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What we discovered

Argentina

But to start with first things first one has to sort out the money issue.

Now you can pay by CC in many cases. In Argentinas current economic situation however, with 140 % inflation, not the best of ideas.

There are THREE different currency exchange systems and the CCs are treated with the official, the lowest rate. (The political change in Argentina as of December 10th is about to change that to a certain degree)

Then there are governmentally tolerated exchange offices (mostly in BsAs however, harder to find in the provinces) which offer nearly the triple amount of pesos for cash US $ !!!

And then there are the ever present private street vendors singing out their “cambio, cambio, cambio” which seems to dominate the street noise in some places.

With four 100 US$ bills you end up with a big fist full of 1000 AR$ ones.

One the other hand you can get easily be mislead about the money still in your pocket by the thickness of the wad. This one is worth less than 4 US $

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In the city center, BsAs is not so different from European Metropolitan agglomerations. Some corners have even Parisian flair. And there are bohemian corners as well. And small community cultural festivals. And street markets like the famous San Telmo Sunday Festival (going on till past midnight). But not only there. Between the Bank- and Government-Towers as well as more to the South towards LaBoca and of course in La Boca itself.

But before I ventured out to have a look at BsAs , I took the bus through town to go straight to the most intriguing bookshop I know of, El Ateneo.

Here are same impressions from San Telmo Sunday Market

Of course BsAs's must see is La Boca
that very famous little street el Caminito with its multicoloured houses on one side of the spectrum only a few hundred meters away from the stadium and Messi and Maradona veneration paraphernalia everywhere.

But around the corner there is a different and sometimes more angry LaBoca.

Days start late  in BsAs.
But last long into the night

And the same evening still

MONTEVIDEO

To finally pick up Ruru from his 'cruise'  I went to Montevideo in Uruguay on the other side of the Rio de la Plata

The boat was two days late which left me with some time for sightseeing.  After BsAs a bit of a letdown. Uruguay is one of the most expensive countries in the world. So everything is very business-like and McDo closes at 10pm.

At long last I got Ruru back

The customs agent (to get the paperwork sorted out), Eduardo Kessler, was extremely helpful and efficient, as far as he could influence the bureaucracy

Hi guys it’s me again, Ruru, who will try to keep you to keep you up to date with T‘s and my ad-Van-ture.

The first thing we did concerning house keeping and important for all those who also come to South America via Montevideo is getting our gas supply sorted out. We had a great experience with this address which is reasonable close to the port and not to  difficult to access:
Biogas in Andresito Guacurarí 1839bis telefone see gasbottle picture

But still some corners are breathing the olden times and onthe official signpost at the entrance of the city they claim to be the capital of tradition.

From there on it was straight roads and Pampa, Pampa, Pampa.

When I say straight roads, I mean straight with a bend just every 30 km!

And absolutely nothing to capture your view let alone interest.

The only points of interest in between where the Peninsila de Valdés (all dry Pampa) and Gaiman.

Valdés has some sanctuaries for sea lions, penguins, seals and is a breading ground for whales. And the seals on the beach are a feeding ground for orcas. Helas T „just“ saw Magellanic penguins and the sea lions spread on the beach like having been slaughtered.
Whale watching from boats was cancelled because of 8 Beaufort winds and for the same reason the orcas preferred to observe a day weight watching diet.

The next little oasis was Gaiman. Oasis in the literary sense because from the surrounding Pampa it was invisible until the moment we turned off from the main road. Gaiman is nested along a little carved-in river with lush green gadens, even rose gardens, and high trees. It’s originally a settlement of farmers from Wales and it is keeping up its old traditions like tea houses with scons and all the trimmings. One of those exploited that business in a more Disney like manner with four tour-buses in front and customers waiting in long lines to get a seat. The other main competitor stayed the oasis of calm and welsh decorum, rose-garden and all, it was since 1880.

Of course T had to sample the absolutely delicious scons, fully aware of the digestive problems he would have to face later; as he sure did.

