We were both feeling unwell and had a headache. Welcome altitude sickness. We had a little bit to eat and started drinking lots of water. We hoped that we will be through border control quickly, but unfortunately this border was not well organized at all. We actually had to wait 2 hours until they asked our bus to get through the border and then it took another hour for the whole process to finish, as they checked every single bag. I laid down on the benches while everyone was waiting and took a 30 min nap. When I woke up, I was feeling totally fine and I had no problems any more. Mathias however kept feeling really bad and was almost close to throwing up.

Even when we got to San Pedro de Atacama 3 hours later, he still had a headache and felt bad. We then got told to chew coca leaves or drink coca tea and everything will be fine. So we went into town to buy the coca leaves, which are of course totally legal here, and then went on to book our tours around the desert and also decided to book a 3 day tour that would bring us to the salt lake in Bolivia and drop us in Uyuni at the end.

So, highly motivated, Mathias started chewing leaves and drinking tea and it actually help! Or so he says. We still took it slow the next day to get accustomed to the altitude and only went onto our first tour in the late afternoon. We had decided to visit the so-called Moon Valley (Valle de la Luna) where we would also watch the sunset over the desert. We had read good reviews about it before and we have to agree, it was just unbelievable at times. It has various stone and sand formations which have been carved by wind and water. Combined with an impressive range of color and texture, it makes you feel like you are walking on the moon.

We have never seen something like it and where once more impressed how many different landscapes and places this planet earth has. The valley is also considered one of the driest places on earth, as some areas have not received a single drop of rain in hundreds of years!  We spent a good few hours discovering the desert and also went to a salt cave, where the walls were covered with crystallized salt from the inside. In the end, we drove to a lookout over the valley and witnessed a stunning sunset!

The day had started with many clouds and it had actually cooled down the desert during the day, so that it was not as hot as we had expected. For the sunset it meant that we had a very dramatic and beautifully colored sky enlightened by the sun. And the evening sun turned the whole desert into a wonderful red-orange color. We very so happy! We had missed our sunsets from South Africa and finally here we were given another stunning one.

We went to bed extremely happy and very excited for the next day. We rose early and went on another tour to see the Los Flamencos national reserve and its salt flat – Salar de tara. It was a tour that would drive us 2 ½ hours into the Atacama Desert towards Bolivia and we would drive up to 4860 meters above sea level. Mathias was a bit anxious and curious at the same time. Would he experience altitude problems again, or would he survive by chewing coca leaves all day? But before we even got to this high point, we had an incredible drive through the desert with the Andes mountain range and its volcanoes always on our sides. Most of the desert is composed of stony terrain, sand and sand dunes and incredible rock formations that have been created through erosion and carved out by the wind.

We tried to capture the vastness of the place, but looking at the picture it does not do it justice. It is just endless!! And lifeless most of the time, until you pass mountain lamas that graze in areas where grass grows or live near the salt flats. One such salt flat was our first stop on the trip, where we had our breakfast. It was really strange to see water and green grass in the middle of the desert and the flamingos made it even more special. This place was however only a small salt flat and was only a preparation of what was to come later.

We drove on and then passed the so-called Pacana Monks. These are stones formations that were created by erosion over time. Apparently there is no mystic history to it, just simple science. They are called monks however, as the wind seemed to have carved faces into the stones. And it really does look like it. I just loved it! By that time we had reached the highest point (4700m altitude) and Mathias was keeping up quite well. He only had a tiny headache. I did not feel anything, so when the car stopped and the guide said we have 20 minutes to walk around, I jumped out of the car and started almost jogging to all the different stone formations to try and get the best pictures with the sun. When I turned around and saw Mathias standing close to the car, I first just thought he does not care so much about seeing all the different stones. But after the 3 stones, I could feel my heart pumping so hart it felt like it would jump out of my body. So I calmed down and walked slowly on. When I got to Mathias and smiled at me and said, he just walked a few meters and was already out of breath. How on earth was I able to run through the desert at this altitude?! Well, I did realize I went a bit too quickly, but once I slowed down all was fine again, so maybe my Colombian genes are coming through here.

