Chile’s largest outdoor art space
It’s always nice to visit places outside of the city center and in Santiago de Chile I enjoyed a few hours in El museo a cielo abierto en San Miguel, an area with dozens of murals in the suburbs. The L2 metro took me to Departamental station, from where I…
Atacama’s steamy and dreamy side
After an intense bike ride through the Atacama desert, I joined a couple of tours to visit the sites further from the town of San Pedro de Atacama. My day begun at the ungodly hour of 4am. It took us about 2 hours to get to the Tatio geysers and…
Through the Andes to the desert
I’d left Chile from Puerto Varas at the end of March, but I returned for a few days in June to see another highlight of the country: the Atacama desert. It was a shame I didn’t see anything else of Chile’s north, but you have to make choices. I entered…
Adventure in Futaleufú
Futaleufú is a small town on the border between Chile and Argentina. I took a detour from the carretera austral to visit this place, since it’s famous for rafting. Arriving here was not the easiest, especially since I left from a small town called Puyuhuapi. Earlier, when I was staying…
To the almighty Alerce
The alerce tree, or Patagonian cypress, is an endangered type of tree that can get very tall and very old, but grows very slowly. Unfortunately a lot of the trees have disappeared because the wood is of excellent quality. Now, logging is forebidden, although dead trees can still be taken.…
My “failed” escape to nature in Chiloé
Before heading out to Cucao, on the West coast of Chiloé, I had a spare day in Castro. I waited with my move because of the weather forecast. A girl in my hostel mentioned she had a car and wanted to go hiking. She confirmed in the morning, but when…
Culture across the water
I was on the last ferry of the season from Chaitén to Castro, a city on the island of Chiloé. I entered a different world. As the ferry approached the big island, there were many smaller islands we came past. There was so much life here! I saw towns everywhere.…
Pumalín national park
The Pumalín park is stretched out over about 80km of the carretera austral. Not the easiest park to visit without a car, especially since the low season has started. Luckily I have my tent and the weather forecast looked great, so I had the bus from Futaleufú drop me off…
El Limite, a new border experience
It seems like there isn’t one system for border crossings. Crossing the border for the 3rd time was very different from earlier crossings. I went from Futaleufú, about 10km from the border in Chile, to Esquel, about 64km further, in Argentina. It involved a short ride in the minibus, walking…
Queulat, just before it closes
“We haven’t really had much summer this year”, says my host in the hostal in Puyuhuapi when we compare the weather here with the Netherlands. “It’s been very rainy.” And of course it rains during my stay as well. But it suits the setting. I’m here to head into the…