After long driving days from the Lakes District, we reached Rio Gallegos in the south of Argentina. For the first time since the very north of Chile / Argentina, we needed to cross a border and pass through Chile to get to the southern tip of Argentina. Lazy as we are, we decided to risk it […]
On our first day in Patagonia, we woke up to some amazing deserted mountain scenery. We headed on south and found ourselves back on a dirt road fairly quickly, paralleling close to the Chilean border. We checked out a really nice waterfall with orange growth on the river banks. Next, we visited the thermal resort […]
With our goal of reaching Ushuaia in mind, we had to make some decisions as we crossed through Argentina. Should we zig-zag our way down, with Tierra del Fuego as our final stop of the trip, or should we head straight there, keeping in mind that days are only getting shorter. With flooding in Chile and heavy […]
Coming out of the Laguna Route of Bolivia is a strange experience. After 500km of slow-going roads (you can’t go faster than 15-20 mph because of all the corrugation) and high elevation, we crossed the border and got onto pavement at the next intersection. A quick drive down the hill (2,000m elevation loss in 30km) and […]
Our expectations of Bolivia were unique compared to all the other places we had been to before. It is almost all at high altitude with the world’s highest capital city, one of the poorest countries in South America, has a large indigenous population, a recent history of nationalizing companies under Evo Morales, supposedly the worst […]
It was difficult leaving Curahuasi and all the hospitality we encountered, but the trip had to continue. Our next big destination was the primary tourist area of Peru – Cusco and the Sacred Valley. We spent an evening in Cusco, taking in the atmosphere. It caters extremely well to international tourism, a pretty colonial town […]
Apologies for not keeping the blog up to date. We thought we would run into trouble with internet availability in Peru and Bolivia; turns out it was pretty easy over there. We’ve been camping for free almost every night in Chile and Argentina, so there hasn’t been much internet for us. Also, just too many […]
We crossed the border into Peru at La Balsa, after an exciting and tiring drive south on dirt roads. The border post was a bit different from other ones we’ve experienced so far. As we pulled up to the Ecuadorian customs control, the officer realized someone was there, so he put on a cut-off t-shirt […]
All acclimatized, we picked up our guide Pablo near Quito. He would spend the next 4 days travelling in the van with us, the first time we had another traveler with us since Nikki’s sister Kyra came to visit in Costa Rica. Try to find a guide who’s willing to live with you in a […]
We crossed into Ecuador in late January, in the beginning of the rainy season. This didn’t bode very well for our plans in the country with some serious mountains. When we arrived, the weather was fairly dreary, clouds overhanging the hills. This wasn’t helped by the naked hills of northern Ecuador, which seem to have […]