The main attraction around Puerto Natales is the Torres del Paine National Park, one of Chile's most beautiful and famous. Its main feature are the three granite towers. The only way to properly appreciate the park is by foot, the typical trail taking 4 days. Being of the more lazy variety, we settled on skipping one day, cutting the trek down to three days. The first day we hiked up to the torres, and were lucky enough to actually see them. Weather in the area is very unpredicatble, and we had rain, snow, gale-force winds interspersed with sunshine every day! The [View Full Entry]

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We boarded the ferry ”Evangelistas” in Puerto Montt, where the 4 day journey through the Patagonian channels and fjords, open seas and past glaciers began. The scenery was spectacluar, and photo's don't really do it any justice. We spent many hours up on deck looking at the coastline & islands, or in the bridge making sure the captain was doing a good job! Most of the time the ferry stuck to the patagonian channels, where the water was protected and the sailing smooth. On the second day we had to head out into the pacific, where the waves reached grade 6 [View Full Entry]

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In Santiago I found out about the Pachama (mother earth) backpacker bus, which covered quite a few of the highlights on the route south and seemed like a nice alternative to the local busses. Ollie, my new partner in crime, and I joined the bus, the first destination beeing Pomaire, a small coastal town with black-sanded beach. Unfortunately the weather wasn't playing along, so after walking around the town for a while we were confined to the hostel playing cards. Later on we were treated to a spectacular sunset though... We spent the whole of the next day in the bus, [View Full Entry]

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After an 18 hour bus journey from Antofogasta, I arrived in Santiago, Chile's capital with a population of 6 million. It is nestled amoung the Andes, though often these cannot be seen due to the smog. The hostel I stayed at was quite nice and very relaxed, and was hosting a wine tasting the first night I arrived. How could I say no? During the wine tasting I found out that the manager of the hostel also had a beach house 2 hours north of Santiago, which he only opened on weekends and if enough people where interested. Two irish guys [View Full Entry]

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Antofagasta is a largish coastal town in the north of Chile. Not the prettiest of towns, but a nice place just out of town is La Portada, with its sand cliffs and arch. [View Full Entry]

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San Pedro is a realy cool little town in the middle of the Atacama dersert. A small oasis, with dirt (not dirty) streets. The streets are lined with restaurants amd tour operators, but despite this, the town has a comfortable, welcoming and warm feel. I stayed her for a few days with Paola, and Argentinian girl who was in my Salar de Uyuni tour group. San Pedro surrounded by intereting features, and all of this in a desert! We did sandboarding in Death Valley, watched the sunset in the Valley of the Moon and saw more geysers about 100km out of [View Full Entry]

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The Salar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flat at an altitude of 3600m. The best way to see it is by a 3 day tour, which can be arranged in the small town of Uyuni. I arrived in Uyuni with Matt, an english guy I had met in Potosi, and we were offered a good deal as soon as we stepped off the bus. $70 for a three day tour, all inclusive. Got to love the cheap prices in Bolivia! So the next day we set off in our Landcruiser: Braulio our driver, Mariesol, the cook, a danish and an [View Full Entry]

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La Paz: the highest capital of the world at 4200m. Its a bustling capital, built in a valley, and you can see how the city expanded over the years by looking around and seeing houses crawling up the hills... La Paz also offers you the great opportunity to see the pollution you breathe in when walking along the city. The traffic is chaotic, with antiquated cars chugging along, spewing their exhausts in your face. Lovely. Not much to do and see in La Paz otherwise, besides look at churches, dodge traffic, and of course mountainbike down the worlds most dangerous [View Full Entry]

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Potosi is quite a nice little town, dominated by Cerro Rico, 'the rich mountain', which has been mined since 1546 when silver was first discovered. It is still beeing mined today, and the tour of the mines was very interesting, though I was glad to see daylight again. We had to crawl through several narrow tunnels, at high altitude (4200m) and with very dusty air. General Life expectancy for these miners is 40 years, due to the harsh conditions and bad air in the mines. I was glad I only spent 2 hrs in there! And after the tour,we blew up [View Full Entry]

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Copacabana, a chilled out little village on the shore of Lake Titcaca, was my first stop in Bolivia and a cool place to chill. There really isn't much to do there, besides do a day trip to the Isle del Sol, a cool island wich used to be an important Inca site. So not much really to say about this place... just have look at the photo's. [View Full Entry]

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