On the way we chose for our night quarters an abandoned stretch of the famous Ruta 3 near Caleta Olivia. Abandoned because of washed away parts. A beautiful spot all for ourselves. In the morning, literally around the corner, we stumbled upon a huge group of sea lions beached there and making a lot of brouhaha. T could approach them to about 30m before they became restless with a tendency to interrupt their beachcombing and flee into the water. T respected their rest and left them alone.

Finally we arrived at the real starting point of our ad-Van-ture, Ushuaia. Up to now it was just getting there as quickly as possible. Maps, we learned, are deceiving: they don’t give a feeling of how far those distances really are, especially if the terrain is flat with nothing to catch your eye. It was more than 4000 km just to get there.

In fact a bit more to the south, on the other side, the chilean one of the Beagle Canal there is Puerto Williams. But that is diligently overlooked.

Now we are at the real starting point of our ad-Van-ture. The 4000 km up to here were just sort of a prelude. We are again heading north with a short 85 km gravel road detour for lunch to puerto Almanza. T read back in France about a restaurant at the very end of the world in sort of a shag only to be reserved via the tourism office. That diligently done, it turned out not to be the one T had read about, but it was still worth the detour. Delicious food with a distinct French touch with products freshly caught in the surrounding waters. Again vegetables are not common here. But on T’s demands the chef produced vegetables he had conserved in vinegar, but everything was in perfect harmony, and T was just raving.

By the way, T got complaints that I am not publishing quickly enough, but to do so it needs a stable and rather quick internet, which certainly is not given on our rough campsites in the middle of nowhere.

Apart from that, usually after a long day’s drive we are exhausted and T has to force himself to even take care of his evening meal, and no way to prepare any photos I need for the blog.

T discovered that somehow, there’s no time left for proper reading the books he brought with him, or bought at El Ateneo in Buenos Aires. When not driving, there’s food to prepare, washing up, at least roughly cleaning the van, just doing little repairs or giving me a hand with this blog on our spare days.

And on we went with new energy towards El Calafate and the Perito Moreno Glacier.

We got at the Glacier shortly before the closing of the National park and were gratified with the best light for it possible. The glacier is said to be stable and is close to touchingthe vista platforms. T is glad that we were nearly alone, tourist season will start only next week.

The calving was impressive but always happened so quickly that T couldn’t catch one photo of it.

Perito Moreno ticked off the list ;-) we headed for the next ‘must see’ in that corner, the FitzRoy Mountains. Together with the Torres del Paine they are hikers paradise. But even the mere sight of them is just amazing. In both cases a towering, strange mountain formation not repeated around them. And glaciers on their shoulders.

Just to get the taste for the latter, the ruta 40 ispartially unpaved and on the paved parts you get all of a sudden series of deep potholes really to be avoided. Funny to see the tire traces doing an olympic slalom around them. And you’re best advised to follow their ideal line. With those flat stretches of the roads, you can see from afar, when an approaching car gives you the impression that the driver must be stark drunk swerving abruptly from one side of the road to the other. (No photos, we had all hands full to concentrate on our own slalom)

Speaking of unpaved roads, on short notice, we made the decision to visit the Cuevas de los Manos , caves with prehistoric hand impressions. It is an UNESCO world heritage site hidden away behind 50 km of really rough roads. We were the only non four-wheel-drive being there.
Those are negative prints where the color was either spit or later blown through hollow bones. They are between 9000 years old, like the dark ones, to about 2500 years , as the red ones.

The next day again, a long drive on the famous ruta 40 towards the north, direction Chile and the infamous Carretera Austral.

On the way to the Carretera Austral we passed adventurous roads again and beautiful spots

And that is now the real one

Alexandro, the grandson of T's landlady at the Katita hostel, did a great job and of course 'T's' horse Cairón was a sweetheart.

Speaking of: Alexandro is breeding horses, isn't his newest addition just gorgeous ?

With those temperatures it wasn't easy to get into the right Christmas spirit

And here some more of our impressions from the Carretera Austral

The next station was Puyuhuapi, founded 1934 in the middle of nowhere by four nature enthusiasts from Sudeten Germany. Their tradition still is sort of kept alive and you find German street names, house names and even a micro brewery with German labeld bottles.

