Chili again...Torres del Paine

Nearly forgot a day or two. This happens when you speed trough timezones, countries like a maniac. After El Calefate and its snow and ice-life, we thought it to be time to go to another beautyhit on this continent. Thank God we found one...in Chili though, Torres del Paine, which is well on the way to Ushuaia, so what better route than this. The city of Puerto Natales provided the enterence to this park that makes people gaze of it's good looks. So we crossed the border again to Chile. This little town depressed me completely. Hardly a hostal to be found that was still open, raining cats and dogs and deserted streets. But of course we found something after a question or two. We ware the only guests...Anyway next day in the park made up for everything. The tour was top of the bill. The park was everything they promised it would be. We saw an eagle, condors, foxes, guanaco's (cousin of the lama), sheep, cows (yes, I know, you see those also every day, but not in the mountains nor combined with condors). After the tour we wanted to move forward as quickly as possible. And so we did...

From Geyser to Glacier

After a little détente here is some news again. We celebrated Ellen´s birthtday (3rd of May) in the evening with a bit of champagne. They even had fireworks especially voor Ellen and probably for the day of Bariloche also. Next day on the move again. Our flight had a delay of 8 hours so that day we spent mainly at the airport. We arrived late at night in El Calefate. Brrr....minus 2 :-) We found a hostal that was closed, but they opened again especially for us and after a while, the whole family moved in the hostal. Utterly cosey. Very friendly people, lots of babies and noise, so the earplugs do their duty. Next day, tourhopping to go to the
glacier, Perito Moreno (very famous). We took a tour

Me in front of the glacier. "The very famous Perito Moreno"

that included minitrekking on the glacier. Stunning........take a look.......yeah, that´s us walking up there. It is very easy to do and oh so beautiful

At the end we got whiskey literally on the rocks with chocolate for our good efforts. It was an experience to remember. The next we went on a boat trip to see the rest of the glaciers. The biggest one is 4 x as big as the city of Buenos Aires, Upsala glacier. Another amazing trip with views and nature scenes that one witnesses only in rare occassions. Big white blocks of ice with blue-ish colours with changing skylights each minute. The ice that you see is not really ice but compressed snow. Millions of years ago all this land was glacier, but it has decreased because of weather circumstances. There are more facts to come on the glaciers and the ice. And I will follow up soon on the rest of the stories because when I am writing this we are already in Ushuaia, the end of the world..I still can´t believe that I am here. It is only a week from Antartica by boat, thank God the season is over, they don´t go there anymore, otherwise...The urge to go would be too big maybe..Till next time

Last day in the Patagonian Capital

Today is Ellen´s birthday. It is also the birthday of Bariloche. And therefore the sun came out. So time to go on a trip to see more of the environment. After breakfast in bed we went to the Teleferico Cerro Otto. Translation = going to a hill with a cable-railway. Once arrived, we could enjoy a beautiful view over the lake and Bariloche, as you can see..

Out there we walked for a while on the hill, till we discovered a lovely house on the edge, and it said: OPEN. Here we had pancakes with caramel inside by a fireplace (photo is a look-alike setting from 2 days ago). So much for getting in shape..But we walked it off again going up-hill. We needed the practise for the big mountains we will climb in the glacier area in the days to come. Tomorrow we are of to El Calefate. I am really looking forward to this, despite the temperatures.

As for the food over here. Really nice (Muy rico = heel lekker). Everything is made with care. How does it look?

We are on our way, as we speak, to get some dinner. Birthday cake with candles for dessert. I will sing Ellen a song......

Bariloche - Or is it Barichocolate?

So here we are in small Switserland. Day 2 in Bariloche. I like it here. It is quite big and if it wasn´t for the language I would swear I was in Switserland. Never seen (nor ate for that matter) so much chocolate in my life. The shop-windows display neverending rows of the black (or white) delicacy. Whatever you can put into chocolate it´s in it. However you can garnish or decorate it, believe me, it´s done. (What you see is just a fragment of what they are doing to us with their provocative mega exhibitions of chocolate. Just wanted to let you know how much we suffer....). Everything else looks like Switserland too, lakes, big wooden lodges in the hills.

