Now that the first part of the trip is done, I’ll be spending the next two weeks on the boat to Antarctica. With zero Internet the next post will be from there (if i can afford satellite fees for a picture) or only when i get back to Argentina.
Laterz 😉
Posted from Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.
Over 7500 km, 5 weeks, hostels, cabanas, campsites, lakes, mountains, glaciers, whales, birds, animals, trees, flowers, people, ferries, coming to an end.
Just arrived in Bariloche, returning our faithful Toyota tomorrow, had our celebration steak and beers.
Good night to all…
Posted from Neuquen, Neuquén, Argentina.
On the last leg to Bariloche, following Carolina’s tip, we took a short cut on a dirt road for the last 100 km to Bariloche and the road trip end. A few dozen km from the Andean snow, the Patagonia desert is home to amazing sandstone cliffs and formations. After a stop by a lake we spent the night at Villa Traful, a sleepy lakeside village.
Posted from Neuquén, Argentina.
When we finished the carraterra, we thought we were done with dirt roads. The landscape of farms here is dotted with volcanos (they don’t seem to care), very picturesque. Then, we tried to find a campground near a lake and got lost for 100 km of dirt roads again. Oh well…
Osorno volcano
Another incredible scary dirt drive, 50 km 4 meters wide dirt trail along a 300 m cliff . Ended up at a weird wooden boutique cabin with grass growing on the roof.
From Hornopiren we drove up the coast looking for a side dirt road that appeared only on one map out of four we had. Turned out to be an amazing coastal trail, connecting fishing and clamming villages. 50 km in 4 hours, we had to stop every few minutes to take a photo look at the birds and houses, or to look for interesting sea shells.
Yael and me took the Toyota on an eight hour ferry to Hornopiren to finish the trail. On the way we saw seals, pelicans and penguins ! In the coastal waters.
We got into ‘town’ early in the evening and found a nice run down hotel across the beach. Children were playing soccer underneath the volcano and from the hotel i counted over fifteen kinds of birds in 5 minutes; swans, falcons, several kinds of gulls, egrets, ducks, geese, kingfishers and more…
The largest private park in the world, Pumalin was bought by an american billioner and turned into a nature park. Some of it was covered in ash from Chaiten volcano in the last two years, and is now being reopened, although most is accessible only on foot or by boat. We drove thru an amazing rainforest on dirt roads and slept in a campground that’s still closed. We were the only tourists.
Some book mentioned that dolphins sometimes swim right up to this beach, which we treated like an ‘urban’ legend. The beach itself is gorgeous, with black sand and rocks (thanks to the nearby Chaiten volcano) and we spent the night at an old b&b overlooking the beach. The second time we went there, Yael was walking on the beach searching for rocks and talking on the phone, when a group of dolphins came 10 meters from her for 10 minutes without her noticing . Until i ran up to her with the camera, shouting…
