Day 33 - Road trippin' the Carretera Austral
December 18 - Carretera Austral, Chile
As we met people that had either traveled extensively in Chile or where themselves Chilean, we heard more and more about the Carretera Austral and our intrigue grew.
The Carretera Austral is basically a long road is what "connects" the Northern part of Chile to Chilean Patagonia. The area in the middle is really remote- lots of islands, rivers, fjords. In fact, the road doesn't even go all the way through - some parts are connected by ferries. Extremely tough place to build and maintain a road. Project to make a complete path was in the late 70's under the Pinochet dictatorship. Still to this day the road is far from being what most would consider a completed roadway. 100,000 people live in the area that is connected by the Carretera, and they are some tough folks to handle the weather and isolation they have.
We chose to start on the northern terminus of the road in Puerto Montt after renting a car from a friend of our Spanish instructor in Puerto Varas. We got a Nissan March, which is basically a less awesome version of a Honda Fit. Very small car, and a manual transmission.
Originally our plan was to drive south to Chaiten, visit Parque Pumalin (private part from Tomkins Conservation), then head East towards Futaleufu and cross into Argentina before heading North towards Bariloche, then come back to Puerto Varas to complete a circuit.
On Saturday December 16, two days before we planned to leave, there was a major landslide in Villa Santa Lucia, which has killed at least 12 people and has devastated the local area including a four mile stretch of the Carretera Austral prior to Futaleufu. It eerily reminded both Chelsea and I of the Oso landslide in Washington, and the terrible destruction that can happen when heavy rainfall loosens mountainous areas. Our thoughts are with the Chilean people affected, their families, and the people involved in the recovery effort.
The plan changed after we heard about the landslide. We decided to do more of an out and back trip.
We left on Monday from Puerto Varas, and completed a clock-wise trip around Lago Llanquihue. We stopped in beautiful Frutillar, and Puerto Octay, before driving up Volcan Osorno and visiting the various lookouts along the way.
Frutillar is a town known for heavily German influence. We were most impressed by the views and also the world-class theater that sits on the lake shore of this tiny town.
On the way to the top of the volcano, there is a volcano information center, a building made of volcanic materials. It is near to a few craters that you can peer in to and even rope up and climb in. The drive to the volcano is beautiful and also pretty desolate - at a point of elevation, the wildflowers were blooming. The volcano is a ski operation, which Evan noted was a "boring" ski area, considering it is the highest point in the area.
From the volcano we headed towards Cochamo. We had heard about a hike for a view similar to Yosemite and we had been waiting for good weather to check it out. We paid a man to park on his lawn near the trail head. Short on time, we packed light (water and a snack) to trail run.
The trail was very muddy, with a healthy amount of horse manure (caca de caballo). The trail was lush and jungle-like, and at some point it felt like walking through a tight hallway because the trail had eroded down so much. We set a time to turn around, with a goal of reaching La Junta before then. While we were going to be close, we both agreed we weren't going to make it in time to get out of there before it got dark. While we had a lot of hours of daylight, we'd lose sun earlier due to the thick trees and rocky valley. Bummed, we turned back to the car, without even reaching the area where the trees opened, revealing the beautiful rock faces we had imagined.
As we worked our way back, we knew we made the right call - it was getting harder to see and we had a long way left to travel. And yet, it was disappointing, nonetheless! Maybe we'd be back.
We hopped back in to the car, heading towards Puelo. The light was amazing as we rounded the water way on windy gravel roads. The roads were extremely rough in places. Since Evan isn't exactly a pro at driving stick, we spend a lot of time in 3rd gear bucking our way up some very steep and rough gravel roads.
We were slowed by a group of mountain goats, working their way down the mountainside on to the road, and marveled at the view of Estero Relancavi as the sun came down. Just as it was getting dark, we recognized we weren't going to make it to the park, we decided to find a place to camp in Contao. Our first attempt at asking a hostel if we could camp there didn't work, but we did find a place to camp with signs signifying "ACAMPER" just east of town...in a sheep pasture! We cooked pasta next to the car, found a spot free of sheep poo to set up the tent. We slept great and were woken by a rowdy bunch of chickens in the morning.
As we met people that had either traveled extensively in Chile or where themselves Chilean, we heard more and more about the Carretera Austral and our intrigue grew.
The Carretera Austral is basically a long road is what "connects" the Northern part of Chile to Chilean Patagonia. The area in the middle is really remote- lots of islands, rivers, fjords. In fact, the road doesn't even go all the way through - some parts are connected by ferries. Extremely tough place to build and maintain a road. Project to make a complete path was in the late 70's under the Pinochet dictatorship. Still to this day the road is far from being what most would consider a completed roadway. 100,000 people live in the area that is connected by the Carretera, and they are some tough folks to handle the weather and isolation they have.
We chose to start on the northern terminus of the road in Puerto Montt after renting a car from a friend of our Spanish instructor in Puerto Varas. We got a Nissan March, which is basically a less awesome version of a Honda Fit. Very small car, and a manual transmission.
Originally our plan was to drive south to Chaiten, visit Parque Pumalin (private part from Tomkins Conservation), then head East towards Futaleufu and cross into Argentina before heading North towards Bariloche, then come back to Puerto Varas to complete a circuit.
On Saturday December 16, two days before we planned to leave, there was a major landslide in Villa Santa Lucia, which has killed at least 12 people and has devastated the local area including a four mile stretch of the Carretera Austral prior to Futaleufu. It eerily reminded both Chelsea and I of the Oso landslide in Washington, and the terrible destruction that can happen when heavy rainfall loosens mountainous areas. Our thoughts are with the Chilean people affected, their families, and the people involved in the recovery effort.
The plan changed after we heard about the landslide. We decided to do more of an out and back trip.
We left on Monday from Puerto Varas, and completed a clock-wise trip around Lago Llanquihue. We stopped in beautiful Frutillar, and Puerto Octay, before driving up Volcan Osorno and visiting the various lookouts along the way.
Frutillar is a town known for heavily German influence. We were most impressed by the views and also the world-class theater that sits on the lake shore of this tiny town.
The trail was very muddy, with a healthy amount of horse manure (caca de caballo). The trail was lush and jungle-like, and at some point it felt like walking through a tight hallway because the trail had eroded down so much. We set a time to turn around, with a goal of reaching La Junta before then. While we were going to be close, we both agreed we weren't going to make it in time to get out of there before it got dark. While we had a lot of hours of daylight, we'd lose sun earlier due to the thick trees and rocky valley. Bummed, we turned back to the car, without even reaching the area where the trees opened, revealing the beautiful rock faces we had imagined.
As we worked our way back, we knew we made the right call - it was getting harder to see and we had a long way left to travel. And yet, it was disappointing, nonetheless! Maybe we'd be back.
We hopped back in to the car, heading towards Puelo. The light was amazing as we rounded the water way on windy gravel roads. The roads were extremely rough in places. Since Evan isn't exactly a pro at driving stick, we spend a lot of time in 3rd gear bucking our way up some very steep and rough gravel roads.
We were slowed by a group of mountain goats, working their way down the mountainside on to the road, and marveled at the view of Estero Relancavi as the sun came down. Just as it was getting dark, we recognized we weren't going to make it to the park, we decided to find a place to camp in Contao. Our first attempt at asking a hostel if we could camp there didn't work, but we did find a place to camp with signs signifying "ACAMPER" just east of town...in a sheep pasture! We cooked pasta next to the car, found a spot free of sheep poo to set up the tent. We slept great and were woken by a rowdy bunch of chickens in the morning.
Comments
Post a Comment