Road Tripping Through Patagonia

So I will start this post out by saying that the past ten days have been some of the more memorable ones in all of my travels. There was lots of amazing scenery, good times with friends and all around great experiences.

My roadtrip started in the small town of Esquel, Argetina when I was picked up at the airport by Monique. Monique is a girl who I had been in contact with prior to my arrival who had her family farm´s truck and was driving it from Santiago, Chile to El Chalten, Argentina and invited me on her journey. Along the way, she had picked up another person, Curtis, who joined us for the first couple days of our trip. After leaving the airport we headed straight to the Chilean border, hoping to make it to Jon Clark (a fellow NOC instructor) ´s cabin in Futaleufu, Chile that evening. The drive was only an hour and a half, but I knew that the route to Jon´s place was somewhat of a challenge, involving a 25 minute hike on not always clearly marked trails so we were wanting to arrive before dark. We managed to finally arrive at the house just as the sun was setting, which around there doesn´t happen until almost 10:00. I was greeted with a big hug from both Jon and Samantha. I was so excited to finally make it to that magical place I had heard so much about. We were also greeted by two other friends of Jon´s, Michelle and Jon, who had arrived just minutes before us. We proceeded to cook up a wonderful meal and laughed, ate and drank the night away.

The next day Samantha had to leave to start her trip back to the States where she is currently in school. After escorting her to the road on his four wheeler, Jon returned to the cabin and whipped up some of his very delicious homemade bread. After breakfast, we decided to rent some horses from Jon´s neighbor and explore his backyard on horseback. The even more memorable horse experience of the day was our group effort to round up Jon´s horse, which lives out in a large field with some other younger horses that are not very good influences. Before starting the wrangling of the horse, Jon gave us all a peptalk about how to stand our ground and get his horse in the corner of the fence. It was a pretty exhilarating experience, especially for Monique, who literally had three horses charging her at one point and managed to stand her ground so much that one of the horses completely wiped out right in front of her!

Samantha and I catching up during dinner

Horseback riding alongside the Rio Futaleufu

The following morning there had been talk about Jon, Curtis and I getting up early to do a little kayaking on the Futa. As it turned out, the boys weren´t hard enough to handle the cold and wet conditions, and decided to opt out of the paddle. We had a lazy morning of eating more bread and eventually Monique and I decided it was time to get on the road. We took everyone into town in the truck, had lunch, then said our goodbyes as the rest of the group started their way back North and we started South.

We drove for a couple hours before arriving at the Carretera Austral, an infamous road that leads down through Patagonian Chile. It is known for its ¨ripio¨(loose stones) sections as well as its spectacular scenery. After a few more hours of driving we arrived into the small port town of Puyuhuapi where we stayed the night.

The next morning we got up and hit the road once again. After driving a couple hours the road took us through a national park that Jon had recommended we stop and hike in. After a little work we managed to find the trailhead and started through the ¨enchanted forest.¨The trail eventually took us out of the forest and opened up into a rocky area with a stream running through it. Jon told us ahead of time not to be fooled into believing this was the end of the trail. So with his advice we followed the stream up to the top, and were delighted to find a beautiful hanging glacier surrounded by a dozen waterfalls and an ice-filled lake.

The hanging glacier/waterfall/ice lake

After our hike detour, we got back on the road with the plan to drive as far as we could before dark. The most amazing thing about driving the Carretera Austral is the change of landscape that takes place along the way. One minute we´d be in vast fields of green grass and would turn the corner to find huge snow covered peaks. We also noticed that it was simply impossible to find a section on the road that didn´t include seeing at least 15 waterfalls at every glance.

We eventually arrived into the first decent sized town I´d seen since Buenos Aires, called Coyhaique. We stopped there to try to pick up a few things and grab a bite to eat. We were completely unsuccessful in finding anything on our list, but we did roll into a nice little coffee shop with internet available for customers who ordered coffee, which I was perfectly happy to do once I saw the espresso machine. After dinner we decided to get out of the city and drive until we found a decent camping spot. We ended up finding a nice spot in a reserve about an hour south of Coyhaique.

The next morning we got out of our tents early with the intention of getting a good start on the day and put in some real miles. It was a great plan until we hit the small town of Villa Cerro Castillo and decided that breakfast and coffee were more important than driving. Monique and I started to realize early on that we were not any good at doing anything quickly and moved at a somewhat relaxed pace, at least as far as moving in the morning was concerned. We got stalled out in the town for a good hour or so and then decided that we would check out a little hike we had read about before getting on the road again.

