Verenas + Jans Weltreise

Santiago – where is Verena? – click here for english

Verena in Santiago! Das neue Album “Santiago – wo ist Verena?” ist nun zu sehen unter “See Us!” Dort gibt es 16 Bilder, die verschiedene Plätze in Santiago de Chile zeigen. Auf wie vielen Bildern ist Verena zu sehen? Sende die richtige Antwort per Email an schreib@einmal-um-die-welt.de oder hinterlasse sie als Kommentar unter dem Artikel und gewinne u.a. einen dieser unglaublichen Hauptpreise:
1. Preis: Eine nagelneue Mercedes-Benz E-Klasse (W212) in Weiß, mit Autogrammen berühmter BDC-Projektmitarbeiter
2. Preis: ein siebenstündiger Diavortrag von Verena und Jan mit 6.735 Bildern der Weltreise

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In vino veritas – ”in wine [there is the] truth” …

The province around Mendoza is the most important wine region in Argentina. More than 50% of the 1.500 wine producers are located here. Mendoza is not far away from the Andes and the highest mountain: Mt. Acongaua, with 6.962m the highest in America and outside Asia.
Jan wanted to climb up but after Verena heard that it takes between 13 to 15 days, you really need good weather conditions, a lot of people get anoxia [altitude sickness] and about 100 people died during their hike since the last 50 years … well, Jan had to stay in Mendoza .
So we took the bus to the wineries and on the sunniest day since we left Patagonia we had some guided tours incl. tasting through all the vineyards located adjacent to Maipu, a little wine-village. In the famous vineyard of Trapiche, one of the oldest – existing since 125 years, we were told that they produce 25.000.000 liters of wine each year. 45% is drunken by the Argentineans, the rest goes to foreign countries, for example Germany. These south american alcoholics used to drink 92 liters wine each year pP! Now the average consume of wine is about 32 liters (and eat 75kg of meat) – well we got already that the Argentineans are a little bit crazy, but also they are really friendly. After the tasting in the 2nd winery we felt a little bit shaky but kept drinking. We met some guys from Australia/England/USA and stopped at a nice beer garden. We remembered the german saying: “beer after wine – that isn’t fine!” – but who cares?

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Together with Janet & Michael we drove the National Route 40, normally called Ruta 40, which is a route in western Argentina, stretching from the south in Santa Cruz Province to Jujuy Province in the north, running parallel to the Andes and shows breathtaking views along the high mountains and lakes in the valleys. Long parts of the route, are unsealed and lead through sparcely populated territory, but in fact the long tour has become a well-known adventure tourism journey.
There is no longer road than Route 40 in Argentina and it is one of the largest in the world (along with the U.S. Route 66 and the Stuart Highway in Australia). The Panamericana is longer but officially not counting because of its break in Dariém Gap between Panama and Columbia. However, it was another 24 hours in a bus and slowly bus riding  r e a l l y  sucks!

The program in Bariloche, the Argentinean Switzerland, was “bike’n hike”. Verena was tough and struggled all the way up only sometimes pushed by Jans new invention – a bike-puller After a long day on the mountain bikes we didn’t feel like hiking on the 2^nd day. So we rented a car and drove from S.C. de Bariloche to San Martin de los Andes, a beautiful village in front of a cute lake and the beginning of huge mountain ranges. We invested 40 [damned] €uro to exchange our tickets to stay one more day in a wonderful appartment with a fire place and lake view.