A bit further to the north  and nearing  the end of the Carretera Austral we stayed close to Chaitén a small town destroyed by its namesake volcano and soullessly partially rebuilt. 

T got requests to show some animals we encountered. Not easy, to be honest, to make them hold still for a nice shot.
Below is the Traro, mostly a carrion eater if he is not pilfering some negligent traveller's food, and next to the Traro is the Cortacorriente duck. Both species are extremely self confident and don't budge when approached within a reasonable distance of let's say 2m!

Rather common are the Nandú (left) and the Guanaco (middle)  -delicious with pumpkin- , a llama family member. A bit  harder to spot and stop for a portrait is the armadillo and the long-spouted Bandurria austral (below left), a distant relative of the pelican. Flamingos can be seen rather often. 

A lot of Southern Patagonia's beauty today is fortunately protected as National Parks.
That is basically the initiative of one man, one couple Doug Thompson and his wife Kris.
Doug was one of the founders of the fashion label ESPRIT and later of NORTH FACE. 
Later he made his dream come true and he bought up huge areas of overexploited farmland and let it rewilder. With constant political efforts he achieved that today his "property" has become State guaranteed and protected National Parks and he attracted more wealthy people to join his efforts.

And on we went further North

Road conditions still were fair to rough so I asked T for a new decoration

We took the Hornopiren ferry  passing dozens of fish farms for salmon  (heavily drugged with sedatives, antibiotics and growth hormones) for export, 

found more amazing places to stay overnight with quickly attracted new friends

And with the estimated 3000 year old Alerce Andino and the fish market of Puerto Montt we left the Carretera Austral and continued on the more civilised PanAmericana

Puerto Varas is more than civilized it is absolutely hip and again has a very strong German influence. Close to it are several volcanoes

The loose black lava sand on the trail was really  reason for desolacion  to despair about waking there uphill

The days around New Years Eve and the beginning of 2024 saw us passing the chilean Switzerland, mainly dairy country with those walking Holstein milk factories (you know those black and white cows) and some minor nature preserves, passing Valdivia, and Curicó, the beginning of the wine region.

Chilian Switzerland

Fishmarket in Valdivia with the usual patient visitors

Following more or less the Panamericana, we were slowly approaching Santiago de Chile. 

And the closer we got the hotter it became. In the end we had hit the 36°C.  And with the heat a dense smog  stretching as far as over 100 km from Santiago managed to spoil our view on the very close mountains apparently still beautifully covered with snow.

Hi folks this is T again life from Santiago. First impression : very lively. Due to the vastness of the city I limit my attention to the centre and the close-by city-quarters. 

But outside business hours the pedestrian zones are dead, all shops hermetically locked up with heavy aluminum blinds. Restaurants, if you are lucky to find one, close at 21:00h.  Many streets are still organised around similar business types, e.g. one street with seemingly hundreds of tiny, I mean really tiny like 10 to 15 sq m 'large' opticians, or the shoe shops concentrated in another street. And so on. Very few department stores but many small sort of Malls leading to courtyards.

And very close to the city centre Huge food market halls.

Here some impressions 

All three within a km of the central place la Plaza de las Armas  (the central place in all the villages towns and cities I have seen so far)

On the same charming London street I stumbled however over name plates on the pavement. As it turned out the house next to it on Calle London 38 was the torture centre under Pinochet's rule. 

Impressions from the more or less chaotic food markets

That's also less than 2 km from the Plaza de las Armas and very busy as you can see. 

However while taking photos with my iPhone and waiting for other opportunities one of the stall holding ladies  jumped up in a mixture of anger and worry, slapped me on my fingers and told me to immediately put my phone away and hide it inside my trousers if I don't want to get robbed!  
She even put a hand to it in order to make sure I understood her correctly.

YESS!! I fulfilled another of my old dreams and made a "little" detour to the Easter Island, or Rapa Nut in local lingo.
Ever since I read Thor Heyerdahl as an adolescent, as many in my age bracket did, I wanted to see the gigantic and enigmatic statues life. And here I am!!

