March 31st 2019: Carretera Austral

One of our favourite songs and one of our favourite instruments.

Sung-Min Ahn's arrangement of 'The long and winding road' of the Beatles.

I love this Beatles song because of the lyrics and melody. And it fits so well with the roads we are traveling now, long and winding roads that in the end will bring us home again.

After another night in Lago Posados we drove the back road route to Paso Robalos, a rural border crossing to return to Chile. The Argentinian part of the route was stunning, with snowy mountains appearing and lakes as still as a mirror.

Looking towards the border a canyon shows and we saw many birds including the black necked swans again. The road passes through large estancias (farms) where we waved at gauchos on horses inspecting the herds with their dogs. The border crossing was easy again, the computer worked!  The Argentinian guy stamped the wrong day in my passport as he hadn't adjusted the stamp yet from the last visitor. The Chilean guy mainly wanted to find out how much we paid for the car - busy job working in border control!

From the border you drive through National Park Patagonia, which is one of three very successful restoration projects started and then donated to the Chilean state by Doug Tompkins (billionaire founder of North Face outdoor brand). They bought a very large sheep farm in 2004 and in the last 15 years have been working on bringing the land back to it's original state.

And with lots of success, there are many hiking trails to enjoy fantastic scenery and many animals to be seen. Amongst those this bird of prey that was wandering close to the parking lot of the park entrance building and not really fazed by having its photo taken.

There is a very interesting and well laid out interactive museum in this park and it shows that this park was in private hands first and no money was spared to build great facilities. The museum explains the history of the park and provides information about the wildlife etc. It also delivers a stark message about humans destroying the planet by using way too much water, producing way too much waste and a sobering display of how many animal species have become extinct in the last 200 years.

Driving out of the park to meet The Carretera Austral - the famous road we will be driving south first and then north - you drive 'into' the turquoise Rio Baker. What a colour, never seen anything like it! All the way to Cochrane to the South you see this river from the road above, just stunning. We decided to stay in Cochrane for a couple of nights to do a walk in the park.

The next morning we drove back into the park to the start of the walk we wanted to do (1.5 hrs..:-(, we should have gone camping!). On the way we saw a long line of Quanacos standing along this hill, ready to cross the road heading for the valley.

We did a 17 km loop walk following more or less the river inland. Some beautiful vistas even though it started out cloudy. A few very steep climbs but rewarding as well. We met an English couple that had walked down from the north in three days and a guy who was camping next to the creek and had a sleep in obviously.

The red colour of this mountain was a first for us in Chile, for us colour means Argentina but hey this was beautiful. On the way back the sun came out in full but unfortunately we couldn't see this mountain anymore so not another sunny picture. At the 8 km mark we crossed this very high swing bridge (which Hans calls hanging bridge in his Dutch-English). I am afraid of heights if it's steep down like this, no fun for me to have to cross this. But of course I did, just looking straight ahead and not down, not even for one second just terrifying. It still amuses Hans as you will hear while I just worry that he drops down in the gorge while making fun of me..

It surely was a beautiful spot for our lunch, the canyon is deep and the water the clearest blue.

We had another lazy day in our hospedaje in Cochrane while the rain bucketed down. We had a nice dinner with Connor from Ireland who we had given a ride together with the English couple Chris and Mary we met earlier to the campsite at the park entrance after our walk. Also met some nice Swedes at the hospedaje. Nice to sit next to a roaring fire when it pours..

From Cochrane we decided to head south to  Villa O'Higgins, the little village where the Carretera Austral ends (or begins, for us). On the way we visited and spent the night in Caleta Tortel, a tiny village on the lake edge without roads but with 7.5 km of boardwalks and stairs. The 448 inhabitants have to park at the top and then log their stuff around by walking or using boats. The fire brigade here is a small boat with a load of hoses on the deck.

It's a small and remote village and like most remote towns it's a bit rundown, with a few shipwrecks parked here and there. Quite a few pretty new 'plazas' all with wooden structures in the typical design of the area. Also a few burned down houses right on the waterfront where the brigade literally missed the boat.. everything is in wood so the fire risk is huge. In our cabin the geiser almost blew up, which shows how easy it can go wrong.

Never ever name your brand new boat 'Invincible' - what could possibly go wrong?! I had exchanged whatsapp messages to book a cabin for us but once in Tortel no-one was at home and I no longer had any reception. It was 5.30 so what to do? I started walking around and the advantage of a tiny village is that I managed to start talking to just the right lady who was filling in for the owner who was away for the weekend. She said she expected us at 8pm - no idea where she got that from but we were happy to have found her as it started to rain and we were keen to start the log fire! We thought we'd go out for another beer at the micro brewery we visited in the afternoon (not much going on in Tortel) but in the dark with hardly any lightning it's a bit tricky those slippery stairs. The beers were good and the owner told us he brewed 300 liter each week. After we asked if locals were his clients he said no they drink at home. So lots of people get thirsty in Tortel or the owner has a significant drinking problem :-)

The next morning, after making ourselves a nice coffee with our camping stove while waiting for the ferry to return we made the trip over a very tranquil lake to continue to Villa O'Higgins. First class of course.

What an awesome drive, all gravel roads from Cochrane south but no problem for our 'Beast' and Hans. The village is set in a valley surrounded by peaks with glaciers that drain water into a massive light blue river and many lakes. We found a nice cabin and more important, the local cafe that had a sports channel so Hans could watch 'Oranje' play Germany for the qualification of the European Championship. The owner liked futbol too so he watched with us and heard Hans use his best Dutch language when the Germans scored in the 90th minute and won 3-2. Oops.

