Approaching La Paz we have a mixed impression. The city sits in a spectacularly steep sided valley surrounded by stunning snow-capped mountains. Nice. But we also see a blanket of ‘clag’ hanging over its skyline. Not nice. Emission standards still have some way to go around here! We’re not great fans of mega-cities but we do have a few practicalities to sort out here and we are just a teeny bit interested to have a look around.
Author Archives: marcustuck@btinternet.com
Altiplano and whiteness
We’re high. Very high. We’ve been plodding around the Bolivian altiplano, often at well over 4,000 m (13,000ft). After the central cities of Sucre and Potosí we’ve moseyed-on down to the remote south-west corner of Bolivia. Volcanos, lakes and the world’s largest salty-pan. We’re driving the Salar de Uyuni (see map).
Back to Bolivia
Chiquitania is a land far from Bolivia’s stereotypical image of Andean high peaks, llamas and chunky chaps in brimmed hats and colourful ponchos. Here is Bolivia’s eastern flat, humid wetland punctuated by some scenic red-rock monoliths and some interesting sights. We’re back from Brazil and heading west through Chiquitania to the highlands, but on the way we have the small matter of recovering our deposited food store.
Caves and Torches
It’s Olympic season in Brazil right now. In case it had escaped your attention, Río de Janeiro is hosting the 2016 summer Olympics and Paralympics. We don’t have tickets for any events, but in the ‘eco-tourism’ town of Bonito we managed to partake in the celebrations in a teeny way (route map). Oh, and we did some abseiling too! Read on…
A Bit of Brazil
It’s not all samba and football in Brazil you know, there’s other good stuff too! Last time we came to Brazil it was for a Caipirinha-fuelled 24 hr stop-over in Río with the freight-ship on our way to Uruguay. Now we’re zipping in from Bolivia to see a different corner of the world’s fifth largest country (click here for route-map).
Beginning Bolivia
We never learn our lesson! Crossing a border during the sacred ‘eating of the lunch’ ritual – don’t do it folks! These people take their lunch-break seriously! You only end up with a lot of waiting and not necessarily in an orderly line. But in our excitement at arriving in a new country, we have forgotten this simple principle again! We approach the Bolivian border at around 13:00 hrs and realise ‘the wait’ is on!
Intro to Bolivia! Great view at the border
Chile Finale
The Atacama Desert sits between us and the Pacific Ocean in northern Chile. As we leave Argentina over the 4,800 m Jama Pass, we’re heading to the Atacama to check-out some weird sandstone formations and some geysers. Then it’s down to the coast for a bit of beach time before we head north and then finally east back up to the Andes (click here for Route Map).
North-west Argentina
At 15,500 ft we crossed from Chile into Argentina over the Paso San Francisco. We’d enjoyed our three days waiting in the high Andes for the border to open, but were looking forward to descending down to rejoin the Ruta 40 highway and the more temperate climate of north-west Argentina. Highlights to look forward to on this next leg of the trip include the wine region around Cafayate, the colonial city of Salta and some reportedly huge cacti in quirky landscapes. Click here for the route map.
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Pisco, Astro and Snow
Pisco brandy and astronomy are two of the things for which Chile’s Elqui Valley is famous. We’re rather fascinated by the stars and planets, and we also aren’t averse to the odd drop of brandy and wine tasting, so the Valley holds some interest for us. After that we need to dodge the snow and find an ‘all-year’ Pass to cross the Andes, but first we’re heading to the coastal town of Valparaiso.
Santiago
It’s a happening place, Santiago. A sprawling capital city of six million people and almost certainly the most modern and ‘westernised’ city on the continent. That’s not to say it is without culture, history and character – it has these in spades too. We had spent a week in this cool city before our little detour to Easter Island and got a feel for the place. Cuthbert had waited patiently at Santiago airport for us to return, but we still had things to see and stuff to get done before hitting the road again. We had found a marvellous central but peaceful and secure park-up spot by one of the city’s parks with a friendly guard-chap, so it felt a bit like coming home when we returned.
