Sky diving and bungee jumping!

Now I've got your attention, we had quite a boring day on Wednesday (it's ok Mum, with 2 out of 2 bad backs, we won't be jumping out of a plane or leaping off some ridiculously high object with a glorified elastic band tied around or ankles anytime soon!).

We'd heard back from our travel agent who was unable to change our next flights so we decided to plan the next leg of our trip, headed out and bought 2 bus tickets to Valparaiso in Chile for Monday night. Travelling on the night buses saves a night's accommodation!

We then tried to pick up more money but failed due to long queues and closing times.

In the evening we headed out to Aldea, a great steak restaurant (for a change!) Just 3 blocks from our hotel.

Most traditional Argentinean restaurants grill their meat on a 'parrilla'. This is effectively a barbeque indoors but rather than cooking on coals, they burn logs and transfer the glowing embers under the meat when they're hot enough. It's a cheap and effective way of cooking, produces fantastic flavours and is fascinating to watch as often, they cook in full view of the customers.

Lauren with the parrilla in the background:

Our steak sizzling away on the grill next to the cradle of logs burning.

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Thursday we managed to get booked in to visit some thermal springs, deep in the Andes.

It was a full day of visiting the springs and of course, we had to sit in the different pools of varying temperatures to test out their mineral contents!

It really was amazing to see these bubbling pools, heated completely by natural sources!

It was a cloudy day but I managed to let my guard down and got a bit sunburnt. Oops!

They fed us like kings at lunchtime so we finished the day with some takeaway sushi which was actually a welcome change to the usual heavy evening meal!