• placeswetravelled
  • placeswetravelled

World trip - Anna & Bertram

202-päiväinen seikkaillu — placeswetravelled Lue lisää
  • Experiencing the Uyuni desert

    20. joulukuuta 2017, Bolivia ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    After the initial skepticism regarding the weather, it turned out the be a really good day. As all 3-day tours we first left for the old train cemetery from the 19th century when the trains were used to transport minerals out of the desert.

    This was also the first stop where we also got to know our group better - 2 cars with 8 people - and our very engaging and knowledgeable guide, Gonzalo Gonzalez, started the explanations.

    We then continued for the salt production town of Kolchani where we visited a model factory for salt and learned a lot about the hardships for local people.

    Then, we really drove into the desert, biked a bit, had lunch and took the famous perspective-betraying pictures. Our selection is in the photos attachments ;-)

    Afterwards, we visited two oasis, one with a lot of cacti and the other with a lot of caves. Both really nice and also great to be able to walk around for some time in our own.

    Then, it was still not over, we drove on for a great spot to see the sunset and ... at the direction of our guide Gonzalo took some more perspective and fireball photos :-)

    The day ended in a salt hotel with a nice dinner with the whole group and stories by Gonzalo about vehicles lost in the desert whom he was sent to find.
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  • Next: Edoardo Avaroa National Reserve

    21. joulukuuta 2017, Bolivia ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    We had to get up somewhat early but the night in the salt hotel was very comfortable.

    We first had to drive for a couple of hours but were rewarded in the way with beautiful landscapes, vicuñas, quinua plantations. The first stop were at two lagoons where different types of flamingos were feeding. Bertram could practice ornithology skills again :-) Also, we had lunch and walked around the nice scenery and played “boccia”

    We continued further and visited moon-like landscapes with nice rock formations - bouldering did not really work out ;-)

    Second last stop were geysers at 5,000 masl with a “steam engine” billowing smoke out of a vast hole.

    Finally, we arrived at the basic camp - and enjoyed the hot springs in the evening with star gazing :-)
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  • Relaxing in San Pedro de Atacama

    24. joulukuuta 2017, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    Having reached Chile via our Bolivian desert trip, we decided to avoid the overly expensive hostels and hotels and... take out the tent again :-) we found an inexpensive camp ground with good facilities (despite somewhat lazy and unfriendly owners).

    We spent our two days exploring the village, visiting the impressive meteorite museum (and touching moon rocks :-)))), strolling around, jogging in the desert (Anna only ;-))

    One evening we had really nice burgers and the other was spent preparing something on our own. Really nice guacamole and fruit for desert!

    Now, we are off to Santiago where we will spent two sponsored nights - thanks to Rüdiger and Gabi! Muchas gracias!
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  • Christmas in Santiago :-)

    25. joulukuuta 2017, Chile ⋅ 🌙 22 °C

    We arrived in Santiago in the afternoon of the 24th to spend the Christmas holidays in this beautiful city. 🌴🎄🌵

    The flight and arrival in Santiago was easy enough. After checking in to the hotel we went for a little walk and then started to make dinner plans. We were not really in the mood for the hotel Christmas dinner, so we decided to go for sushi for our Christmas meal. 🍣🍱

    That wasn’t so easy, though, because most places closed early on Christmas Eve. Consequently, we spent an hour finding a good sushi place that was open and would still deliver to our hotel. Luckily we found one and had a great sushi Christmas feast :-)

    On the 25th, we moved hotel (from one gifted night from Bertram’s brother Rudi to another one at a different hotel from Anna’s mother Gabi). Before doing so, however, we made good use of the rooftop pool! 🏊‍♀️ 😎

    Having moved, we took a stroll through the Barrio Bellas Artes and took in some of the flair of Santiago, including watching the casual Salsa dancers on the Plaza de Armas.