Easter Island
Moai… everywhere, everywhere! You know those big stone-head things for which the island is famous? They’re called ‘Moai’, and there’s almost 900 of them. Many of them are either nose-planted, face-down in the dirt or buried out of sight, but a famous few are standing proud and are widely photographed. We left Cuthbert behind in Santiago for a few days and headed to Easter Island to investigate with this Easter Island blog.
Wine and high peaks
Our main mission in Mendoza was to learn about the region’s wines. The city is Argentina’s capital of winemaking, which in itself is a good enough reason for a visit. But it’s also a rather cool city, with wide tree-lined streets, shady plazas with fountains and statues, a strong street-café culture, great bars and restaurants… where better to spend Easter?
From Dinosaurs to Space Town
Oh no! Not another view of snow-capped peaks, venting volcanos, aqua-marine mountain lakes set against a back-drop of clear blue skies (yawn 🙂 )! We hadn’t thought it possible to tire of southern Chile’s spectacular landscapes, but after weeks of relentless picturesque mountain views appearing around every bend, we were itching for a change of scene. We have now scientifically proven that you can indeed have too much of a good thing (provided of course that the relevant ‘good thing’ isn’t chocolate – you can obviously never have too much chocolate).
Place of many volcanos
Chile is rather famous for its volcanos and has quite a few of them, particularly gathered around the Lake District to the north of Puerto Montt. Now in our view, lakes are lakes. There are many around the world and although often very beautiful, they rarely fascinate in the way that a volcano can. So we found ourselves driving through the Lake District largely ignoring what would otherwise be notably scenic lakes and focussing on the volcanos – several of them very much still active. The most recent eruption was Volcan Calbuco which popped-off less than a year ago on 22nd April 2015, so these aren’t merely relics for geological historians. Here’s out Chile volcanos travel blog…
From Iveco to Church and Back
Life on the road in Cuthbert is a joy, but not without its frustrations! Everyday housekeeping hum-drum and the inevitable technical issues that arise with all motor vehicles are not escaped on the road; in fact they are sometimes magnified in significance. So just to prove to Cuthbert blog-readers at home that overlanders suffer at the hands of the mundane too, we’ll start this Chiloe travel blog with a bit of practical stuff, then sit back and wait for the messages of sympathy to come flooding in 😉 Continue reading
The Carretera Austral
High on the list of ‘World’s Most Iconic Road Trips’, Chile’s Carretera Austral is a long, scenic drive down the western side of the southern Andes. It runs some 1,200 km south from its start in the city of Puerto Montt. As with Ruta 40 in Argentina, you can’t really say that you’ve ‘driven Chile’ unless you’ve done ‘The Carretera’. So here we go… starting our Carretera Austral Blog, where else, but at the end.
Stunning views along The Carretera
Ice, Mud and Mountains
Inconveniently for us, the sights to be seen as we head north up the Andes sit alternately either side of the Argentine/Chile border, requiring more frequent border crossings than we would normally care to tackle. From Torres del Paine in Chile we now need to cross back into Argentina, first destination: the Perito Moreno Glacier and it’s gateway town of El Calafate. This glacier is another of South America’s most visited tourist attractions and the border crossing is therefore choked with coach-loads of tourists. We get caught in a frustratingly long queue, but finally Continue reading
Introducing… The Andes!
We’re going to be doing a lot of ‘heading north’ in 2016, so from Punta Arenas we’re starting the New Year as we mean to go on… heading north! The (extremely) vague plan for the next few weeks is to zig-zag randomly between Chile and Argentina, up western Patagonia and the southern Andes. This will be our introduction to South America’s proper mountains. It’s a well-trodden route, up the Carretera Austral in Chile and Ruta 40 in Argentina. There’s a lot of Continue reading
‘Home’ for Christmas
Our over-landing in Cuthbert was temporarily suspended for a fabulous little boat-jaunt to Antarctica. All very amazing… but now we’re back home in our beloved Cuthbert and back to normality (well, ‘normality’ to the extent that we can have such a thing in our ‘Cuthbert lifestyle’). We’re wondering what’s in store for Xmas? Continue reading
Antarctica
We could gush ridiculously about Antarctica but there simply aren’t enough superlatives in the English language to do so. Let’s start this Antarctica cruise blog with a simple ‘Wow!’ and take it from there… Continue reading