Nuevo Ritmo

Since I last wrote, we have done a LOT. So much that I have gotten very behind on this blog … so I am going to go back to what we did after San Pedro de Atacama – flew to Puerto Montt and began driving the Carretera Austral, AKA the Southern Highway. We spent two weeks driving a rental car down this beautiful, rugged road and visiting national parks. We saw and did many things along the way, so this is part one.

This was an adventure before it even started. When we were building our itinerary and planning to get on the road, we learned that we needed to take one of two ferry crossings, both of which were sold out. We spent an extra night in Puerto Montt because of this, and ended up getting tickets to ride the 9 hour overnight ferry (11pm-8am) from Puerto Montt to Chaitén the following day. We made the most of our extra day though. We visited Vicente Perez Rosales National Park in the morning, where we learned that the Chilean national park workers were on strike. No one could give us clear information or any details on this, but it seemed that we’d be able to enter at least some national parks, but many trails would be closed. What a crazy twist in our road trip plan. Trails here were closed, but we were able to explore a gorgeous blue river surrounded by yellow wild flowers. That same day, in the afternoon we had a wild adventure. I had been reading a blog about traveling in Patagonia and driving the Carretera Austral, and I found a local pilot’s phone number. We called, were surprised he answered, and he agreed to take us on a flight over the volcanic region near Puerto Varas. We flew around mountains, volcanoes, glaciers, lakes, and waterfalls for about 2 hours before returning to land. The tallest volcano we flew around was Tronador, which is a little over 11,000 ft tall. We watched the clouds cover and uncover these massive peaks, constantly changing their appearance and revealing new elements of their beauty. What a way to experience the majesty of a landscape – everything is so grand and powerful, and you really feel that from a Birds Eye view.

Finally, after getting a surprisingly good nights sleep on the ferry, we began driving the Carretera Austral. We first visited Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park, which is just outside of Chaitén. We learned that Douglas Tompkins, famous outdoorsman and the founder of North Face, created five national parks in Chilean Patagonia. This is actually part of the reason the workers went on strike, because the national park service basically got five “free” national parks that dramatically increased revenue, and they still didn’t increase the workers’ pay. Classic. Anyways, Pumalín was beautiful. We were able to hike two trails we had read about – the Cascadas Escondidas (hidden waterfalls) and the Alerce trail where we could see hundreds of 3-4,000 year old South American redwood-esque trees. On the waterfall hike, we saw the most powerful waterfall Jay or I had ever seen, and we’ve seen a lot of waterfalls! It spilled over the rocky cliffs before explosively falling into a pond below, spraying mist on everything in sight. Hiking back to the car at 10pm with headlamps on was not my favorite part of this experience, but it was worth it.

The next day, we got on the road and planned to visit Queulat National Park, but the park entrance was completely closed off. This park is famous for the Ventisquero Colgante (hanging glacier), so we were pretty bummed we couldn’t go in, but here we decided to change our plans. We ran into a guy outside of Queulat that had just driven the entire Carretera, and he told us that Patagonia and San Rafael National Parks were open, further south, but he was unable to visit the others. We decided to bypass some national parks, keep driving south to the ones he said were open, and hope that we’d be able to hit the remaining parks on the way back. We weren’t confident or thrilled with this decision initially, but we decided to go for it and hope for the best. So that night, we drove 6-7 hours to Coyhaique, the biggest town on the Carretera.

