Sin City

Small riddle: lights from casinos and hotels all more beautiful than others, newlyweds, entertainment offered everywhere, all in the middle of the desert, where are we?

For the occasion, we decided to offer you, finally, a picture of Céline taken from the front. And as we are faithful to traditions, we also offer a picture of Céline taken from the back.

More pictures are available by clicking here.

Everybody wants to be in Hollywood

Highways with twelve lines, restaurants offering portions that could feed a whole family, city's cars with an average length of five meters: no doubt we are in the United States.

During two days in Los Angeles, we were able to walk on the famous "Walk Of Fame" on Hollywood Boulevard, to visit the Warner Bros studios, to gain height on our way to "Getty Center" and to browse "Venice Beach".

First pictures are available by clicking here.

Breathtaking!

While we are traveling now for nearly five months, we were still unable to see one of the new seven wonders of the world : it is now done with our visit to Machu Picchu. The title of this post speaks for itself, the citadel and its surroundings are a pure beauty : breathtaking, and not only because of the altitude. And since we are speaking of breath, we needed some of it to climb the 400 vertical meters of the famous mountain Wayna Picchu, the Sugar Loaf you can see on the typical pictures just in the background of the citadel. Once at the top, it has an exceptional view on the site, as you can see on some pictures.

We leave Cusco today, a pretty town former capital of the Inca civilization to Lima where we will spend our last four days in South America before flying to the United States.

More pictures are available by clicking here.

Visiting Titicaca

Puno, where we arrived yesterday afternoon, rhymes with Titicaca. The city is not huge, and tourists essentially aim for excursions on the different islands of the lake. We are no exception to the rule, and our choice fell on Uros, a group of 49 artificial islands on which you discover another way to live. And the funny thing is :  our passport contains one more stamp now.

More photos are available by clicking here.

A Star Wars break

Because the "Valley Of The Moon", a few kilometers from San Pedro de Atacama, strongly looks like planet Tatooine in Star Wars, Stéphane could not help but take a photographic pause : a chance he thought taking with him his two lightsabers ;-)

Higher than Mont-Blanc!

16,077 feet, this is the height at which our journey brought us this day. A visit to "Cañon del Colca", the deepest canyon in the world where a colony of condors took up residence offering a permanent show to tourists. It goes without saying that nature gave us, again, an amazing show. Arequipa, which should have been a quick step towards Puno and Cusco, just conquered us through his neighborhood "San Lozero" and the impromptu visit of the Colca Cayon whose beauty cleared our memories of the fatigue from an early wake up (2am).

First pictures are available by clicking here.

Stuck in the desert!

This is what happened to us when the minibus in charge of driving us in the national park "Los Flamencos" and around lagoons "Miscanti" and "Miñiques" suddenly stopped with a flat tire on our way back. A long half hour to repair in the middle of a sea of ​​sand and rocks cut by the road.

Since our arrival in San Pedro De Atacama, we have been very busy. The day before, we booked a tour to enjoy the valleys "De La Luna" and "De La Muerte". We conclude this stay in Chile in an explosion of natural beauty, happy to have chosen this country as one of our destinations. Today we safely arrived in Arequipa, Peru, after a journey of 20 hours by bus (San Pedro De Atacama - Arica - Tacna - Arequipa), after having already endured 23 hours of the same means of transport between Santiago and San Pedro de Atacama.

New pictures are available by clicking here.

At the foot of volcanoes

Saltos Petrohue, Los Santos, Calbuco, here are some of the locations that occupied us these past three days near Puerto Varas, temporary residents of a cottage with a beautiful view of the two volcanoes Osorno and Calbuco. And as if the beauty of nature was not enough during the day, the evening show of the night sky filled with so many stars just complete the picture.

Tonight we begin our journey to Peru by bus : hours and hours of road to go with the hope that the comfort of the  chileans buses will be up to its reputation. 

New pictures are available by clicking here.

Torres Del Paine

A four hours flight from Santiago, a three hours trip by bus from Punta Arenas, a two hours minibus adventure on gravel roads from Puerto Natales : Torres Del Paine is a natural park that has to be earned, but it's beautiful! With this little journey to the most southern part of Latin America, we will finally have approached unusual places such as Ushuaia or Cape Horn closer than 500 km. And since we have come so far, why not crossing the borders and have a look at the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina : if you already know what we are talking about,  you understand why we want to go there.

New pictures are available by clicking here and photos from the glacier are available by clicking here.

From Santiago to Valparaiso

Before we left for Chile large natural grounds, starting with the Torres del Paine Natural Park, we take the time to visit the two largest cities of the country: Santiago and Valparaiso. Tomorrow, we flight to the Chilean Patagonia, which, although less known than the Argentine side,  seems equally impressive. The camera is ready;-)

First pictures are available by clicking here.