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Susanne and Machiel
Susanne and Machiel

Susanne and Machiel

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    Finnish sauna in Villa O'Higgins

    26 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C

    Knowing that the weather would suck, we didn't plan on doing much the whole day. Since we had the time, we made some nice pancakes for lunch (which were so many we ended up eating them for dinner as well 😊). In the afternoon the sky cleared up a bit so Machiel and Susanne did a very small hike to a nearby viewpoint over the valley and town (which made it clear the airstrip is longer than the town itself) while Daniel enjoyed a true resting day. Back from the hike a great Finnish sauna was waiting for us. It was a great experience to relax outside after the sauna surrounded by snowy mountains.Leia mais

  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    Reaching the end of Carretera Austral

    25 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C

    The bus ride to Villa O'Higgins seemed endless. At least there was a free ferry ride with nice views in between to spice things up, but the whole thing took like 7 hours. Research had told us that it was gonna be very cold and the positive reviews of a hostel with a true Finnish sauna convinced us to choose that rather than camping in lots of rain and 2-7 degrees. It ended up being a good decision, and one that most people took as we recognised a lot of hikers there that we met earlier on the Carretera Austral.

    Villa O'Higgins is one of the smaller towns on the route and the one where the road simply ends. There is no land-line, there is one turbine and a diesel-generator for electricity. Card-payments and phone calls only work if the reception is good. The Internet is unstable since everything goes via satellite. To say it with the words of our hostel: 'Think about how difficult it was to get here. Similar things happen to our WiFi.'

    As there is no road to southern Chile, the only ways to get there are via long ferry rides, or by driving back north and driving via Argentina. We however are going to Argentina anyway to check out El Chaltén and meet up with Franzi.

    Our main goals for the day were buying some food for dinner and breakfast and organizing transportation for the border crossing. Turns out that other people were right, there is really not much available here. Vegetables are limited to half-rotten carrots, pumpkin and decent cucumber or courgettes, and fruits are rare. Thinking of a meal and then buying it doesn't work. You have to see what's available and then make a meal of it. We ended up with a decent tortellini with tomato-olive-sauce dish.

    We headed out early to find out prices for the border crossing. The way from here to El Chaltén consists of first taking a boat to cross a lake. Afterwards there is a 22km hike in which you pass the Chilean border office in the beginning and the Argentinean one in the end. You then arrive to the next lake where you can either again take a boat or hike around. From the other side of the second lake you can hitchhike or take the bus to El Chaltén.

    Us being undecided as always, by the time we had finally decided on how we wanted to do the crossing, the first tour operator did not have space for us anymore on Wednesday. Luckily there is a second one in town and we could reserve our spots here. However, the weather is unpredictable here and because of strong winds the first lake can be unpassable by boat on Wednesday. So we have to keep our fingers crossed.

    The rest of the day we enjoyed the very cosy hostel, updated some footprints and enjoyed the company and stories of some other travellers.    Leia mais

  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante
    2

    Blue, so blue

    24 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Having had enough of our milk-oat flakes-fruit-breakfast (not Susanne), and being lazy and being made enthusiastic by a review about the nice breakfast by the owner of our hostel, we arranged for breakfast to be made for us this morning. The homemade jams and cake (or how they are called here: kuchen) were nice but also not super special. We were the only guests at the hostel and the cat was making sure our ears were clean.

    At 10 we picked up our bikes and went on a short 4km trip to Reserve Nacional Tamango. Here we started our hike of the day to Los Carpinteros, a viewpoint over the river and lake Cochrane. It started off being a perfect mirror and along the trail turned into absolutely incredibly blue and clear water. The trail was relatively easy, through nice vegetation, only being disturbed by a few horseflies that liked to chase us. The weather was great and we enjoyed our brought lunch at the very nice viewpoint before heading back. As always we took our time. The 4 hours hike took us almost 6, we simply had to admire the views and the water. Luckily people are relaxed here and returning the bikes we rented for 6 hours after 7,5 was not a problem at all.

    Having had enough of our meat-rich dinners, we bought as many vegetables we think we could eat and ate them all. We had to hit the beds on time as our bus to Villa O'Higgins was leaving at 8am on the following day.    Leia mais

  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    From Río Tranquilo to Cochrane

    23 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    Our prebooked bus to Cochrane was supposed to leave around 2pm. That meant we could sleep in a bit, have a relaxed breakfast and attempt a small hike to a viewpoint. To access the viewpoint we had to cross private property which the nearby minimarket owners kindly allowed. The local dogs did more than just allow it, they decided to join us and show us the way. After a short hour we arrived to a nice view over the lake and the surrounding mountains.