The next morning, after spending many hours in the car, we were wanting to go on a hike so badly. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned in Patagonia, it’s that the outdoors-people here are hardcore. It’s actually quite difficult to find a doable, let alone “chill,” hike. So naturally we ended up trying to hike a mountain called Cerro Mackay, that was on private property. We may have crawled under some fences, but we managed a 4-5 mile hike. After that, we drove 6-7 more hours to Puerto Rio Tranquilo, which turned out to be one of our favorite towns. Here is where we established our pizza and/or cheeseburger and beer tradition that has carried on throughout the rest of the trip. We visited a tourist shop that night to try to sign up for some excursions, and we fortunately got the last two spots on the San Rafael glacier boat tour the next morning. Besides the plane ride, this was my first time seeing a glacier up close, and I have been fascinated ever since. Not only are glaciers massive, but you can see how much larger they once were by observing the lines they’ve carved in surrounding rocks over the years. Glacial melt has also created huge, deep lakes in their foreground, full of bobbing icebergs and crystal blue water. The glacier is anything but still – it’s active, constantly shifting, cracking, and dropping pieces into its lake. We were able to see several pieces fall, sounding like thunder and creating waves across the lake. Other highlights of this experience were observing a leopard seal sunbathing on an iceberg, and enjoying a cocktail with a glacial ice cube.

The next day, we knew we wanted to visit the marble caves. We went to one of the tourist booths the night before, and met a character named Ruben that was very adamant that we would go on the tour with him the next day. We told him we wanted to go around 11 am or 12 pm. Our Spanish isn’t that good yet, but it isn’t that bad either, but somehow this man came knocking on our door at 9 am to see if we wanted to go on the tour. We declined and said we’d love to go later, we had not packed and had to check out of our place, and he said he’d call us at 10:30. Next thing we knew, he was calling at 10 and saying he was ready and he had a group waiting for us. We said we weren’t ready, and he said they’d wait 15 minutes. We were frazzled but decided to go for it. It didn’t get any less chaotic. We arrived to the boat, where everyone else was wearing huge ponchos, and they put us in the front two seats and said there weren’t any ponchos left. Commence gringo hazing. We got absolutely soaked as the boat soared across the lake (all lakes here have white caps by the way). Cold and wet, we arrived at the marble caves. Calcium carbonate-filled glacial waters have carved the delicate marble into gorgeous caves, as deep as 50 meters. Our little dingy boat could go right into them. We drove in and around several different caves, including a famous big one called the cathedral, before heading back to town. There was wind coming in, per usual, so the boat ride back was a little terrifying. We got a $5 discount due to the soaking.

In Cochrane, I managed to finally give Jay a belated birthday present of a nice hotel and a glacier trek. The next day, we set out on a hike to the Calluqueo Glacier near Mt San Lorenzo, one of the tallest mountains in Patagonia. Our fearless guide Jimmy led us on a 4 mile hike, beginning with an almost waist-deep river crossing in Crocs that he provided. Cold and wet once again! The hike was steep and very scenic, complete with gourmet sandwiches and charcuterie from Jimmy. Once we approached the glacier, Jimmy helped us don crampons (both of our first time), harnesses, gaitors, and helmets, and gave us each an ice axe. With that, we began to walk across loose rocks, ice, and ultimately, the glacier. A few times, we roped up with our harnesses to cross narrow stretches of ice near crevasses, and one time we roped up to climb up a steep icy wall. Didn’t know we were going to try our hand at ice climbing, but we did. Once we were in the middle of the glacier, we stopped for lunch, and Jimmy took some really cool drone footage that we are still anxiously waiting to receive via email. WHAT a day. Ice climbing back down the steep wall was one of the scariest things I have ever done, but we did it. The day ended with a cold Dolbek Maqui from Jimmy – our new favorite beer!! Maqui is a local fruit similar to blueberry. This was a day we will never forget.

We spent the night in Cochrane, our hotel hosts brought a bottle of champagne for Jay’s belated birthday celebration, and the next day we continued the drive down to Villa O’Higgins: the end of the Carretera Austral. This was one of the most beautiful stretches of the drive, largely due to the abundance of large waterfalls on the side of the highway. O’Higgins was surrounded by wilderness, but we were surprised by how civilized the town was, all the way down here in the middle of no where. It even has a small airport. Finally, we arrived at the sign that announced the highway’s end. Making it to the end of the road felt like an accomplishment, and we had so much fun doing it. I also felt grateful we got to turn around and drive back because I didn’t want it to be over. We then had one of the best pizzas we have had, with Dolbek Maqui on the side of course.

Now, time to turn around and drive back!