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Er ist groß, er schwebt majestätisch über allem anderen, er ist elegant und er fliegt unerreichbar hoch.
Der Andenkondor gilt als einer der größten Flugvögel der Welt und kann ein Gewicht von 12 Kilogramm erreichen. Seine Flügel können eine Spannweite von bis zu 3,20m betragen. Damit besitzt er eine der größten Spannweiten im Reich der Vögel, mit der er eine Flughöhe von bis zu 7000 Metern erreicht, und er könnte somit auch die höchsten Erhebungen der Anden überqueren. Nicht grundlos ist er Teil des Wappens von Kolumbien, Ecuador, Bolivien und Chile.
Wir machten uns erneut auf die Suche, nachdem wir ihn in Torres del Paine in Chile nur sehr weit weg haben davongleiten sehen.
Die Tour kann man von El Chalten aus starten. Von dort aus geht der anspruchsvollste Track zum Fitzroy Gletscher. Eine 12.5km lange Strecke (die man abends natürlich auch wieder zurück muss) mit knapp 1.000m Höhenunterschied. In der Hoffnung, einen Kondor dort zu erwischen machten wir uns auf die Socken. Es wurde ein voller Erfolg, obwohl Jan gerade ganz woanders rumwanderte während Verena die schönsten Vogelbilder ihres Lebens machte und – by the way – war es ein wunderschöner, wenn auch anstrengender 25km Marsch.

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5 days of trekking. 35kg backpacks, 4 nights in a tent, 65km walking trails and 31 amazing pictures.
Pictures are online already –> “See Us!”

After a big day in El Calafate we drove to Puerto Natales in Chile. This little town is the entrance to the spectacular national park “Torres del Paine” (=“Blue Towers”). A very famous hiking track in the park is called the “W” and means a 5-day walk through different valleys with amazing landscapes and breathtaking views. The whole park covers 180.000 hectares and the variety of different vegetations leads to a large presence of mammals like pumas, condors, guanacos, flamingos and an enormous bird fauna.
Click here to go to Torres del Paine Nationalpark
After a long bus ride, we arrived the town at 10 p.m. Our hostel was overbooked so we had to find a new one. We ended up at another hostel with a weird owner called Omar. He looked like a child-eating ex-prisoner, but close to midnight we had no other chance. The next morning, surprising Omar baked fresh eggs for breakfast, helped us to plan the trip and was really friendly.
The first day started at 6:00 a.m. We drove to the park and caught the catamaran to cross the lake that we could start from the beginning of the “W”-circuit. This way takes 5 to 6 days, covers 80kms and is about 35 hours of walking.  Verena carried 13 kilos (8 kilos more than in NZ) and Jan had 23 kilos. The backpacks were full of food, a tent, sleeping bags, mattresses, clothes, cooking facilities and lot more stuff. After the first day we realized that the information signs for time & distances were not really realistic. We always took more time with taking pictures and enjoying the beautiful scenery. We finally came across windy lakes and a mirador (lookout) of the Glacier Grey after we stopped for lunch. It was a stunning sight to see the Glacier in the sun. The 1^st day stayed sunny all day with only a few high clouds and strong wind much better than we could have expected in Patagonia. The night in the tent was uncomfortable and full of noisy wind around us. The 2^nd day we walked the long distance of 18km – too long for not well experienced hikers. Marco got pain in his knee and Verena had aching muscles. Therefore we decided to make a shorter walk on the 3^rd day. We arrived at the camp after a 5 hour hike at 3:30 in the afternoon and had enough time to relax.
The 4^th day Marco stayed at the camp to recover his knee so Verena and Jan walked alone the next long way. A light drizzle started to fall as we trekked along the mountains followed by sun, followed by rain, by sun, by rain … Verena nearly got a nervous breakdown while changing clothes all the time. We were done when we arrived the last campground before the three high towers of Torres del Paine. The next morning we were too lazy to start at 4 a.m. to see the sunrise so we went up 5 hours later but the view was still amazing. Finally we were happy to make the long track and met Marco at the bus station. Furthermore we enjoyed the shower and fresh clothes and a big “bife de chorizo” (Steak) in the evening .

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Nachdem wir mit „Share-a-ride“ gute Erfahrungen gemacht hatten, wollten wir auch den zweiten Tag, an dem wir das traumhafte Mietauto noch hatten, nicht alleine zur Pinguinkolonie gondeln, sondern wieder mit zwei Passagieren. Verena, inzwischen gut im Aufreißen von Mitfahrern, gabelte Marco auf. Marco ist Anfang 30, hatte einen guten Job in Deutschland und gekündigt, u.a. weil er in einer Bar in Barcelona den Autor von „Der Auszeiter“, Carsten Alex, kennen gelernt hatte. Irgendwie kam uns das bekannt vor…

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