Anyway, we tried to walk and do some sportive things over here but until now we were out of luck. The 1 of May, everything was closed. (Only in Holland everybody works on that day). The next day and today it rained cats and dogs, so there are hardly any tours and busses seem so attractive when you´re walking.. Today we´ve been busy almost the whole day trying to reserve the bus to go south. But after a few tour-operaters they could finally tell us that the road (Route 40) is closed for the winter. So we are flying again. Friday, Argentina´s aircraft will fly us to El Calefate. In the vicinity of this town we can visit the biggest glacier of the world (Perito Moreno) and beautiful National Parks. So the records are on again. Here we will show ourselves from our best sporty sides. And we are getting near the end of the world pretty soon. That will be nice....

Out of Chile already....Argentina

Where were we. In Pucón (Chile)..we stayed here only one day, it is a rather small but friendly touristic village. We walked on the beach by the lake and had a tour in the village. All very nice but we want to go to where the real cold is. We could have done hiking, rafting and more of those sportive things but it was raining so we will do these things in the coldest circumstances without the rain hopefully.

So we decided to move on to the South. We might still catch the roads intact if we hurry a bit. We move like Speedy Gonzalez but that is ok. We will relax later in the warmer regions. We took an alternative route to Bariloche, which is in Argentina. (See the flag..). Bless us for doing so, because the road to this place was of an amazing beauty. We are in a lake district now (as you can see on the pics), which has a lot of hills, as had this road to Bariloche. Automn colours of trees next to silent lakes. Wooden lodges and the smell of fireplaces being lit. Smoke coming from chimney´s. Another movie scene and we were lucky enough to be in it...Hope you enjoy it with us.

I would like to thank you already for all your sweet. Just so you know, it is very nice to read them when you are away!

Nice moments caught in Chile

Little cat in the desert



Vicuna showing of his behind..





Woman selling lama meat in the Atacama desert

Sleepy dog in Valparaíso

How we got to Pucón - in the lake district of Chile

Goodmorning Pucón, after a nerve-wracking transfer out of the desert (the taxi bus showed up half an hour late and that does not feel to good when they already have this mañana attitude) a flight back to Santiago, a taxi to the bus station and the nightbus to Pucón, we have used almost every means of transport there is to get to this destination. You loose track of time in this manner of traveling. Is that why people do this? Anyway, Pucón looks lovely, at 06.30 in the morning. Very green and lots of lakes. Cold though......I am a bit envious of the temperatures in my own country. I did not expect it to be this cold over here, to be honest. But we can always hit Argentina faster to climb up to where the sun will wait for us, if the weather gets to ugly....We might be climbing a Vulcano out here, or rent some bikes to get some excercise. Keep you posted about this. Enjoy Queens Day tomorrow for all you Dutchies.

Desert Storm

Desert Storm

Me trying to look though and Ellen caught it on picture......

Ellen and me just before the sunset in the "Valle de la Luna"

This is our last day in the desert. We fly back to Santiago tonight. From there we´ll go to Pucón with the night bus. I have been quite ill these days which overshadowed the trips a little bit, but I still went, sniffing and snorting. Everything was really beatiful, especially the sunset in the Valle de la Luna, (Moonvalley). The colours changed every second and it took my breath away. Next day saltplanes and flamingo´s; i will not bother you with details of the flamingo´s we have spotted, because they all look the same to be honest except for some colour differences. But a beautiful and graceful bird it is and it does not really matter if has a Chilean nose or a Peruvian wing..

Me being very cold at the geysers
The next night we had to wake up 03.30 in the morning to go to the geysers del Tatio. This is a phenomenon that one cannot miss eventhough all the circumstances seem quite unattractive. Waking up at 03.30 in the morning in the dessert means extreme cold! The geysers are situated at 4.320 m above sea level, which means in automn -8 d C. We were wearing 9 layers of clothes to survive. I did not drop into a geyser hole, which was quite possible, 85 d C. Photo´s will be on site soon, like that can witness our drop dead gorgeous moments in the desert.

