Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
There aren’t many tunnels in South America. The tunnel Las Raíces is the longest one in the Andes mountain range and second longest of all South America. It has been opened in 1939 and is 4,5 kilometers long. It is located on a road leading from Temuco, Chile to Argentina and connects the wonderful valley of Lonquimay, Chile to the main part of the country.
Not far away from Temuco, Chile you can find the Parque Nacional Conguillío around the volcano Llaima. A place of a very special beauty that worried me a bit: after being stuck with my car in Putú I wasn’t fond of driving on sandy, unpaved roads and most time I was really alone in this area – maybe every 45 minutes another car or motorbike was passing by. But getting to this moon-like volcanic area was worth all this struggle.
If you want to stay at the Trailanqui lodge close to Temuco, Chile you should definitely have a GPS system. I didn’t have one and I prepared myself with satellite images to find the road there. In the end I missed the right crossing and had to search quite hard for the hotel while it was raining heavily. And of course: I had to overtake some natives riding their horses on the street.
Lota is the poorest city in Chile and its history reminded me much of the Ruhrgebiet in Germany. It is also within the same transformation processes that run a bit more slowly here. The whole region was living from coal mining and the mines have first been socialized under Salvador Allende and later privatized again under Augusto Pinochet. When cheaper coal from Colombia arrived here the whole economy broke down.
If you’re not at Santiago de Chile there aren’t that much museums to visit. The Casa del Arte in Concepción (Bío Bío region) is an exception. It belongs to the University of Concepción and within this not very modern building paintings from different Chilean epochs are on display.
Continue reading “Casa del Arte José Clemente Orozco (Pinacoteca)”
The city of Concepción, Chile has been destroyed by a natural disaster. What has been built up afterwards might remind you on New York or Legoland. Strictly quadratic shapes and the life at a modern and clean city. Within you’ll find the hotel Terrano – a very good hotel with an underground car park that is much to small and narrow.
The Panamericana – or short Panam – is a network of roads going down from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. You can cross the whole continent on this 25.000 km long route, you can see wonderful landscapes and visit up to 19 countries. The plans to create the Carretera Panamericana were agreed on in 1936; only a small part of 90 km length next to Panama is still missing (even 80 years later).
It was a nice day in November and I was driving with my Renault Samsung S3 (I didn’t even know that such a car exists) from Talca to Concepción, Chile. On my way I wanted to have a stop at the dunes of Putú (las dunas de Putú) – a wide area of sand dunes close to the sea. It is supposed to look like the Sahara, but I’ve never found out, because I never arrived there.
Continue reading “Las dunas de Putú (and why I will never forget them)”
Travelling throughout Chile doesn’t always lead you to historically important cities, big monuments or institutions. It is stunning because of the landscape, the fantastic lakes, the mountain ranges and the possibility of switching fastly between the shore and the mountains. When you are in Santiago de Chile you can go skiing and swimming at the beach on the same day.
Wow. Simply wow. An Austrian couple went to Talca, Chile and bought some land to open a harbourage for travellers. Today there are different courtyards with small houses (named after famous places in South America) attached where you can stay. Every evening a bell calls all current inhabitants for a vegetarian dinner. A very special place that has been built like an ideal settlement and playground.