We left Argentina at Los Antiguos, crossing the border into Chile at Chile Chico. Again, the process was straightforward, although the Chilean customs agent wanted a really good look in a lot of the boxes in Ruby. She was very impressed  when she looked inside Gav`s boxes at his very neat packing (good spacial awareness so my mum says!) She was less impressed by the state of the packing in my boxes with stuff crammed everywhere!

After spending the night in Chile Chico, we began the drive North on the Carretera Austral. The Carretera Austral ranks amongst the world`s ultimate road trips and runs 1240 kilometres alongside national parks, forests, glaciers, farms, turquoise lakes and the Pacific ocean. Big portions of it are unpaved and part of the fun is trying to negotiate the large potholes and corrugations! We drove on rough road to Puerto Rio Tranquillo where we camped with tens of Chilean students, before catching a small boat trip to the marble caves (Capilla De Marmol). The boat took us on the beautiful clear waters of Lago General Carrera to the caves which are sculpted geological rock formations and we went inside some of them, marvelling at how smooth and colourful they were.

We drove to the National Park San Rafael and hiked to a viewpoint for the San Valentin glacier. The glacier dates back 30,000 years and was interesting to see. The drive there and back, however, was spectacular-with waterfalls, mountains and lakes along a rough dirt track.

Next we headed to Cerro Castillo, where we did a long day hike and climbed 1000 metres in the national park to a turquoise mountain lake and glacier. It was a tough but rewarding walk with great views of this part of Chile. And then the rain started. And went on and on and on for 7 days! We have experienced the Lake District in the rain, in England, but this rain beat that hands down!

We continued along the Carrera Austral, and could still appreciate the stunning scenery through the rain. We stayed in Coyhaique for two days on a campsite which had covered shelters with a table and bench in, similar to a garden shed! We put on our waterproofs and walked into town to get our laundry done and stock up on supplies from the supermarket. We then spent the rest of the 2 days in our shed, reading, playing yangtzee and watching films!

Continuing North, we headed into National Park Queulat. a beautiful  green forested national park on the shores of the Pacific. We found another campsite with a shed on the shore of the Pacific and spent a day or so there! And still it rained! We moved on to La Junta, where we visited a lovely mechanics to have the bush on the front shock absorber replaced (these dirt roads are tough on Ruby!) and we wild camped at Lago Rosselot in a beautiful spot next to the lake. We moved on to Chaiten, close to the volcano which erupted in 2008 for a month with a 20km high column of ash. We wild camped for 2 nights on the shores of the Pacific and black volcanic sand, living underneath Ruby`s awning, as still it rained!

We reached a tiny place called Caleto Gonzalo, where we wild camped before catching the 7am ferry to Hornopiren, a beautiful journey that took us across lakes and between mountains. We then drove to a stunning small village on the shore of the Pacific ocean called Cochamo where we were due to meet with a small group of landy owners from Argentina and Chile for the weekend. This had been arranged by Jorge, the mechanic we had met in Puerto Madryn in Argentina. We had such a good weekend with everyone. Alongside us, there were 3 other landys from Holland, Austria and Switzerland and we all camped at the back of the house where the weekend was being hosted. All the other landys were from Argentina and Chile and we received such a warm and lovely welcome from them. The weekend was spent eating, drinking, chatting and laughing! The food was fantastic and they barbecued a whole sheep and goat one evening on the open fire. On another day we had a traditional dish called curanto from an island called Chiloe. It was a mixture of shellfish, pork sausages, potatoes and dumplings which were all buried in a hole in the ground with stones heated in a bonfire, covered in leaves and left to cook for a few hours! It was great to watch them prepare it and then to eat it! The people were simply great and we had such a giggle with them. One man from Argentina learnt English many years ago when he was child and kept saying in perfect Queen`s English " the cat is under the table", a phrase he had been taught a school. For some reason after a few drinks this became the funniest thing ever and we would yell at him across the garden, "Where is the cat?" and he would shout back "under the table" and we would all laugh our heads off! (You had to be there!). Jorge had decorated the garden with flags from all of the countries present and he also lined us all up in our landys to have a group photo. We spent 3 nights there and left with a lot of new friends and a few pounds heavier!
 
 

We headed North from Ushuaia  and camped the night outside a small hotel at San Sebsatian before the border with Chile. Chile are very strict about the food produce you are allowed to take across the border, so in the morning we had a 6 egg omelette with onion to use everything up that we know they would confiscate! We crossed easily over the border into Chile, getting new Chilean stamps in our passports and temporary import paperwork for Ruby.

