They say that opposites attract but we would never have expected to find these two contrasting landscapes in one place. It really was an incredible sight to see tall palm trees shooting straight up into the sky, rising like giants above a canopy of cloud forest and we couldn’t take our eyes off it for one minute. The 60 meter Quindio Wax Palm is the tallest in the world and we felt dwarfed as we craned our necks to see the tops. But we weren’t at the beach or even on the hot savanna plains where you may expect to find palm trees. We were surrounded by a mountainous region of cloud forest with eery swirling mist making the Valle de Cocora feel like a very alluring place.
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The first taste of Colombia
19 Feb
For many years Colombia has found itself in the news for all the wrong reasons. It has been defined by civil war, high levels of crime, class ‘A’ drugs, gun-brandishing guerrillas and kidnappings. Governments all over the world advised against any kind of travel to the country and even the most daring of backpackers chose not to risk crossing the border from other South American countries where tourism was booming. During the last 10 years however, changes on a big scale have been sweeping across the country and Colombia has opened its doors to international tourism. Every person we met on our Latin America trip who had spent some time in Colombia raved about it and many described it as their favourite country in the whole Continent. We were very excited to discover Colombia’s riches for ourselves but we couldn’t shake a feeling of trepidation as we crossed into a world which had been hidden from the public view for so long.
Ride ’em cowboy – Tupiza
13 Aug
The president waved and gave us a generous smile – two white faces in the front row, waving madly with excitement in a sea of Bolivians – we certainly stood out from the crowd! It was our fifth day in Bolivia and we’d arrived in a small town called Tupiza to find a beautifully decorated plaza, locals dressed in their Sunday best and an infectious hubbub on every street. It was so nice of them to give us such a warm welcome!
Salar de Uyuni
9 Aug
The ‘Salar de Uyuni’ or ‘Salt Flats’ tour is one of the most fabled and talked about experiences on the Gringo Trail and we’d been looking forward to it for as long as we could remember. Whisperings of the blindingly beautiful landscapes we’d see had stirred our imaginations and tales about the remote and sparsely populated areas we’d need to cross, flared our excitement. We were about to encounter the biggest salt flat in the world which blankets 12,000 square kilometres, in addition to coloured lakes, bubbling geysers, snow-covered volcanos, thermal pools, a host of Altiplano animals and anything else that the trip, undertaken in a four-wheel drive, might throw at us.
The greatest bus ride in the world…probably
22 Jul
The bustling Northern city of Salta was our final stop before leaving Argentina for the last time. In three months we’d travelled up from the very Southern tip of Latin America dipping in and out of Argentina and Chile and we’d clocked up six border crossings and no less than thirteen entry and exit stamps in our passports. Our wheels out of the city would take us 735km in 9 hours across the border to Chile, climbing to a height of 4,400 metres and delivering some of the most breathtaking scenery we’ve ever seen from the window of a humble bus.
Staring into the mouth of the devil – Pucon
15 Jun
If you can hike up it, jump off it, raft on top of it, swing from it, bike down it or climb it, they’ll have it here in Pucon. This small but perfectly formed town has earned itself the title of Chile’s adventure capital and rightly so as the range of adrenaline rushes on offer is endless. The landscape is extremely varied offering lakeside beaches, forests, waterfalls, hot springs and volcanos. The town is admittedly touristy but utterly charming. The town has been constructed on an easy to navigate grid system with Avenue O’Higgins filled with shops, restaurants, cafes and tour operators running through the town centre.
The adventure is the road – Carretera Austral
23 May
The Carretera Austral is a Chilean region of snow bound mountains, creeping glaciers, stunning fjords and emerald cut rivers. The area was only linked by road to the rest of Chile in the 1980’s which has meant old traditions have remained untouched for years and fiercely independent locals continue to rely on farming for self-sufficiency. The pace is unhurried with locals keen to stop and talk and offer their hospitality. The Carretera Austral, which is also known as the ‘Southern Highway’, stretches 1,200km from Villa O’Higgins in the South to Chaiten in the North, and can be completed with a combination of boat and road travel. There are plenty of activities lining the road for the adventurous traveller but many will find as we did that the real adventure actually lies in the road itself and the experiences it offers. Frequently described as one of the most beautiful drives in the world, it wasn’t difficult for us to understand why this route is swiftly becoming the Holy Grail for so many independent travellers
Beagle Channel Cruise
1 May
“At first I was afraid, I was petrified!”
The words uttered by the 70’s icon Gloria Gaynor echoed through our heads when our ‘home’ for the next 26 hours came into view.
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Torres del Paine – the ‘W’ trek
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