The roadtrip vehicle on the way out of Coyhaique

The view from the road leading into Villa Cerro Castillo

The ¨Laura¨tree we found on our hike in Villa Cerro Castillo

Our ultimate goal for the day was to make it all the way from Villa Cerro Castillo to the Artgentine border. This involved driving down the Carretera Austral around the Lago General Carrera (or Lago Buenos Aires if you´re in Argentina). We arrived into another small town called Rio Tranquillo about lunch time and were attacked (literally) by about eight hitchhikers that had been waiting for a ride for two days. Monique and I had already been picking up hitchhikers along the way, but this was different because there were so many of them and they were just a little too eager. They began to put their bags in the truck before we had even told them we´d give them a ride. The problem with giving them a ride was that it is illegal to ride in the back of a truck through towns in Chile and Monique was a bit nervous since it was not her truck and she was not interested in having to explain that to a cop if we were to get pulled over. We eventually told them that we were going inside to have lunch and would let them know whats up when we were done. Over lunch we decided that we would let four of them come (thats all that could possibly fit), but the ones in the back would have to hop out when we arrived into any¨urban zones.¨ They were pretty excited to be getting the ride and we were off with our four new Israeli friends.

A pretty common scene on the Carretera Austral before getting to the lake

Monique and I taking a lake shore mate break before arriving into Rio Tranquillo

A pretty common scene on the Carretera Austral while driving alongside the lake

One of many photo stops (We were both very into taking lots and lots of photo breaks along the drive)

We eventually arrived into Chile Chico, Chile the town on the border with Argentina. We dropped off our hitchhikers, filled up with gas, ate or hid all of our fresh veggies (they are not allowed across the border) and made our move into Los Antiguos, Argentina.

We woke up the next morning knowing that we had a long day ahead of ourselves. It was that day that we would begin our drive down another infamous road, Route 40. Route 40 is also known for having ¨ripio¨ roads, but even more for its, as my guidebook would call it, ¨spectacular emptiness.¨For that reason we had the plan of getting up early and starting down 40 by early morning.

After driving out of Los Antiguos for about an hour, we stopped into Perito Moreno (the last town with a population above 100 we´d see for the next 600 kilometers) for our standard coffee and breakfast break. That was then followed by both of us running around town looking for random items we needed, including a gas container (since we were told to bring extra for the long drive without any gas stations), a tarp, empanadas, chocolate, and various other items we deemed essential. We finally started the long drive right on time for us, which wasn´t until after noon.

We had already decided that we would be breaking up the drive down Route 40 with a stop off at the ¨cueva de las manos,¨otherwise known as the ¨cave of hands.¨ The ¨cueva de las manos¨is a collection of prehistoric rock paintings from some of the earliest human societies in South America. There were a couple different options for getting to the caves and we decided to go with one that involved a slightly shorter drive but a steep hike down into a gorge and out to the other side where the cave was located. The scenery leading to the gorge and within the gorge proved to be just as nice as the hand paintings themselves. After speed hiking up out of the gorge, we finally got on the road again, and began to really experience what Route 40 was all about.

The view from out campsite in Los Antiguos, Argentina

Monique admiring the gorge of the ¨cueva de las manos¨

A few of the thousands of hand paintings found in the ¨cueva de las manos¨

One of many Ñandu crossings on Route 40

The ¨spectacular emptiness¨ we had heard so much about

A lonley guanaco hanging out by the road

Another thing to note about Route 40 is that along with there being hardly anything on it, there is also a whole lot of wind. More wind than I have really experienced anywhere else I have been. That said, finding a sheltered spot to camp alongside the road can become quite a problem. It started to get late and we had not yet decided if we would attempt camping in the harsh windy environment, or try to push on through the night. I was driving at this point and had found myself reasonably entertained by trying to find the least bumpy path down the road. There were potholes and washboards all over, but there was also like five different pathways to choose from at most points because there was either construction going on or people had just begun to make their own path when the original road got too bumpy. There were even these magical moments on the construction section of the road (where theoretically I wasn´t supposed to be driving on) when black asphalt, otherwise known as pavement, would appear for a few kilometers and then disappear just as quickly as it had started. I took advantage of those moments and tried to make up for lost time by picking up the speed a bit. Right about when I was starting to feel really good about driving through the night, we saw another thing we hadn´t in a while, trees. We finally decided that this would probably be the only sheltered camping spot we´d find on the road and set up camp for the night.

