Tierra del Fuego is with its 47,000 square kilometers the largest island of South America and it is located at its southern end: Fin del Mundo - the end of the world. It is shared between Argentina and Chile, approximately two third belong to Chile. The Argentine part is much more populated, but only a little more than 100,000 people live in whole Tierra del Fuego. Its is a harsh island with two different geographical regions: North and East is the windswept pampa; South and West are the Andes with steep pinnacles, huge glaciers, remote fjords and numberless islands in front.

The first people came 10,000 years ago to Tierra del Fuego and were able to deal with the hard conditions. But the European immigrants exploited and eradicated the native people at the end of the 19th century. Hernando Magellan gave Tierra del Fuego its name - Fireland, because he saw a lot of fires on the island which were used by some of the native tribes for their communication.  

The Chilean part is a little bit sleepy with only one bigger town: Porvenir with just 5,500 inhabitants. Therefore the nature is more or less intact with abundant flora and fauna but non endemic animals like innumerably Sheep, Rabbits or Castors disturb the balance of its nature.

We crossed the strait of Magellan directly from Punta Arenas to Porvenir in the morning of December 4th 2011. This was a pleasant 4 hour trip in calm waters on a sunny day - nobody got seasick.

Punta Arenas is with 140,000 inhabitants the biggest city in southern Patagonia and the capital of the XII region Magallanes y Antartica of Chile. The busy industrial town is located on the Strait of Magellan and it is the most important port in this area. It is also a famous cruise and tourist destination.

Its environment is beautiful with forests, mountains, lakes and the Pacific Ocean. Few kilometers West of Punta Arenas is the National Park Reserva Nacional Magallanes with a lot of nature including hiking capabilities and viewpoints. But there are also a small skiing area, many radio transmitters and a military station on its highest point Monte Fewton.

South of Punta Arenas at the very end of continental South America is a remote area on the Strait of Magellan with superb trekking possibilities like Monte Tarn (825 meters), or the lighthouse Faro Cabo San Isidro. 

The Torres del Paine National Park in southern Chile is probably the finest and most famous National Park of South America. Rising close to 3,000 meters above the Patagonian steppe, the Torres del Paine dominates the landscape with sensational granite pillars, spectacular glaciers and marvelous lakes. It provides excellent hiking possibilities like the more than 100km long Paine Circuit, which can be done in 8 to 10 days. All needed facilities like campgrounds with hot showers, mountain huts or food stores are available. but the weather is very changeable. It is located 150km North of Puerto Natales, the second biggest town of Chilean Patagonia.

Puerto Natales is on the windswept shores of Seno Ultima Esperanza - Last Hope Sound. The 16,000 people city is the bustling hub for the Torres del Paine National Park. Both, the city and the park, are very crowded with tourists between mid of December and end of February.

We crossed the Chilean border in the late afternoon of November 5th 2011 after a long drive. We were eager for some sport activities and suddenly we saw a sign Mirador Sierra Dorotea 5 km before Puerto Natales. We were a little bit irritated by the expensive fee of 10 bucks per person an elderly Lady charged from us, but she told us it is including tea or coffee. But we wanted to walk to the viewpoint. It became almost dark, when we arrived at the top after 1.5 hours walking, but the views were still outstanding.

South of Puerto Madryn are several highlights like the Museo Paleontologico Egido Feruglio in Trelew with stunning life-sized dinosaur exhibits, the Natural Park Cabo Dos Bahias with rich wildlife, the Monumento Natural Bosques Petrificados with its fossilized gigantic trees and the Parque Nacional Monte Leon with more than 75,000 breeding Penguin pairs in springtime and early summer.

Trelew is a midsized town of about 100,000 people, located 65 km South of Puerto Madryn. Its origin is Welsh and its name is a homage to Lewis Jones, who promoted railway expansion in the province Chubut: tre - town and lew - Lewis. We arrived in Trelew in the late afternoon of October 26th 2011 and spent the night on the shore of the Parque Recreativo Laguna Cacique Chiquichano, close to the planetarium.