The fact that Rapa Nui politically belongs to Chile made the 3700 km voyage from Santiago a rather easy task.

Except that I had again problems getting the stupid printout of my travel permit in time before boarding. With a lot of confusion of lesser airport employees at first and a lot of help from the competent ones I made it just in time into the plane.

And here they are the Moais of Rapa Nui

                  These are my personal favorites 
What are they? Ancestors, Gods, God-like ancestors? There are legends galore, all retold or reinvented after their big wars they fought at some point against each other and the subsequent loss of continued oral transmission of the old tales. 

Fact is that Rapa Nui was first visited by Polynesians (possibly from the Marquesas) around 800 AD and the Moai statues were built between roughly 1200 and 1700.

During their wars they toppled each others Moais and only in modern times they have been re-erected, not always completely. It seems that they all had those hats and all had white eyes with black or red irises. Those were made of stone too; interestingly enough, except one single eye, none other were found. 

They all came from one quarry in the east of the island and had to be transported for some up to 18 km. The rough lying form was carved out of the rock of a volcano then erected and finished standing up. For the transport, at least for the larger ones, their are many conflicting theories.
With those still in the quarry there have been counted more than 800. the red markings on the photo show the faces of some of the unfinished ones.

But Rapa Nui is also Polynesia and Polynesian life with incredibly friendly people. This lady for example was insisting to just give me the last baby pineapple from the lot she had been selling. Or the giant sea-turtles you can swim with. 

They certainly are no strangers to superstitions. Left on the stone you see a representation of the Rapa Nui god Birdman and in the hollow a St. Mary statue. 
Of course they also play with the South Seas image.

Some more impressions

And, helas, this excursion has to end  and another Boing 787 with a different duct-tape pattern on the wings brought me back to Santiago to find Ruru safe and unmolested.

And I couldn't help it after all that delicious fresh seafood and knowing of its existence, I had to go to Tante Marlene's restaurant (run by a German descendant) and get myself a real Bavarian treat , Leberkäse with sauerkraut and a genuine Bavarian beer (which I know I shouldn't and consequently regretted it; but still, it was worth the pain) 

And with a last impression from Santiago, including a slight earthquake we are driving North to Guarnaquero with the first proper camping place on our trip

With a little lunch break in La Serena with its charming Neo-Colonial buildings
we were heading towards the las Chorros islands penguin sanctuary. Them mounting T just saw a couple hiding in the rocks but plenty of sea lions lazying around.

Below one Humboldt penguin is above the seagull and on the same ridge hidden on the very one is hiding behind the rocks just his head and enormous beak visible

Los Chorros is also the base for mussel divers harvesting an endemic species for medicinal use. Under the protection of the St. Peter statue they made it back home safely.

Finally leaving the coast we were amazed how dry and bare the landscape turned out to be just a bit inside. 
For hundreds of km we didn't see one single plant. 
The dry air is of course ideal for star gazing and one of the largest EUROPEAN observatories, el Cerro Paranal with no less than 4 huge telescopes, is situated  just there.
We stayed below it on 2600 m overnight. But for a proper star view we had to wait until the moon had disappeared at 4 am. 
And were amazed that this barren desert was living nevertheless : a desert fox curiously took a closer look at the intruders.

Next highlight: San Pedro de Atacama and the El Tatio geysers

El Tatio, 2 hours from San Pedro, is situated at 4500m above sea level and gets sub-zero temperatures at night.
The geyser activity is best observed at sunrise and shortly afterwards.
We arrived there in the evening but tour operators leave San Pedro at 4am to be there in time. Around 9 o'clock nearly all tourists retreated and so did nearly all the geysers. A strange phenomenon.

And on we went to:

As we had experienced on our way up to here, it continued being bone-dry. And the roads didn't improve either. 

We were now driving at around 3800 m altitude  and most of the mountains around us were volcanoes between 5500 m and 6000 m.
And some, like this one, are barely holding their breath. ;-)     (see its upper right flank)

The must-see in Bolivia is of course the Salar de Uyuni , a gigantic salt lake.

