holtzholiday

For all the beach bums out there, you´´ll be turning a darker shade of green when you read this. We have just finished exploring the southern parts of Brazil, and this is what we can say about it: Our first port of call was Florianopolis, or as all the locals call it, Floripa. There is really only one thing to do there and that is go to the beach. And once you have visited the beach, you move on to another beach. And then another. So, when it rains, issues arise (as you will read about later). As we cannot consider ourselves rotisserie kind of people (turning round and round to roast yourself evenly), we actually had to find something to do. We took off on a short hike over one big hill to a relatively ... read more

Our final Chilean destination was Punto Arenas. The main tourist attraction here are the Magellanic penguin colonies. Marco was convinced that they are exactly the same as the Jackass penguins. Either way, we decided to give this sightseeing trip a skip and rather went to the Naval Museum. Among other things, we watched an entertaining video of a sailboat that sailed around Cape Horn in the 1950s. The cameraman gave a blow by blow account of the happenings en route. We had thought of doing a remote hike to the southernmost point of mainland South America, but a look at the weather report changed our minds. We visited an interesting cemetery though: large burial vaults/houses dedicated to families. As per our tradition, we went out for a final dinner to reminisce our Chilean experiences. We both ... read more

The past couple of days have been very cool! It has felt like we are really getting into Patagonia now - high mountains, snow, heaps of rivers, glacial meltwater lakes and of course, cold weather : ) Leaving Coyhaique behind, we drove to the little town of Villa Cerro Castillo, based at the foot of the mountain we were planning to hike up to. This village lies on the Carretera Austral: the final southernmost road in Chile, that meanders through mountains and rivers. During winter, this area is completely cut off from the northern parts, due to the snow and rain. Not many people drive this road and public transport is very scarce. Most people cycle or hire a car or hitchike to get to the southernmost village, O Higgins. We opted for the hitching/attempted public ... read more

It has been while since we last wrote and we have moved along quite swiftly. From Santiago, we went to the surfing town of Pichilemu. We expected a JBay kind of town, with fancy holiday houses and surf shops. What we saw was quite the opposite - a pokey town with run down houses and overgrown verges. Pichilemu is known to have some of the best waves in the world, hosting one of the big surf competitions. Marco hired a board and enjoyed the Pacific water for a day. Unfortunately, his lack of surfing fitness let him down despite the good waves, but he enjoyed the surf in Pichilemu and Los Lobos (while Phillipa read a good book, hence, no photos). We had a nervous laugh at the sign painted on the beach road stating this ... read more

A short stint in Chile´s Atacama Desert was all we had time for before heading across the Andes into Argentina. We have dubbed Argentina the Land of the Mullet. Every guy here, young or old seems to have a mullet - did they get stuck in another era? But to rewind a little. Our time in San Pedro was good. We downgraded to a camp site after one night in a hostel due to the high prices. We enjoyed a hike through the Valley of Death, accompanied by two dogs (once again), where we watched some sandboarders and enjoyed the sunset atop a ridge. We also decided (against the advice of tour operators) that we would cycle through the driest desert in the world to see the sights, rather than go with an expensive organised tour. ... read more