Trelew is famous for its outstanding natural-history museum Museo Paleontologico Egido Feruglio with more than 1700 fossils. It is the paleontological center in Patagonia with the university of Trelew.

The 3600 sq km big Peninsula Valdez in the province Chubut is one of the nature treasures of Argentina. It bustles of abundant wildlife: Sea Lions, Elephant Seals, Guanacos, Rheas, Penguins and different kinds of birds. But the star is the nearly 12 meters long and 27 tonnes heavy Southern Right Whale. Female bear young and breed in springtime in the shallow waters of the bays between the peninsula and continent. Peninsula Valdez is a World Heritage and consequently protected accordingly. In its center is one of the lowest depression in South America with salt lakes up to 42 meters below sea level. 

Few hundred km North and 40 km East of the city Viedma is the village Balnerio El Condor with maybe the largest Parrot colony of the world: More or less 35,000 dens of parrots are in its cliff faces. Close is an outstanding Sea Lion colony in La Loberia with several hundred animals.

The Sierra de la Ventana is the highest mountain range in the vast province Buenos Aires few kilometers North of Bahia Blanca and 800 Southeast of the capital. There is also the tallest peak close to the Atlantic coast of Argentina, the Cerro Tres Picos with 1239 meters sea level. Ventana means windows: There is a huge one (approx 8 by 5 meters) close to the summit of the Cerro la Ventana. These mountains are supposed to be the oldest in Argentina, but they are relatively rocky.

This region is one of the top holiday destinations with a lot of nature and outdoor activities like hiking, but sometimes a little bit crowded. Some parts of these mountains are protected by the Provincial Park Ernesto Tornquist and consequently regulated by rangers. Ernesto Tornquist is the founder of the biggest town Tornquist in this area.

Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina and it is supposed to be one the ten most populated urban centers of the world. According to Jorge Luis Borges, one of the greatest and famous writers of Argentina, Buenos Aires is breathtaking ugly. On the other hand it is an overwhelming cosmopolitan metropolis with unbelievable nice people, marvelous places and stunning buildings.

We spent 3 days in Buenos Aires mid of August 2011 before we flew to Germany and 2 days after our return beginning of October. We parked our camper in Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, close to the ferry port. Colonia is on the other side of the Rio de la Plata and there is a  frequent  ferry boar service to Buenos Aires. We found the very nice hostel San Telmo (Peru 708) in San Telmo, one of the most exciting quarters of Buenos Aires.  

Uruguay is the second smallest country in South America, but still twice the size of Austria. It is located east of the large Rio Uruguay, which is the other big conflux of the Rio de la Plata. Uruguay is called the Switzerland of South America due to its stability, prosperity and wealthyness. A lot of banks are in its capital, Montevideo. The landscape is hilly, green and grassy with many cows. In addition Uruguay has nice coasts on the Atlantic Ocean, Rio Uruguay and Rio del la Plata.

We visited the west part of Uruguay on the shores of the big rivers between the second biggest city Salto and the ancient, picturesque town of Colonia del Sacramento. Colonia lies opposite of Buenos Aires on the Rio del la Plata. It is a good place to park the car if you fly from Buenos Aires to your home city. 

The dam of the hydroelectric power plant Salto Grande is the most northern street  between Argentina and Uruguay. The Uruguayan customs was very strict in terms of fresh fruits and vegetables, so we had to eat our bananas and tangerines before we could enter Uruguay. Unfortunately we had had a rich breakfast few minutes before, so we had to to scrap some food.

The first city Salto is a pleasant town with a nice main square named after the Uruguayan National hero Jose Gervasio Artigas. He had been the first in South America 1764 who had performed an agriculture reform to the advantage of the local people. He had been defeated by Argentine and Brazilian troops 1819 and he had to move to Paraguay into exile. His reform had been removed to the benefit of the European rich landowners, which had exploited the local people.

