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Well that’s it. We’ve done it. This is going to be a long story by the way but we have done so much and it’s a bit of a review. We’ve completed the first leg of our Round The World Tour and it has been incredible, beyond words in fact. Some statistics that surprised us and might entertain you.

Days in South America (84). Total amount of steps taken as recorded by our pedometer (434,221 steps - Karen wishes it be known that as she takes more steps than me and as she is smaller and has shorter legs that she has covered more steps!?) Total hours spent on busses = (212). Hours on trains = (5). Kilometres in 4×4 (507km). Rough amount of km’s (13,000kms or 8125 miles)  Hotels stays (40). Highest point (5895m). Lowest point (-4m). Highest point looked at (6985m). Highest Temperature (+38.5). Lowest Temperature (-10). Litres of IV fluids consumed by Chris (4). Doctors needed (2 + 1 Nurse). Almost Muggings (1). Pictures taken (1367) Bottles of water consumed (almost 450 litres). Private Airplanes (1) 20 km Horse Rides (2) Close encounters with mouse (1) Flamingo’s Eaten (1) Llama Legs munched on (1) Police Rescues in a 911 Emergency Truck (1) Bicycle Vineyard ride (2) Incredible Memories (1,000,000’s)

                                                           AND OF COURSE NOT FORGETTING

Okay so it has been an incredible journey so far and one that we have absolutely loved. It is actually surprisingly harder than we thought. A famous travel writer once wrote that there is a subtle difference between a tourist and a traveller, namely a tourist seeks fun and ease whereas a traveller goes off the beaten path and outside their comfort zone. Now I’m not sure where we fit as we are travelling a fairly well trodden route. But the constant feeling of needed to move on is something that they just don’t tell you about in travel books. The daily feeling of pack your backpack, unpack your backpack, get on a bus, get off a bus, go to a hotel, check the bed for bugs, make sure they have hot water, check they have WiFi, go and site see, find somewhere safe to eat, keep an eye on bugs and bags, plan the next destination and book a hostel for the next day, try to work out where you are on a map the size of a bank card, realising that coming from an island (England) that distance is something that we just don’t get (50 miles is a long drive), try 800 kms (500 miles) one day and then do the same again for the next 3 days, think about spending 35 hours on the same bus!! Speaking of buses, let me talk about toilets for a moment (excuse me if I offend anyone).

Now for those of you that have backpacked before this will cause a wry smile, but for those of you that haven’t believe it or not toilets and all issues surrounding the subject actually become number one on the list of issues facing a traveller. I’m not being crude here, it’s just that it becomes a way of life when you are travelling. Dignity is something that flies out of the cracked toilet window and drifts under the broken bathroom door. Let me explain why. Now there are always 2 sides to toilet people, those that run in, deliver, and run out, and then those that sit and ponder for a while with a newspaper at the ready. Well, travel teaches you that this is no longer a private nor a strictly personal matter. The standard topic of conversation with fellow travellers becomes ‘toilets’ rather than ’sites, sounds, cities or experiences’. I know this may sound strange but there is a whole different ethos here.

Firstly, it’s strictly ‘PAY-AS-YOU-POO’, and if you haven’t got the correct change then you get a very annoyed South American grunting at you as you hand over a $10 note waiting for $9.75 change as you shift uncomfortably from foot to foot blaming the dog or the Llama behind you for the belly retching reek that is assaulting both of your nasal passages. However, before they open the cage to let you into the ‘cubicle’ they seem to have to slow time down even more. Now forget dignity and privacy, whooosh straight out the window. Think about going back to school when all the cubicle sides are 3 foot high. Think of random people looking you right in the eye ‘at that critical moment’ as you huff and puff and struggle with the realisation that a high carbohydrate diet is possibly not the most fun that you have ever had. And whilst sitting on a broken toilet with no seat and where ‘flushing toilets’ are something that NASA boffin’s are working on. We are serious when we say, think about the toilet scene in Trainspotting and make it 10 times worse.

