The beginning of the end

Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, Catamarca, La Rioja and San Juan provinces, Argentina

Angastaco

It’s not a “farewell” but a “see you soon” that I say to Chile while entering Argentina. I’m thinking of crossing the border going along the top of the Andes almost ten times. However, the next Chile I’ll see will probably be as dry and solitary as the one I just lived.

The first days in Argentina looked like the last ones in Chile : frisky morning, alone in the silence of the sunrise; a different song in my head from the one that haunted me the day before; the wind waking up at midday slamming in my ears and the search of a place to camp where my tent won’t fly away to Brasil.

But those days are counted. Continue reading

The Ruta Andina

Arica y Parinacota, Tarapacá and Antofagasta regions, Chile

Ruta Andina

Thermal sources where nobody’s there. Salt basins with dazzling spectrum. Pure and revealing starry sky. Sometimes fuming volcanoes. Llamas, vicugnas, alpacas, viscachas, flamingos, rhea birds. Abandoned or little populated ghost towns. Scattered mountains limiting the infinite view of treeless Altiplano. Sandy roads, other perfectly paved, and everything in between. Generosity from the few people met.

Ruta Andina IIIt’s the Ruta Andina, a Chilean road following the Bolivian border, which was my welcoming challenge in the fourteenth country of this route. Ten days of relative solitude, where it’s needed to bring enough food and make enough water reserves when it’s possible. There were only in Colchane and Ollagüe (see the map at the end of the blogpost) where you can find basic food products, considering that the shop is open. In Colchane, I had to go to the hotel with a restaurant to negotiate bread and tuna cans. Continue reading