Highlights
These are the bits of the trip that really stood out for us. They are not necessarily the most scenic or the biggest or the wettest or driest but for us they were a real highlight and something we always want to remember.
- Carretera Austral - this was just 5 epic weeks, each day better then the last and just the best scenery you could imagine. Very few tourists, basic tourist services so an adventure travelling and getting around there as well. The hiking is as good as it gets (altho do bring mossie repellant!). This was possibly the best 5 week run of travelling we have ever done. Best bits included
- walking in Valdivian rainforest in Park Pumalin & seeing dolphins
- continuous unbroken mountain scenery every day
- isolation of hiking in Lago Jenemeini and Tamango reserves
- around Cerro Castillo hike
- glaciers glaciers everywhere including O'Higgins day trip on a boat on Lago O Higgins
- PN Quelat day walks to glaciers - unreal
- the people experiences, the lovely and friendliest locals of our trip, the complete relaxed feeling and no need to care about being robbed -no locks or keys required
- skinny dipping in ice cold lakes and rivers after a hot days walking, camping with not a soul next nor near us for miles (well we think anyways!)
- walking 25kms across the border to Argentina, then hitchhiking with the border police on their high speed boat, followed by a lift on a dump truck into El Chalten
- Rainforest experience in Los Piedras - fantastic 2 weeks immersed deep in the jungle, miles and miles and days from civilisation (depending on what ya call civilisation and the power of your outboard motor) surrounded by huge trees, monkeys, birds of all kinds, frogs, all the creepy crawlies you ever dreamt (or nightmared) about and just great fun and adventure.
- Bariloche/El Bolson hiking - very well setup and organised huts and tracks, stunning scenery and forest, surrounded by mountains and also good for meeting Argentian people (as opposed to tourists). Refugio Otto Meiling was spectacular especially for ice walking and condors. Nahuel Huapi was beautiful and the walking near El Bolson was superb especially all the forest and potential for heaps more up here.
- Hiking over John Gardner Pass to see Glacier Grey in front of the southern icecap plus day hike up Valle Frances on the Torres del Paine grand circuit were absolutely amazing days. This absolutely blew us away despite the overcrowding on the rest of the track. Its worth doing the hike just for these 2 days. The rest of the hike has some other highlights such as walking alongside Glacier Grey for 10kms, watching the ice fall off the front of it, of course the Torres themselves and the view from Lake Pehoe of the Cuernos (a very famous view in Torres del Paine).
- At Fitz Roy in Los Glaciers NP, watching sunrise on Cerro Torre was stunning. Walking the section from Laguna Torre (Campomento de Agostini) to Campomento Poincenot (front of Mt Fitz Roy) was beautiful thru forest, alongside lakes and incredible views as Mt Fitz Roy came into view. The 3 hr return walk to Laguna Los Trece with spectacular views of Mt Fitz Roy, the glacier underneath its towering cliffs and looking down onto Lake Sucia was breathtaking and unforgettable. From Valle Electrico (super base for day walks and further if you have ice experience) we hiked upto (well almost) Cerro Electrico which rewarded us with a 360 degree panoramic view of the southern icecap, and surrounding mountains, valleys and glaciers. Unbeleivable and probably the best day walk of the trip, if ever that we have done.
- Salta and surrounds. Fantastic, lunar, desert, forest, high altitude, vicunas, traditional lifestyles and art crafts, historic villages, great places to stay, vineyards, good food (empanadas especially - prolly the winner of all the trip), amazing colours and landscapes, canyons, mountains and valleys. Seeing is beleiving how many different landscapes we drove thru each day.
- Salar de Uyuni - high altitude, volcanic landscape - gobsmacking. Volcanoes, flamingoes, dali -esque landscapes, lakes of sulfur, arsenic, etc, geysers, history - a must do of any South American trip.
- Machu Pichu and the Inca Trail. We expected tourist nightmare and tho it was packed it was still incredible. What a place and what a setting. Unforgettable. The mountains and cloudforest probably made the trip for us.
- Iguazu Falls - as big and spectacular as waterfalls get
What we would do differently or not do at all
Hindsight - if only we'd known some of the things we know now but sure maybe if we did then we wouldn't have had some of the experiences we did have. Saying that there is a few things we could have done to help make our own travels easier so here's are a few things we learnt (or in some cases rediscovered) along the way that we want to keep in mind for the next time (if ever) we do something like this.