Oh and get this, solid wooden doors for toilets, nah that’s for weirdos. Its glass see through doors straight onto corridors with NO LOCKS for South Americans and if at best you do get wooden doors then they are either saloon style half doors or slatted. Now factor into this the lovely fact that most toilets are unisex and toilet paper goes into a dustbin next to you, so when you are staying in a place with the opposite sex, you then get them standing outside the cubicle door which is 100% off putting be it no matter which side of the door you are on. For me personally, ‘toilets’ and all issues surrounding either side of the subject have always been a personal affair, but trust me, hot toilet seats, freshly floating women produced bottom Otters are just something that I do not want to see or be involved with. Try as you might to avoid the ‘morning rush’ or even try going for a sub zero ‘Stealth 2am Mission’ forget it, there is always some Doris standing there as you prepare for the forthcoming Armageddon. (maximum recorded aborted sessions 4)

As for locks, forget it, and they are so clever that they place the toilet exactly 1.5 feet further than your legs will stretch to try and wedge the door shut to Poo-in-peace. Even Nadia Komennech (famous 80’s Russian Gymnast - for our younger readers) wouldn’t be able to get into the shapes that you need to get into to keep that door closed. Now remember that if you are a chick and a chick walks in, or if you are a dude and a dude walks in, it’s not really a problem…..but if you are a dude and a cute chick walks in and stares you right in the eye as you have your shorts around you ankles ‘at the point of no return grunting like a mountain gorilla and sweating like a polar bear in a sauna’ and when ‘cabin doors are to manual’ then it is a frankly shocking and horrible experience. AND finally, the toilet staff insist on asking you how many sheets of paper you want (standard issue seems to be 3???? WTF????)

Buses by the way only have ‘Number One’ toilets. They are adamant about this and public poo’ing humiliation is a way of life if you dare to attempt a ’stealth mission’, forget smoke alarms in airplane toilets, these guys know when you try to ‘drop a sly one’. If you want to go on a 15 hour bus ride, you put your hand up whilst a great deal of fuss is made as they try desperately to find a stretch of open desert where the highest amount of cover is found namely, a rock the size of an OXO cube or a tree the size of an Office Christmas Tree that sits on the receptionists desk between her lucky Gonk and coffee cup. Then try to ‘perform’ as 38 angry Mexicans/Peruvians/Chileans all stare at you from the waiting and revving bus, not to mention the bemused Llama or Alpaca who has wondered over to see what you are doing to its bed. Right enough about that…..I will need counselling to get over some of what I have seen, trust me!!

Back to the travels. As we sit and look back over what we have seen and achieved it is with an incredible sense of enjoyment and accomplishment. 84 days of constant travel is quite something. The memories flood the back of your eyes bringing images to your mind and you struggle to place all the sites with the names and mental pictures. I must admit that some merge into one another. From Mexico into Guatemala, through ancient ruins after stone statue to huge mountains and beautiful churches, then into the raw heat of the jungle and out again into the cold rain, back up into the mountains and through tight ravines, plunging to valley floors and climbing once again to crest rock laden deserts with sunsets and sunrises tugging at your memory as moon after moon looks down on you with sparkling ease.

Kilometre after kilometre stretches out passed your bus window as your mind relaxes to a state where you are actually able to think about things with a clear mind and have no distractions. Old memories return and life seems to flow past like a sparkling river. (I like that bit) Some things that have long lain dormant in the recesses of your mind slowly drift back to the present moment, are then reviewed, or just seem to beckon a final answer before drifting away once again as some sort of appeased ghost. The experience is quite warming as everyone has ‘things they need to think about’ but just never seem to get the clear-head-space enough to do so. Sometimes tears well up in your eyes and your shoulders judder a little as one or maybe two tears roll down your cheek as a painful memory stirs a deep emotion and you struggle to keep it in, mentally trying to get the great weight back onto the top of the mental dustbin lid to keep it all in. Then you laugh as you see a dog chasing a chicken as you sit watching from your bus seat speeding along the empty desert road and your mind drifts back to reality. (and the fact that you still have 11 hours to go before the next toilet stop).

Our plans to head further south and to catch the Navimag Ferry all the way down through the Chilean Forges to Tierra Del Fuego and the bottom of Chile and up again into Argentina have had to go on hold as we just simply ran out of time. Losing 8 days to illness just simply means that we do not have the time to risk the journey of 5000kms. Next time we will do it.