    Santiago is really quite different to the cities in Latin America we visited so far. It is by far the most “western” and developed city, that feels like a fusion of San Francisco and New York (it even has a district called “Sanhatten” - a mix of Santiago and Manhattan, where you can find the tallest skyscrapers of Latin America and the second largest skyscraper of the Southern Hemisphere).
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  • Another relaxing day in Santiago

    26. joulukuuta 2017, Chile ⋅ 🌙 24 °C

    We enjoyed a great breakfast in our boutique hotel today (which kept us going for the whole day) :-)

    The plan for today was first to go and fix Bertram’s MacBook. We undertook the journey by bus, even though the concierge at our hotel said it was “very dangerous” to take the bus. Well, other than the fact that the drivers drive those busses as if they were racecars, it felt perfectly safe travelling around the center of Santiago.
    Having arrived at the repair shops, the assessment from the experts was that the laptop had a broken logic board, which will cost about $900 to fix. Luckily it is still in warranty in Germany, so we’ll try and bring it back to Munich before end of April (when the warranty runs out). Still, very annoying to have to carry around a not functioning Mac, plus of course the inconvenience of not being able to watch anything on a screen bigger than our iPhones... Oh well, we’ll survive :-)

    After that, we went to two of Santiago’s most famous art museums: the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art. The building that houses them both is stunning and the art on display was nice. But sadly there were no English explanations or audio guides, so we left with nice impressions but without really understanding what’s going on with all that contemporary art. The highlight was certainly the nice on-site cafe :-)

    We then wandered through the Belles Artes district. Now that all shops are open again, it was much, much livelier than yesterday. We enjoyed the many squares and parks, some ice cream, walked around the government buildings with lots of Chilean flags on them (and even found the most ugly shopping center 😂).

    We also tried our best to find a dinner place that served vegan food, but in the end none of the shops wanted our money (i.e. they were closed) so we had to find an alternative instead (see foto).

    Tomorrow, we’re visiting the museum of Memory and Human Rights. We’re both excited to learn a bit more about the Chilean past there...
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  • Goodbye Santiago, hello Patagonia

    29. joulukuuta 2017, Chile ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

    We spent our last 1.5 days in Santiago (at least for now before returning in January) with the following activities:
    - visiting museums, especially the human rights museum covering the Pinochet dictatorship,
    - trying to finally fix the seemingly microscopic but still effective hole in the sleeping mat, and
    - getting cash for the Patagonian adventure - finally, we did find an ATM that did not charge a fee, thanks Scotiabank! ;-)

    Indeed, the latter will be an adventure just from a planning perspective as there seem to be stricter rules on how to access the national parks - and prior reservation for all intended camp sites as well as unidirectional circuits are high on the agendas... to be seen how keen we are on that...

    We have now arrived in Punta Arenas by plane this evening. It’s a nice little harbour town, reminiscent of Scandinavian towns on the coast with the little colourful wooden houses. One of those is our host Elena’s house where we rent a room, with a funny cactus tree in the garden (Bertram dared to go near despite wearing the sensitive down jacket :-O)

    Dinner was nice as well and we look forward to spending the day tomorrow to advance finalizing our plans for the coming 2 weeks. We are both looking forward to it and already on the first evening are super happy to have sunlight until 22:00 at night :-)))))
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  • The "pain" of Torres del Paine

    29. joulukuuta 2017, Chile ⋅ 🌬 6 °C

    We had a mixed day at Punta Arenas today.

    First, it was a really windy, wintery day today with wind speeds of up to 80kph. Plus horizontal rain 🌧 Better get used to it is what the locals say ;-)

    Second, we went to the tourist info to check out the opportunities for trekking in Torres del Paine National Park and visiting the penguin islands. Both were somehow a disappointment. We learned (as a confirmation to previous fears generated in Santiago) that, yes, indeed, the National Park would be super crowded, had almost no capacity left, and, we needed to consult directly with the 3 different camp operators to secure spaces. When trying to find some spaces, we stopped after 15 min in frustration: obviously, the booking system was neither intelligent nor user-friendly - we had to check every single date (instead of a month-view or similar) and then again, some camps had capacity but subsequent camps for subsequent dates not - no alignment of camp capacity :-) Well, great. This all let to the decision to skip the “O” Circuit in Torres del Paine and do more fun and “auf eigene Faust“ stuff more up north.

