Our route north to Santiago de Chile took us on a zig-zag, to and fro across the Andes, travelling, mostly, up the beautiful, lush and verdant, western Chilean side, whilst also crossing back to the east, to take in the highlights of the Argentinian side of the Andes on the way. To give some geographic continuity, this blog recounts these Argentinian treats, while the following, accompanying blog (part 2: Southern Chile) describes the two legs of the journey north through southern Chile. Continue reading
The winding road to Santiago – part 1: Argentinian delights
The winding road to Santiago – part 2: Southern Chile
Buying blue (and other) potatoes on Chiloe
On our route north to Santiago we a zig-zaged, to and fro across the Andes, between Argentina and Chile. The Argentinian sections are in the accompanying blog here. Our Chilean journey started with the wild Carretera Austral in far south. We then detoured back east into Argentina, before a final leg back in Chile from the largest island in South America, passing (and narrowly missing) active volcanoes all the way up to Santiago.
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Southern Andes: Our first three encounters
We started our journey north, following the Andes, in Tierra del Fuego, where the very southern peaks are smaller but magical, covered in snow. From there, the roads north take you back into the desert of the Patagonian steppe, with the mountains usually not far from view to your left. Only forays into the national parks along the eastern edge of the range are possible by road – but those encounters with some dramatic massifs have been breathtaking…
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Antarctica: Beyond the end of the world
The lovely Gentoo penguin
Tierra del Fuego is described as El Fin del Mundo (“the end of the world”), but there is more to see further south – and we decided it was worth taking the opportunity to board a boat, suffer 5 days in the worst seas in the world, to go see…
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Argentina Head to Toe – Part 2: Patagonia dreaming
Ushuaia – at the bottom of Argentina
When you mention Patagonia, the first thought that goes through most people’s minds is the mountains of the Andes. If they do think about the east, it is just as a huge windy desert. If that is what comes to your mind, then you are only partially right…
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Argentina Head to Toe – Part 1: Iguazu Falls to Cordoba
An Amazon peers out to check us out from a hole in a tree above our campsite
We turned south at the Iguazu Falls for a drive that will take us the full length of Argentina, we hope. Iguazu Falls is at the northern tip of the Misiones province, a thin spit of Argentine land separating Paraguay from Uruguay and defined by the Rios Uruguay and Paraná.
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About the Yellow Van part 1: Sourcing & Preparing
Picking the van up from Hastings
While preparing for the trip, and since arriving in South America, we’ve had a number of questions about our van: why did we ship a vehicle for our trip out from the UK rather than get one out here; why a van; what have we done to prepare it for the trip etc.? So this post is a description of how we sourced and prepared the Yellow Van and the subsequent one is about fitting it out ready.
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About the Yellow Van part 2: Fitting & Kitting
At ActionVan’s workshop – partway through fit out
By June 2014, we had a vehicle that met our specs and was ready to convert into a simple camper van to be our home for the trip. Given that we were planning to be away for so long, we wanted something that had the potential to feel like a home, as well as be practical for long term living.
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“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us” – unknown
We are Bruce & Rebecca and The Yellow Van. We had been married for 15 years, living ordinary professional couple lives, but, for the last 10 of which, we had cultivated a dream (frequently feeding it with good bottles of wine) to take time out for an epic road-trip. In the summer of 2014, we turned the dream into reality, giving up our “good” jobs, getting rid of most of our accumulated stuff (putting the rest in storage), renting out our house in Oxford and moving into our converted yellow VW T4 – “The Yellow Van”. In October 2014 we shipped the van from London to Montevideo, Uruguay, for the start of our overland adventure in Latin America. You can see where we’ve been on our route map page and read our postcards home, accompanied by lots of photos. There are more frequently posted Facebook updates here. We are also doing occasional blogs on some themes of the trip (such as wine tasting, rock climbing, …) under the heading topics. Having been all the way south to “the end of the world” (Tierra del Fuego) and on to Antarctica, our original idea was to drive all the way to Mexico, but we slowed down as we travelled and took our time to enjoy what we were seeing and experiencing. Over time, it became less about going somewhere and more about being somewhere. So we finished our driving trip with a long exploration of Colombia and returned to the UK from Cartagena in January 2017. The picture above was taken in front of the Torres del Paine in the far south of Chile in January 2015.
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La Costa – Beauty and the (little) Beast(s)
Two thousand kilometres of coast, mostly lined by long beautiful sand beaches has been the theme of the time that we have had on the road since leaving Montevideo. The beaches of the Atlantic shore are immense and dramatic, often backed by expanses of dunes. The ones along the undeveloped coast of Uruguay are particularly stunning…
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Yellow Van Days 