Andes Crossings by foot and by dog-sled

After 3 fun months in El Bolson, we packed up our organic lettuce, couriered most of our kit up north, and headed into the hills to cross into Chile to meet Katie's cousin Will for an adventure.

Beautiful winter tramping thru Patagonian beech forest - a bored border guard told us we were the first party thru in 2 months

We hired a small boat to take us across Lago Las Rocas - possibly the most beautiful lake we've ever seen. Foreign corporates have plans to raise the level for hydro-electric schemes. We asked this guy what he thought, he looked resigned and told us we were lucky to see it now. Yeesh..

Back in civilisation - hooray, we love you and your bulldozers :(

Of course we couldn't say no to a ride, thou

Perta Vera, a wonderful round ball of determination and competence and spirit, 10 hijos, 30 nietos, 8 supernitos. So alone and yet so community/family-centred.

The transitions – forest `farm´ - virgin forest - forest farms - roads - slow intro exotics – general everywhereness

(Katie) We'd headed to Chile as we were lucky enough to be invited by my cousin Will to be part of the support crew for the first dog sled crossing of the Andes......Chile to Argentina. After one person pulling out of the expedition I was lucky enough to get 3 days dog sledding in!!!!

The route went from Solipeuco (Wills Cabin) to Icalma, Icalma to Villapehuenia, Villapehuenia to Pino Hachado and took 6 days.

Here´s a few photos that we took along the way:

Patagonia Without Dams!!

Will and his team

(Jamie) Back on the Argentine side, I drove north across the steppe to meet up with the intrepid sledders..

Dry and windy (e.g. rip off your car door stuff!)

Still in the Araucaria (Monkey Puzzle tree) zone, with some spectacular volcanic rock.

Asado de cordero a la cruz = BBQ!