The final push!! It rains all night and the wind howls through the now broken tent zip, which means we’re awake early, and inside the campsite refugio warming up and drinking tea. We can’t get going until 10am as we have to pick Chris’ blood glucose reader up from the post office (we left it …
El Calafate to Torres del Paine
We take a bus to Perito Moreno Glacier, and it’s well worth it. Even the views from the bus are impressive! The glacier itself is huge, and it’s difficult to take in its enormity. It looks surreal, huge seracs standing upright on top of one another for miles onto the distance! We walk along boardwalks …
Villa O’Higgins to El Calafate
It’s starts with a mini adventure within an adventure! On the Tuesday night before our ferry crossing on Wednesday, we go to the booking office to fill out our immigration forms and we’re told our 8am ferry crossing will now depart at 4.40am due to the predicted strong winds coming in! It’s a 7km cycle …
Cycling the Carratera Austral.
We head inland for seven miles after leaving the ferry and finally getting going. We reach Puerto Aysen and find a good coffee shop. We drink coffee and catch up on the phone with friends and family, before finally leaving with supplies, and heading east to join the Carratera Austral. The Carratera Austral is a …
Heading for Patagonia!
We get a bus to Temuco. It takes 8 hours overnight and suddenly we’re in central Chile surrounded by green forests, flowing rivers and glaciated volcanoes! Our other option would have been to weave in and out of built up areas for two weeks to get here, and we’re at the point now where we …
Cycling the Calchaquies valley
We head south on the main road for twenty or so miles before turning right and heading upwards, doing a loop of the Calchaquies valley, which is meant to be an uphill climb with some hairpin bends, beautiful vistas, and a nice off-road hill section. We could carry on south on the main road and …
Argentina
The first thing I notice on crossing the border are trees, it’s been a while since I’ve seen any! We’ve only dropped maybe 200m in height but already Argentina seems greener. I’ve really missed running rivers and trees! There are still llamas but now there are also cows, sheep and donkeys. There’s more life here …
Bolivia!
We cross the tiny border at Kasani and head five miles along the shores of Lake Titicaca to Copacabana. It’s a small town with a seaside feel. Restaurants line the front with multiple small piers for the tourist boats to moor. There’s a beautiful huge white church in the Plaza de Armas that stands out …
Ecuador – down into the Amazon!
After three days of relaxation, coffee and cake in Banos we once again packed our bags onto our bicycles and headed east, dropping down into the Amazon. It’s mainly downhill to start with as we cycle down the ‘Ruta de Cascadas’ with apparently seven huge waterfalls. In the heavy rain there are far more than …
Ecuador!
The last two days before crossing the border into Ecuador turn out to be fairly tough, both mentally and physically. There’s been a huge landslide on the smaller road we wanted to take to the border and so we have to stay on the main road. It’s uphill for almost 25 miles! But we eventually …