NEW ZEALAND: Waitopo

I'M AT: Kate's place in Te Puke. Blimey, they've done some work. And Macka owns an orchard, and is building another house.

So, Rotorua and Taupo are thermal areas. Meaning, big lumps of mud splash and steam and stink. Some houses are warmed by sticking a pipe into the ground and extracting hot water. This is illegal.

NEW ZEALAND: Unbelievable luck at Tongariro

I'M AT: The Park Hostel, National Park. Spa, hotel-like rooms, log fires, catering-standard kitchen, big TV showing the Ashes.

After two weeks of constant rain and freezing temperatures at Tongariro National Park, we were prepared for the worst, and the news arrived just as the bus pulled into town. Grey skies, mist, hail. The Crossing was off.

Firstly, a bit of background. The Tongariro Crossing is the most popular one-day hike in New Zealand. It traverses the high slopes of two volcanoes, Ruapehu and Tongariro, and on a clear day you can see for many miles, across the North Island's High Plateau.

It's also pretty pointless, even a little dangerous, to attempt during the wet. So, having decided to pitch up here for three days in the hope of seeing clear weather, my heart sank, and for the first day I did nothing more than drink beer, watch the cricket, go to the pub, watch more cricket, and give a tiny kiss to a hairy, toothless lady simply because she wouldn't leave me alone. I also managed to slap a bearded bloke round both cheeks on leaving.

So it was with a Speights-inspired hangover that I woke to sunshine, and blue skies, and a knock from the hostel guy - the Crossing was ON. This doubtless pissed off the rest of the bus crew, who had only one chance to do it, and were leaving within the hour.

So, up a trudge, quite steep and puffless, to the Red Crater, a deep-hued splash of crimson. The Crossing goes through a massive variety of landscapes, and the walk the ridge is pretty tough - up scree and rocks, unceasingly up. But when you're there you're almost level with the clouds in the far distance, and the light wind blows dust into spectral shapes that jig across the floor.

Raupehu is apparently famous as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings, but I haven't seen the film. So to me it was just a stunning mound of black. Around this point in the walk, the ridge crumbles downwards towards three Emerald Lakes, and the earth all around belches with sulphur. I like descending on this kind of terrain, so I bolted down it like I was on crack.

The walk kind of pans out from here, or levels out, at least. It takes you round the corner of the volcano, which is shrubby, the path descends very gradually so you can wince at the beauty of Lake Taupo before you, and just shake your head, and take another picture. After a stop for water and chorizo at one of the DOC huts, we carried on down, through forest wet with moss, until we reached the end, about six hours after the start. The thermals sat, thankfully unused, in my muleta.

It was here that I decided that New Zealand must be so gushing with wealth that no-one can be bothered to drive a small ice cream van to the end of the trail and just coin it, big time. Sun plus exhausted but monied walkers plus thirst equals a killing. But no jingles were heard. In Bolivia, there'd be storms of women in black hats pushing aguaitas and empanadas at you as far as the eye could focus.

But anyway. With socks off, in shade from the blaze, we sat down and chuckled at our luck, me, Christian, der Rammstein and Dortmund fan, and Hazel, a game old bird from Blighty. The only downer was that I lost my camera a few days later, and with it all the photos of a great day. But it's not a big price to pay for good weather, and it was absolutely bucketing it down the next day.

CHILE: Chronicle of a Death Foretold

I'M AT: Casa Roja, Santiago de Chile. Been here before, for Peter's wedding. Can't remember what I wrote about it then. But it's a converted old house, quite beautiful, buzzy place, big dorms, squeaky bunks.

And so, after travelling in South America for five months, my time here's up. What better way to bow out than with thousands of rioting Chilenos?

Chile is a very divided country. On the one hand you have the right-wing, monied, educated elite, a fair chunk of the population. And on the other, the majority, staunch left-wingers, supporters of the current President, Michelle Bachelet. Bachelet was elected fairly recently and is a very iconic figure for the left. She was held captive and tortured under Pinochet's dictatorship. There can be no ambivalence about Pinochet in Chile.

The General (R) - as referred to in the papers - had been ill for some time. Last weekend, he had a heart attack. And today, at 2.15pm, he died. As an outrageous coincidence, it's the International Day of Human Rights.

