BTW, can you try to sms to this number? Hope it works….
(You can try to use https://sms.ac for free sms´ing but that too might not work)
0054 92944 596 001
Its the direct number to call us too, but calling might be expensive…check with your phone company
Im kicked out now!!!!
Yes we are alive and still driving, even tho I managed to drive the car off the road after we got back from the Torres del Paine trip. Yes, it was me again, having done over a thousand kilometers on dirtroads I managed to lose control over the wheel on a strait part, just 2 km before the pavement would start again.
But this blog is dead as hell if I´m goin to back track our days, so let me do a quickie:
We saw penguins at last somewhere on the eastcoast, which gave us an insight into the weird ways of nature. Chek it out on this blog, its from a guy we met there. He does a 140 km p7h with his bike on the dirtroads :P
https://bmwdog.blogspot.com
After that we went back to the west coast (still avoiding dirt roads ofcourse) and visited the loveliest town so far called El Bolson, a true hippie village for the free minded spirits. I got told at some gasstation I should be able to buy some grass there (even tho I didnt ask for it but hey I´m Dutch). I asked the tourist info ´hey where are the hippies´and this girl took out a map and said ´here!´. So the same night we ended up camping a weekend long at some hippie trance festival. WOW!
Shite the internet shop closes again. I just did my insurance thingies cause they broke into our car, so thats for a next time. Stay put and come back more often, I will breathe some air into this blog :)
sloMo
Aha, errr…where were we? So much has happened the last weeks. But we couldnt or didn´t feel like blogging, so lets try to recall some of the highlights…
After taking the ferry to Puntas Arenas we stayed there one night to go budgetshopping for more camping gear at the zona franca. Its a tax free zone were you can get imported goods. After driving in and out maybe 10 times we finally managed to get our stuff together :P Afterwards corine got a guy from an auto parts shop to assemble a new rearview mirror in our car. Ha, he even walked a couple of blocks around the neighborhood to got it all sorted out. If I haven´t mentioned it yet, the folks I met so far here in south america are very friendly and helpful.
But then we landed in Puerto Natales and found our hostel the Erratic Rock. It is run by Bill and Rustin, some wayback friends from the former US of A who lived their dream and started their own hostel. They do a good job at it and we gotten some nice info about the National Park were we wanted to do some hiking on the ´W´ in the national park Torres del Paine (towers of pain).
With our homemade soup we finally drove off and went for 3 daytreks, so Corine wouldn´t have to carry any stuff. (She still needs to take care of her repetitive strain injury.) After a night in the car (to much rain to put up camp) we managed to find a camping and go for the east part of the trail. But how glad we were to have bought some rain pants the day before! Many people struggled carrying fully stuffed backpacks and many people coming back showed disappointment when we got closer to the Torres. But it was beautiful anyway! What a site!
Shite, its twelve o´clock midnight and we have to leave the internet cafe…so I will finish tomorrow!
IT WORKS!!
Just to spread the word: we have a mobile number (yes finally) here in Argentina. To call us at the lowest rate possible (€ 0,15 per minute), use the instructions below. They are taken from www.teledump.nl. To call from another country you have to find a similar service or dial direct.
For people calling from the netherlands first dial:
0900 1533
then enter the number for argentina with our number:
0054 92944 596 001
That´s it! Hope to hear from you :)
Its true what they say about the burocracy in Argentina. We didn’t get the papers for the car on thursday, not on friday, but after the weekend on monday at 21hrs. Luckily we already got the groceries for the journey. We also said goodbye to everybody in the hostel again. People didn’t believe we were ever getting out of Ushuaia and had already lost faith. But we did it! We finally left! But didn´t we forget something? Sure, my camera battery and charger :P Ashamed we turned around and I rushed in and out of the hostel as not to face people again %]
Heh, on the road at last…iPod tunes soothing our ride, nice! But then we suddenly realize we forgot our brandnew 160 pesos (44 euro´s) airbed for 2 persons with builtin pump. Not only that, we also forgot to pay for the last 2 nights. So we must still find a way to balance that with the staff. It will probably work out, since we gotten pretty close in those 2 weeks.
How about it Emilio? LOL
So we just decided to stop thinking about it. In the darkest hour we did 30 km/h on some unpaved road with enourmous potholes towards Rio Grande….pffff. But we got to sleep on the beach…in our car that is :) I repeat: in OUR CAR!!
Wake up time! Lets go and do that W thing close to Puerto Natales! After all we heard about getting in to Chili, we prepared for the worst. But what a slow moving cue to get out of Argentina, unbelievable! Again
surprised looks when the officials at the border heard we bought instead of
rented our car. Every time a superior is consulted about our situation and our car papers are thoroughly checked. But then we still had to get into Chili. Strangely tho that was no problem at all!
But what a road. It seemed like the moon! Corine drove 30 to 40 km/h for a long time at first and…POOF! There we were with a smoking used fiat uno 8/ Corine immediately lifted the hood ofcourse, and started to fill every possible reservoir with water. And it helped! Then I could have a go (despite my driverslicense still being in the mail). Luckily for us the road got increasingly better and I could go as fast as 80 km/h. That way we also didn’t feel the bumps and potholes as much :) It was so exciting! I finally regained my Colin McRae rally instincts :P I do have to say that the rearview mirror fell off after 2 hours….
to be continued