The Northeast of Argentina is a little bit different to the other parts: Lush and dense vegetation with some forests thanks to lots of water due to huge rivers and swamps. The absolute highlight is the Cascades of Iguacu in the very North of the province Misiones. The Southern part belongs to Argentina, the Northern to Brazil. Enormous amount of water is falling 70 meters down in more than 250 hundred cascades from a flat Basalt plateau. These waterfalls are ones of the top destinations in South America; thus many tourists visit them and there is a good infrastructure.

Interesting are the ancient Jesuit villages like San Ignacio Mini in Misiones, some other National Parks like Rio Pilcomayo in the province Formosa on the border to Paraguay and hot springs in the county Entre Rios.

After returning to Argentina and fixing our starter problems with the car (see article Samaipata and its environment) we visited the beautiful lake Laguna Blanca in the National Park Rio Pilcomayo. There was a lot of water because it had rained the last two days, but now the sun was shining on a clear sky and it was pleasant warm during the day. It was the first time this year we used our rubber boots and we were happy about them.

Paraguay is one of the smaller and less populated countries in South America located between Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina without sea coast. Small means that it is a little bit bigger than Germany. Less populated means fewer inhabitants than Austria or Switzerland. It is divided by the river Paraguay into two major parts: The western Chaco, which is a flat, hot and arid lowland with very few people and the eastern green highlands with 90% of Paraguay's population. Paraguay was the first state in South America with two official languages: Spanish and Guarani of the indigenous people (also Guarani).

Asuncion is the capital of Paraguay on the huge river Rio Paraguay. It is also the economical center and with more than 1 million inhabitants the biggest city in Paraguay. The second one, Ciudad del Este, is located in the three border area between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. It is the boom town due to reduced taxes with many, many shops of all kinds like computers or dresses.

We crossed the Southeast of Paraguay, where some beautiful sanctuaries are situated. Our first destination was Asuncion, which is just 40km away from the Argentine border.

The village Samaipata is located in a marvelous environment in the first eastern ranges of the Andes. Its main attraction is the pre Inca fort El Fuerte de Samaipata, which is an UNESCO world heritage and one of the most important ruins of Bolivia and South America. The Incas used this fort as one their most outposts. East were and still are the very strong tribe Guarani, who defeated several times the Incas and prevent their further extension to East.

20km east of Samaipata are the caves Chorros de Cuevas, a paradise with three cascades, clean and cold water. It is an ideal destination on hot days to refresh and cool down. We drove on a rainy day from Santa Cruz to Samaipata mid of July 2011. The landscape became more and more mountainous and green.

The National Park Amboro between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz is situated on the lower slopes of the Andes to the Amazonas basin. It is famous for its density of game and insects, for beautiful waterfalls and natural swimming pools, and thick green jungle fauna. There are few camps inside this park, which can be accessed with a guide from the North via Buena Vista or the South via Samiapata.

Cochabamba is the third biggest city in Bolivia with more than 800,000 people. It is located in a nice valley of the Andes at 2570 meter sea level; thus it has a very pleasant climate. It is half the way between La Paz and Santa Cruz, the other two large cities in Bolivia. Its main attraction is the huge Jesus monument "Cristo de la Concordia" on a hill, more than 40 meters high.

When we left the Hotel Oberland in La Paz we heard a weird noise from the starter of our car. Besides that is was smoking like hell, again. So we decided to go to Eduardo, who manages the Bosch Diesel Service La Paz in El Alto the highest quarter of La Paz, around 4100 meters sea level. They revised the starter, the fuel pump and exchanged all Diesel tubes and the fuel filter. It was a lot of work; consequently we stayed 5 days in the service station. We had all comfort like electricity and hot shower. And we had enough gas for our heater, because it became very cold, especially in the evenings. The last morning we had some fresh snow. Thanks a lot Eduardo and the Bosch Diesel service team (GPS coordinates: S16° 31.944' W68° 10.483'). We used the time to visit the museums in La Paz; we like very much the coca museum and the masks in the folklore museum.

