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  • South America
    Day 23

    Fiesta San Sebastián

    January 22, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    Continuing through Chile's central valley, we came across lots of huasos riding along the road before coming upon a massive festival at the roadside. All the huasos were dressed traditionally, wearing flat rimmed straw hats, ponchos over waist jackets, as well as boots with spurs. Parking up to explore, we initially thought it might be a rodeo as there was so many horses everywhere. We followed the crowd through mazes of market stalls to find a big outdoor mass at the end with the bishop of Linares giving out blessings..! It turned out to be a massive religious festival in honor of San Sebastián, the patron saint of farmers, where devotees make a pilgrimage for a week to pay favors and send orders to the saint in the small village of Panimávida. There was no rodeo to be found but huasos ride through the streets and have their photos taken and put up on display. Being the only tourists we really stuck out amongst the crowd but enjoyed wandering through the stalls eating homemade chips, grilled meat and melon lemonade. That evening, we drove on further to Salto De Laja, a touristy town situated by a waterfall. We parked up at camping la Isla, an island campsite along the river that was filled with locals swimming and enjoying Sunday picnics and BBQs.

    22/01- 23/01    Read more

  • South America
    Day 21

    Reserva Nacional Altos de Lircay

    January 20, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    On route to our next national park, we stopped for lunch in Molina and had our first fried empanadas at La Casa De La Empanada- so tasty! We then drove through huasos (Chilean cowboy) country to Reservas Nacional Altos de Lircay. Unfortunately we arrived too late to check into the park campsite "camping antahuara" which closed at 4pm but we did met a friendly CONAF ranger who spoke great English and gave us all the info on our hike for following day! We wild camped just outside the park by the road and met a very friendly chilean called Benjamin who loved to practice his English with us while we prepared dinner! The next morning we set off on a 25km trail to El Enladrillo and Laguna El alto. The top of this mountain has a unique brickwork plain formed by rocks that apparently has been the base of many UFO sightings. From the brickwork we had a great view of the Descabezado Grande, Quizapú and Cerro Azul volcanoes, as well as the El Venado valley. After our hike, we arrived back exhausted to the park campsite and had our first night of our trip in the tent!

    20/01-21/01    Read more

  • South America
    Day 19

    Parque Nacional Radal Siete Tazas

    January 18, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    Following lonely planet recommendations, we headed in the direction of Parque Nacional Radal Siete Tazas, stopping at a campsite in Las peñas outside San Fernando called Mi Capullito de Rosa that had access to a river for an evening swim.

    The next day we arrived to the CONAF national park and had our first experience with the online registration process which was difficult to complete as we had minimal internet connection on our phones.

    We stayed at the CONAF run campsite Parque Ingles for two nights which had access to Playa las hippies, a pretty river beach and swimming hole. It was mainly Chileans on holiday here and it was nice to see extended families listening to Chilean music and playing bingo while cooking with big stewing pots.

    We had lovely sunny weather and completed the El boson sendero, a 24km return trial that brought us up to some mountain waterfalls that had the clearest water to swim in and cool us down after the hike.

    Recommendations:
    Register with CONAF online before arriving
    Option to also camp at El boson but needs to be booked online in advance
    Swim at playa las hippies

    17/01-19/01    Read more

  • South America
    Day 14

    Mendoza

    January 13, 2023 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    With the 'O trek' our only booked activity of the trip not until March, time was on our side so we decided to make a detour to Mendoza
    to meet Sheila and her friend Megan. We decided to go by bus to avoid lengthy driving for Joe and save on some van mileage. The bus journey was incredibly scenic with a very impressive corkscrew road. It took an age to pass through border control and we arrived at koala hostel 8 hours after departure.

    -Day one, Joe, Sheila and I wasted no time and went straight for steak at El Asadito. We ordered a BBQ platter that came with Argentinian black pudding, short ribs, pork and steak. This was all washed down with incredible Malbec. It was a complete treat to start off the trip and cost less that €10pp.
    -Day two, we started the day with our Western Union trip to get some argentinian pesos at blue dollar rate. This was followed by coffee to plan out our day. We headed to the wine area of Lujan de Cuyo to rent some bikes and cycle between vineyards. We had lunch at Bodega Gieco. We sat in a beautiful garden and the atmosphere and service was so lovely. We had a huge meat and cheese platter and, of course, Malbec. We cycled onto the vineyard Via Monte where we had a 4pm tasting booked. It was concluded that we all have kind of cheap pallets and the really expensive stuff is more or less wasted on us.
    -Day three. We had breakfast and then headed to explore Parque General San Martin. We chilled by the lake, read our books, stumbled across a vintage car show (to Joe's delight) and also the Chilean Mustang Club. After a few happy hour cocktails we had a very lovely and fancy dinner at Anna's Bistro.
    -Day four, needing to have another vineyard fix to went to Roberto Bonfanti winery for lunch. Again it was a platter of meats and cheese but our favourite was still Bodega Gieco. We had a few more happy hour cocktails before we had to say our goodbyes to Sheila and Megan and head back to Santiago on our night bus.

