Carretera Austral

"The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers."
~Dave Barry

Tuesday, January 6th to Tuesday, January 13th 2009

I got used to the road being the long bus ride that takes me between points of interest. But this time it was different, this time the road was the attraction.
The Carretera Austral (in English, Southern Highway) is the name given to Chile's Route 7. The highway runs about 1,240 kilometers (770 miles) from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins through rural Patagonia. The road passes through snowy mountains, volcanoes, many lakes and on the south end many glaciers - it is considered one of the world's most scenic roads. There are many ways to traverse the road. Some do it by bicycle, others hitchhike interacting with the local population along the way, but I didn't have the time or energy to pedal for so many days or wait for the right car at the right time, so I went for the rental car option. Since the road is mostly unpaved, we hired a Nissan Pathfinder 4x4 truck for a week from a reputable company (Budget) so we can concentrate on the views instead of worrying about our car. I didn't want to drive and we had a strong argument about the importance of safety and the personal responsibility of the drivers before we started our trip. The argument almost led to the cancellation of the trip, but it proved important as the two designated drivers did a marvelous job in the week to come.

We rented the car in Bariloche and our first destination was the Argentinian Los Alerces park - a beautiful drive along the region lakes and forests. We hurried along the road stopping briefly to take a bath in one of the cold lakes since we wanted to cross the border into Chile in that same day. The border crossing at the small town of Futalefu went without problems and after buying supplies we found a great camping site next to a turquoise river. We woke up next day to a long and hard drive. we drove west until we hit the road at Santa Lucia and then turned north toward Chaiten, once the gateway to the Carretera with a good shuttle service to Puerto Montt and now a ghost town due the eruption of a volcano on May. We made a small detour to take a bath at one of the local hot springs and than continued north immediately noticing the piles of volcanic ash along the road. When we got to Chaiten we had a surprise waiting for us, the volcano was still active sending huge bales of smoke and steam into the sky - it made a perfect background to the ghost town with almost empty streets and very few inhabitants. We wanted to visit the Pumalin park north of the town but the offices in town were abandoned and a note on the door declared that the park is closed. We ventured north anyway through the magnificent vegetation that can be described as a cold jungle and witnessed the destruction caused by the volcano along side the road. We had to turn back after about an hour and a half due to a destroyed bridge - the voyage down the Carretera has started... When we got back to Chaiten, I noticed that we had an air leak in one of the tires and a friendly Chilean military truck used its compressor to fill up our tire. The temporary fix held almost until the town of La Junta were we were forced to change to our spare tire and find a place to sleep.

We woke up under a huge flies attack and hurried to get our tire fixed. We wanted to continue south, but the time we spent on the tire proved costly as the road was closed to repairs between 10:00 and 14:00. Instead, we went to explore a nearby dirt road but due to lack of time we turned back before we reached the ocean which proved to be a waste of our time - but at least we had an open road again... As we continued south we passed by the small fishing town of Puyuhuapi nestled on a beautiful fjord. About two more hours took us to Park National Queult with it's major attraction - the hanging glacier. We walked to a viewpoint 5 minutes from the parking lot and the view of the glaciers with the huge waterfalls below made me want to hike to the higher view point but nobody else wanted to come. Luckily they agreed that I'll hike alone and they will wait for me - I practically run up to glacier, got a rare moments of ice avalanche and run back down completing the circuit in 75 minutes instead of the advised 2 and a half hours... We spent the night at a nice paid camping site that unfortunately didn't have hot water. The next day we drove to the capital of the Carretera, the town of Coyhaique were we bought more supplies and spend half a day enjoying civilization. After we left the town we drove next to the impressive spires of Cerro Castillo and down an impressive road with glaciers appearing through the clouds on both sides. We found a great campsite in a small park that had an amazing wood stove to heat water allowing us to take long satisfying baths. The road continued south through lakes and small lagoons until we finally hit the shores of Lago General Carrera, a huge beautiful deep lake which is the second largest in South America. We took a detour again driving from Puerto Rio Tranquilo to the northern ice cap - one of the best parts of the Carretera with waterfalls and glaciers at every corner.

We slept on the shores of the lake waking up early to the sounds of a tractor being uploaded to a truck less than a meter from our heads! After this unpleasant experience we found old friends on the road and joined them for a short cruise to the marble caves, a nice although not overwhelming view of natural cave formations in the white-grey marble stone. The road took us east towards Argentina along the shores of the lake where we crossed the border in Chile Chico and went to sleep in the ugly town of Perito Moreno. The next morning Harel and myself woke up early and took the car to the drop off point in Comodoro Rivadavia driving through the bleak Argentinian side dotted with oil grasshoppers. After we dropped off our car we strolled along the shores of the Atlantic ocean - the first and probably last time that I'll see this side of South America during my travels...