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 […]
Due northwest of El Calafate, El Chaltén is a town with hiking at its core. All of the trails start (and finish) at the town, so we did not have to move Big Bertha. We bumped into the Happy Family, who we last met in Torres del Paine, and weren’t so happy; their truck’s batteries were flat (listening to too […]
We arrived in the tourist town of El Calafate late afternoon on New Year’s Eve – and there was definitely a ‘buzz’ on the high street. We parked in town and wandered off to pick a restaurant to celebrate the occasion. Normally, Argentinian restaurants open around 8pm, far too late for us, but, because it was NYE, the restaurants were […]
Just north of Tierra Del Fuego, the Torres del Paine National Park is at the southern end of the Chilean mainland. It is a magnificent park comprising mountains (the start of the Andes), lakes, of differing colours, and glaciers. We stayed here for seven days over the Christmas period and we were very lucky with the weather: plenty of sunshine […]
Our Route South We were warned that the long drive down Ruta 3, along the eastern coast of Argentina from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, a distance of 6292km, would be long and tedious; highlights being the YPF garages with their coffee and stale croissants. It was anything but; the croissants weren’t stale! And it was so much fun, that we’ve […]
Dear Uruguay, Sorry that we couldn’t stay longer, but we have to get down to Ushuaia by December 6th and, frankly, you are just too damned expensive!! Nevertheless, the eleven days we did spend with you were lovely. Chui, your border town with Brazil, was bizarre, sitting in a nomansland between the two border posts. One side of the high […]
Brazil is the largest country in South America and the third largest in the Americas. In other words, it is huge and one could easily spend an eternity exploring it. However, we need to head south for the summer and so after having driven 6840 km and spent 58 days in Brazil we crossed the border into our next country: […]
From Rio we headed south on the magnificent BR101 to Uruguay; 2,300 km (1,430m) of beautiful coastline. Much of this area was inaccessible except by sea up until the 1950s. But the BR101 changed all that and now this coastline, accessible from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, is a busy strip of chic villages, towns, cities and beautiful beaches. […]
“Why do you want to go to Rio?” That was the reaction from fellow travellers and Brazilians alike, when we told them of our plan to visit the Big City. It’s always a little stressful (understatement!) to enter a large town and to drive into a big city scores 100 on the stressometer. There are overpasses, underpasses, tunnels, low cables, […]