Bienvenido al desierto - Atacama

From Santiago we took a flight into the desert in the north of Chile. Wake up call at 04.30 in the night...Horror but worth it. We are in San Pedro de Atacama now, which is a town that thrives solemly on tourism. It is like a very small Las Vegas, Indian style. Out of nothing they founded this tourist place with nothing else than hostels, bars, restaurants etc. Very small, the roads are not paved, sand and more sand, the buildings are small and white with roofs of clay. It is well done though, spotless for a sandbox and it looks a bit like a village made for a movie scene. They have looked good at what a tourist desires and provided for this. Well done. In places like this you will find a lot of backpackers that never seem to leave. In the evening it gets very cold but the restaurants have those big ovens with fire and it all looks very cosey. We are going to Valle de la Luna today, tomorrow we will see flamingos and saltplains. The last day here we have to wake up at 04.00 to see the geysers and it will be 10 degrees below 0. Why am I doing this, you wonder? I wonder too, but apparantly it is such a spectacle that one cannot miss...You have to watch out not to step on a geyser. At least that will be warm..too warm probably. Most of you know that my co-ordination lacks some balance at times. And right now I am a bit feverish as well so I hope I keep my footsoles in place.

Valparaiso - city of colours

Writing from Valparaiso. The second day in Santiago did not blow us away either. The old part of town honored its name by being mainly old instead of authentic. The difference between up-town and down-town was sad to see. Man in the four wheel drive and man without legs.
We sent to sleep quite early and we hit another record in the night.(in Santiago still).There was an earthquake that made 6.2 on the Richter scale and we slept right through it. No worries, they told us that in Chile you have to start worrying when there aren´t any. As long as I sleep through it, I will not worry about anything :-)

Valparaiso is a small town by the ocean with a large industrial port. In earlier days the town thrived on its strategic position. Large ships in the harbour, quite impressive. If you look for more picturesque places you have to visit the "Cerro´s". The town has a few hills (cerro) and here you will find lovely buildings. The city has well presevered the colonial architecture as it has its interesting early industrial infrastructures, such as the numerous ‘elevators’ on the steep hillsides. They are used to get to the hills. So did we to reach this colourful part.

Well, we are going back to Santiago today to catch a plane in the middle of the night to go to the Atacama desert. We can do with a bit of warmth before the freezing cold of Pagatonië will do us in.
Geysers, flamingo´s, Moon valley coming up...

Santiago de Chili

Grounded: we arrived safe and sound at destination number 1 (Amsterdam-Zürich-Sao Paulo-Santiago de Chili in 24 hours). It went well, I guess. They overfed us completely on the plane, we rolled out of the airport with our bags intact. Nothing lost or broken. The taxi was where it should be, hostal was for real, with every backpackers detail in place. We strolled through the city today, so deprived of sleep, that we ended up taking the same route twice in the subway without getting where we wanted to be, because we forgot what we had to do in the part of town we just left. It is not a very beautiful town so far. We did not see the touristic scenery yet, just from under the ground and that is not very special. However, we do know the part that we could have dismissed, very well and that counts for something. Tomorrow fresh new start going to the authentic part. After that Valparaìso, and the Atacama desert.
As for the records: There is no country in the world that counts 4500 km by length and is that small (not more than 200 km wide) at the same time. The Atacama is the driest desert on earth. And we are just starting...Keep counting

April 2007 - On the road again

Trippin' again. After a year of absence a new trip has been planned and therefore this blog is "active" again. Hooray....I hope you will enjoy reading the stories. This time I will go with a friend, Ellen. We will visit the beautiful countries of Chili, Argentina, Uruguay and Brasil. As we were preparing ourselves by reading and googeling a lot, we found out that it will be all about extremities. Lowest city on the globe, lowest train on earth, highest this...largest that and more. So I will keep you informed about every geographic milestone. We are flying today, in fact..I have to leave as we speak, but I did not want to leave without a little note of the why and the where. We mainly go for nature and cultural purposes, learning tango in Buenos Aires and watching whales mating on the "Peninsula Valdes". But we will also visit a "Wereld Natuur Fonds" location in Brasil (Pantanal) and we will visit an orphanage in Brasil at the end of the journey. Here we will try to provide for whatever they need in a short time. This is what I can tell you all for now. I hope you will stay in touch in the meantime, I know I wil really enjoy reading your comments whilst being far away. XX M

Goodbye Children

This particular blog is only to show the pictures of "my children" and me saying goodbye to them, a few days before leaving Ecuador and going back to Holland. I still miss them every day.