. Double, treble and quadruple booking of seats. We had people in our seats who were in the wrong seats. It turned out there were at least 4 people with the same boarding pass and seat ticket allocation. It turned into a free for all seat grab.

After this was sorted the plane took off. Amazingly we only got to ushuaia an hour late but missed the sunset on the plane over the southern andes.

we got to our hotel and went for a beer and a walk. Alli loved the cold outside and liked to say she was too cold but enjoying it on several occasions. An Aussie who loves the cold!!!!!.

That´s all for now. Our next installment will be in a couple of days about Ushuaia - the southern most settlement in the world.

Laters

Jay + Alli

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We spent a couple of hours thinking this was not overly "Sensational" as Lonely Planet said, until we hit the historical quarter or district. A square kilometer of beautiful colonial buildings, cobbled streets, churches, old wheels, horse and carts etc. This could have been the nicer areas of Spain, France or Italy but on the coast as it is a port and beach town. The sunsets were simply sensational.

We were there 3 days and had a blast exploring the local areas and watching my beloved Liverpool lose to Barcelona but go through with the locals. A man from Malaga was there supporting us as he hated Barcelona. He was a Malaga and Real fan.

Our last morning was spent in our room after breakfast watching a devasting storm until our cab arrived to take us to the ferry for our international boat trip across the water to Buenos Aires on a catamaran. The trip only took an hour and customs was done in one hit in Uruguay. Unbelievably the passage was smooth given the weather.

A simply sensational country that should not be overlooked....... We had not planned to go to Uruguay but we are so glad we covered the area for a week. Just goes to show, not all the best things you see are necessarily planned or thought about before you do them.

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Uruguay has been our favourite country to date, and Montevideo is a beautiful city. Quite small after the big city bright lights of Buenos Aires and Rio, and with a lovely, laid back feel. The city itself is attractive, very european feel to the architecture and parks dotted about the city. It is definitely more modern than Brazil, and the fact the temperature has dropped about 10-15 degrees has made walking around exploring so much more comfortable.

A street off the main square is where the nightlife centres - restaurants and bars with live bands every night so far. That being said, Montevideans don´t seem to go out for dinner or drinks until midnight or so, so things are a bit quieter pre-midnight when the bands generally get going. One night we saw a cool little cover band doing songs we both knew, last night [Saturday 3rd] we saw a local band who did more traditional south american music - sounded a bit like the Gypsie Kings!!

Today is our last day in Montevideo and sadly, it has been pouring rain all day so far, so we might not get to see much more of the sights, but tomorrow we´re heading a couple of hours west to Colonia del Sacremento which is a sea-side town for a few days. Hope the rain clears up before we hit the sights and beaches there!

Alli + Jason

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From Curitiba we left around 9pm and arrived 10am on an overnight bus again. Once we arrived, we both came to the immediate conclusion perhaps it would be best to get the next bus to Montevideo that left that evening. With a day to kill we dropped our luggage off and ventured into Porto. It was stinking hot and within 1 hour we were so glad we booked our onward journey.

We spent the day looking around at some reasonable architecture and people watching. I obviously overwatched an old lady who basically was absolutely, certifiably insane. She was yelling at me across a park avenue and literally doing the christ cross on her chest. This carried on for about 15 minutes. I don´t know if it was curiosity on my point or morbid enjoyment as I refused to take my eyes off her during the onslaught of which we could not understand a word of the portugese babble.

She made the mistake of laughing at some Uni student when something dropped out of a tree or a swooping bird scared her. She let out a cackle and laughed. The Uni student took great exception and was equally as crazy with this old witch - a very funny 10 minutes followed. After a few more crossings - a gentleman sat next to me got up and walked off saying crazy old woman.

We left her to it and whittled the day away waiting for our bus.....

Jay and Alli

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We checked in to a basic hotel called Maia and stayed there for 3 nights.

The City itself is about the size of Perth (maybe a little bigger) or somewhere around the size of Oxford for the poms.

We found a delightful neighbourhood that was very European and had a Parisian feel in the main square, maybe an Italian feel. But you get the gist. It had cobbled streets, old colourful buildings and a quaint country market. We will download a few pictures when we get established.

We visited a place called Morrettes via the most spectacular railway in Brazil (if you read Lonely Planet). The LP was bob on as usual speaking about this journey to the coast (the train does not go there but stops short of the place by a bus ride) and we went on Monday the one day according to the LP the train does not run on.

The train is a descent over 3 hours or so through the city of Curitiba then to the countryside and down a valley. It was rather nice with some lovely scenery, but hardly the sell the LP made it. It might have been a tad better if we spoke fluent portuguese as the train tour guide offered none stop commentary on the trip but not in ingles.

