March 14, 2019 – March 22, 2019
We took a few days to drive south from Iguazú to the border town of Gualeguaychu, where we once again went through the process of getting Piper’s paper work in order before driving Seymour over a bridge and into his last South American country of the trip. We arrived in Uruguay, resupplied our fridge (at remarkably high prices!), and made our way to Colonia del Sacramento.
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March 3, 2019 – March 5, 2019
Since we quit our jobs, we rarely set an alarm to wake us in the morning. I love letting my body decide when it is ready to get out of bed, of slowly waking up without any annoying, demanding “beep, beep, beep”…who doesn’t? But, there are a times that are worthy of setting an alarm…..to go skiing, to go hiking, to go to the airport…..and now we can add, to go and see the parrots on the cliffs at Balneario el Cóndor as the sun rises.
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February 14, 2019 – February 16, 2019
We drove along the Strait of Magellan to where we would load Seymour onto yet another ferry, to make our way to Tierra del Fuego. Strait of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego…..names that I had read about in history class so many years ago, but that my teenage self never, ever would have imagined having the opportunity to visit. It was a bit surreal.
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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November 24, 2018 – November 28, 2018
The next morning we drove through the tunnel, and officially entered Argentina….our 14th country of the trip since leaving Canada. The border procedures were quick and organized…we had read that this border can take 4 to 6 hours if you hit it at the wrong time, as Argentinians cross here to go shopping in Santiago, Chile. We got lucky and it wasn’t busy at all. We were stamped in in about 30 minutes. We began driving through a beautiful valley along a river lined by multi coloured peaks….red, yellow, orange, brown, purple-grey….stunning.
November 19, 2018 – November 23, 2018
When I had dreamed about this trip, I had romantic visions of us visiting cities like Santiago. I pictured us getting a bit dressed up, visiting museums, churches and parks, then heading out for a late night dinner, maybe on a patio with a full moon and soft music playing in the background. But after visiting many colonial cities on this trip, to tell the truth, they are starting to all look alike. In addition, it is hard to “clean up” nicely when you live in a small camper with no bathroom and most of your cloths are dirty and/or slowly deteriorating from harsh laundry service. Also big cities can be quite a challenge with our truck and the dog….we want safe and secure parking that we can fit into and Piper is not always welcome at all establishments (What! I know! They just don’t know her like we do). That being said, it seemed a shame to be so close to city such as Santiago and not visit…in we went.
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October 18, 2018 – October 19, 2018
We camped for a night outside of Tupiza near the Canon del Inca. We didn’t know much about the area before we arrived, other than it was near to here that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed. Until we read about this, I had always assumed they were largely fictionalized characters. But no, they were real, and they are generally believed to have died in a gunfight with the Bolivian army in San Vicente in 1908, close to Tupiza, while planning to rob the payroll for a rich mine in the area.
May 20, 2018 – May 25, 2018
We had been told to meet our captain and the crew at a nearby restaurant at 5pm on Sunday, May the 20th. We had visited the restaurant the day before and they told us that it was not pet friendly….the owner has 7 dogs and she said her dogs would EAT Piper….so, we left Piper (temporarily) with the gracious owner of Wunderbar Hostel where we had stayed the last two nights. We then went and met up with the people we would be living in close quarters with for the next five days.
We did manage to do one of the tours while we were at El Pantano, and that was the tour of Finca de San Antonio. The finca is run by four brothers and is home to them, their families and their 80 year old parents. Manuel, one of the brothers, picked us up at El Pantano and we began the walk from there to the finca. The dirt road was steep and the day, even at 8 am, was already hot and muggy.
Lanquin is the town that many backpackers base themselves out of to visit caves, do hikes and see attractions in the area, Semuc Champey being the highlight. We had been warned that the road to Semuc Champey was rough, had a few precarious bridges that might not support our 5 tonne plus rig, and after the drive the day before, it wasn’t really appealing to us. We opted for a return trip on the hostel’s shuttle to Semuc Champey and back at a cost of about 10 CAD each.