    Back in town, we packed out tents and went on a 3 hour bus ride. This time the bus wasn't dusty inside and the driver didn't seem to think that gravel roads should be taken slower. A lack of properly working seat belts made it more adventurous than anticipated.

    Cochrane seemed a bit like a sleepy town with not too much tourism pushed in your face, so we liked it. However, that also meant that we initially struggled to find information on how to reach nature without a car. The tourist information was closed opposed to their supposed opening times. Two tour agencies were open but their day tour offers were far too expensive for our taste. We opted to reserve rental bikes somewhere instead and closed off the day with some nice local dishes in one of the few restaurants.    Leia mais

  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante
    11

    Marble caves in Río Tranquilo

    22 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C

    We actually really liked our campsite. The grass field was really big, we shared it first with some horses and later with some chickens 😊 and the views were pretty amazing.

    Nonetheless, it was time for us to move further. So we had to pack our tents again to take the bus to Río Tranquilo. The bus ride took around 3 hours and went mostly over gravel road. That made it very dusty (yes, even in the bus) , but at the same time the landscape around us became really rough and it felt a bit as if we were on the way to the end of the world.

    The town of Río Tranquilo seems more touristic than Cerro Castillo (probably because of its main attraction - the marble caves) but the general setup seems very similar. Lots of tiny (sometimes improvised) houses, often combined with offering a home stay, camping or small minimarket. Different than what we read previously, those minimarkets actually have decent quality vegetables and fruits. While the choice is very limited the quality was surprisingly better than what we found in a supermarket in Coyhaique. After searching for a camping that was already open this early in the season, we arrived at a relatively busy (compared to the last one) but nice place.

    The sun was really strong and we were actually sweating without hiking for the first time since leaving the desert. Luckily this meant we had a really nice experience on our boat trip to the marble caves. The water was very turquoise, absolutely still and especially when reflecting the sunlight to the marble, it looked very cool.    Leia mais

  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    Hitting the road - Carretera Austral

    21 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    The style of Coyhaique is a mixture of Chilean and Scandinavian which made it very interesting to walk through. We found a nice place for lunch while discussing how we wanted to travel along the Carretera Austral. Renting a car has its advantages, but ultimately we decided for the bus. Knowing that busses might just go twice a week in some areas, our aim was to find out more about bus schedules to see how we can get to O'Higgins on time while seeing some nice stuff on the way. The Internet didn't help us a lot with it, but it turns out the tourist information does not really know much for sure either, so we had to call bus companies directly.

    But we managed to book something and Wednesday morning we took the bus to Villa Cerro Castillo. Several blogs said that fresh vegetables and fruits are scarse along the Carretera Austral, so we bought as much of those as we could fit. Arriving in the small town we set up camp for the first time on this trip. Without sun it got quite cold in the evening and we were excited to try out our new sleeping mats and bags.

    After 8 hours of good sleep we woke up warm to a wonderful blue sky and started our first real hike of the trip 😊 A bit of a lengthy discussion, joined by what felt like all the personnel of the national park, on if or if not it was a smart idea to try to reach the Mirador Cerro Castillo about 1100m higher up while walking through knee-high snow, made us decide to go for a lower viewpoint of Cerro Peñón. Almost 14 km return brought us to this nice spot with a view of the valley and the surrounding mountains covered in snow. Along the way we also saw a pretty nice waterfall.    Leia mais

  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    Patagonia!

    19 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ 🌧 11 °C

    We have arrived in a very cold and rainy Coyhaique. Quite the contrast with the Atacama desert! The flights thankfully went ok.

    Now we're finding out what we want to do here and how we want to reach Argentina by the end of next week to meet Franzi in El Chaltén.Leia mais

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    On the way to Patagonia... ?

    17 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    So Friday morning in San Pedro we packed our stuff and went to the bus station to travel to Calama. There we were gonna stay 1 night before early morning flights would take us to our first destination in Patagonia, Coyhaique, with a short stopover in Santiago. The bus was gonna take about 2 hours, turned out to be very warm and a nightmare for Machiel. Not completely fit yet, he suffered from blocked Eustachian tubes which messed up his pressures and completely blocked his hearing.

    Arriving in Calama, the bus we were in hit a bunch of electricity lines that were hanging across the streets because the roof windows were opened. A bus employee quickly closed them and we drove on. That happened to be the street however where our next line bus would drive through that would take us to our stay for the night, and when we arrived there on foot we saw the chaos it had caused. Most importantly, it appeared no busses were gonna stop at that busstop anymore. Thankfully a taxi wasn't much more expensive and we arrived at our stay.