Anyway, I really loved these stone formations. Who needs to go to the Easter Island, when you have this! Afterwards we drove on to our highlight, the salt flat called Salar de tara. We were already totally impressed by the whole scenery all day and were not quite sure what more to expect. When we arrived it almost felt like seeing a fata morgana at first. There in the middle of the desert was a big salt flat with flamingos enjoying the water, birds flying from one green plant to the other, a small hamster like rodent coming out of his whole to get some food, and everything was surrounded by snow covered mountains in the back and a massive rock formation and sand dunes to the sides.

It is impossible to describe this place properly, and again the pictures do not do it justice as even the panorama picture miss to capture the scene correctly. Believe when I tell you it felt magical. And the best thing was, it was only our group of 8 people there. Our guide prepared a delicious lunch and we just sat there enjoying the scenery and peaceful quietness of this place. I am so happy we came here!! There are so many different tours offered when you get to San Pedro de Atacama, from geysers to swimming in salt lakes or hiking up mountains. But this was really different and unique and an image we will never forget. It was a wonderful ending to our time in Chile.

When we got back to town, there was another surprise waiting for us. We met Petri and Sanna again, a Finish couple we have met for the first time in Patagonia on our hike in Torre del Paine and later again at the Perito Moreno Glacier. And now again! It made us laugh so much J. And we will probably meet them again, when we are at Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, as they are heading there for the same time. You are never alone on travel, but that is actually a nice thing sometimes.

This country really had some nice surprises waiting for us. It is definitely something special and we have only seen so little of it. We will be back! Now it is time for Bolivia. We are heading to the world´s largest salt flat – Salar de Uyuni.

The next day started early for us, when we got our volcano climbing gear and were driven into the volcano surrounding national park up to 1400 m of altitude. The top of the volcano was located at 2800 m which would require to climb about 1400 m in total height. From the head of the trail we had the option to take the lift to cover the first 400 m of altitude or do it the old fashioned way by foot.

There was no question for us we would walk instead of letting us lift up the first steep section. At this point the mayority of our group took the lift and we were left with only a handful strongly motivated others who were willing to challenge the volcano without short cuts.  Up to 2000m we made our way up through loose volcano ash and gravel. From there we started into the beautiful snow covered area around the summit. Thanks to our vast hiking adventures down in Patagonia we both were in great shape.

On our way up we constantly passed much slower groups and I kept our guide motivated when I asked him several times if we could go a bit faster. However we were really lucky with our group as everybody seemed to keep up with the speed. After 4 hours we finally reached the smoking top and enjoyed our well deserved lunch. In front of us was the huge smoky crater and behind us the stunning view into the surrounding landscape with lakes and other snow covered volcanos in Chile and Argentina. Unfortunately there was a bit too much smoke to see completely down into the crater, but it was still stunning. The average duration for the hike up is actually 5 to 6 hours. We reached the top before the groups which had taken the lift in only 4 hours.

The way down was not less fun, as we more or less slided down the snowy slopes for 1,5 hours on our buttom. It was fast like hell in some sections and we were all totally wet at the bottom but it was so worth it!

The next day we treated ourselfs to rest and recover with a picknick in the park and walked around town to see the volcanic sand beach and try some local ‚German‘ chocolate. It was better than other chocolate we have tried so far in South America, but still a bit too sweet.

From Pucon we left to Talca, which is around 7 hours north to celebrate New Years! While Pucon was more resort style, Talca was refreshingly down to earth and our B&B a great treat.

Consisting out of a couple of wooden huts around a lovely garden it was cosy, perfectly well maintained and quiet. The three older ladies who were running the place really made us feel at home and created a „I am on visit at my auntie’s garden“ atmosphere. As almost everything was closed for New Years Eve, we decided to stay at home for the night’s celebration. With fresh fruits and food from the supermarket we created our own buffet and used the 4 hours we were behind Germany to skype with our loved ones.

For New Year’s day Talca was still shut down. The friendly lady at the reception told us that almost the complete town was down at the beach, which was 3 hours away by bus. Without saying a word to each other we knew in the super sunny New Years morning that we would not go anywhere that day. It was just too perfect. Sitting on our little terrace on the sofa, shaded from the trees, surrounded by the beautiful garden and refreshingly cooled by a light brise.

For the next day we had already a bus which would bring us to Santiago in the evening. This left us enough time to visit the surrounded wine region. Our first vineyard we visited was Balduzzi in San Javier just 30 minutes by bus from Talca. It turned out we were a bit too early for the tour in the afternoon, so we started to explore San Javier first. After a hearty Chilenean cazuela this time (which was a soup of beef and veggies) at the market area, we hired a friendly taxi driver to bring us to another vineyard called Gillmore.

