As our feet touched the tarmac at Quito Airport, we were assaulted with a wall of coldness like that we had experienced more than a week before hand. We were back in mainland Ecuador, where there was minimal blue sky, and the wind coursed across the Andes. It seemed hard to not think of our Galapagos as the pinnacle of our trip given the beauty of both the flora, fauna and people on those islands in the pacific. But we just had to look back at our trip to date and remember the good friends we had made and the extraordinary sites that we had seen to remind us that this was South America, and there will always be places that are unique and beautiful which cannot be compared to anything else.

The 'Nathan Diary' was later used to write the Fulton's infamous work 'The Life of Nathan' (2055). The excerpt below was taken from the 'Nathan Diary' during the journey around the Galapagos Island's from the 27^th of February 2008 to the 6^th of March 2008. Although the exploration that was conducted during this time could never be used in any scientific research, it is hoped that generations to come will look at it for inspiration to rediscover the discovered for themselves.

At nearly 3000 metres above sea level, flying at close to 180 mph, carrying 300 terrified passengers whom have no idea what is happening as the aircraft decends below mountain peaks and into the cloud cover, and you've got to land a plane in the middle of a capital city. Due to the high altitude, you must maintain a higher velocity to keep the plane from ploughing into the buildings a few hundred feet below you. The runway itself has a 'hump' in the middle which means that when the wheels hit the runway you are going uphill and when you finally stop you are facing downhill. Although these are all constant, now throw a couple of variables into the equation and you have one of the highest risk airports in the world. Rain, hail and wind all make this a difficult piece of tarmac to land a few 100 tonne aircraft on, but when this is done at night.... it truly becomes exciting, The runway itself doesn't have sufficient enough drainage so when it is raining, the pilots have to literally slam the aircraft into the runway to break the water tension and stop the aircraft from aqua planning off the runway into the residential and commercial buildings that surround the airport just past the perimiter fences.

We have arrived in Punta Arena, the gateway to the southern tip of Chile, home of the Torres Del Paine National park, and is the southern most city in Chile, A short stop-over for our next destination, Puerto Natales. As we made our final approach into Punta Arenas international terminal we were hit with sever turbulence. The plane was buffeted around as the powerful winds that howl across the south pacific finally made landfall. It became apparent that this was not going to be one of those beach holidays where we could absorb copious amounts of vitamin D and moan about the sand in every crevice. This would be a holiday where we could finally utilise those thermals and woollens that we had carried for the past few weeks......