Are you really sure you want to do this?

This is where travelling gets you - a small town (19,000 people) in Chilean Patagonia, in an internet cafe with a single 128kbps connection shared by 10 other gringos, trying to think over the stereo which is blaring out a heavily distorted (I tell you, that speaker is working its arse off!) version of a tired old Lenny Kravitz CD. Oh no, wait! The Lenny Kravitz has just stopped. And its being replaced with...... Shania Twain. Bugger.

From Santiago, we headed south at full power. An overnight sleeper bus took us 1000km south to Puerto Montt, at about latitude 42°S. We then farted around most of the day, waiting for our ferry to be ready to set sail. It finally did, about 8pm that night (only six hours late), and then we headed south. 1500km further south. "Ferry" is perhaps an optimistic description of the vessel - she was actually a roll-on-roll-off cargo ferry, with a few tourist cabins added as a bit of extra business. Basic, but more than sufficient for two broke backpackers. (Shania Twain just turned into Bon Jovi, and this has to be the slowest paragraph I´ve ever written). We spent the next four days sailing south through what I guess you would call the "inside passage" of the chilean fiords - if you look at a map of Chile, you´ll notice that the west coast is extremeley broken and fiorded. Well, believe it or not, there is a passage down between the fiords that takes you right to Cape Horn, if you´re keen enough, with only a minimal exposure (in our case about 12 hours) to the open, rolling, seak-sickness inducing Pacific Ocean. The width of these channels is highly variable, from many kilometres in places, down to 80m at the narrowest point (being on a 19m wide ferry barrelling through an 80m wide gap with a bend in the middle of it at close to full pace was rather exciting, it has to be said). And all the way along, the mountains came right down to the water. Postively outstanding. In addition, we got to see our fair share of wildlife (Orcas, Dolphins, lots of sea birds). It was also particularly interesting watching the vegetation change over the week - from the arid deserts around Santiago, to the lush sub-tropical rainforest of Puerto Montt and the northern region of the fiords, and then a gradually lowering bushline, which finally met the water on the last day, and was replaced by the sub-antarctic tundra of Patagonia.

Yes, Patagonia. On the last day of the ferry trip, we woke up and we knew that we had arrive in Patagonia. Everything was different - the mountains were bigger, the plains were wider, glaciers reached down the sides of vertical cliffs, clawing their way towards the ocean (but not quite making it). Puerto Natales, our final destination and where I am writing this from, is a windswept town plonked down in seemingly the middle of nowhere - it looks like it could be the steppes of Mongolia, or somewhere in Alaska. But here, we find it at 52°S - well on the way to Antarctica. And undeniably remote.

After a brief stop in Puerto Natales for food, camping supplies, and to let one punters tummy recover from the food on the boat (ok, so it was me), we left the sea and headed overland to Torres del Paine National Park. This park is impressive - its centered around a very large granite massive that has been sculpted by glaciation to produce a series of impressive towers. The crowning jewel though, is a layer of black sedimentary rock that caps most of the towers. Surround it with jade-green glacial lakes, and you have something competely unlike anything I have ever seen anywhere else in the world. Spectacular. I´d post piccies, but maybe not on this dodgy connection!

Dorthe and I spent five days in the park - we did a partial loop around the base of the towers, which was simply magnificent. The first two days were spent around the largest glacier I have ever seen - Glacier Grey, and the lake where it dumps its icebergs - maybe three to five times the size of the Tasman Glacier. We then climbed up into the centre of the Torres del Paine massive, into the "French Valley" - a glacial cirque of granite towers, with a coating of stunted (by the cold and wind) beech trees that had started to change colour from green to their autumnal yellows, oranges, and reds. Luverly. Then finally, two more days working our way around the base to a couple more granite towers (the actual Torres del Paine). Unfortunately, our plans to climb to the base of them were thwarted by the weather - the four good days prior finally ended last night, with the onset of the great Patagonia westerly. This is a wind that you have to experience to appreciate - consistent it most certaintly is not. Relatively calm conditions would suddenly be shattered by a loud roar slowly working its was down the valley - when it finally hit, it was like a freight train coming in through the back door. I have sailed in strong winds, with gusts up to perhaps 40 knots. But I have never see wind whip spray off the surface of the lakes like it was doing today - its hard to estiamte such things without an instrument, but I´d put the strongest of the gusts at perhaps 60 knots (100-110kph). Neither Dorthe and I slept much last night, being kept awake by either the wind or stressing about whether the tent was going to survive. Fortunately it did (the Macpac Olympus: Patagonian tested), but climbing up a narrow alpine valley in those winds was not very appealing unfortunately, so we headed back to town.

Leaving the torres behind I found hard - we had a fantastic five days, with very little sign of other people. We saw guanacos (wild llamas), ñandú (small emu like birds), and spent our lunch hours on our backs watching the condors soar high, high above on the thermals. The weather was both beautiful, and stupendous at the same time. And the scenery was just magic. It was sad to leave such a wonderful place.

So, where to from where? Where to go when you are so far south? Where else, of course? Further South.