It turned out that he was also very well educated about wine and wineries around. Besides the very tasty Rosé we tried during our obligatory tasting, the vineyard itself was picturesque almost like an antique hacienda. It is also a very famous wedding location for Chilenean people

Back at Balduzzi we had one of the most privat wine tours and tastings during our entire travel. With just another couple from Switzerland the grand son of the vineyard founder Senior Baluzzi showed us around. We tried more than 8 tasty wines, although the tasting was actually limited to 4 wines and chatted in relaxed atmosphere for more than 1,5 hours. Somehow it felt more like visiting a good friend instead of being on a wine tasting.  With a bottle of Balduzzi’s Sauvignon Blanc Grand Reserva we left more than happy and caught our bus to Santiago.

The next stop was when the road suddenly ended and blue water appeared ahead of us, the Magellan Strait. It turned out quickly that we were stuck there for a while. Strong winds on the strait forced the ferry company to shut down their service temporarly. At the beginning we still hoped just for 2 or 3 hours, at the end it was 6 hours before we were shipped across through the still rough Magellan Strait. The bus company informed us however that we would not get our connecting bus, we would not be in Puerto Natales at night and we would not be able to start our planned 5 days hike at Torre del Paine the next morning for which we had booked huts already. Furthermore we were stranded at 1 am in Punta Arenas, we had obviously no booking for the night and the earliest bus to Puerto Natales would leave at 7 am in the morning which would allow us to be in the park earliest at 5:30 pm in the afternoon.

Somehow the luck came back to us and we found a place to sleep for a few hours. The place was actully booked out, but the lady there was nice and shared the only left room, in which she was actually already sleeping herself, with us. A Dutch girl we had met in Ushuaia before, also came along and we shared the room between us four. The next morning everything went well and we got the last seats on the early bus at 7 am. We reached our hostel before lunch. Our hosts were just great and helped us immediately to find a solution for our bus and ferry transfer to the right place in the park. In just 3 hours we got ready and left with the last bus for the park. The weather was pretty, blue sky dotted with fast moving clouds and sunshine when we reached the park. The scenery was already stunning. The ice covered Torre del Paine mountain massiv sat majestic in an open almost endless areal. Turquoise litte rivers and lakes were as far as we could see.

We took the last catamaran to cross one of the big lakes as we had to start our trek at the other end. The little half an hour cruise was our first adventure. The wind was incredibly strong and the waves high enough to let the catamaran jump. When we got to the other side it was already 6:30 pm and we started immediately to walk towards the first refugio (hut) which was still 4 hours hiking away. Not a nice prospect considering we had very little sleep and an exhausting bus journey from Ushuaia behind us. The way ascented moderately through a small valley but we had to walk against very strong winds, which was quite challenging. We passed a few exposed sections where we were almost blown away even with the heavy backpacks. Patagonia at its best!

Half way to our hut we saw the Higgins Glaciar for the first time. It was situated at the end of lake Grey, which was to our left as we were hiking along. Little icebergs were here and there on the lake, leaving kind of a trace leading us to Refugio Grey. When we sat our feet through the door it was 10 pm and we were incredibly happy that after all the trouble, in the end we had succesfully started our long awaited hike at the Torre del Paine National Park and still had made it to our booked hut. Even better Refugio Grey was a treat. It was built only a few years ago and everything was new, smartly designed and somehow perfect to recover from a strenous hike. The best was undoubtfully the warm and cosy dining room. Fitted with old English style furniture, old leather sofas, wooden walls and two iron ovens at both ends, we both loved that place instantly. It even had a Christmas tree.

The next day we took it easy as we only had to hike down to our next refugio, Paine Grande, which was actually where we the catamaran had dropped us off the day before. We used our free time to first hike up 2 more hours to catch a better view of the glaciar. On our way there, we passed through a hundred of years old semi arctic forest of bend and fallen trees. Those trees were mostly burned in most of the lower area, when a park visitor accidently caused a massive fire in 2010, as he tried to make a campfire. So it was nice to see here how the real forest used to be.

