Chile/Argentina, Nov.-Dec. 2007

At the end of the year 2007 I traveled to South America together with my colleague Beat who I know from my old student times. First, we hopped over the Atlantic Ocean with Swiss Airlines, stopped over in São Paulo, Brazil and continued to Santiago de Chile. From there we continued right away to Calama in northern Chile, incl. another stop-over in Antofagasta. We thus ended up sitting 26 hours in an aircraft. In Calama we rented a 4x4 pick-up truck and drove to San Pedro de Atacama. For over one week we took this car far into the Atacama Desert and up to the high Andes. On our return from the desert we flew from Arica back to Santiago. After some sight seeing we journeyed further south to Patagonia. Using LAN, we flew down via Puerto Montt to Puntas Areans at the end of the continent. Here, we got another off-road pick-up truck for more than one week to explore the southern wilderness. From El Calafate out in the Argentinean Pampa we then moved on to Buenos Aires flying Aerolineas Argentinas. After some sightseeing we finally returned to São Paulo flying TAM and from there back to Switzerland using Swiss. A map with all major destinations of this trip is attached below. The relating images can be accessed via the menu bar on the left.