Cordillera Real is the mightiest mountain range in Bolivia with several peaks above 6000 meter. It is situated on the east side of the Altiplano and it gets in summer a lot of precipitation from the Amazon area. Thus the glaciations are heavy for this latitude; the permanent snow line starts at 5200 meter. We climbed in June 2011 Cerro Saturno (5006 meter seal level), Serranias Almillanis (5108 meter) and Cerro Charkini (5392 meter). To achieve the summit of the latter one we had to cross a glacier with huge crevasses.

The Yungas are the lower slopes down to the Amazon basin. They have a rich flora and fauna, thanks to the clouds and rain coming from the Amazonas. A nice tourist destination is the village Coroico, which is accessible now from La Paz by a fully tarred road. But you have to cross the 4650 meter high pass Cumbre Coroico or La Cumbre. Few years ago the descent from this pass was horrible due to a narrow and dirty lane in vertical rocky walls. Many people died in the huge traffic and there are a lot of memorials. This old street is called the Camino de la Muerte, the Death Street. Now it is an outstanding mountain bike tour. If you start at La Cumbre, you have a vertical downhill distance of more than 3400 meters.

Potosi is with more than 120,000 inhabitants the highest city of our world at 4100 meters sea level. Potosi was the richest town on earth due to enormous silver findings in the mines of the mountain Cerro Rico. The exploitation of silver started already in the 16th century and it was shipped mainly to Europe. But the silver was a curse for the local people, many died in the mines due to inhuman working conditions. Now the silver is gone, but tin and zinc are mined nowadays.  

La Paz is with more than 2,000,000 people the largest city of Bolivia, its economical heart and its seat of government. It is beautifully situated in different valleys of the Altiplano between 3200 and 4100 meters surrounded by very high and white mountains. Famous are the various markets of La Paz, a lot of nice places and the Valle de Luna (moon valley) with stunning earth pinnacles. 

We left Uyuni on June 1st 2011 to the village of Ticatica with some hot springs. We saw Rheas close to the road to Ticatica.

Volcan Uturuncu is with 6008 meters sea level the tallest mountain in the south part of Bolivia. It is an active volcano with two peaks. The last eruptions were in April 2003, after being hundreds of years inactive. There were some mining activities on this mountain and a rough dirty roads leads into the saddle between the two peaks. This road can be used by good 4-wheel cars up to 5400 meters, depending on the snow conditions. Uturuncu lies in a very remote area: The access from Uyuni is one long day by dirty roads, only possible with a 4-wheel car.

The 60 square kilometer big Laguna Colorada (red lake) is 4h drive West of Uturuncu in an altitude of 4275 meters. It is an unique natural spectacle, because the water color seems to be red, green and white depending on the sunset. This is caused by plankton. The plankton attracts a lot of birds like flamingos.

This is the second part of our trip with Fronia and Obet, see also our report Volcan Tunupa and Salar de Uyuni. In this article a map is included. After a cold and uncomfortable night in a hostel in Uyuni we started with Fronia and Obet the long way to the village Quetena Chico, which is the base for the ascent of Volcan Uturuncu.

Salar de Uyuni is with 160 km length and 135 km width the largest salt area of our world at an altitude of approximately 3700 meters. The salt is between 2 and 7 meters thick, so it can be accessed by 4x4 cars if there is not too much water. In the rainy season between December and March Salar de Uyuni becomes a tremendous huge mirror. The water dries in the following months more or less, so the surface becomes totally white. Volcano Tunupa is situated on a peninsula of the Salar de Uyuni and provides fantastic views to the Salar because it overtops Salar de Uyuni more than 1500 meters. Due to its outstanding location Volcano Tunupa is a holy mountain of the Aymara people.

We came to Bolivia in the evening of May 24th 2011. The first town Villazon is a typical border city - mainly a shopping center for Argentina. We continued the next day to Tupiza, a pleasant town in a nice valley surrounded by rocky mountains.