A question? Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘that was the best steak that I have ever had!’? Well if ever you hear this you must say ‘Was it in Argentina?’ If the answer is ‘No’ then it is the best steak they have ever had in Europe. Let me try and explain what ‘REAL STEAK’ is. Now having practically lived in The London Hilton Metropole for almost 5 years and having had a fully expensed Corporate Credit Card for most of those (5 year rule of Freedom Of Information Act -Sorry Nick Clements if this comes as a shock(My old Boss) but I have paid up to £60 ($95) for a single Steak! (oh and that missing 2500 miles on my mileage return for my car was when it was in France with me on a wakeboarding holiday) So £60 on steak in the past doesn’t even include a chip or floppy salad leaf in sight and I was thinking it was the best ever steak, but I was wrong, very wrong. If you think of 8oz, 10oz or even 12oz steaks that get served to you in the UK, well I am sorry but they are about as flavoursome as Gandhi’s flip-flops and compare in taste as to licking the crotch of a particularly hairy and very smelly goat.

Firstly, there’s the size, if it is smaller than a telephone directory in thickness and size before it gets cooked then it is for the children. Then there is the flavour, it just slides off the fork and melts in the mouth as you gently roll it between your teeth. The Chilean Petite Verdot wine or Argentinean Malbec you swallow adds to the already soft and tender flavours rolling around your mouth rather than being a bottle of Blue Nun that helps the chunk of dried minute steak scratch its way down your throat that has been served to you by some surly Chav (Government Housing Person) on work experience in the Microwave Technicians department of the local Brewers Fayre Pub. Oh and the best bit, it’s as thick as a plumber’s wrist, as bloody as a Tarrentino video and costs for 700gram T Bone no more than £4.50!!!

Anyhoo, as we have travelled constantly South our grasp of Spanish has slowly improved enough that we can now have a full conversation in Latin American Spanish, well actually that’s a lie. I communicate in fluent Spanish in my head with people who stare bemused and blankly back at me as Spanish words trot off my tongue. I have the accent that I learnt from a good friend Jo Ciastula which is a sort of guttural Spanish growl, proper El Gringo stuff. But still they just look at me, the words seem right and the sounds are impressive but the Chilean person just stares blankly back at me…..and then, this is the worst bit, they repeat exactly what you have just said whilst tutting at you and calling you a ‘Loco Gringo’. I know that I must learn better Spanish as a mark of respect to our dear friend Mauricio so that next time we meet we can speak to Eva and Javis in Spanish and actually chat to Jaime Herraiz and Eduardo Bellini in Spanish for once.

Oh and let me tell you about Pan-Pipe music. Now for most people this is something that can be heard drifting from local town centres as visiting Peruvians pipe out some fancy tunes outside Debenhams Department Store. Well, close your eyes and picture sitting in a dusty, dark, hut constructed from mud placed in a rectangular mould then heated to form a building block. Then bring together three families who build you a house in a day whilst drinking Piso Sours. Top the thing off with a straw roof or a metal corrugated rust filled sheet and you get the idea. Now add the smell of cooking Llama meat and freshly dispatched Guinea Pig with smells of root vegetables with the stank wafts of stale earth (by the way Classic Peruvian and Chilean mountain women like those in the photos that you have seen, ready for this, wipe their bottoms on their skirts) ewwwwy.

Where was I? Oh yes, pan pipes, well this isn’t a folklore thing, this is a way of life. From the smallest of youngsters right up to the oldest of men, everyone seems to have a set of pipes in their mouths. And another thing, there are many different types! My personal favourite are the really big ones, like tenner pipes. Most tunes involve speeding up half way through until the piper can hardly blow quick enough to hold the tune. The small guitar that sits high on the chest of the jolly and often tipsy larger brother is strummed with maximum effort and enthusiasm with care nor flourish to whether it is in tune of not. The job of drum thumping goes to the smallest of the family who can barely see over the top of the Llama skin beat box as he thumps away to the tune of Condor  Paso. Other tunes seem to be limited to The Beatles ‘Hey Jude’, Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘I’d Rather Be A Hammer Than A Nail’ and some whistlable tune by the renowned French chick Sealion Dijon about ‘Always Loving You’ or something like that. Probably the most haunting sound of all though comes from the Flute! This is essentially played like a Recorded rather than the classic James Gallway style. The eerrie sound drifts further than the pipes and is a hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck-stander-upper.

