Carretera Austral

And Patagonia keeps rewarding us with more stunning views, incredible trekking through nature and the awesome Caratera Austral. After rather touristy El Calafate we drive to El Chalten, also in the Parque Los Glaciares. The weather has changed to grey, cloudy and rainy but we decide to leave for a 3 day trekking the next day anyway. The first day we walk to the basecamp of Cerro Torre, a famous climbers destination and apparently one of the hardest peaks in the world to climb, mainly because of the conditions. The clouds don`t allow us a peak at this peak and we spend the evening at the cold camp playing `jeu de boules` with some big rocks. The next morning we wake up with snow again and still no views of the Torre. We walk further to Mount Fitzroy the next glorious mountain in this area and do a side trip to a beautiful glacier sliding it`s way down this mountain. Late afternoon the weather clears a bit and we do get a look at this peak. At sunrise Hans urges me out of my warm sleeping bag to have a really clear and beautiful view of Fitzroy. After a few more hours of sleep we head back down to the valley to El Chalten and spend the rest of the afternoon in the local mircobrewery. Next day we continue the Ruta 40 to drive to the Chilean Caratera Austral.

The entrance into Chile is extremely well directed by the Chilean tourist industry; from the relatively well groomed gravel road of the ruta 40 in Argentina we cross the border into Chile where the road immediately changes into one of the steepest, bendiest and corrugated gravel roads we´d seen so far. We are heading for the Carretera Austral, the famous gravel road through Chilean Patagonia, and this side track leading to the ´main´ route is a tiny, bumpy road, spectacularly cut in the cliffs next to the biggest lake of Patagonia. Our short trip today, only an odd 150 km, takes 5-6 hours to complete but oh so scenic! The Ruta 40 seems like an autobahn compared to this.

One of the first towns we visit is Tortel, a beautiful town built on the shores of a fjord/inlet. The town has no streets but a grid of wooden walkways and was only accessible by boat or plane until they built a road in 2003. The villages on the Carretera Austral are very small with limited services. In Tortel, the only restaurant we can find can´t cook for us as they have no gas to cook on and whoever sells it in the village does not have any gas left either. Finally, the lady of the place we stay with finds one of her girlfriends prepared to cook a meal for us.We spend the afternoon here trying to organise a tour to a nearby glacier and after a couple of hours strolling through the town we finally find the right guy. It´s no problem and the trip is set for the next day. So the next day our guide picks us up only to find that there is no gasoline to run the motorboat, uuuh that means no gasoline in the whole town. Okay, trip cancelled so the same day we move to Villa O´Higgins, a tiny village at the southern end of the Carretera Austral. Good move beacuse the next day the local ferry does it´s weekly trip to yet another glacier.

From the southern end of the carretera austral we slowly make our way north, taking a lot of side roads and undertaking various hikes and at one spot a nice 4WD track. I hike on my indoor soccer shoes since Villa O´Higgins as one of the dogs had an appetite for one of my hiking shoes, difficult to keep my feet dry but hey soccer shoes dry a lot quicker as well! On one hike we drive to the start of the trek (described as easy) with a French-German couple who are very happy to get a lift, otherwise it is either a good day walk to get to the start or an expensive taxi trip. Separately from the other couple we start our hike and get lost after 10 minutes. After 4 hours of trying to find a route up the steep slope we give up and return to the car another two hours later. We feel pretty stupid we couldn`t find the route but as we reach the car we see the French-German couple there as well. They gave up as well after similarly getting lost a couple of times. Happily we celebrate our shared defeat back in town with a couple of beers.

After two weeks we finish the Carretera Austral in Chaiten. Chaiten has been affected quite dramatically by an erupting volcano in May 2008 leaving the town in up to two metres of ash. The town was completely evacuated and only 50 hardliners have returned since then even though the volcano is still active. But the ferry services back to mainland Chile still run from here and we hope to catch one of them. However on arrival, the ferry of the day is full, the one which leaves tomorrow does not take cars, and the next one leaves five days later. No chance we stay here much longer and so it`s back to Argentina, a 700 km detour. But no drama, we camp a couple of days in relaxed former hippie town El Bolson and visit Bariloche and Villa d`Angostura for a second time (we skied here in August). We do a short huttentocht near Bariloche and then it`s back to Chile.

Back to Chile because like all good things, this one is nearing it`s end. Femke will join her parents in Gran Canaria to join them as they cross the Atlantic Ocean with their self build sailing yacht and I stay in Chile one more month to try and sell the car for a reasonable price. Hopefully that goes quick so I can go and enjoy a few more trips here in South America before I go back to Perth in January and join Femke and her parents on the other side of the Atlantic in February. And so after 4 days in relaxed Puerto Varas, a little lakeside town close to an inactive volcano Fem and I said goodbye and Fem went north to Santiago (to pick up some luggage we left there), onto Buenos Aires, to Perth, to Gran Canaria. And I, well call me if you want to buy a nice Landcruiser.