We spent our evenings in the delighful neighbourhood eating and drinking in the local pub called Fire Fly which served some darn good grub and drinks and made Curitiba a rather delightful stopover on our way South to Montevideo.

Speak soon
Jay and Alli

We spent

Rio to Curitiba remains copyright of the author Jason316uk, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Rio has been a mixture of good, bad and indifferent.

The good are the people, the beaches and the weather. The acai (an amazon fruit I have since found out) is great as are Caipirinhas.

The indifferent is the poverty and those it affects. You cannot go 30 minutes without being hassled for money or whatever. Not that I don´t feel for the plight of those far less fortunate but you grow indifference to being asked and whistled at 20 times a day. Some kid tried to shoe shine my flip flops or thongs.

The bad was a stupíd moment by me. I was attacked by 5 or 6 youths on the beach whilst taking a sneaky pee as is the local custom and non-toilet situation on the beach front. Luckily I had very little on me and the blighters were frightened off when I fought back and left hooked one. I escaped unscathed and will what little money I had on me. Lesson to oneself - do not wander on the dark part of the beach alone on the last night of carnaval!.

Apart from that we have had a fairly decent time.

To any travellers reading this blog, rethink your budgets if you are following the Lonely Planet guide. The tourist attractions are at least double the LP as are planes and buses. Cheap eateries and bars are still up to date.

Our Rio adventure is over.... We are looking forward to a new place with new experiences. Curitiba here we come.

Jason & Alli

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Puerto Iguazu is a very small village right on the northern border of Argentina with Brazil and Paraguay, and the base for travellers arriving to see the Argentine side of the amazing Iguazu Falls. A quick trip on the local bus had us out to the entrance of the Iguazu National Park and ready to jump on a little train that takes you the main sites of the falls. A series of boardwalks takes you right out the the very top of the falls and it is just the most amazing site and sound to experience the river gushing down hard from so high! You get drenched just from the spray!! We did a lovely boat cruise along a quieter section of the river which would have been even better had we been able to understand a word the Spanish-speaking tour guy was saying, but a scenic trip nonetheless. The jet boat that takes you right down underneath the edge of the falls was brilliant, being the big wuss that I am though, I had brought a rain poncho each for Jason and me to wear on the jetboat and it saved us from spending the next couple of hours squelching in wet clothes and shoes as you hike back up the side of the mountain to the train stop again.

The park itself was well worth the visit, I have never seen so many butterflies in my life and the colours were spectacular! Jason had his new snazzy camera with him and got a few good pics - the butterflies would literally land on your hand if you stood still for a minute or so! Lowlight of the park for me (alli) was getting sctatched by the little bugger of an animal (Coica??) which was a bit like a big possum with an anteater snout. Zillions of signs tell visitors not to feed them as they will bite, although that didn´t stop this horribile kid in front of me throwing biscuits on the ground for them then running off, leaving me as the one the Coicas looked to for the next course of food. One of them jumped on my leg to stand up and beg, my furious shaking of my leg to get it off unfortunately left a couple of decent scratches from the little buggers claws. Grrrr.´

The following day we caught another local bus across the Argentina/Brazil border, arriving in the town which caters to the Brazilian side of the falls. Stayed at a fantastic place, Hostel Natura, which is right out of town by the falls and is a project which has been up and running only about 3 months by 2 young Brazilian guys trying to capture the eco-friendly backpacker market. Quite luxurious by hostel standards with a swimming pool that was most welcome during the 40-odd degree days! Best meal we have had so far too, they did up a big BBQ dinner which was just miles ahead of some of the pretty average meals encountered in Buenos Aires - finally some decent salad and vegetables with our hunk of animal!!

Spent a very romantic valentines day (not!!) catching a flight from Iguazu up to Rio de Janeiro and 2 hours in afternoon peak hour traffic on a bus from the airport to our apartment on Copacabana Beach. More on Rio later, as we have tickets to the Samba Show for Saturday night which should be quite an experience!

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We spent a couple of days in Buenos Aires following the last blog entry and visited more of the City. We went to Recoleta and Palermo (the nicest and more affluent part of the city). We did a little sight seeing at Plaza Congreso, Teatro Colon, the Botanical Gardens and the Japenese Gardens. We tried to look at the Museo de Casa Rosada (Museum of the Rose House) where Evita famously waved at the crowds. Not that day as the Museum and House was closed due to Facade reservations. We did however go to Recoleta cemetary where the Marble farm exists. The Marble farm is huge and awe inspiring. Some of the housing of the dead is as big as a one bed apartment in marble. We visited the Duarde Family tomb that houses Eva Peron. The money and sheer scale of this is incredible considering the Argentine economy has been cripled throughout the ages. Years ago, Argentina was one of the better economies with the potential to be a super star, instead the country is crippled by debt.

