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
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).
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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).
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…
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
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
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
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
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
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
A great deal of nothing!
Between the worthwhile sights of Patagonia there is very great deal of nothing. Vast flat pampas plains dotted with estancias/ranches, herds of cattle, roaming horses and the occasional beret-clad gaucho galloping between them. In our last blog-post we rambled on a bit about the marvellous marine and wild-life here, but what else can we say about our travels down eastern Argentina? Continue reading
It’s a loooong way south through Patagonia. From BA to Ushuaia at the bottom of the continent, it’s over 3,000 km in fact, so we won’t be doing it in an afternoon. We’re heading down the eastern side of Argentina, across miles and miles (and miles) of vast, flat pampas land. It is featureless, but strangely all the more beautiful for this. We’re in no hurry and will be taking it slowly, in short hops Continue reading
Street art – BA-style
Those in-the-know casually refer to it as ‘BA’ but until we get to know each other better, we’ll start with the more respectful ‘Buenos Aires’ 🙂 It is another of our ‘Bucket List’ cities that we have wanted to visit for many years. I read the story of Eva Peron some years before it was brought into popular culture by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber and was looking forward to seeing the city’s ‘Evita Landmarks’. But although Eva Peron (arguably after Diego ‘Hand of God’ Maradona) is the world’s most famous Argentinian, there is much more to Buenos Aires than her memory.
On the outskirts of the city we spotted below us from the fly-over, a ‘Museo de las Malvinas’. Hmmm… this could be Continue reading
After over five weeks at sea, we are so excited to get Cuthbert onto dry-land to start the South American adventure. Our priority on arrival in Montevideo is to restock with food, gas and diesel, then to come up with a plan for the next few days. Maybe Gaucho Festival Argentina?
Decision Time!
It’s Thursday and the is Gaucho Festival Argentina is in San Antonio de Areco this weekend. It’s some 700 km away from Montevideo. We would very much like to see the authentic gathering of the regional gauchos and watch them compete their skills, but if we do so we will have to skip Montevideo and go straight to San Antonio. It’s a tough decision, but we decide that Montevideo will still be there next year when we come north again. The Gaucho Festival is an annual opportunity and we are unlikely to be able to tie these dates into next year’s itinerary. So the Gauchos Continue reading
Montevideo from Hamburg by cargo ship… Done! Yes, we’ve spent October 2015 on a freight ship Europe to Montevideo. We’re bringing our camper-truck Cuthbert to Uruguay to start our tour of the Americas. No scrubbing of decks, peeling of potatoes or climbing of rigging – we took one of six fare-paying cabins on the Italian Grimaldi freight ship ‘Grande Nigeria’. And in anticipation of the obvious question… we’re doing it because we can, and because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
All aboard the Grande Nigeria to Montevideo!!
So was it such a good idea… over five weeks at sea with minimal facilities and no internet??!! Well… at least we had plenty of time to write all this bog-blurb stuff 🙂 Read on and see what you think. Continue reading