The first signs that something big had happened were the car horns. Then, men carrying flags. Then shouting. Then an almighty gathering of people around Plaza Italia, which we stumbled across in a heated haze. Red flags, Bachelet flags, Chile flags. Then police helicopters overhead, at which the crowd swore and raged and tore their lungs.

And amongst all this I had to leave to get my plane. The airport bus took me and the driver - the bus was bloody empty - down the main drag, the Alameda, which was also empty. I saw a large green armoured lorry directing its water cannon at a big group of folk, and then, too late, saw the thick white cloud of gas, and noticed the bus windows were open, and into the swirl we went, the bus, the driver and me. And let me tell you, even a little tear gas is not pleasant. It gets into your throat, and burns, and chokes, and it makes your eyes stream.

Sweet chaos, I will miss you.

CHILE: The only gringo in town

I'M AT: An unknown place with unknown name, Cartagena, Pacific Coast, Chile. It's musty and rubbish really, but it's not fair to judge so soon - rice and TWO fried eggs for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Well, so, it's the second time I've watched Colo Colo in a bar, and the second time they've scored four goals. Coincidence?

Three of Puerto Montt's side were shown the tarjeta roja, and they were hacking like they wanted it called off. It wasn't, and they went out of the competition. Their stadium looked, from the TV, much like Bromley Town's.

Anyway. I arrived in Cartagena on a hot bus, with fat empanadas in my belly. And it's pretty much like the guy in the Valparaíso hostel said it would be: deserted, a bit down on its luck, devoid of travellers. But he also said it's something that many don't see, and it contains something of the soul of Chile.

I checked into the place above - coercion - and decided to leave immediately, but after a couple of hours on the beach - on stretching out, a heavily pregnant dog stood and stared at me, subdued by a corner of pasty - I decided it wasn't so bad. Playa Larga is a huge stretch of sand that the waves relentlessly torment. The red flags were out. Walking on the promenade to the other beach saw me watching local kids dodge a spray of water as waves splattered against the rocks below, a sheet spray twenty foot high. And then round to Playa Chica, a neat, empty cove where beautiful oval waves lap calmly at the beach. The power of the Pacific is immense.

After the sun went down, the Heinken came out, and a guy in the bar asked me after the match who I supported, Colo Colo or Montt? The look on my face said Montt, he told me. I told him, Sir, I am from London, I support Crystal Palace - and with a raised fist, and a 'ciao amigos', the only gringo in town was gone.

CHILE: Montt Blank

I'M AT: Hospedaje Leticia, $5, a family house with cardboard extensions out the back and upstairs. The room was mouldy and had three beds, two of which were lumpy. Someone had left a dirty winter jacket hanging up, stained with dry paint, and there was a watercolour of the Virgin Mary on the wall. It felt lived-in.

Puerto Montt is the departure point for ferries South - to the island of Chiloé, and to deepest Patagonia. I'd originally intended to get the ferry to Chiloé, which is supposed to be beautiful, unspoilt and - very rare for Chile - still populated by indigenous folk, or at least semi-indigenous.

But I decided by the time I got here that I'd had enough of the lake district. So, as it turned out, flying to Puerto Montt from Ushuaia was fairly pointless, albeit it took me to within shooting distance of Santiago. It turned out to be all the more disheartening because there's absolutely fuck-all to do here.

A short wander up the polluted shoreline, past begging women and geezers squeezing lager from brown bottles, in dewy grass, took me to Angelmó, which I'd read was a quaint fishing village. You could get a boat to a nearby island and have a picnic. Fair enough. I had ten hours to kill. But Angelmó turned out to be one short road, with really tacky crap being sold on one side, and a row of shady discos/strip joints on the other. And this was Sunday; even the bedraggled supermarket was shut. The only twitch of light was the market, fresh with slaughter, where successive narled women opened up their cauldrons, steaming with fish and pink sausage, asking me if I wanted to comer. I really, really didn't.

I took my time walking back and passed the rest of the day doing drab things in a drab town and drank a drab beer on the bus - before the conductor told me that I couldn't drink my drab beer on his bus.

This, at the very least, has the distinction of being the first time anywhere, in any of the countries I've been to in the last five months, that someone's stopped me drinking. I feared not a night in a Chilean cell, but a day back in bloody Montt.