I'd read about a nice hike which we embarked on the next day, about 5 hours back and forth to three miradors over the glaciers and the lakes.

Needles to say a good work out again but beautiful. We saw a lot of deer poo and deer tracks but unfortunately not the owner, the famous Huelmul deer that only lives in these remote parks. We were lucky enough to have seen one before near mount Fitzroy in Argentina.

O yes, why not- let's drive down to the sign that marks the end of the road - from here it's only the boat to Argentina. We met lots of travelers (non car owners) who hiked (2 days) and took the ferry to cross from El Chalten in Argentina to Villa O'Higgins in Chile. Pretty cool. We met Chris and Mary again here and they bought us a beer in the evening, the day before they were going to do this trip to cross to El Chalten. Good on them and very nice to have a beer and a chat. Oh well, we had to skip the experience of hiking across the border, but we do prefer traveling with our 'beast' and having so much freedom to go where ever we want.

Early in the morning we started our return trip and the clouds in the valleys look like water, very surreal.

The drive back to the ferry was mystic and beautiful. In Cochrane by middag we decided to drive further north to Rio Tranquilo. We picked up Minerva from Finland and Andrea from Germany who were the lucky winners of the day's free three hour trip to Rio Tranquilo. Nice girls to have a chat with, they only met a few days before too. North of Cochrane we stopped at this point where two rivers meet, which provides a cool spectacle. Mixing of the colours of the rivers as well as some really cool waterfalls.

The views became truly spectaculair driving around Lago General Carretera with the evening sun turning it all shades of green and blue.

The islands almost seem to be floating on the water. We spent the night in Rio Tranquilo to visit the 'catedrals de marmol' (cathedrals of marble) the next morning.

The village exists and thrives because of this natural wonder, so everyone is in the business of either providing accommodation, food or boat rides or kayak trips to the caves.

We slept in a bit so missed the first trips but ended up with only 5 in a boat half an hour before most boats were leaving. With two Russian girls and a very nice American girl, who took over steering the boat for a bit which we thought was funny but she later told me the skipper had a strong alcohol smell around him (at 11 am!).

The two guys did skipper us back and forth in one piece and told us a bit about the caves in Espanol mucho rapido. They mainly kept pointing out which rock looked like what - see? an elephant! mira, un gorilla and so on. Bit annoying really but I guess that's what they think tourists want to hear.

It is a truly amazing site these marble caves. The water is so clear and so blue, you can see the marble rocks under water everywhere too. We went into a few side arms with the boat which was cool.

Unbelievable how wind and water can produce these fantastic sculptured caves. One lone standing section of caves is called the cathedral and another the chapel. The chapel is also in use as a chapel and you can get married there, pretty awesome!

The water itself provides for pictures that you just have to print on a canvas and put on the wall at home, humans cannot do a better job at producing art I'd say!

After the boat trip we headed north to Cerro Castillo, also a famous hiking area on the Carretera. Andrea and Minerva were lucky enough to be standing at the road side just at the right time! We found out after about 2 hour drive that remainder of the road to Cerro Castillo was closed until 5 pm and decided to do the detour along the smaller roads as we wanted to get to Puerto Ibanez and the waterfall there first anyway, we may as well spend the night there. Andrea and Minerva opted to get out to wait for another ride once the road opened.

About 1 km into the other road we had to cross this very, very narrow suspension bridge which in itself wasn't a problem if it hadn't been for the fact that on the wooden beams a large sharp piece of wood was sticking out....And yes, we drove into that little sharp splinter which blew the side of our brand new tyre to pieces. We heard it loud and clear go poof! Damn *&@#;%$!!! Seeing the damage done it was clear that was not going to be repairable...even more $#@&#$p;^!!. Hans kept his cool and changed the tyre in no time so we continued our journey.

A bit challenging and sandy at times but a very nice back road drive alongside a few very nice lakes, ending at the very large Ibanez waterfalls where Hans had a well deserved beer as the sun was setting. In the village we found a room in a hospedaje and a typical Chilean dinner con papas fritas which suited us fine by that time! In the morning we drove to Cerro Castillo but decided to skip staying there and doing the (expensive) walk up to the lake.

A mirror lake along the road with the Cerro Castillo peaks in the background. During breakfast I managed to call the Toyota garage in Coyhaique and make an appointment for Monday to have the passenger airbag replaced. I was quite proud of myself being able to do all of this in Spanish as the Toyota guy didn't speak English at all. Toyota in Punta Arenas had told us there was a national recall on 2010 4 Runners for this issue. They didn't have the airbag available and also needed the car for two full days. It was too cold and wet in Punta Arenas so we took the gamble of being able to do it here, the only town of any size on the Carretera with a Toyota garage. The rest of the Friday afternoon we spent hunting down a new tyre but the brand we purchased nobody was selling in Coyhaique...go figure! In the end we had to buy two new tyres of another brand which now provides us with a brand new spare tyre. Annoying to spend all this money as we just did that in Punta Arenas 5 weeks ago. We managed to find a last minute run down cabin just out of town, very nice guy but he hasn't got a clue when it comes to maintenance. We were not going to spend 5 more nights there so returned to town for better reception and are now in a very cosy and comfy new cabin on the hill. A small break in our travel to do some reading, planning, blogging and sleeping....very nice! Hans had to make a photo of this very special shampoo when we were shopping and yes it's funny and yuk at the same time :-) ciao hasta luego xx