Schlagwort-Archive: world trip

Chile, World Trip 2018-19

Pucón – in the shadow of the volcano

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Time for a long bus ride again! After all our relaxing time in Viña del Mar, we were ready for a change in scenery and hopped on a night bus down to Pucón where our Couchsurfing host picked us up at the bus station. We had not slept much that night and the weather was grey and windy, so we got some organizational stuff done, checked out some camping gear (still need to buy a stove etc) and then dropped into bed! (the photo below is from a sunnier day in Pucon)

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Well rested, we were ready for a hike. The sun was shining again and we were looking forward to see Huerquehue national park. It was a 1 h ride on the bus and we realized that we had to hike quite fast in order to make the 14.10 bus back to the city. The bus times are a bit stupid: You arrive at 9.45 to then go on a 5 h hike whereas there’s a bus at 14.10 and the next one only at 17.10. Annoying. Anyways, we decided to give it a go and try to make the 14.10 bus to still have some more time to buy outdoor equipment in the city. So we power-hiked through the forest, through the mud and up many steps. Up, up, up we went. Luckily, the trail wasn’t that interesting until the first two viewpoints – which were super pretty with volcano Villarica being the star of all photos.

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Later on, the path straightened out mostly and we reached the three lakes: Lago Chico, Lago el Toro and Lago Verde. The first two were very pretty and we took so many pictures! Especially Lago el Toro was very picturesque with a snowy mountain in the back. We should have stayed here for lunch, a perfect spot and quiet, since most people went to Laguna Verde first…

…which was also pretty but not as much as Lago el Toro and there were very few spots to sit and have lunch. By that time, we had decided against the 14.10 bus and instead decided to walk a bit around the lakes and enjoy the scenery a bit more, rather than feel rushed the whole day. So after some time in the sun and lots more photos here and there, we hiked back – which actually took longer than expected! So in the end I guess the 14.10 bus would have been unrealistic anyways and we were glad we had decided for the later bus option.

Next day – next national park! This time we were off with all our luggage to Santuario El Cañi – a private reserve which offers camping. We had to stay at the reception camping which was not nice and didn’t have any facilities except a basic and dirty toilet and cold shower. If we had less luggage, we would have preferred one of the campsites higher up the mountain.

So after setting up our tent, we started the hike with our day bags only – which was good, because the trail went up very steeply for quite a while. I enjoyed the hike much more than the day before though: We were in no rush to make some bus at the end of the day, there were much less other people and Mathijs found me a good walking stick. Also, we got a really nice map from the park with little stations, descriptions, time estimates etc. It made the walk as a whole really enjoyable because instead of thinking about the whole trail, we went from one station to the next – some with some nice views over the area. Later, the trail flattened out a bit and we reached a couple of pretty lakes where we took our lunch break when we found a good spot. Learned from the day before!

Re-energized, we made our way up the last steep climb to the mirador. So far, we had missed the WOW factor about this hike… well, once we reached the top not anymore! We were treated with an amazing view in all directions, lakes to our feet and snow-capped volcanoes on the horizon. A total of four volcanoes can be spotted from up here, of which Villarica and Lanin are the most picturesque ones. What added to the views were the cool araucania trees growing everywhere – some of the strangest looking trees I’ve ever seen.

We thoroughly enjoyed the views and then slowly made our way down the mountain, taking our time not to arrive too early at the campsite where there was not much left to do other than have picnic dinner and fight over our food with numerous cats and dogs. Camping life!

Chile, World Trip 2018-19

Colourful Valparaíso & down-time in Viña del Mar

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After all the wine and mountain views around Mendoza, we hopped across the boarder again to Chile. Well, hopped sounds quick – but it took the whole day. In Valparaíso, we were staying at a basic and not too nice (but central) AirBnB which made it easy to explore the hilly town over the next 1.5 days.

Valparaíso is kind of an artist town that spreads out across various hills. From the hills, there are nice views over town and the ocean. It felt really good to be back at the ocean after spending so much time inland recently!

What Valparaíso is really famous for though, are all the colourful graffiti that are covering houses and sometimes whole streets. They are the main sight of the city and beautiful! You can clearly see the difference between some talented and not so talented artists. I really enjoyed walking around on the hunt for more street art to photograph. Sometimes, we also took some of the old escalators up to viewpoints, saving on energy and walking time – plus, it’s kind of a must do experience to be in at least one of these old escalators once.

We had talked about taking a bit of a break from travelling for a while already and spontaneously decided that now was a good time. There was no nice apartment left on AirBnB in Valparaíso unfortunately, but we kind of also liked Viña del Mar when driving through by bus, so booked ourselves a little place there. The next three days, we didn’t leave the apartment all that much, but chilled a lot, got some things organized and ate some good food. When you’re traveling for a longer time, sometimes you need a little downtime like this! 

Argentina, World Trip 2018-19

Mountains & Wine in Mendoza

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We arrived in Mendoza in the morning after a 18 h bus ride from Salta. It was ok though – it didn’t feel that long and we got a good amount of sleep. We were lucky to be able to check in at our AirBnB straight away, shower, do laundry, get organized etc. Later, we ventured out to see the city – one of the greenest ones we’ve seen yet. Unfortunately, weather was grey and it started to rain soon, so after seeing the main squares and streets, we returned to our AirBnB.

Next day it looked a little better, so we took a train and bus to Maipu where many bodegas are located and where we were able to rent bikes. In the course of the afternoon, we visited 3 different wine goods and did a wine tasting at each of them. While the cycling wasn’t as nice as expected (big roads and lots of traffic), it was a fun way to spend an afternoon. We realized that we definitely preferred red over white wines of the region and the rosés were barely drinkable. The views from the wine goods were quite pretty, despite the clouds that stayed persistently throughout the day.

On our third day in Mendoza, we woke up super early and caught a bus at 6 am to Aconcagua National Park. It takes 3.5 h to get there, so if you want to hike to the base camp Confluencia like we did, you don’t have another option. The drive itself was spectacular already and we were once again (like so many times on this trip) sad to be on a bus where we couldn’t stop for photos. Luckily, the landscape was still beautiful when we arrived!

We straight away set off for the hike – it takes about 6 h and the last bus is at 16.30, so you can’t be much slower than that. It’s not that we’re such slow hikers, but we (especially *one of us*) loves to take hundreds of pictures which always takes a bit, stopping a lot along the way. As mentioned, the mountain scenery around us was breathtaking! We were so lucky it had snowed the day before, so in the morning everything was covered with a layer of fresh snow… On our way back, most of it had melted already.

Even if the main attraction of the hike – Mt. Aconcagua – was hiding himself behind a blanket of clouds, we really enjoyed the hike. The surrounding mountains made up for missing out on Aconcagua and the trail leads through such a nice valley, that you have beautiful views in both directions. Very much recommended!

From Mendoza, we hopped on a bus across the boarder again – to Valparaíso.