Salta is one of the most marvelous cities in South America. It is the only one in Argentina with the add-on "La Linda", which means The Beautiful. No other city in Argentina has so many historical buildings, places and parks. Salta is with approximately 400,000 inhabitants the second biggest city in northwest Argentina. Salta has a pleasant warm climate even in late autumn because it is situated just 1200 meters high on the eastern slopes of the Andes. Closed to Salta is the valley Quebrada de San Lorenzo with more or less tropical flora and fauna. North of Salta in the province Jujuy is the famous gorge Quebrada de Humahuaca, which directs to the border of Bolivia.

A side valley of the Quebrada de Humahuaca leads to the pass Paso de Jama to Chile. We came down this way from Chile, after our disaster with the shock absorbers; see last section in the article about San Pedro de Atacama and its environment. It turned out in Salta that the shock absorbers we had found in Chile were working in the wrong direction. Now we knew why we had become nearly seasick in our car! And we had two Indian Ladies in our car.

We found original German shock absorbers in Salta and a very good Volkswagen technician: Javier L. Torres, whose workshop is in the Catamarca 1050. He is a specialist for engines and he realized that some of the hydraulic tappets of our engine are not tight. Indeed 4 of them had scratches and oil was leaking into the cylinders which weakened the power of the engine and might reduce its life time. He had to disassemble the engine more or less completely, fortunately it worked afterwards perfectly without the buzzing noise it had before.

On the way down of Paso de Jama we passed wonderful salt lakes, villages and landscapes in the province Jujuy.

The mountain Volcan Licancabur is the landmark of San Pedro de Atacama. Its shape is a perfect cone, with more than 3,500 meters over San Pedro. But the ascent is not possible on the Chilean side of Licancabur, because a lot of dangerous blockbusters are on this side and nobody knows where they are buried. Hence you have to go to Bolivia if you want to climb up Licancabur. It has one the highest lake of our world in its crater, more than 5,800 meters sea level. On its foot are some ancient ruins built by the Incas as well as on top of Cerro Incahuasi. This mountain is closed to the road to the Paso Jama few kilometers North of Licancabur. 

Read more ...

The mountain Volcan Licancabur is the landmark of San Pedro de Atacama. Its shape is a perfect cone, with more than 3,500 meters over San Pedro. But the ascent is not possible on the Chilean side of Licancabur, because a lot of dangerous blockbusters are on this side and nobody knows where they are buried. Hence you have to go to Bolivia if you want to climb up Licancabur. It has one the highest lake of our world in its crater, more than 5,800 meters sea level. On its foot are some ancient ruins built by the Incas as well as on top of Cerro Incahuasi. This mountain is closed to the road to the Paso Jama few kilometers North of Licancabur. 

San Pedro de Atacama is the archaeological capital of Chile. A lot of ancient villages and sites like Pukara de Quitor are closed to San Pedro. There is also a very nice archaeological museum. San Pedro de Atacama is an oasis in the extreme dry Atacama Desert on foot of the Andes. Its environment is very beautiful with salt lakes, hot springs, gorges, rocks and a lot of volcanoes. South of San Pedro is the Salar de Atacama, the third largest salt lake in the Andes. West of San Pedro is the Valle de la Luna, the moon valley, which gives an imagination of the landscape of the moon. San Pedro is the holiday destination in the north part of Chile. All facilities like excellent restaurants, souvenir shops and tour guides are available. And there are many tourists from nearly every part of the world. The climate of San Pedro is very pleasant, especially in autumn: Always sunny, up to 25°C in the afternoon, but closed to zero in the morning. San Pedro is already more than 2400 meters high.

We started our trip to San Pedro de Atacama in the valley Valle de la Luna. This valley is part of the Cordillera de la Sal (salt mountains), which is between the bigger Andes and Cordillera Domeyko. It is built up mainly by a mixture of salt, mud and sand.

