Carretera Austral is a road – or often just a dirt path, which links a few remote villages and towns in Northern Patagonia. It is 1240km long but despite that only allows access to about 100 000 people. It is very popular with cyclists – the distance, mountains, bad weather and little traffic makes it a desired challenge for them.
New year in Villa O’Higgins
It took us 2 day long bus rides to reach Villa O’Higgins, which is some 355 miles further from Coyhaique. Carretera Austral ends just behind Villa O’Higgins. The second connection from Cochrane to Villa O’Higgins goes only twice-week and is a minibus, which is occasionally flagged down by some Gaucho that pops up on the road from somewhere, or stops so the children on the bus can pee. The views through dirty windows were topnotch!
In Villa O’Higgins we found a hospedaje and later found out, that the owner is a cousin of Seniorita Rita. We stayed in Rita’s hospedaje in Chaitén. We embarked on a few one-day treks around Villa O’Higgins. For New Year’s Eve there were fireworks and cultural musical dance party from midnight till 5 in the morning in local gym attended by all folks from far and wide. There was an improvised bar selling mainly cheap 1,5L boxed wine. Very good to encourage the dance floor performance! 😀
Similar events start veeeery late at night in South America, actually more like early in the morning compared to Europe. We arrived to the gym after the firework at midnight and behold – there was only a musical band playing and about 10 people + us. The locals started to arrive only after 1:30am. A big difference to England, where pubs close at 1 am. To look good, we took our “trendiest” clothes (trekking pants, thermal T-shirt, Viktor his Hawaian shirt and polished trekking boots).
Argentina, here we come!
2nd January we reached the end of Carretera Austral (about 7 km from VIlla O’Higgins) and boarded a 4 hour ferry to the other side of Lago O’Higgins. From the southern end of Lago O’Higgins we walked 1 kms through woods to Chilean border control, then another 12 kms through woods to the border and further 8 kms to Argentine border control on the northern bank of Lago del Desierto, where we camped with Argentine stamp already in our passport. The next day we went 15 relatively difficult kilometers around Lago del Desierto to its southern end, where we camped again.
Before heading to El Chalten we checked out the Huemul glacier above the campground and then through combination of hitchhiking/walking reached El Chalten. On the road we had great views of Fitz Roy. Have a look!
