PATAGOINA NATIONAL PARK, CHILE
TWO HIKES, 50KM, THREE DAYS 10-13 January. The drive into the park meandered gently for nearly 20 kilometres before reaching the visitors’ centre. The road wound through open grasslands, following rivers and backed by serrated mountains still holding pockets of late snow. Guanaco roamed and grazed — some lifting their heads as we passed, most […]
CARRETERA AUSTRAL – MARBLE CAVES AND TURQUOISE LAKES, CHILE
DUST, MARBLE AND THE COLOUR OF WATER 7 – 10th January. Leaving Cerro Castillo behind, the carretera carried us onward toward Puerto Río Tranquilo. The landscape opening out into wide valleys and 100km long, exposed stretches of very dusty gravel roads. Traffic was 80% adventure bikers and cyclists, 10% overland vehicles and 10% locals. Brazilian […]
CARRETERA AUSTRAL – HIKING CERRO CASTILLO, CHILE
Hiking Patagonia 6 January. Long, sweeping curves lead us down into the valley leading to the striking Cerro Castillo. We camped together with Sara & Huw in a windy, dusty carpark, everything slowly coated in fine grit each time a vehicle passed — which was far too often. The next morning we set out early-ish, […]
CARRETERA AUSTRAL – Hornopirén to Chaiten, Chile
By the time we reached the start of the Carretera Austral, the weather had already set the tone — cold, wet, and windy. We camped that night on the roadside in the small town of Hornopirén, queued for the next morning’s ferry alongside others doing the same. Vans and campers with Chilean, Brazilian, and Argentine […]
CHILOÉ ISLAND, CHILE
Ancud 19-21 December. Chiloé lies off Chile’s southern coast, where the mainland begins to unravel into fjords, islands, and open sea. Separated by a narrow channel, it marks a quiet threshold between the more ordered landscapes of the north and the wilder, rain-soaked south. The island sits low and green in the Pacific, shaped by […]
POTOSI, BOLIVIA and Kevin Irvine’s memorial
A MOUNTAIN OF SILVER November 19 & 20. The town of Potosí sits high, around 3,826m. A mining town that’s a jumble of steep streets and weathered colonial buildings sprawled in the shadow of Cerro Rico — the “Rich Mountain” that once funded the Spanish Empire and, at an unimaginable human cost and set the […]