Three filmmakers have made the coolest video we’ve seen in a while of the South American landscape.
Stefan Templer, Clemens Krüger and Vincent Urban -- all German filmmakers in their early 30s -- armed themselves with a few cameras and a Land Rover and spent three months driving through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay and southern Brazil.
The result -- the second part of a series that even if it weren’t sponsored by a tour agency, would be hard to beat as a pitch for traveling this picturesque continent.
CNN: Looks like you had some serious wind to contend with …
Vincent Urban: A day can certainly start better than with your cereal being blown out into the desert after a night in an enormously loud tent due to the nonstop-flapping sidewalls.
There were many memorable moments but the most memorable thing about Patagonia in general is the wind.
We had strong, constant winds for weeks, without any break. You realize how hard life can be without any walls to protect you from Mother Nature’s constant whistling.
As a kid from the city, I never felt nature that intense.
Their "moody, irrational" car was the biggest problem the filmmakers encountered. You guys don’t say much.
Urban: Haha. Because we're from Germany and no one wants to listen to German chatter!
No, seriously, we don't make documentaries. We don't tell a story.
We just want to spark the emotions with music and atmospheric sound to make it a very personal experience for the viewer.
No words, just moments that everyone can easily understand and empathize with. We don't have that much useful to say anyways, we're just travelers, like everybody else.
How many times did bad things happen? You get robbed or bitten by snakes?
Urban: We've always been very lucky. There are so many people warning you about all the bad things that can happen, all the bad people that want to rob you and all the bad animals that want to bite you.
I'm not saying that's bogus, the world can surely be a dangerous place sometimes but we happened to be pretty good at avoiding these situations.
The only real troublemaker was our car. He's a very moody individual with all his little irrational problems that come out of nowhere.
We spent many days in local workshops trying to explain our mechanical problems with our hands and feet as we don't speak Spanish at all.
Did the trip turn you into an Earth hugger?
Urban: I'm not really one of those guys that comes back from a trip demonizing our Western society, being all cocky to my friends about how bad they’re behaving by shopping at H&M.
But, of course, you learn a lot on trips like these. You get to experience so many different ways of life and you quickly realize that our Western one is not the necessary one.
You question all the things that seem so important in your life, like fame and possessions. And, of course, you start to care about the environment a lot more than you did before.
It'll sure help if more European and U.S. citizens would travel to other parts of the world to raise their own awareness to global problems so we can actually use our wealth and education to fix stuff -- and not keep making things worse.
The filmmakers say Mongolia may be their next adventure. Tell us about your team.
Urban: Stefan Templer, 31 years, event-technician -- my best friend since birth and we grew up together. I basically spent all my holidays with him for the first 20 years of my life.
He's the real adventurer; he drives the car and knows what to do when it breaks down. Generally, he's the one fixing everything everywhere and those trips would never be possible without him.
Clemens Krüger, 30 years old, is a cameraman and we worked together making snowboarding films for some years when we were younger.
Now we still work together on different commercial projects. Stefan and Clemens shared an apartment for many years.
My name is Vincent Urban, I'm 30 years old as well and I'm a filmmaker and video editor for commercial productions.
We're all from Munich.
Leave us with a profound thought?
Urban: Great stuff happens if you just let go of your expectations and plans and see what's coming to you.