But on a serious note, if there can ever be one on these stories, to view a snowy mountain peak stretching its hands into the pastel blue sky at 6500m with sides plunging thousands of feet to a valley floor covered in creams, greys, blues, vivid yellows and a mixed feeling that you are a mere second in a trillion years of history that has remained unchanged as you stare at its enigmatic beauty with the gentle sounds of Pan Pipe music drifting into your ears with words that recall a story of a once lost child on the mountain searching for the God Of The Wind who became friends with a Condor that lead him to safety during a snow storm and protected him. Now the next time you stand outside Debenhams Department Store and you hear Pan Pipe Music, stop, close your eyes and think of a mountain, a Condor, and a lost boy, only then will you truly understand that it’s a musical history that is thousands and thousands of years old. So it’s going to be out with the Nora Jones and Jack Johnson CD’s and in with ‘It’s A Pan Pipe Christmas’ from now on. (Matt and Gill Gwynfryn-Evans you have been warned, no more ‘Girl From Iponia’ for you at our next party.)

Just a quicky on showers, namely ‘Showering Together!’ As previously reported Blondie took one hell of a nasty fall out of the shower landing in the kitchen a week or so ago that resulted in a huge bruise on her right side that went black, blue, purple and yellow in a mere few seconds. Well, showers are a really dangerous thing, particularly doing it together when standing in a bath(a shower bath is a very rare thing in SA). Here’s what happened a few days ago. On a quiet morning we were in the process of having a shower when suddenly Blondie slipped and shot out of the bath wrapping herself in the shower curtain. I grabbed for anything that I could which resulted in a handful of hair and the soft skin under her left arm (yup the really painful bit). Well it stopped her enough but not before she had rolled onto her back whacking the back of her neck on the basin unit! Tears ensued as I struggled to turn the shower off. When everything calmed down and we checked her over I turned and stood up to take the whole tap unit right up the Gary Glitter and across the small of my back causing me excruciating pain and a bright blue bruise in seconds! Then to add insult to injury as I turned the shower back on again, it shot freezing cold water down my back and over Karen (who was still sitting on the bath floor), then of course the scalding hot water seared my arse and her legs, so I’m stuck in front of the damn shower unable to move whilst Karen scrambles out of the piping hot shower. The result of a Saturday morning relaxing shower 1) Bruised Neck 1) Arm Bruise 1) Scalded Bottom Cheek 1) Black & Purple Bottom Cheek……not quite a Radox advert I can tell you..so be careful out there!!!

We decided to do what travellers call ‘Splurging’ which essentially involves checking into a nice place and spending more than you normally do to feel a bit special and relax for a bit. So we found a deserted beach town called La Serena (about 500kms North of Santiago) and got a taxi to the sea front. There were hotels and cabañas in abundance so we went to one with a whole load of houses in the ground surrounding a big swimming pool. £25 was the cost for a night so we stayed for 4 days and visited a local supermarket where we stacked up on wine and steaks. The place was deserted and for 4 days we didn’t see anyone else here. The houses were like the sort of all wood and glass affairs that you see on Neighbours (see the picture) and the sun shone for all of those days. We went for a 11,680 step walk along the sea front which only got us 3/4 of the way to the next town, funny thing was we got followed by a pooch most of the way who looked most upset when we got in a taxi and went back.

But I did give it a bottle of water and we left it fast asleep in a border full of sea campion. Another brief doggie story was at a bus station a few morning  ago, this black Labrador pooch puppy wanders up to me and just leans against my leg as we were waiting for the next bus. It was so cute that I went and got some breakfast ready for the 8 hour bus ride and I got it a pack of 6 hot dog sausages (which cost 3 times what I spent on my breakfast). It whaffed them all down and then had a massage from my Crocs for the next 20 minutes. As we got on the bus it sat at the bottom of the steps and just sat there until we pulled out and drove off before it trotted off around the corner. I miss my old dog Digby.

So another 8 hour bus took us to Santiago which, in short is horrible. Another bus took us up and over the Andes again and into Argentina and was possibly the most stunning road we have travelled on. We drove past the highest mountain in all of South America at some 6985m! It was breathtaking, but that could have been the altitude. I think if you want to fall in love with Argentina then this area is not the one to come to. The people just seem, not very nice. I must admit that it is quite hard as when you look at the people, some with huge scars on their faces and some with no limbs that you sadly cannot help but to remember that a mere few years ago Great Britain was at War with these people. I know that is a horrible thing to say but it is just that a lot of Argentinean’s that we have met seem to dislike Brit’s quite a lot. What a shame as the country is stunning.

