After spending almost three years in Australia and taking a summer (until winter) break in Europe, time has come for a new adventure. So far and on this trip, I have kept heading East. The logical next step would be crossing the Pacific to South America. In that sense, I have organised to sea-freight my bike from Melbourne to Valparaíso, Chile. It should be good timing to start exploring South America at its southernmost part, during summer season and in the beginning of the year. As for sending my bike across the ocean, I always have found the travel-by-sea option more romantic than air freighting, somehow, even if it is only marginally cheaper.

There she is: After about three months in a container, I finally got to pick up the R from MSL’s terminal in Valparaíso.

South America it is, then. Once again, experience would show that the timeframe when shipping by sea could be delaysome. All in all, it gave me about six weeks to explore South America as a backpacker. Straight from winter in the Northern Hemisphere, I went to visit my girlfriend Jô in Brazil for some time before we would travel to Chile together, exploring the North of the longest country in the world while I was waiting for my motorcycle to arrive.

We visited Santiago de Chile, a busy metropolis with almost 7 million inhabitants as at 2023. Chile has suffered an inflation like some of its neighbors have to different degrees, and the level of (petty) crime and the difference in security sure were something to get used to. Life costs more or less the same as in Europe, where the average income is lower with a bigger income gap. Given these factors, trying to make a living and having a good life seems harder. 

Santiago at sunset, with the Andes in the background.
View from Paseo Yugoslavo onto Port Valparaíso.

After a visit to Valparaíso with its colorful block houses and its colonial architecture untouched by wars (and only by earthquakes, for that matter) and Viña del Mar, we would head further north in order to see the Atacama desert. Landscapes were truly impressive, and it seemed to be much more than a desert. Endless landscapes with snow-capped peaks in the background featuring all-wild flamingos, donkeys, Llamas and Vicuñas. Everything seemed so vast and empty and yet spiked with life. 

Early morning views of El Tatio Geysers as part of the Atacama desert.
Endless landscapes in Northern Chile.
Vicuñas as part of the Llama family, grazing
Flamingos taking off over one of the numerous lagoons around San Pedro de Atacama.
Virgin de la Candelaria celebrations in San Pedro de Atacama.

Having spent the past three years more stationary and mostly on the Red Continent, time has come for a new adventure. Or has it? As it happens with world travelers and their plans, they constantly change. Various world travelers that I follow, like Sinje Gottwald, Lea Rieck, Eva zu Beck, or c90adventures, all obviously and initially impacted by the restrictions of the global pandemic, seemed to also have changed in a more fundamental way, have pivoted their plans, their approach to traveling. Sinje Gottwald had to leave her intriguing GSPD behind in Western Africa, to ultimately travel Africa on an electric bike. Lea Rieck had to pause the last Africa leg to complete her RTW trip and switched to multiple shorter trips around Europe and the US. c90adventures traveled some of South America only to realize that for the time being, he wants to live an ordinary life, perhaps spiked with smaller trips, but no more long haul. Eva zu Beck had announced Expedition America, planning to connect from Alaska to Ushuaia with her Defender, to then settle on an indefinite break in Mexico. What drives these changes? The world can seem so constant on an everyday basis, but people change, motivations change. All of us remember the crucial moment when Forrest Gump comes to an abrupt halt in front of Monument valley to proclaim to his followers: “I’m pretty tired… think I’ll go home now”, and turns around. Thinking about my own plans to travel all continents on my R100, would it be worth it to follow a plan that is a few years old and post-pandemic? How will it feel to be back on the road? Time shall tell…