At times it is completely inundated like in winter, at other times utterly dry. T was lucky to experience both states at the same time.
On a phantastic guided tour, he was just blown away.

Of course T's group took some fun pictures

Over 12,000 sq km of blinding, unforgiving, lifeless salt and scorching sun

And there is also the oldest Salt hotel of Uyuni and the world, its walls and furniture entirely built from salt blocks.

And finally the sunset and the rise at the full moon at the same time at the salt-sculpture park added to the splendour.

There was also the Train Cemetery in Uyuni

Trains are only transporting goods, like minerals from the mines, these days and this kind of climate is not very healthy for for them.

Traffic  in Bolivia is chaotic and utterly anarchistic.

Public transport is manly provided by minibuses not much larger than me -we are regularly flagged down-, stopping wherever the passengers demand no matter the traffic behind. But they are cheap. Within the city limits of La Paz e.g. any route costs you 25ct. The difficulty is to find the right one. And with the constant traffic jams you need incredible patience.
But La Paz has also a system of interconnected cablecars. They are the transport of choice if one wants to go to El Alto, the sister city above the rim of the  La Paz cauldron.   

Some more  La Paz impressions

A big impression left the restaurant GUSTU far south of the city center with its 10 course menu

This illuminates a bit the situation of La Paz (3600m - 4150m altitude).
Any street goes either up or down and many of them rather steeply so, even adventurously sometimes .
That's also the reason why cablecars make sense

But as the saying goes each mishap has it upside too. 

Had we been able to leave La Paz as planned we would have missed the beginning of the carnival 

Rather similar masks from those carnival ones can be found in the Museo Nacional de Ethnografie y Folklore.

The entire festivity was rather shamanistic, with burning food offerings and dances around a little fire to pacify PachaMama, Mother Earth.

T also visited, of course, the National Art Museum which showed an exhibition of Bolivian female artists. An astonishing politically choice and presentation with some strong positions among them.

T's favorite past time: watching people

Me, Ruru, finally working properly again we went to Tiahuanaco, the major sacred place of that pre-Inca people. From about 400BC to 1200 AD they were masters of a vast region from lake Titicaca to far down on the Altiplano. 
They could dominate the rest of their world because they had the technical advantage of mastering bronze tools and weapons.

Their archaic art and overboarding figurative and geometical decoration was fascinating. 
As well as the similarity of the excavated Monoliths with the statues of Rapa Nui.

Puerta del Sol

And the contemporary art, though influenced by the old motives had something too.

Unfortunately my clutch broke down once again in Tiahuanaco but fortunately the mechanic Julio with his magic hands drove out those 2 hours to have another go at it. The problem was solved rather quickly (we thought) because he found another leak in the  hydraulic system. Having repaired that we took off to the next destination Sorata Bolivias most beautifully situated village it seems. Julio out of caution followed us the next 50 or so kilometers. Luckily so because he had to intervene three times on the curb of the rather busy highway.
In the end , because it was getting too late for Sorata, and we had some trust issues about the finality of Julio's  efforts we went with him back to La Paz.
However El Alto's traffic chaos and the constant speed breakers forcing me down to first gear shows the viability of Julio's last effort curbside. 
The next day we dared to continue further North and  out of the range of Julio's help.
Sorata (2400m) turned out to be senseless to go down to because the village as well as the surrounding 6400m mountains just wouldn't  get out of their dense cloud cover. 

So on we went to lake Titicaca
 At Tiquina we had to cross the strait connecting the little lake Titicaca with its great brother.
We had to use a rather adventurous wooden ferry which reminded me of the partially adventurous water crossings we had to master on the last 14000km.

Ferries had a wide range too from top notch crossing the Maghellan strait to just the one crossing the Tiquina strait from San Paolo de T. to San Pedro d.T.
In the end we did trust it having observed the they even transport a big bus AND a big lorry on one raft at the same time.
Passing more than 500 years old terraces, at 4000m altitude, still partially used we went straight to Copacabana.