We took a bus one day to the vineyards area and went to the infamous Senior Hugo’s bike shop and rented 4 mountain bikes with Jo, Inga and me and Blondie and boldly rode off into the wine region armed with a map and a bottle of water. Well the sun was high in the sky and as we rode the Andes snow capped mountains stretched up into the blue skies beyond the vines forming one of the most stunning bike rides that I have ever seen. After 10km or so we crunched into the gravel of our first vineyard and were rewarded with a Bodega (wine tasting). Now I already had the biggest of wine hangovers so to top up again we sampled some wine that ranged from LIDL specials to Gran Reserves. Malbec is the grape of choice here and I must say that it is really quite good. We sampled 5 different vineyards offerings as we ambled around the countryside drinking and cycling. The most surprising was an Oaked Chardonnay that tasted just like white chocolate with a real mouthful of vanilla that was more than drinkable. I was intent on trying a bottle of 1944 Syrah, but sadly the ‘Mastercard’ price put me off. The owner just looked at me, shook his head and said, ‘PRICELESS SIR’.

As we left our last vineyard we’d met a Texan chappie called Jay and as we rode along we realised that I had a flat tyre, we soldiered on until the type popped off the rim. Then incredibly the local Feds turned up and called us a Rescue 911 truck to take us back, sadly for the girls me and Jay got to ride in the truck as we cruised along behind the girls. Police Officers with guns strapped to their legs did not see the funny side in me trying to get a DWARF8 picture with the flag on the side of their truck. In the middle of all of this Inga tried to get back onto her bike and got it all wrong. She sort of bunny-hopped around a bit before crashing backwards into a ditch. We thought it was hysterical but the Feds didn’t.

Well I’d better finish off here. We shot back down into Chile and are now spending our last few days here chilling out in a small beach town before we fly to New Zealand on Thursday 6th November for 3 months. We’ve ’splurged’ and have booked into The Auckland Hilton for 3 nights. (Justin/William/VB - that’s a LEVEL 6 Hilton!!!!)

Okay so we hope you have enjoyed the stories and fun goings on from South America. We are sure that there will be more funnies from NZ. Once again, thank you all so much for all the emails that we get saying about just how much people enjoy the pics and the ‘adventures’.

In closing, as our friends The Maaske Family say, ‘The Further We Go - The Closer We Become’ and that is so true of me and my wonderful and beautiful Princess Karen. It is a tough place to be in life when your Mum dies so horribly suddenly and then to lose my job that I loved so much so soon after. Then good friends suddenly fell away that I thought would draw nearer, whilst others appeared and helped me who I did not expect, who have turned out to be solid, true and amazing people. There is not a day that goes by when we do not think a) how lucky we are b) how everyday is an incredible adventure but c) and probably most importantly, the fact that, and I read this in a book by a famous Rock Band drummer, but this makes total sense to me……bare with me! He said, ‘When I was young and was scared, tired or just couldn’t sleep my mother would put me in a buggy and take me outside, or take me out in the car and the motion would sooth me and I would soon relax until I was happy and fell asleep. It was as if the shear thought of moving was soothing and it became a way of life for me, part of me, part of my make up, part of what makes me, me! Now when ever I feel, scared, tired or just can’t sleep I go out for a ride on my motorbike. One day I went out and just didn’t go back until 8 months later, that way I felt closer to the missing person in my life.’

Well now that I have no Mum and the other half of me is Karen it seems that the best thing to do is exactly what this guy said, ‘Go outside, keep on travelling, keep experiencing life and feeling closer to your Mum everyday’. And that is why we are doing this Around The World Tour for the next year or so.

Memories are an incredible driving force that fill your head with electricity and make you what and who you are, share that with a loved one on an adventure of a lifetime and you have more than life, you have Love, and I am very lucky to have all of this and everyday it gets stronger and better. (I think I might get the mickey taken out of me for that line!)

Hugs to all

Chris and Blondie signing off from Chile, South America and hello new horizons in New Zealand (where I can kite again WOHOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

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