EL CHALTÉN – Patagonia’s Trekking Capital
19-24 January. A little further on, half shrouded by cloud, we could see those iconic mountains begin to appear. We’d seen this view many times in other people’s photos, blogs, and Instagram feeds, but seeing it for ourselves was something special — another milestone reached on our Pan-Am adventure. Lone granite spires towered over the […]
CHILE CHICO TO RUTA 40
Patagonia Road Trip through Chile and Argentina 14-19 January. We left Patagonia National Park that rainy Wednesday and picked up the dirt road that traces the edge of General Carrera Lake. The largest lake in Chile, covering 1,850 km2, shared roughly half in Chile and Argentina where it is known as Lake Buenos Aires. It was formed by […]
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 – Puyuhuapi to Coihaique, Chile
PUYUHUAPI December 30 – Back on the road, our next stop was Puyuhuapi, a town tucked at the end of a fjord with a very different story. Settled by German immigrants in the early 1930’s, this was a place carved from dense forest by people who battled relentless rain, isolation, and cold to build a […]
BOLIVIA’S WESTERN LAGUNAS ROUTE
DAY 1 23 November. Setting off in convoy with Alex and Eric in their van and Manuel on his motorbike, we rolled West from Uyuni onto a long dirt road that would carry us across one of the most surreal landscapes in South America. The higher we drove, the more the world shifted — from […]
UYUNI AND THE SALAR
Uyuni is a tough, wind-scoured town perched at 3,656 metres on Bolivia’s altiplano — part railway outpost, part gateway to the desert. Founded in 1889 as a strategic junction linking Andean mines with Chilean ports, it grew around the minerals that passed through and the workers who hauled them. Its broad streets, concrete buildings, and […]