Since the road had come to an end there was no other option but to turn around and head back north. This time we followed the east coast of Argentina as soon as we left the island of Tierra del Fuego. Probably partly because of the news* we received in Ushuaia and probably because we felt like we had “accomplished” a goal, we travelled much slower. The trip had never been an holiday, which is the way we wanted it, […]
We crossed the border with Argentina without any problems after the weather didn’t allow us to reach the Villarrica summit in Chile. In Argentina there was still a massive distance ahead of us, before we would reach the end of the world. Between us and Tierra del Fuego there was one of the more interesting parts of our trip, Patagonia. One of the least populated areas on the planet. Chapelco The first stop was in San Martin de Los Andes. […]
It was clearly not a season with an abundance of snow, which was one of the (other) struggles we had faced for the winter. The mountains around Santiago host some of the northern (commercial) ski fields of the Andes. All these places were lacking snow this year, but the Andes had a good snow year overall. Most Chilean snow fell further down south, so that’s where we were heading. Following the main highway down south, we visited some of the […]
Our life as instructors isn’t always bright and sunny, unfortunately the snow industry is full of struggles. It’s seasonal life and depending on life choices you need to “fight” for another job every half a year again. Luckily with our qualifications and experience, being the tip of the iceberg worldwide, this is relatively easy. But still things can be hard, companies don’t always value seasonal employees as much as full-time year-round employees. Canada Two years ago Alwin had a poor […]
After our adventure at the border with Chile we had a few more days ahead of us before we would reach our destination near Santiago. We spend those days mostly driving through the Chilean desert before we climbed the long way up to El Colorado and started our vanlife at the resort parking at 2800m. We had two attempts to rescue dogs. The first attempt wasn’t very successful with a young adult female dog but the second time it was […]
It was a few km to the Chilean border on a straight road, we could see the contours of the buildings already. After leaving the Salar de Uyuni and Bolivia we had a small snack on the side of the road. This appeared to be a good decision. You never know how long a border crossing is going to be. So far it usually had taken between 30 min and 3 hours, and nobody ever cared about Layla. This one […]
The Salar de Uyuni is a dried out prehistoric lake, leaving behind the world’s biggest salt flat. The salt is (usually) firm enough to drive through the spectacular landscape. Most people do a day trip with a guided tour with a local 4×4, leaving from and returning to, the city of Uyuni. Of course we were doing things slightly different. We were driving across the Salar de Uyuni and continuing to the Chilean border. Surrounded by nothingness In the wet […]
Equipped with some new parts we left Cusco and headed for the Bolivian border. It was sad to leave Peru, which we had enjoyed more than any of the other countries so far. Our main “objective” in Bolivia was Salar de Uyuni, but to get there we needed petrol. Filling up for foreigners in Bolivia is hard though. We were bargaining for petrol every time in Bolivia, and that was the main “challenge”. Especially because the locals working at the […]
We went the other way to what most people do, we went to Cusco after the Inca ruins. As usual, approaching the city Clara was browsing the spots on iOverlander for a place to stay for the night. This is when her eye fell on a post from the Stockert family in the middle of the city. Originally from the USA, they spend several years in Cusco for a charity mission; Helping wherever possible. This being primarily the local community, […]
After parking up we packed our stuff for the trip. Everything fitted in one bigger and one smaller backpack. This included two sleeping bags, a small budget tent, a few litres of water and food for us and Layla. We set an early alarm and after a rather large breakfast we took off for the challenging trail to the Choquequirao ruins as the sun rose over the mountains. The hike basically consists of 3 different parts. From the trailhead it’s […]