1994-1999
The route: Argentina - Chile - Bolivia - Peru - Ecuador
At the southern tip of America there is nothing. An immeasurable nothing. Excessive in width and brittle beauty. This is where my journey began. In Patagonia, a land of extremes, shaped by ice that is thousands of years old, high mountain peaks and endless steppe. Here, on Chilean territory, was the first highlight of the trip, the “Torres del Paine” National Park, one of the most beautiful mountain formations in the world. The snow-capped peaks, over 3,000 meters high, rise up like towers. The rough beauty of the park is shaped by the strong wind from southern Chile. Trees do not grow vertically, but develop horizontally, shaped by the wind blowing over them.
The starting point of the trip is Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, near the storm-lashed Cape Horn. I bought two Criollo horses from the manager of the Estancia “Maria Behety”, but I had to tame them myself . After five weeks of training we started, with a large portion of recklessness and self-confidence in my luggage, I started north, into an unknown country. “We're on our way to Alaska,” I wrote in my diary that evening. The completely flat steppe landscape of southern Argentina, in which the horizon flickers in front of the eye as a vague line in the infinite distance, seemed to want to make it clear how endless this road to Alaska is. Bolivia initially showed its rough side. The dry, monotonous area is characterized by the red, washed-out earth. Even the houses are built from this earth and seem to merge with the ground. Only a few cacti defy the drought and cold of the Altiplano - the plateau of South America. The people here at over 2,000 meters live from the few animals, sheep, goats or donkeys that they own and that are guarded by the children on the wayside. Dressed in a poncho and a woolen hat, but barefoot, they defy the often grim cold. From Ecuador, the trip changes. I was tired of traveling alone for a long time. From Ecuador, Barbara Kohmanns accompanied me. With four horses - in fact there were five, but that was only to be found out later - we now followed the old Inca trail. This old Inca road once led over 5,000 km through the Andes, from today's Santiago de Chile to Quito. Some parts of the path are still paved with the large square stones. Who has already traveled here? With its 5,000 m high volcanic peaks, the Amazon rainforest, the plateau and the coastal landscape, Ecuador is one of the most diverse countries in South America.
The team
Günter, dog Falko - later dog Lobo - and the horses: Rebelde, Gaucho. From Ecuador, Barbara and the female dog Liesl are there and the horses Samurai and Flavia. Flavia leaves the company soon. It turns out that she was pregnant and Barbara left her with a heavy heart on a ranch so that she could give birth to her foal there in peace.
