Heading South

We started heading south and camped for a few nights at Parque National El Leoncito. I love my little tent.

El. Leoncito is in the desert in Argentina near San Salvador. The scenery is very different to the scenery I am used to in Canada. Very little vegetation and any vegetation we did find had long thorns. We did a long hike in the desert to the top of a hill. I had to stay close to the others as there were pumas in the park.

We continued south and crossed into Chile for Christmas before starting the Patagonia part of our trip. Patagonia is the southern part of South America and is partly in Chile and partly in Argentina. We drove south in Chile on the Carretera Austral a road built in the 1970s to connect a number of remote communities. Our first stop was Parque Pumalin where we climbed Volcan Chaitén.

Volcan Chaitén which is near the town of Chaitén exploded in 2008 covering the whole town in ash and debris. The town was evacuated but most people have now returned.

We could see the volcano smoking from our campsite.