Archive for the Chile Category
Posted on March 28, 2012 by angela
The next day, Simon and MC came to the rescue. We took their spare and crossed our fingers that neither of us would have a flat for the 3 hours of pavement to Punta Arenas.
Camille was able to confirm that the Shooting Star was dead and it wasn’t worth trying to repair (and to sell or ship back to the US in 2 months). She was able to quickly find a very excited buyer, and was happy that it was going to a local gal.
Simon was able to find some new shocks that were close (we’re not the only ones to break them all the time), and modified them for his bus. Things were coming together… we even had a poker night and Wii party.
We met our new VW friend Christhian, who was able to find a part Simon needed and give us some advice on where to buy some other things. He and his family hosted an asado for all 7 of us. I’ve never seen so much meat on one grill! Smoked salmon, pork, chicken, beef. All delicious, but everyone seemed to be most excited about the salmon. Paul and Simon are determined to catch and smoke their own.
Thanks for hosting us, Christhian!
Posted on March 27, 2012 by angela
Simon wanted to do some fishing, so we split up for the day. We followed Paul and Camille (on their motorcycles) to Puerto Natales to find some shelter and we were out of food.
The road was rough, but indescribably beautiful. I think I saw four different rainbows that day. There was some road work along the way and the usual guy that controls the 1 way traffic. But, in 1 particular area, on a blinded down hill, there was noone there stopping us. We noticed that there was some seriously torn up road, but we didn’t have time to stop. So we plowed on, and passed up a steamroller coming the other way (followed by some cars moving very slowly). The driver looked a bit surprised to see us driving on the other side, but we didn’t really have a choice. Paul and Camille were way ahead, but we noticed that they were able to get off the road and into the grass. We finally got through, and hit pavement about 1 km later. Then onto Puerto Natales, first stop the gas station.
That’s where Camille mentioned we had a low tire. WHAT? That’s pretty bad news, as we’d had a blow out last week and we had no spare. We’d had a chance to buy tires back in El Calafate, but since we were with Simon and MC, we weighed the chances of having another. In 2 1/2 years, that was our 1 and only blow out (we had 1 slow leak which we repaired in Peru). The reason we were waiting, was that the next town, Punta Arenas, is a tax-free zone and we could get tires cheaper there. And tires are really expensive here in Chile. Well, that was a bad choice.
The tire was ruined– a hole form a rock and a ruined sidewall, but it would hold air for 5 minutes. We sent Paul and Camille to find us cabanas close by while we filled up the tire.
More bad news. They returned to tell us that Camille had blown her engine. A pack of dogs started chasing her and she revved up, heard a pop and oil was everywhere. Her bike, Shooting Star, was an awesome Kawasaki (250!) that drove from Idaho, to Puerto Natales, Chile….La Ultima Esparanza. Only 382 miles to Ushuaia.
RIP Shooting Star.
Posted on March 27, 2012 by jason
Many thanks to the folks who let us know. Sorry if it caused any problems for anyone. It looks like someone gained access to our admin panel, and made one small change to the index.php script in our theme. Apparently, it generated different types of pop-ups for different people. One of them re-directed people to a Brazilian-based penis enlargement site. Funny, but not exactly what we were going for.
Still not sure how it happened, but I’ve restored the original code, wiped out all the passwords, keys, etc and it should all be back to normal. Now, we can actually work on a new post…
Posted on March 25, 2012 by angela
A great clear day in Torres del Paine is something miraculous. So, our friends headed off for a 7 hour hike. We opted out of this option and stayed around the campsite. Jason was sick so after tackling some car maintenance (brake lights) we confined him to the ‘nest’ for rest. Bode and did a short hike, but the wind and cold kept us inside the bus more than we would have liked.
Our friends returned after we were in bed and were beat. Even this late in the season, they saw over 100 people on the trail. They got some amazing photos which we’ll swipe and put on out site since we were too lazy to go.
Posted on March 24, 2012 by jason
Torres del Paine…. not over-rated.
Posted on March 23, 2012 by angela
We stopped in the tiny border town of Cerro Castillo just inside Chile for a few supplies. We were headed into Torres del Paine, and since we couldn’t cross the border with meat, fruits, vegetables or dairy products we needed to pick up a few things. There wasn’t much.
We’d planned to enter the park, but just outside of the park at Laguna Amarga, we found a sweet place to pop the top. Lots of guanacos. Camille brought out her quality kite, so we took full advantage of that pesky wind.
Two buses are a pretty good wind block for their tent, too. But it was still a pretty cold night.
We woke up the next morning with flamingos!
Posted on March 22, 2012 by angela
And, we were off. It was another windy, really windy, and I mean windy day. We took the short cut that our friend said was the worst road ever. Since it was about 100 km shorter than the paved road, we decided to give it 5 minutes and if it was really bad we’d turn around. Turns out, it was a great road. I can see where it might get bad in the rain, but the road was just perfect for dirt bikes and VW’s.
We stopped for lunch near a river. No fish were caught, but we did meet this guy. He was headed in the same direction in a restored ’68 Ford Falcon. He stopped to talk and take photos.
Another hour later and we hit pavement for a while. Then, a half an hour off a tiny dirt road to the border station near the town of Cerro Castillo in Chile. This was by far one of our quickest border crossings ever. They took our onions, but we again were able to get the honey across. In fact, I have Bode doing the hiding now.
It was so windy that the pop-top was coming loose and lifting, so I spent the rest of the ride in the back holding it down. But, now we’re back in Chile!
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