    The penguins tours were as well “all fully booked“ for the half-day morning tours - we are now going for a full-day tour to see the king penguin instead of the Magellan penguin. Minor details ;-)

    However, we really enjoyed our time in town, walking around (17 kms in total!), playing with wrecked cars, finding a good supermarket to stock up before the trekking (and adding to Anna’s vegan foodstuffs already procured :-)), drinking tea at a tea house and coffee at a coffeehouse, really nice Italian food in the evening. And to top it off: We got really going with our newest game of dice (called “400”) which we learned to play in Ayampe, Ecuador, from two Swiss girls :-) simple but engaging and the score today says: Anna 12, Bertram 10 🎲🎲🎲
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  • Meeting the namesakes... King Penguins!

    30. joulukuuta 2017, Chile ⋅ 🌬 7 °C

    We were up early for a full-day tour to Tierra del Fuego to visit the Penguins :-) (Bertram is back to birding ;-))

    It was a nice excursion, though a lot of sitting in the car. Apart from the “penguin stop”, we also saw old steam boats and learned from our guide Diego about the indigenous people in the area and the foundation of towns in this inhospitable land.

    We are both looking forward to the National Parks as of tomorrow. We are now quite certain to go on the Huemul Circuit in El Chaltén, where we will stop by Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy - and depending on conditions may also stand on one of the minor peaks :-)
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  • Getting away from the crowds

    31. joulukuuta 2017, Argentiina ⋅ 🌬 14 °C

    We spent today travelling a lot. We left behind the crowds of hikers who want to visit Torres del Paine National Park and instead moved north-east (towards Argentina) to our next destinations: the Perito Moreno Glacier and the National Park around El Chalten. There, we finally plan to venture out with the tent and spend some days in the wilderness, hiking, stargazing and hopefully also some climbing around Cerro Torre.

    While not much happened besides spending 8 hours on the bus today, we are looking forward to spending the evening and New Year in El Calafate. Plus we enjoyed the views from our bus across the countryside. It’s a vast land...
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  • New Year's climb up Mount Moyano (1509m)

    1. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ⛅ 7 °C

    After sitting on the bus all day yesterday, we were both reared to get up and going and finally do some hiking again.

    Our “target” today was Mount Moyano. There weren’t too many good options within walking distance from El Calafate, so we chose the highest mountain we could do in 1 day.

    Mount Moyano was a 9hours, 25km hike with about 1500 meters uphill. We enjoyed the walk and the ability to just go out and away from any crowds. It was very much “auf eigene Faust” again :-)

    Sadly, the panorama wasn’t the best (too many clouds) but we did see parts of tomorrow’s glacier (and the clouds kept away the wind alright). In addition to the great hike, we saw plenty of rabbits, birds and eagles, as well a a curious group of guanacos - also passed by an abandoned ski lift :-)
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  • Glacier hike/"rest day" at Perito Moreno

    2. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    After yesterday’s long hike, we were taking things a bit slower and went out for a small glacier hike at Perito Moreno.

    The glacier is really impressive as its 70m high front ends in a blue lagoon and moves by up to 2m forward per day, sending large ice blocks crashing in the water. We really enjoyed ourselves - even if 75% of our time was just sitting and watching the glacier :-) We even brought the rest of our wine bottle and a package of olives to snack, perfect :-)

    In the evening we continued by bus to the mountain village of El Chaltén where we will start the Huemul Circuit tomorrow with hopefully great views on the famous mountains of Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy, and later go climbing as well :-) and now, getting probably the last night‘s sleep before the trek...
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  • El Chaltén + Day 1 of the Huemul Circuit

    3. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ☀️ 7 °C

    After visiting the rangers’ station to inquire about current conditions on our intended Huemul Circuit we spent ~3 hours in town to rent harnesses and carabiners which are needed to cross two glacier rivers by zip line. Only in the 4th shop at at the very end of the village we were lucky! How many people are in the same trek? Or is everyone climbing? :-)

    Thus, we started a bit later than desired, around 2pm, registered with the rangers and off we went. The hike was a moderate 16km with some 500m ascent and descent into a valley. We had great views on the famous mountains of Fitz Roy and neighbors before descending into our “valley of the wind” (this could be a name for each and every valley as all of Patagonia is incredibly windy).

