Around South America in 60 days

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Since we left the UK in September, we've travelled in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, but it has become apparent that we need to make a few changes and we’d like to be self sufficient and be in charge of our own destiny.

So, PLAN A - get to Buenos Aires, Argentina at the beginning of December and arrange to hire or buy a car, enabling us to drive around Argentina and Chile. However, car rental in Argentina is ridiculously expensive, buying a car is also expensive and as a tourist, you cannot take a car out of the country (ie. to Chile). So that plan wasn’t going to work.

PLAN B - Use our flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago, Chile to get to Santiago and buy a car where they are cheaper and you can take them out of the country. So we arrived in Santiago on the 27th December and started looking for a car to buy. After a week and a half of searching and car dealer ‘chat’ in Spanish, time was ticking on. No suitable vehicle, difficulty in transferring cash from UK to Chile.....

so onto Plan B2!

We have hired a car for 63 days (the car hire company will be popping the corks in celebration and will probably retire until March!), bought a tent and camping gear and armed ourselves with all the maps and information we can find, and after 5 weeks of living in luxury, we’re heading off into the wild on our own - finally.

We plan to cover the south of both Chile and Argentina; itinery as follows:

15th January - leave Santiago
West toValparaiso and Pacific coast
Heading South…
Wine valleys of central Chile
Chilean lakes
Puerto Montt and cross to island of Chiloe
Chiloe car ferry back to mainland Chile, Chaiten
Carretera Austral (Austral Road) down through Patagonia to the glacier region
Cross into Argentina somewhere around Lago Buenos Aires
El Chalten and Fitzroy region to Calafate
Calafate back into Chile and Parque Nacional Torres del Paine
Down to Puerto Natales and Magellan Straits
Cross back into Argentina and Tierra del Fuego, Ushaia and Beagle channel
Heading North…
Back up Argentine coast to Puerto Madryn and Peninsula Valdez
Across Argentina to Bariloche and Argentine lakes
North to Mendoza
Mendoza back to Santiago 15th March.

We'll update when we can as we travel and will also catch up on outstanding blogs!

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