Soon after we returned to India, we had to head to Mangalore for a wedding. A chance look at a map made us realize that Mangalore is right next to the Kerala border – and very very close to the town of Bekal (65 km away). It had been 8 yrs since we had last visited Kerala and we didn’t need any more prompting to plan a weeke...
Category: Driving
The Atacama desert was our final destination in Chile, as we completed our south-to-north traverse of the country. The Atacama is famous for being one of the driest places in the world, with some locales not recording a single drop of rain since weather stations were set up! On average, the whole region receives only 1.5 cm of rain ...
March 21, 2019 17 min to read
North Chile : Elqui Valley and Lauca National Park
Category : Driving, Natural Wonder
After two months of blissful travel in South America, we hit our first obstacle in North Chile. Unprecedented rains in the driest place in the world led to flooding in parts of the Atacama – specifically near San Pedro de Atacama, which we really wanted to visit! https://www.straitstimes.com/world/americas/extreme-weather-h...
This is the third part of our epic 16-day road trip in Northern & Central Patagonia, across Chile and Argentina. Carretera Austral (“Southern Highway”) or Chile’s Ruta 7, refers to the 1,240 long km road that runs from the town of Puerto Montt in Northern Patagonia, to the village of Villa O’Higgins in the south. ...
This is the second part of our epic 16-day road trip in Northern & Central Patagonia, across Chile and Argentina. For the rest of the roadtrip, see Lake District and Carretera Austral. Argentina’s famous Ruta 40 (or just La Cuarenta) is one of the longest highways of the world and an internationally renowned classic road ...
From the windswept glacier lands of Southern Patagonia, we travelled to the Lake District in Northern Patagonia. It is a milder, greener landscape, with a high concentration of stunning blue lakes, Andean peaks and picturesque alpine towns, spread across both Chile and Argentina. We kicked off another memorable adventure here –...
Torres del Paine (TDP) is a spectacular combination of towering granite mountains, enchanting blue lakes and rivers, large glaciers, golden grasslands and lenga tree forests. And it is THE most beautiful place we have ever seen (Iceland, New Zealand and Ladakh included). We know we are talking in superlatives, but no place has lived...
Salta & Jujuy region in the northwest of Argentina, bordered by Bolivia and Chile, is a wee bit off the tourist track. The dry dusty landscapes in the region has more in common with Bolivia and Northern Chile rather than the rest of Argentina, but it is gorgeous in its own way. The sparsely populated region has some exceptional ...
Snæfellsnes is a 90km long peninsula jutting out to the west of Iceland, at the end of which sits Snæfellsjökull – a dormant, glacier-capped volcano – made famous by Jules Verne in his Journey to the Centre of the Earth. As a destination, it is comparatively less well known than the more famous Golden Circle, Blue Lag...
If you have just a couple of days to spend in Iceland, Golden Circle is where you should head to.The Golden Circle is traditionally meant to comprise of Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National ParkGullfoss WaterfallStrokkur Geyser But when in the area, also worth a visit are the Seltún geothermal area & Kerið Crater lake...
Iceland is a gorgeous country blessed with unique geological diversity. The island country’s extensive geothermal activity has resulted in active volcanoes, boiling-water-spewing geysers, scalding steam vents and hot springs. It also has an eye-popping number of waterfalls, very picturesque lakes, glaciers, icebergs and extens...
Think Alps and we Indians get images of Switzerland in our head – snowcapped peaks, lush green meadows, cow bells, Shahrukh & Kajol etc etc. However, the Alps range stretches halfway across Europe – from France, across north of Italy, Switzerland (of course), the tiny country of Liechtenstein, Germany & Austria. And ...