    We arrived at the camp site around 19:30 but with Patagonian summer time and light until 22:00 no problem :-) we found a good, wind-protected spot and set camp. Only in the night should we find out that the winds were still beating the tent and covered the front part of the tent in a fine layer of dust and sand...
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  • Day 2: Paso del viento with wind + snow

    4. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ☀️ 7 °C

    We got up at 09:00 and took 2 hours to have breakfast and pack our backpacks. During the night it was quite stormy and rain fell now and then. It now seemed a bit better, but conditions were less than ideal. Nevertheless, we were headed for Day 2 over the Paso del Viento = Windy Pass.

    Expecting the spectacular and much discussed Tirolean Traverse (zip line), we found a much easier crossing over the river directly at the mouth of the glacier, on the way, however, just some 3rd grade climbing with our 14kg backpacks - piece of cake ;-)

    We made it up the pass in 3 hours, fighting with wind, snow, cold, but were rewarded with some good views over the glaciers and an easy hike down to a wonderfully windless camp site near a lagoon - in sunshine :-)

    The other 3 groups that had left 2 hours before us in the morning had also just arrived.

    Dinner was a luxurious 3 courses: vegetable soup, tortellini/polenta with tomato sauce, chocolate :-)
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  • Day 3: Paso Huemul and iceberg camping

    5. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    We were prepared for a slightly easier day. Although the tour description said that days 2 and 3 were “hard”, we looked at the map and only had 19km and few meters of altitude gain. We got up around 9:00 and left around 11:00 again - last ones to leave the camp :-O

    The first part until the Huemul pass was indeed pleasant and we had great weather and, thus, great views over the ice fields and mountains beyond. Climbing the pass itself was not difficult but extremely windy (~ 60km/h) and we took only a few minutes for pictures until we descended on the other side.

    Reaching about halfway down the decent, we saw that there were icebergs “parking” in the bay near to which we were going to camp. As we came closer, we could hear the thundering crashing sounds, when two bumped into each other. Fascinating!

    We set camp at the second lagoon and even went for a quick bath in the ice cold water :-))))
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  • Day 4: Return from Huemul - tough ending

    6. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    We started relatively early in order to come back to El Chaltén in time to find a hostel for the night. The first part of the day was a moderate but long hike along the steppe - where we lost our path a couple of times and performed some detours. But that’s what we wanted instead of an overcrowded national park :-)

    It was considerably warmer today because of the lower altitude and being on the less windy side of the mountain. The problem we had was that we didn’t have access to a fresh water source at our latest camp site and drank/used for cooking all the 3 liters we had :-/ It took us 3.5 hours to get to a spring where we finally drank and refilled. From there, we could already see the big river which we needed to either cross on foot or use the zip line - depending on water levels.

    When we arrived, the water was moving fast but we thought it to be refreshing and okay to try it further down in the delta where the Rio Túnel river streams into the Lago Viedma. Said and done :-) although both of us had thigh-high water marks :-) Once crossed, we were suddenly called by a woman in utter panic who was running back and forth on the other side and then came running - partially falling and on all fours - through the water. An accident had happened at the zip line and a man was hanging still over the water, not moving. We quickly got going to help but, fortunately did not need to as he had apparently mobilized some last power to pull himself over...