Somehow the particle filter  didn't like Bolivia's high sulfur diesel and we limped into Peru on half power. So the first thing we had to do in Peru was to find another "garaje" to get the engine problem fixed. We spent five freezing hours in one T got recommended by an Audi owner he had asked on the road.
However all their effort had no effect. At least they  were very friendly and provided T with a blanket later in the evening  and just asked for 13 € for trying.

Frozen as T were he needed a proper heated hotel and with internet access even discovered a real Volkswagen dealer only 40 km from Puno. What a rare thing here in the altiplano. There we spent another 7 hours again in really cold circumstances but at least they got the particle filter fixed. But we had to return because the clutch isn't really stable.

View from the hotel lawn over lake Titicaca towards Puno with scenically arranged alpaca and sheep

But again my two garage visits had an upside too.

The entire day, sometimes really huge, groups of performers, musical and artistic, showed their art and enormously elaborate costumes in the city stadium in the framework of a contest.
Tradition however gives not very large variation inspirations, especially for the uninitiated western ear.
After their seven minute only show however they continued on the streets of Puno , which T Personal found even more interesting.

And people enjoyed themselves  under the watchful eye of all sorts of  security forces
(which honestly weren't superfluous: directly behind T they had to calm down some altercation about unduly long reserved seats. And T thought only the Germans put down their towels long in advance)

Continuing on our way to Cusco by chance we stumbled in this tiny village over a carnival just as lively as  the famous event and the people enjoyed it even more.

Now closer to the Inka capital Cusco really serious sightseeing starts.

Pre-Inka  Pikillaqta (no way to remember the Quechua names) is a settlement from the late Tiahuanaco period. (you remember the one where the mechanic still came out to repair my clutch). And the square exposition is supposed to demonstrate their rigid and oppressive administration.

Or the Inca fortifications - or more likely ceremonial place - of Sacsaywaman above Cusco with its huge blocks of solid stone (some weighing around 300 tons) joined together apparently seamlessly. How they did it with the means they had at that time is an absolute miracle and a source of all sorts of extraterrestrial phantasies. Their special kind of overlapping edges is probably the reason why they resisted all the earthquakes this part of the world is known for. They simply have no choice but to fall back in their correct position.

And then there is Cusco (or Cuzco to Quosq'o) itself with its historical center of colonial buildings. 
Some of them partially used the Inca structures the Spanish conquistadores hadn't destroyed.

Not so surprisingly T stumbled over another carnival festivity which this time was more of a dancing presentation of the city's associations and professional federations in costumes.  

Cusco city itself stretches endlessly along the valley and its slopes

Concerning the previous commentary about the Cusco carnival I humbly have to admit a grave error. 
Instead of being orderly T discovered, at his own expense, the completely unchained version at the carnival's last day.
Foam spray and water bombs everywhere

Since my clutch  is still acting up in inopportune situations, and several congruent opinions, among others from our trusted garagiste Eric Rouquette back home in Sigoulès, strongly advise to change the clutch master cylinder, we are now taking a longer break in Cusco. 

Ulla, as home base, is organising the delivery of that spare part, seemingly unobtainable in Peru even through the general VW agency.  Delivery to Sigoulès 3 days (including a Sunday), express to Cusco 9 days. 
T will leisurely visit the city and then take a guided tour to the Sacred Valley and at long last MACHU PICCHU

Machu Pucchu is but one of the many Inka places around Cusco but probably one of the  best preserved, because obviously the Spaniards didn't know about it.
Between Cusco and Machu Picchu is the Vale Sagrada (sacred valley) with among others Moray and Ollantaytambo

Ollantaytmbo and its Sun temple is another of those Inka miracles.
Keep in mind they did only have bronze tools but yet they were able to cut huge blocks of Andesite rock (same resistance as granite) into perfect square shapes or even more complicated forms with Lego like fittings. Let alone the transport question when you don't have the space to employ the necessary number of people due to the restricted space like on the top of the hill of the sun temple. 