- Spanish - we should have started before we left and also maybe applied ourselves a bit more on the trip but with the basics we had it made our trip much easier, good to be able to have a few words with the locals and more fun in general
- Music - how could we forget to bring music. Our biggest mistake
- Earplugs and sleeping tablets - a sanity saver for long bus journeys
- Be more aware of the seasonal variations
- do Torres del Paine and Fitzroy in March (altho some of the huts are closed on the Torres del Paine circuit) as the numbers of people are way lower. Saying that if your in the region and the weather is good go for it!
- in Bolivia we were too late for Amboro NP as it was wet wet wet.
- in Peru we missed Ausangate due to rain (altho annoyingly it cleared up after we left) which is another point dont check what ya missed out on :)
- Bariloche is great from March to May and probably from Oct to Dec (for low altitude hikes) as well altho I think in Jan/Feb is possibly very busy plus loads of horseflies and mossies.
- In Bolivia, have very flexible travel plans!
- Places we found overrated - just because someplace is on a tourist checklist doesn't mean its the best.
- The hiking around Bariloche for us was the equal of Torres del Paine and Fitzroy even if the scenery wasn't so dramatic, the hiking for hiking's sake was much more interesting in a more beautiful setting with way less people (altho maybe if we were there in Jan/Feb it would be a bit busier).
- Ushuaia - its a bloody long bus trip to/from there and its not that beautiful, very touristy and arse freezing cold most of the time. The hiking is very enjoyable but nothing better then further north.
- Colca Canyon - unless your going to hike then dont bother - go and see condors at Refugio Otto Meiling and 101 other places anywhere along the Andes. Just look up and open your eyes (altho watch out for the big birdie poos - 2 litres of crap from a vulture on the head wouldn't be pleasant)
- El Chalten - what a dump of a town but the scenery is worth it. Book your accomodation WAY ahead. Try to spend more time out hiking and not in town. Also be prepared for swarms of large Israeli groups dominating all the free campsites (this goes for Torres del Paine as well). Staying at paying campsites helps avoid this problem for some reason ;) El Calafate is similarily drab but better setup town. Its worth the pain for the glaciers but remember there are glaciers elsewhere in Chile and Argentina that dont have the mega hordes of tourists.
- Cusco - very touristy but I suppose thats all we expected from it really. Worth a visit.
- Bring a stomach of steel!
- We dont like touristy, overcrowded places so we should avoid them :)
Places we'd like to see again (or do for the first time)
There are some places we didn't have the time (beleive me even in 7 months we ran out of time), the energy at that time or the budget or else just plain discovered for the first time that we would like to take a look at if we ever get lucky enough to do a trip like this again. Here they are
- The southern icecap - if global warming hasnt melted this area then this would be a fantastic region to do an expedition on, possibly from Villa O Higgins or else via El Chalten. This would require reasonable organisation, good weather luck, a good budget and either experience on snow/ice or a reliable guide/expedition company to show you around. Its a stunning area mostly in Chile. There is also a Northern icecap north of Caleta Tortel which runs nearly as far as Cochrane.
- Carretera Austral -
- hiking some of the more remote and unexplored areas in particular
- some of the valleys off of Chacabuco Valley such as Rio Aviles Valley, plus there are more valleys that we dont know the names of. This is all being conserved now under The Patagonian Foundation
- Valle Leones
- around Park Pumalin
- San Lorenzo (best with a hire car and very easy)
- Futaleufu
- potential for further exploration
- more of the archipelagos by boat
- south of Cochrane, some amazing photo oppurtunities and campsites if you had your own transport plus old horse routes to explore
- scenic flights
- Chilean IGM has superb 1:250000 maps which give a great overview of the area. Buy all the maps you need before your trip to save you hassle as these maps are difficult to find on the Carretera Austral itself
- Rainforest - either in Bolivia and/or Peru, would be funky to do a trip to/from Puerto Maldonado to Bolivia via a river boat. Manu would be amazing to visit. Potential up the Los Piedras as well.
- Bolivia
- Hiking in Bolivia - hike from the Yungas down to the rainforest. Need guides
- Noel Kempff National Park, also Amboro NP
- Bus trip in the dry season in the northern rainforest regions
- Peru
- Ausangate Circuit, also maybe the Salkantay (buy the topo to see there are multiple interesting possibilities up here)
- Huarez region altho needs altitude acclimatisation
- Argentina
- Bariloche and El Bolson - heaps more fantastic, easy to organise hiking here
- Salta - explore more of the region via car especially the cloud forests
- Mendoza, Cordoba and San Juan - funky areas to explore if ya had your own transport plus plenty hiking potential
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