    From here, we walked about 1 hour to the bay and 2 more hours to El Chaltén, which was not difficult but it made for a very long day with 25km in total. We dutifully returned our registration to the rangers’ office to let them know we made it home safely and went into town. The fourth hostel finally had a bed (for 1 night) and we we happy to get a shower and have fuel up at the supermarket with Alfajores (Argentinian cake filled with caramel) and Schweppes Pomelo; hmmmm :-)
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  • Rainy and windy rest days in El Chaltén

    7. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    After moving out of our first hostel and into the second hostel, we had two quiet days reading and watching movies on the bed :-) an occasional nap was part of it, too 😴 at least, yoga in the mornings, sheltered from the wind by the hostel works :-)

    We are still hoping for better weather (and consultes the local weather oracle - see picture ;-)) to go out again, possibly even climbing and/or bouldering...
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  • Chaltén Miradores day hike + slacklining

    10. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ⛅ 6 °C

    The last two days featured a day hike to all kinds of miradores (view points) which are easily accessible. We made it a sport to combine them in a round trip, something rather unusual in El Chaltén as it seems. Also, we found again that the rangers were not particularly helpful and said that the path we wanted to take did not exist - it turned out that we could very well use this one...

    The other day, we put the slackline to use :-) Bertram also has a new trick now :-)
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  • Last El Chaltén day -great mountain hike

    11. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ☁️ 4 °C

    We used today’s last day in El Chaltén to summit the great mountain of Lola de los Pizarros which gives a great vantage point to Fitz Roy and Poincenot.

    It was a 4-hour ascent and 3 hours down, puh 😅 The top was a bit more technical with a lot of loose rock paired with easy climbing. The hardest part is, however, the forceful and unpredictable Wind which can easily push you over and toss you around. The views were perfect, though, and the weather was stable till we reached El Chaltén again. We highly enjoyed it!

    Also, it’s good to wear oneself out before sitting on the night bus to Perito Moreno for 12 hours. This will help to make us sleep :-)
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  • Cherry festival in Los Antiguos

    12. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Two positive surprises today:

    1. the night bus drove further than to where we booked but to where we ultimately wanted - Los Antiguos and we did not need to find another bus to continue the journey.

    2. The famous “Fiesta nacional de la cereza” starts today and the whole little town of Los Antiguos is up and running for 3 days of celebrating the cherry :-)

    We took advantage and bought fresh cherries 🍒 as well as various cherry (and non-cherry) dishes. Delicious :-) as all hostels and hotels with a sensible budget were fully booked, it’s camping again :-)

    The evening got cold quite quickly but we still strolled around town, ate a pizza from one of the booths and visited the Falkland Islands/Malvinas Islands memorial (Argentina still claims those islands as theirs and illegitimately occupied by Great Britain).

    Tomorrow, we will go on a day trip to visit some ancient cave drawings (10,000 BC)
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  • Ancient rock art - Cueva de las manos

    13. tammikuuta 2018, Argentiina ⋅ ❄️ -3 °C

    We took the whole day for an organized trip to the Cueva de las manos - a large natural rock formation where ~12,000 years ago hunter-gatherers started to paint the rock. Their favorite painting object war negatives of their left hand - hence the name “Cave of hands”.

    The guide first took us to the place where the earth’s minerals produce many different colors which the ancient humans used to produce the paint (mixed with water, blood).

    Visiting the cave was great and it was fun to see the different styles, colors, and objects depicted. This site was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1999 and luckily gets protection and conservation effort to preserve it for future generations.

    In the evening, we only went to inquire about transportation options to Chile, visited the fiesta again, and... bought more cherries :-)
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  • "Trekking" the Argentina-Chile border

    14. tammikuuta 2018, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Today’s “adventure” was getting from Los Antiguos to Chile Chico. Distance by air: 6km, by road 14km. Very helpfully, transportation services have been suspended for over a year as the governments could not agree upon tariffs and duties for the respective national transportation companies.

    So, we set out early at 07:30 and used a cab for the first part, 4km to the Argentinian border. 2 hours later we had “trekked” to Chile - no luck on the hitchhiking front and 8kms down. Still, we had to continue for 3 more kilometers. Finally, a nice Chilean gentleman took us for the final 1.5km. Overall a humbling experience...

