Where to start? 10 Days ago we started our journey south. With nothing but open road ahead of us and a rather freshly tweaked little camper, we flew our way onto the motorway out of the bustling city of Santiago to make the ‘long way down’ to Patagonia.
We drove several hundred miles over a couple of days and camped in the wild of a national park called Conguillio. The roads were horrendous but the landscape in comparison was beautiful. It held a couple of huge lakes, towering mountains, vast hilly woodland and an eyesore of a Volcano called Llaima stood smack in the middle! The devastation of the last eruption in the 30’s (which lasted for almost 30 years!) was still very visible with miles of volcanic rubble and ash left in its wake.
We passed into the boarder of Argentina with ease, even if we did chug along past the officers looking ‘more’ suspicious than we actually were… “Yes Officer, we are driving a BRIGHT orange van into Argentina” – However, thankfully no alarm caused. Pretty much all documents were in check and we were allowed to pass.
Our next stop was a meeting point just after the boarder crossing at Villa Pehuenia in the Lake District. Whereby we were on schedule to catch some friends from Italy, Georgia, Lorenzo and little Olivia. By coincidence they are here at the same time and have rented a motor home to travel, so we have a few weeks together to head south.
We continue on, following the spine of the Andes, climbing into higher altitudes, experiencing the most breath taking crystal lakes of the Lake District. Surrounded by woodland, a mountainous landscape as far as the eye can see with winding roads meandering in and around these vast lakes, it can seem you are passing by a great ocean. We feel this really is a special part of South America.
*Couple minor problems with Betsy:
- The boot won’t close properly due to the sheer amount of vibration when driving off road – seriously bumpy roads!
- I put the water cap on the roof of the van and drove happily away.. or shall I say not so happily..
On the plus side, she has been awesome so far. Were pretty organsised inside and we’ve made great use of the space. Very comfortable at night in the roof, except maybe a couple nights where the temperature dropped considerably and the weather was howling outside.. I thought, I might die..
Over the next few days we will visit a couple more national parks until we hit northern Patagonia and then we have 700k (3days) of dirt road into ‘no mans land’ to look forward to! Endless bumpy road into a barren and inhospitable terrain…