And at last T got to Agua Calientes the "base camp" to Machu Picchu 

And early the next morning to 
MACHU PICCHU
itself

What  Machu Picchu really represented remains hidden behind the mist of history
Religious center, or summer palace of their leader?
No way to know since there were no written or otherwise lasting documentation of their life.
And archeological findings still leave room for many different interpretations biased through our way of seeing things.

The temple with three windows symbolising the three elements of Inka mythology, the Snake, the Puma and the Condor.
(By the way : the outline of the village surface including the terraces looks like a gliding condor)
These three elements in turn stand for the three basic elements of Pacha Mama, Mother Earth, in Inka philosophy the inner world, the earthly world and the spiritual world.
it also is thought to represent the trilogies of Andean philosophy: veracity, honesty, labour/efficiency, or on a different scale: knowledge, love and work in order to reach Hanaq Pacha the Eternal Life

Two examples how to frustrate a photographer:
no matter how T tried there was no way to show the mind blowing scenery in its real dimension. The mountains, over 6000m (Machu Picchu at 2400m), feel much closer and appear immensely higher than they seem here, accentuated by the deep cut river bed ;
and that Llama wouldn't  want to pose for the perfect tourist photo when T was up there, just now showing him the symbolic finger of honour.

Finally with some delay at Peru's customs the clutch cylinder arrived and got mounted the next possible workday. 
And off we went the same afternoon general direction Nasca. We found a beautiful camping place high above the valley  which is part of a great project "oje Lena" to help handicapped children.

The next day the real try-out of the repair began. 
Due to really bad weather conditions (snow, rain, temperatures between 4 degrees C and 25)  T decided to push on to go straight to Nasca, a 500km mountain run with 4 passes over 4300 m (up  to 4600m) and more than half a dozen smaller ones. It was a nine hour constant up and down with thousands of turnings , wide , narrow or hairpin. And I really enjoyed having my problems solved. In the end there was no other car which would keep up my speed; several tried, beeng annoyed to have been overtaken but after an hour or so gave up. Great to be back in form again.

Even the alpacas cheered me on, the vicuñas weren't that sure.

Then T took off to visit the  Nasca lines.
Due to the absolute arid surroundings  these huge configurations on the desert ground survived the last 1500 years or so. 

What the Nasca people intended with them - they are only visible from the air- again is a complete mystery and again source for all kinds of conspiration theories.
The early XXth century scientist Maria Reiche from Dresden spent 50 years cartographing them, establishing the geometrical interconnections and showed an immense patience to convince the Government of Peru to protect them by law. (The area is still freely accessible if one wants to)
The area is now,  of course, a UNESCO world heritage site.

The only way to get a faint impression of those figurative and geometrical forms is by air. So T squeezed himself into a 6 seater Cessna with two pilots and three other passengers and did speed past the most known  ones.

Those configurations are between 50m and 200m large, the  comparison with the car at the upper border of the picture with the street gives a better size experience than sheer numbers.

With Nasca ticked off our list, due to the unrest in Ecuador, the ensuing travel restrictions and in view of four weeks idling due to the clutch problem and spare part delivery delay we have to turn around and are now heading south again. 

The next stop was Puerto Inka - nothing ancient to see there anymore but a pleasant spot to rest after the last two days.

And with some interesting other guests too

The coast is now again bone dry desert.

The main highway  of Peru going south from Lima

Next stop: Arequipa, Peru's second largest city with a beautiful colonial style city centre

Saturday night performance of a traditional student association

The next 1700 km are nothing but desert , dry and very dusty. Nearly unpopulated and gas stations very very far apart.
Interrupted by the Chilean border with the usual phytosanitary controls (now our fifth crossing) - this time executed by my new friend Kiwi who was very content when he finally found a forgotten garlic bulb.

A rare piece of art on the way and hot sun near San Pedro de Atacama

With the return to San Pedro de Atacama, the oasis in the Atacama desert we closed one circle of our initially unintended big 8 around the south of South America

And on we went to cross the Andean mountain range, this time from west to east, mounting the highest pass of our voyage, higher than the Mont Blanc summit, with 4820m

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