Author Archives: Richard

Last of the Sacred Valley, Nazca Lines and Ceviche Gone Wrong

Posted on by
2

On our way to Machu Picchu we had stopped for a night in Ollantaytambo and were really taken away by how beautiful this place is. As we were driving back this way we decided to stay another few nights and explore it properly. Ollanta is set at the ‘intersection’ of a couple valleys that were important to the Inca’s. It is also the best surviving example of Inca city planning, with all the streets still exactly how they were laid out by the Inca’s. The town is in the shape of a corn cob and from any spot in town you can see the huge, steep terraces on the hills with the large Incan ruins on it. Looking the other way you can see the storage buildings up on the hill, with a clever system of openings in the building which allows the wind to enter and cool (preserve) the food.

Continue reading →

For Sale: 2004 Suzuki Grand Vitara 4WD

Posted on by
4

(PHOTOS BELOW)

After more than 6 months on the road in South America our trip has come to an end and we would like to sell our car. Our car is priced low for a quick sale as we are flying to The Netherlands soon. The asking price is 3.900.000 Chilean Pesos (5800 Euro/7800 USD), which is quite a bit lower than what similar cars go for at chileautos.cl or at the many card yards we visited half a year ago. Added bonus is that this car has been maintained and comes with good tires, which is a rarity in Chile for second hand cars (more about that later).

You can contact us via email on: richardboeve@hotmail.com or via this blog.

Continue reading →

Last days in Bolivia and learning how to cook fat cats

Posted on by
13

After five weeks of studying in Sucre and not really leaving the city, it felt a bit weird to hit the road again, but we were also excited to leave Sucre. On the way out we got stopped by a convoy of large Nissan Patrols driving at very high speed, it was the president, Evo Morales. Other than that it was a smooth drive to Potosi. In Potosi we first filled up on fuel, managed to pay local prices again after bribing the woman with a 10 Boliviano tip. The streets in Potosi were very narrow, barely the width of a car, plus a couple centimetres of footpath. Thanks to Julia’s navigational skills we found our hotel quickly.

Continue reading →

Kisses from the veggie lady

Posted on by
10

After driving for a couple hours on Bolivia’s altiplano (highlands) we came to the first sizeable town and decided to try if we would be able to buy fuel. It was the state owned fuel station YPFB, which apparently is the most difficult one for foreigners. The woman didn’t seem very enthusiastic and when we asked how much the fuel was, she responded with the international price of 9.12 per litre. And so the negotiations started with me repeatedly saying ‘Muy caro’ (very expensive). After promising to pay her a tip and having her boss involved we were allowed to fill up for 7,5 per litre. Not bad for a first time, but there was room for improvement.

Continue reading →

Last days in Chile, border problems and creating a bond with Bolivian customs

Posted on by
6

After having said goodbye to Ross, the kiwi owner of the Sunny Days hostel in Arica, we were on our way to ‘base camp’. Our base camp (or place for acclimatisation) for three days was going to be Putre, a small indigenous village close to the border of Bolivia. The 125 km was relentlessly uphill, going from sea level to an altitude of 3500 meters. The scenery was changing all the time, we drove up mountains that looked like sand dunes and roads carved into the sides. There hardly seemed to be any other cars around, just large amounts of Bolivian trucks going up and down.

Continue reading →

Lush Pucon, Desert Argentina and Donkeys

Posted on by
5

Crossing the border into Chile once again was a piece of cake, we know the drill exactly, old hands. The border is on top of a mountain range and when descending into Chile the change in landscape was apparent. Where Argentina was dry, Chile was lush and green, the rain doesn’t make it over the mountains too often. We had read in our guidebook that the area on this border was ‘Mapuche’ area, the indigenous people who are still getting a very bad deal in Chile. We stopped at a small town called Curarrehue where 80% of the people are Mapuche. There is a little museum and a Mapuche restaurant. We had a great lunch here, it started off with sopapillas, assort of deep fried bread with spreads. The bread reminded me much of ‘oliebollen’, a Dutch New Years tradition. For our main Julia had a soup with local ingredients and I had a sort of stew with a large piece of cow meat and a lot of coriander, it was all very tasty.

