July 20, 2019 – August 1, 2019
Just south of St. John’s, Newfoundland is Cape Spear, the eastern most point in North America. Since we had driven to the most southerly point you can drive to in South America, it was only right that we visit Cape Spear!
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July 9, 2019 – July 20, 2019
The ferry arrived to the island of Newfoundland just as the sun was rising. It had been a long night, neither of us really sleeping much on the ferry despite the ample leg room and comfortable, semi-reclining chairs. We had originally thought that we would get a campsite close to the ferry for the day and then head the next morning to Stephenville in order to take Piper to the vet, but as we drove off the ferry, Derek said he felt pretty good, so we drove the 165 km to Stephenville.
Continue readingJune 26th, 2019 – July 4th, 2019
We drove along the north shore of the mainland of Nova Scotia, making our way to Cape Breton Island. One of our first stops was a pub that had been recommended to us by a Cape Bretoner that we had met in Halifax. Besides having good food and drink, The Red Shoe Pub is a music venue located in the small town of Mabou. For those of you who are familiar with East coast musicians, the pub is owned by the award winning Rankin Family, and there is live music there almost every night of the week.
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February 4, 2019 – February 8, 2019
El Chaltén is a small village full of outdoor gear shops, hostels, cervecerias, bake shops and restaurants, all focused on servicing the thousands of visitors that come during the short summer season to hike in the surrounding Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. It is a fun and friendly little town, whose existence is completely reliant on tourism.
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December 2, 2018 – December 8, 2018
Driving so many kilometres, often on rough roads, means that there is almost always something that needs to be adjusted, repaired or replaced. Probably about 50% of the time when we arrive at a camping spot, one of the first things Derek does after we are set up is get his tools out and work on something. The fridge is finicky and doesn’t always work, screws rattle their way out of the camper and need to be tightened or replaced, one time the electrical connection for the solar panels on the roof was loose or filters need to be replaced on the truck. Sometimes it is more complicated, like when we noticed that the camper batteries were completely discharged and not being charged as we drove anymore. The computer chip governing the relay had quit and so Derek wired a manual bypass… we now have a manual switch in the cab that we need to remember to turn on for charging camper batteries when we start to drive, and off before we shut down the engine so that the fridge doesn’t end up draining the engine batteries. He is one handy guy!
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October 6, 2018 – October 8, 2018
Parque Nacional Sajama is a small park on the western border of Bolivia. Volcan Sajama, at 6,542 metres (21, 463 feet) is the highest mountain in Bolivia, and is the centre piece of the park. The small town of Sajama within the park has a few small hostels, but you are allowed to wild camp almost anywhere in the area….we loved it!
September 18, 2018 – September 20, 2018
Although we really enjoyed the city of Arequipa, we were happy to be back out in the countryside again. We were driving to the Colca Canyon, which is only a hundred or so metres shy of being the deepest canyon in the world, and more than twice the depth of the Grand Canyon in the United States.
We drove past this erupting volcano on our way to the Colca Canyon
August 1, 2018 – August 9, 2018
A couple of weeks back, at another hostel in Ecuador, we had seen a flier for a hostel near the town of Vilcabamba that looked really nice, so we headed there for a day or two before we crossed into Peru.
July 21, 2018 – July 23, 2018
The Quilotoa Loop is a 3 or 4 day backpack that you can do, partly on trails, partly on roads, that takes you through small indigenous towns and stunning mountain scenery. Backpackers generally do the loop staying at hostels found all along the way. We decided that instead of stashing the truck somewhere, renting gear, and trying to find places that would accept us with the dog, that we would drive the loop with our truck and camper.
July 19, 2018 – July 21, 2018
Leaving Mindo we took a slightly longer route to avoid driving through Quito again. We were not sure what we would be getting into, as we were going to be off main highways. As it turned out, the roads were paved, nice and wide and had a decent shoulder. This made for an easy, enjoyable driving day. On average, the main roads in Ecuador have probably been the best we have experienced in all of Latin America.