Our next destination was Petrohue on Lake Todos Los Santos. The whole of the area was colonized by Germans starting in 1845 when the Chilean government gave each male an area of land, a milking cow, 500 planks of wood, nails, a yoke of oxen and a years free medical assistance and if they wanted it Chilean citizenship. I would have needed the added incentive of a Sainsbury or Waitrose. As we drove towards Petrohue we were amazed at the piles of grey sand like m...

The journey across Argentina took 2 days. The scenery was quite spectacular with red, green and cream coloured giant flat topped cliffs and weird shaped rock formations. For half the distance (around 300kms) the road followed the Rio Chubut so there was some greenery including trees but the remaining area was covered with yet more scrubland (they call it Pampas). The first night we wild camped by the river. The road passes through about 4 small villages and we sp...

Yes this is the last blog entry from Chile. The final leg of our journey through Chile involved a great deal of sand, high altitudes and good roads for a change. Before leaving Arica we collected the new window winder from the UK and Peter had no trouble fitting it so we are back in one piece again. I even managed to convince the carrier TNT that they were trying to charge us twice for carriage from Santiago to Arica and saved us £50. Peter was well pleased...

Finally after many weeks we have reached the coast again. What a lovely sight the sea is after sand and dust and mud. We drove up the coast road all the way to Iquique. On the way we camped one night on a beach (shame about the litter) and slept to the sound of waves crashing on the rocks and Pelicans squawking- or whatever noise they make. Some areas of the beach were so white I thought it was the rock itself but it was Pelican pooh! We had a bad introduction t...