Have you ever heard of the Carretera Austral? Don’t worry, nor had we. Completed in 1996 after 20 years of construction, at the behest of General Pinochet, it connects the remote Southern Chilean settlements (formally only reachable by plane or boat) to the rest of Chile. Unfortunately, the mountainous terrain beat the engineers and the Carretera Austral ends at Villa […]
From Portal Cañadón Pinturas we visited Perito Moreno. It’s a nice little town with some interesting shops. We bought cherries (it was the season), groceries, and a very nice lemon drizzle cake! Suitably equipped we drove to Portal La Ascensión National Park and camped at their excellent free campsite. The next day we hiked 26km up to a remote lake […]
Cueva De Las Manos is a UNESCO site in Argentina renowned for its cave paintings – over 5000 years old. The caves (more like rock overhangs) are situated in a maze of spectacular canyons. After donning our hard hats, we joined our tour to explore the paintings. These are mostly hands in negative, but with some animals (guanaco) and human […]
From El Chaltén, we headed north on the famous Argentine Ruta 40, leaving the tourists behind us – this is now overlanding territory! Our next stop, after topping up our diesel, water and shopping in Gobernador Gregores, was the Parque Nacional Perito Moreno. We were debating whether to visit this park as it involved a 180km return trip down a […]