    Recommendations:
    Explore the vineyards by bike
    Bodega Gieco (our favourite)
    Via Montie winery
    Bonfanti winery
    El Asadito for steak. 5⭐
    Anna's Bistro for dinner. It's French.
    White Shark coffee
    Parque San Martin

    13/01-16/01

    *Footprint credit to Sheila Scott    Read more

  • South America
    Day 10

    Exploring outside Santiago

    January 9, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    By the 9th of January we were finally ready to start our roadtrip. Our first aim was to spend a few days exploring outside Santiago. We initially set off in the direction of Termas Valle de Colina, a campsite with hot springs. Unfortunately we were stopped by the Chilean police at San Gabriel who had closed the road due to a landslide.

    Feeling deflated, we turned around and pulled into a nearby tiny empty village to look up our map. A friendly local Fran pulled up beside us on her quad with her little daughter and asked if we were lost. After we explained the situation, she kindly invited us to explore her family fundo which turned out to be a massive walnut farm. After a picturesque lunch by the river in the fundo, we visited closeby town San Jose de Maipo and Casa chocolate in San Antonio, an artisan chocolate shop set in a Hansel and Gretel like house. That evening we stayed at our first campsite Los Nogales de Roan Jase which had a astronomy observatory. Unfortunately, we learnt that the moon would be too bright to have a good starry night view. The campsite owners had two friendly mischievous dogs who loved to steal food out of our neighbours Dave and Gail's tent.

    The next day we headed to the coast, west of Santiago via Pompaire, a touristy pottery village. We passed through a number of seaside towns before finding a wild camping spot near El Quisco which provided us with an amazing sunset over the ocean.

    On our third day we continued up the coast towards Valparaiso, stopping off at Quintay a coastal village with beautiful beach.

    That night we decided it safer to stay at nearby Laguna Verde as we had heard reports of car theft and crime in Valparaiso. In the morning we got the local bus in to Valparaiso which was an adventure in itself and completed a walking tour of the street art with our guide Sebastian before heading back to Santiago for the night.

    Recommendations:
    Hot springs at Termas Valle de Colina- although we didn't get there this time
    Quintay Beach
    Enjoy the street art in UNESCO town Valparaiso but be aware of safety

    09/01- 12/01    Read more

  • South America
    Day 1

    Santiago

    December 31, 2022 in Chile ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    To start our trip we arrived in to a quiet Santiago on New years eve and checked into an even quieter hostal Suzi. We met Etienne and Margaux, the french couple we bought our van from, for coffee who updated us on all their vanlife travels the past few months and gave us some much needed tips and recommendations to start our trip!

    Much to our confusion it turns out Suzi Santiago hostel and Suzi Santiago are two different companies that are in dispute and broke apart in the past few years and due to the bank holiday we wouldn't be able to physically get the keys to our campervan until the 3rd of January. Never the less, we went on to explore a good new years eve spot for the night to find most places close over the bank holiday..!! In the end we found a bar in barrio bellavista who had a lively atmosphere and a drag queen host to count us down to the New Year.

    For New Years day, we planned to explore the city more. To our dismay, the whole city seemed to shut down and the only place we could find open to eat lunch was Starbucks. We found a free walking tour that brought us around a deserted city centre with only tourists, homeless and some crazies around.. not the start to our adventures we had imagined! The next day, more restaurants and shops began to open up and we explored barrio Italia which had a lovely atmosphere.

    Finally, on the 3rd of Jan we were able to meet Noam and Fabiola to complete our paperwork at the notary and meet Shibi the Mitsubishi.

    The next day we moved to Suzi's workshop to camp and to start some small van upgrades. On our second night, we were the only ones there when a fire broke out in one of the other campers. We raised the alarm amongst the neighbours with Joe luckily remembering the word for fire in Spanish and Noam's emergency number got called on the second day of us having it. The bomberos arrived quickly and we meet Augustin, a seven year old neighbour and his family who brought us in for tea.

    The next few days were spent painting with a few trips to sodimac, lider, copec, the notary, autoshops, the test centre and a mechanic for a new catalytic converter. We were kept company in the workshop by Yan, the French owner of the burned camper who had just finished a 6 year roadtrip and who kindly shared his stories, positivity and salvaged wine with us.

    Just before starting our roadtrip, we headed back into Santiago for one more night for a reunion with Sheila!

    Recommendations:

    Entel best for sim card 4g coverage
    Galpon italia for food and cocktails
    Galindo for traditional Chilean food
    Malasaña for beer and tapas
    Barrio Italia for cafes, restaurants and wandering
    Barrio Bellavista for nightlife
    Casa Lyon hotel- barrio Italia area and parking

    31/12/22- 08/01/23    Read more

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