The GIANT BEE and other adventures

Hello hello, Sam has gone off for a lie down after an exhausting brunch of ham and eggs, so you'll have to make do with me today. We are currently in Puerto Varras on Lake Llaguhuilepppe or maybe it's Llangohequehalpe. I haven't been paying attention I'm afraid. I do know that it is the third largest Lake in South America and has lots of volcanos around it. Anyway, it is jolly big and quite blue and has a little beach from where we may have a dip a bit later if the weather brightens up.

So Lake Villarica, another large body of water with volcanos around it, was also very nice, quite a quiet town, mainly populated by Chilean and German tourists. Everyone kept addressing us in German, Sam got quite annoyed when I said it was because of his little square glasses. We stayed in a hostel run by a rather stern Swiss couple and full of even sterner German travellers. Managed to escape to the nearby town of Lican Ray where we had a swim followed by a ride on a pedallo. Sam has been reading "Master and Commander" and was making full use of his newly acquired nautical vocabulary......"FULL SPEED AHEAD MISTER KERR" etc etc. Unfortunately full speed in a pedallo is about 2 centimetres a minute so we had great difficulty escaping from the GIANT BEE which started attacking us part way through the voyage. It was very persistent and had huge stinging apparatus which I didn't like much. However Sam's windmill defensive moves succesfully got rid of it in the end. It must have been amusing viewing for the elegant Chileans lounging around on the shore.

The following day we went for a big old walk in the nearby national park, lots of uphill through forests full of enormous ancient trees, lagoons and lovely waterfalls and no giant bees thank goodness. Got a bit wet in the afternoon but it was very pleasant nonetheless. We then had a day in Valdivia, another city on the coast, the main attraction was yes, you've guessed it, the sea food. And, of course, the sea lions, who hang around on the wharf waiting for handouts from the fish market. They are enormous and make the most astoundingly horrible noises at each other. Like extremely deep voiced donkeys having a collective asthma attack. We also went to the German brewery for a look around but I didn´t think that was terribly exciting.

So tomorrow we leave for Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine, should be pretty exciting stuff. No doubt my friend will tell you all about it in the next thrilling installment.