We went to the Liberia de Las Madres. A coffee shop that is a support to the Mothers who lost children in the Argentine Dirty War. The Argentine Dirty War was before the Falklands (1976-1983), a political war started by the middle classes for social reform. This involved kidnapping foreigners etc. to finance their arms for the revolution. Whatever your belief whether this was started by poverty or greed, around 30,000 people are believed to be unaccounted for. The Mothers parade in front of the Casa Rosada daily as a means of demonstration/outcry regarding the lost children.
It is believed the militia did not distinguish between terrorists, supporters or those who even expressed reservations against the regime. We had no problem helping support this cause.

We arrived at Puerte Iguazu nearly an hour before our bus and got stressed out. The bus station has 75 lanes and we travelled with VIa Bariloche. A very nice bus with full reclining seats and seat service. It was sensational. However, in typical south american style there were nearly 10 lanes of buses with our company going to Iguazu. Every bus we had we got a no and no explanation. Finally, looking stressed someone helped us and rang the bus company who said our bus went without us. The time was 18.47 and our bus was to leave at 18.54. Eventually our bus came up on the time table and on lane 41 we boarded our bus with 2 minutes to spare. The trip was 17 hours and was really good with modern DVD´s and reasonable food.

We arrived fresh and will now book our Iguazu falls tours (supposedly one of the best in the world - rivalling Niagra, Victoria or Angel falls).

Ciao or Adios for now

Jason and Alli x x x x

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Alli and I arrived into Buenos Aires at approximately 13.30 on Tuesday 6th February 2007. The flight was okay but the plane was old with TV´s strategically located above one´s head. A far cry from the Emirates or Singapore Airlines seat back TV and entertainmntent systems. This flight was long. I am fine but Alli has a little jet lag.

That said we got here a bit the worst for wear (lack of sleep not beer) but we have already managed to book a bus to Puerto De Iguazu (Argentinian side of the grand Iguazu Waterfalls) for Saturday 10th February 2007 and our flights from Foz De Iguazu on the 14th February 2007 and getting into Rio for Carnival.

Moving back to Buenos Aires, we are staying at a reasonable budget style hostel called Nomade. It ain´t bad and the people seem friendly enough. It is in the San Telmo area of the City which is really nice with cobbled streets, a reasonable amount of culture and street atmosphere.

On the 6th we walked into the City area to see the B.A. version of Big Ben, the Plaza de Colon and the Cathedral plus a lot of the shops and some food at a Parilla. A parilla is a steak house. The food was good and the prices better. If the food cost is like this throughout the country I doubt there will be any self catering. (Sharing a steak, with two huge salads and a 1 litre beer for about AUS$15). We got a little bit out of our way but managed to see a decent bit of the city following dinner.

On the 7th we walked to Puerte Madryn (equivalent of King Street Wharf or the South Bank) and walked in the baking heat to the Retiro Bus station to organise out bus tickets on the 20 hour bus to the falls. Once Alli saw the huge reclining leather seats, dvd points, meals, champagne and alcohol on the menu was a bit happier with that. The bus looks good and the trip should be a doddle. We looked around the shops a little longer and made our way back to the hostel before trying food more local in the San Telmo tango district.

We will discuss more about B.A. and our perception regarding Argentine culture in our next blog.

To add a bit of light entertainment on this blog I have decided to add 1 "Alli-ism" to this blog.

We were lying in a park when a man was walking by shouting what Alli thought was hello. I was somewhat amused as I realised the man was an icecream vendor walking and shouting "helado". The Spanish for ice cream. Not a far cry from Hola, but far enough. He he.

To add a bit of light entertainment on this blog I (alli) respond with 1 "Jas-ism" to this blog.....

Jason is notorious for losing his sunglasses, and it seems this affliction travels with him. After an impressive dialogue with the reservations guy for the bus tickets to Puerto Iguazu in Spanish, he walked off all confident only to make a mad dash back to the counter 2 minutes later where his sunglasses were thankfully still sitting.

We will write again in a few days time.

Adios for now

Alli + Jason

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Alli's dad asked whether Alli is taking a blacksmith's anvil. Her pack is quite a bit heavier than mine, but it is full of only the necessary items I am assured!.

That said, the excitement has yet to build due to the holidays in Australia. However, tomorrow I am sure will be a different story.

Our next entry will be in about a week.....

Take care,

Adios

Jason

36 Hours To Go remains copyright of the author Jason316uk, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Allison and I have been married 10 days now. There are no impending mentions of a divorce or annulment so I can only assume all is well at this time. We are still in Sydney, Australia and will not be leaving for Buenos Aires, ARG until the 6th February 2007. I still have lots to think about and need to get my new camera (Canon EOS 400D before I go) as well as some insurance, shares, addresses to change and lots of packing!. So nothing more to add from me at this point.

Jason

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