I’ve told my beloved that we are going to learn to tango in Buenos Aires and I know he’s shaking in his shoes!

But that’s not all we are going to do – after a week in Santiago and surrounds we plan to glamp it up and sleep in fully decked out tents for our hike in Torres del Paine national park in Patagonia – I will feel a great sense of achievement if we can climb to the Mirador las Torres on a 22km round trip through the end of the Andes. My sister and I completed the border trek in oz last year through heat and leech infested rain forest so I’m confident the lack of leeches will make for a far more relaxing journey!

After this we will catch an expedition ship through the Chilean fjords to the end of the continent and the most dangerous open water in the world.  Here we are hopeful we can disembark and climb to the lighthouse on Cape Horn and see penguins and drink whisky and hot chocolate before singing pirate songs in the zodiac on the way back to our ship.  If the sea and wind are too wild we will have to forgive the operators for putting our safety first and only letting us see the Cape from a distance – just being there will be enough if its that rough I believe.  The challenge of sea sickness is the real barrier that may need to be overcome.  On this trip we will also get to land in rubber zodiacs on remote glaciers and see penguins and other wildlife up close before disembarking in the most southerly city in the world in Ushuaia Argentina.

The next stop is a Welsh settlement called Trelew in Northern Patagonia where we will transfer to Puerto Madryn hopeful of diving with Sea Lions on Peninsula Valdes. We recently watched a documentary on adult Orcas training their young to eat baby sea lions on that same peninsula (this was after planning the trip and may prove an interesting deterrent) (and to think my beloved is more frightened of the tango!). If we survive the orcas (and the sea lions) we then transfer to Buenos Aires with plenty of time to tango and visit Eva Peron’s grave where we can sing ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ and drink mate’ (the national drink) before tangoing the night away!  It’s also possible we get to take a day trip to Uruguay.

But wait – there’s more!  We will then fly to Iguazu falls and spend time in both Argentina and Brazil (and maybe even Paraguay) before flying out to Lima in Peru.  Clearly a visit to South America would be incomplete without flying up to Cusco and visiting the ruins at Macchu Piccu before spending time on Titicaca the worlds highest lake.

Hopefully altitude sickness won’t ruin our sightseeing up in the Andes and we can return to Santiago in good health for our journey home.  After the yellow fever vaccine incident, when my beloved inconveniently spent a day in hospital on a fluid drip with morphine based pain relief instead of doing some warm up hikes, I am a little worried about being under prepared.  We can take some comfort from knowing we should be well and truly protected from yellow fever at least and we will be carrying our own mobile medicine cabinet so I’m sure we can treat every disease known to man should the need arise (short of lepracy or the plague)!

So stay tuned for blogs on the go as we undertake this amazing adventure.