Continue reading →

Hard driving days followed by relaxing times in El Bolson

Posted on by
6

From El Chalten we drove north, which is going to be our main direction for the next months, always north north north. The plan was to go to Perito Moreno NP, which is supposed to have more beautiful mountains, rock paintings and fossils. Our intermediate stop for the night was Gobernador Gregores a very isolated town as it is hours away from any other places. Surprisingly it had a good feel to it, people were doing sports, it was colourful and the information centre was very nice (we might have been the only visitors of the day). The next morning we did a big shop at the supermarket, only to find out we couldn’t pay for our groceries. Despite the Maestro and Visa/Mastercard logos they wouldn’t accept our debit/credit cards. The one bank they have in this province only wanted to give a small amount of money, but at least we could go back to pay for our groceries and we were on our way.

Continue reading →

Best Hiking Ever – El Chalten

Posted on by
10

Our next destination was El Chaltén, the self claimed hiking capital of Argentina. Its most famous attraction being Mount Fitz Roy. The Tehuelche indigenous people called it El Chaltén, which means smoking mountain. Only late in the 1800’s it became clear that the mountain doesn’t smoke, but that there is most of the time a cloud floating around the top.

El Chaltén was 90 kms off the main road (RN40), but it was a beautiful drive. Driving through the boring steppe/pampas landscape towards the looming mountains and massive glaciers in the distance. El Chaltén isn’t the prettiest place on earth, quite the contrast with its surroundings. It is a very new town, founded in 1984 and only in recent years it has started to boom. There are some really nice buildings, but there is a bit of cohesion missing and the town really seems to be in need of decent city planner or local government that cares, more about that later. Tired from a long drive, we headed to La Cerveceria, the micro brewery and had great food. Julia had a salad which was a bit more sophisticated then the typical lettuce and tomato and I decided to try the Locro, which is a local speciality. It’s a stew with beans, corn and various meats, very tasty. All washed away with some pilsner of course.

Continue reading →

Argentina and First Car Problem

Posted on by
7

On the 25th of January we crossed the Argentinean border at Chile Chico to Los Antiguos. Quite exciting as we just had to hope all our paperwork was in order. It got scrutinised, especially the Argentinean insurance and we were there for a while. But eventually we got the green light, after we had thrown out all our fruit and vegetables which you are not allowed to take with you. Los Antiguos is an oasis town and was a breath of fresh air after all the gritty Chilean towns. We struggled to find accommodation as it was busy with tourists, but eventually lucked out on a hostel room where we met some travellers who were on the gringo trail which we were crossing paths with.

Continue reading →

Adventure on the Legendary Carretera Austral

Posted on by
8

The Carretera Austral is ranking as one of the world’s ultimate road trips. It runs for about 1240 km, mostly unpaved through the mountains and forest of Northern Patagonia. It was a prestigious project of Chile’s former dictator Pinochet, who started building this road in 1976 (only to be finished in 1996), more for symbolic reasons than common sense as he wanted to have a road that tied the whole country together. The road cost a fortune to build due to the remoteness and harsh climate and 11 workers lost their lives in these 20 years. We planned to do about 750 km of this road as we couldn’t get to the northern end as the limited ferry service was booked full. We also missed the southern end as at the border crossing to Argentina, only Chile has built a road. This meant that after crossing the border we had to cross a river without bridge and some rough terrain, which I was up for, but which hasn’t been done a lot before and after enquiring in Coyhaique and several calls to police in Villa O’Higgins we were told that due to the hot water and melting glaciers, the river was too high to cross by 4WDs, only trucks can go through. So here’s our report of the middle section of the Carretera Austral we drove.

Continue reading →