    While Machiel was trying to get his hearing back and battle his nose cold, a stressful discussion started about if he could fly, especially 2 flights in a row, what else we could do with our booked flights, what our insurance situation was, etc. After calling our insurances and precautionarily reserving a taxi, we decided to try and sleep, wake up in the middle of the night and see how Machiel was doing. Since that appeared to be worse instead of better, we had to conclude to reschedule our flights. We then visited a clinic Saturday morning (the owner of the apartment very kindly drove us) where after a speedy check-up Machiel got an injection and subscribed more medicine than he had seen in years.

    Since then we're trying to recover as good as possible, enjoying the slightly better climate of Calama versus San Pedro, the friendly hosts, and better nights of sleep. Our flights are now scheduled for Tuesday morning.    Leia mais

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    Stargazing

    14 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ 🌙 17 °C

    The geyser tour wasn't the only planned activity on Thursday. Late in the evening we had our last, but not least, tour of the week. Machiel felt a bit better at this point and the astronomy tour was fairly short, so we decided to go with the three of us.

    The tour operator brought us to a nearby outdoor astrometry area where they had several huge programmable telescopes. The night sky was incredible when we got out of the van. We knew the almost full moon was going to appear later, so we made use of the time to soak up all the impressions. The guides then explained some aspects of stars, planets, and galaxies. We got to use the different telescopes that were set up to see Saturn and some particularly bright stars.

    The guides also provided us with some nice local food, so all in all it was a very nice evening. When the Moon showed up the amount of visible stars greatly decreased but it was also cool to observe it through a telescope. We tried to make some nice pictures (also through the telescopes) but of course it was mostly a very dark setting that was hard to capture with our camera.    Leia mais

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    About freezing toes and hot geysers

    14 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ 🌙 -3 °C

    Again without Machiel we had to leave as early as 4:30am with our tour to see the highest and third largest geothermal area of the world - Géisers del Tatio. Already in San Pedro we noticed that it was quite cold this early.

    After a 90 minute bus ride through the moonlit desert, we arrived once more at an altitude of 4200m and it was freezingly cold with -10 degrees. The contrast between all the steam and boiling water on one side and the frozen water on the marked paths, was quite a thing. And while walking with our tour guide through the area, I was happy to wear 2 pants and 4 upper layers. Nonetheless our toes and fingers started freezing pretty quickly and the sunrise was not only nice for the light effect but also appreciated for the warmth it brought. Overall a nice experience but after having been to Iceland also not that special. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of high water splashes.

    After breakfast in the first sunlight of the day, we had the chance to bath in some lukewarm springs to try to warm up our frozen body parts.

    Our next stop was a wetland with birds and on the way we were lucky to see again some cool local animals: rheas or ñandús (South American ostriches), viscachas (something looking like long-tailed bunnys which camouflage so well they are hard to spot in the rocky landscape), again vicuñas, more lamas and again flamingos 😊

    The last stop before returning to San Pedro was a small town with - according to our tour guide - 10 inhabitants but 20 houses and they were still busy building more... we did not really understand this but the local goat cheese was appreciated by Daniel 😉    Leia mais

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    Lagunes and mountains without Machiel

    13 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    After a quite bad night with lots of mosquitos in which Machiel did not feel well, we had to start our only full day tour with only two of us. Pickup time was at 7am and in the coming 10 hours we saw 5 lagunas and some local animals.

    On the way to our first stop we passed some still smoking remains of a road blockage from the protests yesterday. Luckily that did not stop us to reach the chaxa lagune where we could see our first flamingos of this trip. It was nice to see how peacefully they were sticking their heads in the water to find food. It was also nice and a bit surprising to see once more how nature seems to be respected here. Paths were marked well and tour guides make sure everyone stays within them.

    After a very nice breakfast with fresh and not stone-dry (finally!) bread, we continued to rise in altitude. At around 4200m it was noticeably colder and we visited laguna Miscanti and Laguna Miniques. The first one was partially covered by ice (and not salt like we are used to by now) which reminded us a bit of Norway.

    Further up the road we visited Laguna Salar de Talar. We were only allowed to see it from two viewpoints since some idiot tried kyte surfing there in January. Surprisingly this was not appreciated by the flamingos and locals and direct access to the water has since been closed. Nonetheless the view was stunning in such a colorful landscape and was together with the flamingos the highlight of this tour.

    After seeing one more lagune close to the Argentinian border, it was time to turn around to get lunch in a small restaurant in Socaire. On the way we saw some wild vicunas, the non-domesticated ancestor of the lama. And in the town of Toconao we saw some young lamas on a farm.