Finally at the look out we enjoyed a great view of the glaciar. We took a small break before we started again. Our five hours hike down to the refugio was tougher than expected. As we had such strong front wind the day before, I expected an easy and fast hike downwards. But my calculations did not work out. The strong and unsteady tail wind we experienced on our way down made every step unpredictable and forced us to slow down in order not to fall over. In the end we made it and were quite tired after 6 hours of walking, probably also still feeling the lack of sleep the night before.

Refugio Paine Grande was not such a nice place. Just too big and too cold to put it in two words. Nevertheless we had a place to sleep, went to bed early and started the next day with fresh elan. And that was necessary as day 3 was the longest one with 24 km of hiking. We started early in the morning but had to stop after a few minutes when our cheap day backpack we got as a gift suddenly started to fall apart. Natalie was just amazing. She rescued the day and started fixing that bloody thing with needle and yarn right on the trail :).

After 3 hours we left the main trail for a little 15 km side step, which led us to two major look outs. The first was a beautiful glaciar. We stopped there for a small lunch and were lucky enough to see how a massiv iceblock crashed down. The second was officially closed due to the strong winds, but as we saw other hikers coming back anyway, we tried it too. It was not as windy as we had expected and the trail up led us through a beautiful forest again. At the end we were gifted with a stunning 360 degree round view on the spectacular sharp mountain tops which surrounded us.

When we reached our next refugio for the night, we both were happy but tired. Refugio Los Cuernos was a cute little hut, packed with lots of hiking folks and good food. We slept long and started the day with a late breakfast. The refugio was almost empty when we had breakfast. Just one other couple had done the same as us and had a late breakfast. Penny and Simon were from Australia. We started with them together into our fourth day which should bring us to the last refugio at the end of the trek. I tried to take it easy with my right leg as my ancle was a bit swollen, probably caused by the additional weight of my backpack, which I had carried the last 50 km. Luckily it was only a 11 km hike to Refugio Norte.

The area along the trail became more open and offered us great views in and out of the Torre del Paine massiv. When we got to Refugio Norte we four tried our luck and Natalie asked if they would have free beds at the upper Refugio Chileno. It had already been booked out when we had made our reservations 4 weeks earlier. It was however our prefered option, as it was closer to the park’s highlight, the triple mountain tips Las Torres. We wanted to be there for sunrise and from Refugio Norte it meant hiking up 4 1/2 hours in the dark, while it was only 2 1/2 from Refugio Chileno. Refugio Chileno was still booked out, but they had free tents up there. We did not think twice and took the opportunity to stay there. It would allow us to hike up very early and see the sunrise at Las Torres.

So we started again for additional 2 hours although my ancle was done for the day. Simon was so nice to let me take his poles, which was a great help. Somehow I made it to Chileno. We had a joyful and tasty dinner with our Aussies and thoroughly enjoyed the food which was the best out of all the ones we had along the walk. The night was short when our alarm went off at 2:30 am. I was surprised that Natalie and me were the only ones who started for the night hike. It was totally dark in the forrest, except for the light of the stars and our headlights. After some meters it struck me that there are Pumas in these forests. I had read randomly that the Patagonian ones are the biggest of the entire continent, something about 100 kg for a fully grown up male. I just hoped these guys were not around or at least not hungry :). I did not want to count on it though, so I started to sing stupid songs to make some noise and scare them away.

After long 1,5 hours we reached the upper campsite where lots of moving headlights in the dark indicated that we were not alone anymore. The final ascent to the look out was a challenging 1 hour climb. With the first grey morning light we made it up there and caught the first full view on Las Torres. We found us a good spot, put on all our clothes as it was still freezing cold and made us some breakfast.

And then finally the first sunlight touched the highest tip of Las Torres in a warm red light. From this point onward, more and more of the sharp rocky tip was enlightened. It was so spectacular! Especially when Natalie discovered a condor which had obviously warmed up enough and started from Las Torres to glide down towards the valley. We shifted our frozen bodies into the warm sunlight too and spent a little more time there before we headed down.

After we had our second breakfast at Chileno we went down again to catch the bus back to Puerto Natales. We were early though and streched out in the grass near the bus stop and enjoyed the sun. We had 5 amazing days with a unique nature and landscape experience. We covered about 80 km by foot and were extremely lucky with the weather for Patagonia. We had no rain apart from a bit of drizzle and most days beautiful blue skies or at least patches of it. After the trek, our muscles and bones needed to recover, but not for too long. We would leave the next day for the next trekking highlight to see the famous Mount Fitz Roy in Argentina.