    After two nights on the party camping ⛺️ of Los Antiguos and the earlier night on the night bus 🚌 from El Chaltén, we decided to spent more money today and found a really nice hotel where we relaxed the afternoon and then roamed around the small town. The views from the somewhat futuristic viewing platform over the Lago Gral Carrera were great and we also visited the lake shore as well as the Central park - which had a bouldering wall ;-)

    Evening was relaxed as well - homemade curry and a new haircut for Bert :-))))
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  • Kayaking to the Marble Cathedrals

    16. tammikuuta 2018, Chile ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    We spent yesterday driving from Chile Chico to Puerto Rio Tranquilo in order to go kayaking to the Marble Cathedrals close to that little village.

    Rio Tranquilo is a small village that really only exists as a stopover for tourists to see the Marble Cathedrals. We picked a friendly-looking restaurant for dinner last night and struck up a conversation with a couple from Belorussia. We spent a very entertaining and interesting evening with Yuri and Marina, talking about everything from tourist tips to politics and sport. We learnt that Belorussia only recently started offering 5-day visas for Schengen-citizens, so we added Minsk to our future travel plans :-)

    Then, today, finally the Marble Cathedrals. We spent a lot of energy getting here, so we were both anxious to have a good experience visiting them. And we were not disappointed! The Marble Cathedrals are natural rock formations in the lake that have been washed out from the bottom by the water and waves. The stone formations are made out of marble with beautiful colours shining through. We hired a guide (Lucas) who took us in kayaks and off we went. It was really a great experience - both the kayaking, which was great fun and exercise, and the sight of the marble in the water was truly unique.

    The tour was over at about 10:30 am (you go early so that the water is less disturbed by the wind), and we then tried to catch a bus to Coyhaique, our last stop before we go on a ferry and airplane up north back to Santiago.

    The bus journey turned out to be quite an ordeal: first the bus at 11:30 arrived nearly full - only 2 out of the 10 or so waiting passengers could join. Another us at 4pm was full as well, so the next bus: only at 5pm. So we spent the entire day sitting and reading in a restaurant and cafe, waiting for the bus. When we finally left, the bus drove for about 30 minutes and then broke down. We waited for more than an hour for the mechanic to arrive when we finally decided to try our luck hitchhiking. From then on, our fortunes improved: we quickly found a ride on a minibus taking tourists from Coyhaique to the Marble Cathedrals. The passengers (all Chilean and Argentinian) were a fun crowd and asked us lots of questions about home - sports, politics and the obligatory questions about Nazism. (Chile, of course, has its own dark past to deal with (military junta government) and they were naturally interested to learn how Germany manages to cope with its dark past.)

    Finally, at 11:30pm, after about 13 hours of waiting for or or travelling on a bus, we arrived at our little cabana in Coyhaique and fell into bed. :-)
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  • Lazy days in Coyhaique

    18. tammikuuta 2018, Chile ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    The weather continued its mixed conditions, but so we spent 2 relaxed (read: lazy 😳) days in Coyhaique, which turned out to be a really nice town. Our highlights
    - Enjoying great breakfast in the hostel (for only 2,000 Chilean Pesos = 2.70 Euro)
    - Sitting in the “The Quiero Café” with tea, coffee and kuchen (Chile uses the same word as in German)
    - Bouldering in the local gym
    - Going for a 10k run
    - though only a partial highlight, it should be mentioned: cooking corn instant soup in our room with the gas cooker to use up the remaining camping provisions ⛺️

    Tomorrow, we will take the bus to Puerto Chacabuco and then go onto the ferry ⛴ north... the end of our South American adventure comes near.
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  • Onto the Navimag ferry

    19. tammikuuta 2018, Chile ⋅ ☀️ -3 °C

    We had a good transfer from Coyhaique to Puerto Chacabuco and are sitting on the ferry’s top deck right now. Dinner has already be served - interrupting the still ongoing dice rolling championship 🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲

    We will be 24 hours on the ferry to emerge in the warmer, northern city of Puerto Montt tomorrow, with hopefully a scenic ferry ride through the fjords.
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