The next morning we were in the home stretch to reaching El Chalten. After a few more hours of driving through emptiness we came around a corner and found ourselves finally staring at the peaks we had driven so far to see.

Our first glimpse of snow covered peaks after our drive down Route 40

We arrived in El Chalten early that afternoon and started our mission to find an available and reasonably priced room in a place that accepted credit cards. As it turns out, thats not such an easy feat in El Chalten. There are no ATMs in the town and only about five places that accept credit cards, most of which that were out of our price range. We knew ahead of time that we would not be able to get cash once in town, but somehow neither of us really did the math on how much money we should bring. We ended up lucking out and finding a really nice place that had a big group cancel and so gave us a room at half price. We took the deal and that room for a night then made a reservation at another hospedaje that accepted Visa for the last two nights. By the time we were all settled in, the weather was looking a little better and we took a walk to a nearby waterfall. After the hike, we took advantage of the heated pool we would have for the one night and followed that up with a great dinner at the mirobrewery in town (no, they dont have ATMs in El Chalten, but they do have a microbrwery)

We woke up the next morning to a beautiful day. After buying some empandas for lunch, we started our hike to see the famous Fitz Roy peak. We first hiked to ¨Lago de los tres¨which involved a steep ascent up to some beautiful lakes that sit just below Fitz Roy. We had lunch there by the river while admiring the climbers traversing up on their way to submit the massive peak. We had been hopefull all day that once we arrived at the top of this hike the clouds that were chilling right over the peak would lift, but no such luck. It was still a pretty spectacular sight nonetheless. We finished up the hike by making it a loop and going around some lakes on the way back. We were hoping to see the other great peak in the area, Cerro Torre, but again the clouds would not participate. We ended up putting in somewhere around 25 kilometers that day.

Monique and I at the top of the hike in front of one of the peaks we were able to see without clouds (we got faked out many times thinking that it was Fitz Roy, but its not)

Monique crossing a random bridge on the way down from our hike

After arriving back from our hike we moved into our new room. While relaxing and sipping on mate, Monique happened to step outside to find that the impossible happened- the clouds had lifted and Fitz Roy was clear as day rising up behind the town.

Fitz Roy finally appearing out of the clouds

The next day we woke up feeling a little out of it, as we had just spent the night staying up way too late drinking with some Irish boys. We decided the best way to get moving would be to hit up the local coffee shop that served up, in my opinion, the best espresso coffee in town. Eventually we made our way out of town and up a gravel road road to begin another hike. The weather was absolutley perfect and we had views of Fitz Roy and its surrounding peaks for pretty much the whole day. The first hike we did involved hiking to a glacier lake that we realized, after hiking for a couple hours to get there, cost money we didnt have. Monique did her best to sound desperate and get the guy to let us by without paying, but that didnt work. We ended up doing another hike further up the road at the Lago del Desierto. I do not know what they were thinking when they named this lake, as the lake was by no means surrounded by deserts and was instead surrounded by virgin forests and glaciers.

A view of the Lago del Desierto

That night while at dinner, Monique and I met a couple guys who were planning on heading North that next morning, which was convenient because Monique was planning to head the same direction and had been looking for some company. That next morning we all loaded up in the truck, made one last stop at the coffee place for dos cafes para llevar and hit the road one last time. Monique and the two boys were heading North back up Route 40, and I would be joining them for only an hour, until the road that turned off to El Calafate, where I said goodbye to them and was left to hitckhike into town.

My hitchhiking spot could not have been more exposed. It was very sunny and extremely windy, but all in all not too bad of a spot to spend the morning. I started to feel like I could be stuck without a ride for a long time, especially since in the two hours I was sitting there I only saw about three cars go my direction. Eventually though, I was picked up by a carload of four crazy Israelis (I believe that happened because of the good karma I received from picking up those four Israelis in Rio Tranquilo). I made it into El Calafate by early afternoon, found myself a hostel and proceeded to pass out for the rest of the day.

The view from the road out of El Chalten

My hitchhiking spot

The car that eventually took me into El Calafate

Tomorrow I am heading to see the very famous Perito Moreno glacier and pretty much the only reason to come to El Calafate. I will be sure to take lots of pictures.

That is all I have for now. Sorry this post was so long, hopefully it was mildly enjoyable.