Santiago and Valparaiso
We arrived in Santiago early Sunday morning with little difficulty, checked in, grabbed a shower and a quick nap, and then headed out to walk the city. Santiago is like a much smaller but cleaner and more beautiful city than Buenos Aires. In some places it feels a lot like Barcelona. The public parks are large and airy, the boulevards wide and well-treed. We toured the old town, visited the Cerro Santa Lucia, wandered through the Barrio Lastarria, and ended up in a quiet, little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in a beautiful neighborhood for dinner.
The next day we headed to the city of Valpariaso to walk this beautiful UNESCO world heritage city. Known for its steep hills and spectacular street art, we were not disappointed. Each building was an amazing work of art. It was incredible. We walked the hills, gazed at the murals, and then spotted the tall-ship Esmeralda in the harbor. Still always a naval training vessel, I remembered the ship from a young naval cadet I met many years back while sailing in Brazil. He gifted me his Esmeralda Navy cap. Such an amazingly small world, here that ship is again, back in South America almost 4 decades later.
Walking Santiago…
Valparaiso street art…
Puerto Montt -> Hornopiren -> Caleta Gonzalo
We hopped on a short domestic flight to Puerto Montt to pick up our rental truck and camper. And then we set off towards Ruta 7e, the Carreterra Austral. A world-renowned highway, it leads ever southwards between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes foothills, literally to the end of civilization at Bernardo Higgins in southern Patagonia. To get further south in Chile, you need to cross into Argentina by foot and hike to El Chalten, and then take a bus to Puerto Natales. Or head back to Puerto Montt and fly. We will be going as far south as Patagonia NP, crossing into Argentina to drive the Ruta 40e and then heading back to Puerto Montt via Bariloche. We will then fly on to Puerto Natales.
This road is rough, remote, and often bimodal. As in, every now and again, you need to take a ferry to reach the next stretch of rugged, back-country road that simultaneously hugs the mountains and the coast. The little villages you encounter are small, isolated and simple, reminiscent of a slower, simpler time. The scenery is out of a fairy tale : glaciers, lakes, mountains, fjords, there is something incredible around every corner. Our primary occupation for this stretch will be driving but we plan on doing as much hiking as we can along the way.
We rolled into Hornopiren after getting used to our new ride on a lovely smooth asphalt road and stopping for some very simple staples at a small ‘tienda’ along the way. There is not a whole lot of variety or availability down here, and we will be eating whatever we can find along the way. And finding food will be somewhat more time-consuming than popping into Safeway! We arrived really late in some light rain, but found a decent campsite and hunkered down for the night to wait for the ferry. The next morning, we dutifully lined up 2.5 hours beforehand and got all our registrations done in time in our still somewhat rudimentary Spanish. Sadly, our lack of tardiness was not well rewarded – we were the very last car onto the ferry, and the very last car off of the ferry. Something about height restrictions had us waiting on the side until everyone else was loaded. Including the semi-trucks and tour busses ahead of us! Oh well, we were just grateful to have made it on board!
The camper is loaded and off we go!
It was a very enjoyable and pretty ferry ride along the Comau Fjord, but being last off meant we had to wait for the very last onward ferry into Caleta Gonzalo later that afternoon. A hectic scramble for a campsite along one of the worst roads we have ever driven ensued. The road looked a bit like a washed-out riverbed, and we hopped and bumped and rolled our way along past numerous full campsites before finding a stunning spot in Pumalin National Park near Volcan Chaiten. We watched the southern stars come out and then retired to our cozy camper – it is cold here, and the camper is very comfortable.
Pumalin National Park
We were up reasonably early the next morning, eager to climb the Chaiten volcano. It was a quick drive to the trailhead, where we found an ideal spot in the direct sun (yay for the solar panels!) and headed up the mountain. Well! What a climb! It was straight up for 1.6 miles. Stair after stair and stair dug into the overgrown mountainside, and hauling us slowly upwards through the rain forest. But the summit was incredible and well worth the climb. The lake in the crater sparkled far below us and we were surrounded by smoking vents and fumeroles. We could see all the way across the Chaiten valley and out to the Pacific Ocean. It was lovely.
Next, we headed into the town of Chaiten to join the gas line (yes, you always queue up for gas here as it is in relatively short supply) and to get a few more groceries before hanging out in a beautiful picnic spot just outside the south entrance to Doug Tompkins Pumalin National Park. The kind lady at the entrance was adamant that we would be able to get a camping spot, but they control the numbers pretty strictly and so we had to wait for a camper to leave before we could enter.
Once inside the park, we were simply blown away. It was like driving through an endless, beautifully manicured park. The rough single track gravel road was hemmed in on both sides with meticulously mown meadows, with steep mountainsides covered in rain forests rising above them. Huge Nalca plants and ferns grew everywhere, some up to 15ft high. Bright red fuschias were abundant and the chaucos and hummingbirds were busily feeding around them. Monstrously large trees towered above us creating the upper canopy. It felt a little like we had entered the Jurassic era – lush, wet, wild, overgrown and just a little eerie.
Our hike out to the Mirador Michinmahuida glacier the next day was steep, secluded and surrounded by quiet, lush rain forest. The view from the top out over the glaciers was simply jaw-dropping. Endless blue ice cascading down vast valleys. An empty land of spectacular beauty. We met one person on the whole hike.
Hikes: Sendero Volcan Chaiten – 3.2miles and 2,300ft and Sendero Ventisquero Michinmahuida – 4.6 miles and 1,375ft
Corcovado National Park
Corcovado NP is very remote and not at all developed. Most of it is inaccessible mountains, glaciers and ocean-front fjords. There are only 2 paths going into the park, and no roads at all. We decided at the last minute to stop and take in the Yelcho Glacier, the longest foray into the Park. It was a pretty busy trail, well used, but all by locals. We have encountered a few European tourists, but no Americans as of yet. Most folks are Chilenos, Argentinos or Brasilenos. This is one of the things I love about South America – outside of the cities and the handful of well-advertised hotspots for well-heeled tourists, there is a whole world out here that has seen very little of our influence. The people speak only Spanish, they eat simple, local food and they live their lives the way they have for hundreds of years. It is fabulous!
Yelcho Glacer was amazing, and well worth the extra hike, and after getting back to the truck we headed up the Futuluefu road to find an idyllic campsite on the shores of Lago Yelcho. Paul is doing a great job of finding some great little spots on iOverlander. The little old lady who invited us onto her land has lived here in this cove her entire life. And her grandmother before her. The family have been here in the same house since 1930.
I did not expect to be able to swim in Patagonia, but camping on a body of water in brilliant sunshine invited us to take a dip! We took advantage of the warm weather only too aware that it is likely to change very soon in our future.
Hike : Sendero Ventisquero Yelcho – 3.8 miles and 485ft