We spent a couple of days wild camping outside Punta Arenas, however the town held little of interest for us and we moved on to Puerto Natales, the gateway to the National Park Torres De Paine. Here we stocked up on groceries and then headed straight for the national park, planning to camp at a lovely campsite just outside. Unfortunately it was full and we ended up outside the rangers station at the entrance to the park after hours. We knew it was OK to camp here in the car park, so we put the roof tent up and climbed inside. We had not really had huge issues with the infamous Patagonian wind to date, but that was about to change! The wind was wild and howled around the roof tent, with us rocking around inside! There was no way we would be able to sleep up there and we were also worried it could damage the roof tent. At midnight, we were outside in our PJs wrestling against the wind to get the roof tent down! Unfortunately, we don`t have a system whereby we can sleep inside the landy, so Gav made me a little bed  by folding down the front seat and I lay very curled up over the second and front row and Gav slept in the driver`s seat! We managed some sleep and woke up early, paid and entered the National Park where we headed straight for the official campsite where there was good wind protection for the roof tent! We also had our own armadillo, who was very tame, who we called Arthur!

Torres De Paine is a beautiful national park in Chilean Patagonia full of mountains, turquoise lakes, icebergs, glaciers, rivers and forests. The Torres del Paine are the distinctive three granite peaks of the Paine mountain range or Paine Massif. They extend up to 2,500 meters above sea level, and are joined by the Cuernos del Paine. We spent a lovely few days doing some short walks, as Gav`s ankle is still healing and driving around the park. On our last morning-we were in bed when we heard a thumping sound at the front of the landy. We thought it was a vehicle parked in front of us and I was merrily cursing them for the noise, when we suddenly also felt the landy shake. Gav got out to find a southern crested caracara bird (bird of prey) on the bonnet, tearing  the rubber from our windscreen wipers! Gav shooed it away but it had managed to take both of them! Luckily we had replacements and fitted them before we left!

We crossed back into Argentina and headed to El Calafate, a small town which serves as the gateway to Los Glaciares National park which houses the Perito Moreno glacier. We found a lovely campsite and stayed a few days, doing some checks on Ruby and replacing the UJs on the rear prop shaft. We also met a lovely British couple called Polly and Sam, driving a mazda Bongo, lovingly referred to as " the Bong-alow"! We also visited the national park and Perito Moreno glacier. The ice formation is 250 square kilometres and 30 kilometres in length and was a spectacular sight.  The terminus of the glacier is 3 miles wide, with an average height of 74 metres above the water of Lago Argentina. There were a series of long walkways, at different levels, overseeing the glacier which meant  you could view it fairly closely from a variety of angles. The sounds were also interesting-with it creaking, rumbling and crashing, as pieces caved off into the surrounding water. We witnessed some huge pieces break off and crash into the water-leaving multiple pieces of floating ice. We spent a few hours here just staring and listening to the glacier.

After leaving El Calafate, we had planned to head to El Chalten and spend a few days hiking in the Southern part of the Los Glaciares national park, in the famous Fitzroy mountain range. We arrived there, however, and it was incredibly windy and we drove around a few camping spots to see if there was any wind protection. We could not find any, and still scarred from the windy night before we entered Torres, we decided to keep driving and save the park until another time!

We slept at a sheltered camp spot in Tres Lagos and then headed 350 miles to the last town before the Chilean border, Los Antiguos, set on a stunning turquoise lake. We headed for the municipal campsite and were pleased to find there was space and that it was relatively quiet. That was until midnight when the music went on and it was really loud until about 5am the following morning! I am now generalising, however it has been our general experience that the people in Argentina like loud music and also want to generously make sure that you can hear it very loudly too!! After an interrupted nights sleep, I woke up fairly cranky and cross with some of the people on the campsite. It was not too long before the music began again, this time from about 3 or 4 different groups of people! However, within a short time, we realised that we can forgive the people here such a lot because of their incredible warmth and friendliness. A lady bought us a pile of cherries to eat (this town is the cherry capital of Argentina) and then a lovely couple bought us some empanadas over and later a huge sausage sandwich! They were also fascinated by Ruby and we did the guided tour of her and posed for many photos with them! "Now turn that music down!" Said no Argentinean ever!!