Lascar is the most active volcano in the northern part of Chile. It is a huge mountain with several peaks up to 5592 meters and an enormous smoking crater. The ascent is very popular, because it is just 100 kilometers away from San Pedro de Atacama and a height of 4800 meters can be reached with a good four wheel car. Consequently many tour offices in San Pedro offer the ascent of Lascar. The first destination is the marvelous Laguna Lejia which can be accessed by a dirty gravel road from the village Toconaco, which is located at the main street to the Paso Sico, approximately 40 km south of San Pedro de Atacama. We decided to try to drive to the Laguna Lejia with our camping car. If it became too difficult for our car we had the idea to use our bicycles

Copiapo is the capital of the 3rd region of Chile and one of the major mining cities in Chile. It is a very pleasant town with all facilities. Copiapo was in the news worldwide in the year 2010, because of an mining accident. Fortunately all miners could be rescued after several weeks. Antofagasta is the biggest city in Northern Chile and the capital of the 2nd region. It is located on the Pacific Ocean and it looks much more urbanely like Copiapo - 250,000 inhabitants versus 100,000. Between Copiapo and Antofagasta is the National Park Pan de Azucar on the Pacific with nice beaches and unbelievable game and birds in a very pristine environment. The name Pan de Azucar means sugar bread and its related to the white rocks due to the guano feces of the birds.

We stayed several times in Copiapo, because we decided to make a sevice on our Camping Car. The problem was the oil filter, first the wrong was delivered and second it was shipped to La Serena, 350km south. But we used the time to explore the beaches, which are 60 to 100km west of Copiapo. Our first destination on the Pacific was Bahia Inglese, a very noble and expensive holiday village. We spent two days there on a nice camping ground to free our car from the dust of the Paso San Francisco. The dust was everywhere, also inside the lockers! Totally different to Bahia Inglese is Caldera, a fishing port few kilometers north. It has a picturesque harbor with a lot of life.

Ojos del Salado is not only the highest volcano on earth, it is with 6893 meters also the highest summit of Chile and of the province Catamarca in Argentina, and it is the second tallest peak of the Andes and outside of Asia of our world. Another particularly of Ojos del Salado in comparison to the other high mountains of Chile and Argentina is that you have to climb the last 50 meter to the summit, not very difficult (grade II to III). But you have to consider the enormous height of more than 6800 meters!

Ojos del Salado has a very good infrastructure including a base camp at the Laguna Verde and two mountain huts on the Chilean standard way to its Chilean summit.

After we had crossed the border between Argentina and Chile on the Paso San Francisco we checked the conditions of the ascent to the Ojos del Salado at the base camp at the Laguna Verde. Indeed there was a German young man on the summit today, and he ensured us that the conditions are very well, e.g. good steps in the snow and no snow on the climbing section. But there were two hooks: We have to pay 160U$ per person for the usage of the huts and we need a permit of DIFROL, which is the Chilean border control. The first one is okay, but the latter one means driving 270km very dirty and dusty road to Copiapo and back - In summary 540km deviation! So we promised Paula and Mario, the two mountain guides which administer the climbing to Ojos del Salado, to come back in two days, if the weather forecast is good.

Cerro San Francisco is with 6018 meter high probably the easiest 6000er of our world, both access and ascent. It is situated on the border between Argentina and Chile and closed to the Paso San Francisco, which is with 4753 meters one of the highest pass in the Andes. This pass has the highest density of 6000er on earth outside of the Himalayas. Five of the ten tallest peaks of the Andes are closed to it, including Ojos de Salado which is the second after Aconcagua.

We started our trip to the Paso San Francisco in Fiambala, which is the last bigger settlement on the Argentine side, more than 3000 vertical meters below. Fiambala is a pleasant village with all facilities like Internet and famous thermal springs. It is also one of the major points of the rally Paris Dakar, which had passed Fiambala few weeks before we were there.

Between San Juan and La Rioja are the National Parks Talampaya and Ischigualasto / Valle de la Luna in the deserts few km East of the Andes. Both are UNESCO world heritages sites and famous for the dinosaurs, which were found there.

After our ascent to Mercedario we stayed two days at the very nice camping place Palmar del Lago on the artificial lake  Dique Ullum, 30km west of San Juan. In this very dry area we found two Geocaches. Both were in miserably conditions and need consequently some rescue. On the first one (Falla La Laja), we were the first who found it after 10 months. The latter one (Ullum) had been found in September 2009 the last time!