    Back in town we went out for dinner with Machiel who had been in bed most of the day.    Leia mais

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    The devil's throat

    12 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    Due to a national strike in Chile on Tuesday, our tour of the day got postponed. Only hearing about this on Monday evening from the operator, we only just managed to rent mountain bikes in the town center so that we could take them out for a spin on Tuesday morning. Besides the bikes, we received some fancy vests and helmets. We planned to leave right after sunrise to avoid the heat in the afternoon. In combination with the heat, the humidity (or lack of) is actually what makes it so tough to adjust to the climate of the Atacama desert. It hovers around 15% and is a killer of our hands, noses and lips. We're going through creme like crazy.

    So after a bit of predictable delay we set off to 'Gargante del Diablo' . It was a gorgeous gorge with an excellent biking trail. It was also deserted, we only came across 2 other bikers on the trail. We took longer than expected, but that had more to with us stopping every 100 meters to take pictures and losing the way at one point, rather than anything to do with our mountain biking skills (we were awesome and did some rad stunts).

    Having lunch back in town we saw quite some footage of protests going on in various cities. Pretty shocking to watch.    Leia mais

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante
    1

    Salt

    11 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    The tour of the day took us to the salt lakes Cejar and Piedra locally referred to as the Dead Sea of Chile. We were allowed to swim in the latter, which was an interesting experience. The Andes and its volcanoes provided the perfect backdrop. After a quick shower to rinse off the salt, we visited sweet-water crater lakes. While a desert, Atacama apparently does have quite some water underground. The tour ended with a sunset at lake Tebinquiche. What looks like ice is actually salt.Leia mais

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante
    241

    Walking on the moon

    10 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    Being three indecisive people we spend most of the day trying to decide how we wanted to spend our days in this place. While a few things might be reachable by bike, a tour or a rental vehicle would be necessary to reach the most interesting things. Also we were not sure how doable cycling in the desert is when you are still adjusting to the altitude and dry hot climate. So we were sure we wanted to book some tours.

    But... which tours? How many tours? How much money and time did we want to spend on them? And how to decide on one out of more than 100 tour agencies?
    They all offer about the same tours for slightly different prices and with slightly different details. Looking up some reviews online it seems that with the cheaper ones the chance that vehicles break down during the tour is a bit higher.

    Finally we decided to go for a package of one tour a day (5) for about 170 € per person including park entry fees and applicable meals. Of course we only decided one hour before our first tour would start 😉 Grabbing water, sunscreen and a hat, we went to visit the valley of the moon. After a short bus ride, we arrived surrounded by rocks and dunes often covered in a layer of salt. This salt, the dust and sand we will probably still find in our clothes at the end of this year...    Leia mais

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante
    2

    San Pedro

    10 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    Yesterday a short flight brought us to Calama Airport, from which we took a bus to the nearby town of San Pedro in the Atacama desert. It's a bit dry and dusty here for some reason. And the breakfast is so tasteful it took our breath away quite literally.Leia mais

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    Santiago

    9 de novembro de 2019, Chile ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    After traveling for so long it was so nice to finally see a familiar face. Daniel will join us for the South-American leg of our trip. If we're lucky he might even write a guest post or two... 😉 We spent a night in Santiago at the friendly hosts of the Matsofy house. We walked a bit around in the neighbourhood. The overall image was very different to home. Houses looked very colorful, every house had a high fence with spikes on top and almost every house had at least one dog that liked barking. It wasn't close to the center but in the evening you could still hear some protests going on. Also, most supermarkets are closed because they were raided in the last weeks. Luckily there were still a lot of very tiny minimarkets to keep us feeded.

    We arrived at our hostel after almost 30 hours of traveling but it felt as if half a week had passed. It was 1 pm when we arrived and we decided to immediately adjust to the local time. This meant fighting the urge to sleep for several hours and we were very happy when we could finally go to bed to have a very long night of sleep.

    Now we are again at Santiago airport to head to the north... Atacama desert is waiting for us.    Leia mais

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  • Susanne and MachielHalf around the world and backViajante

    Amazing Toronto

    7 de novembro de 2019, Canadá ⋅ ❄️ 0 °C

    After an 8 hour flight we arrived at the airport of Toronto just to wait another 8 hours here for our flight to Santiago. After almost 7 hours of waiting and attempted napping we are pretty exhausted. We're contemplating whether paying 3000 euro for a direct flight would've been worth it. Just kidding. We've seen enough of Canada and feel ready for our next destination.Leia mais

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