How to Hitchhike in the Caraterra Austral

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1. Go to the most deserted place in the Carattera
2. Raise your finger
3. Wait
4. When it gets dark, build a tent (Pasta for dinner is recommended)
5. Wake up early to catch the morning rides (all those early waking truck drivers, there are lots you know...)
6. Realize there is car around you for at least 50km in every direction.
7. Get a bus back to where you started from so that you can leave the damn caraterra already.

The Carratera Austral is a long road from the north of Chile to the lake district in central Chile. The road is bad, but is very beautiful. We thought about renting a car but the prices were high, and the fine of returning in a different place then the pickup was even higher. That plus the fact that everyone told there was no problem to get a ride in this road (¨me? i did the caraterra in 3 days, the drivers on the road out bid each other to let me in¨) made us choose the hitchhiking option.

However, as you probably understood, life was not that simple. We started our hitchhiking in Cohiaque. The first time we waited only for 20 minutes for a ride to the next town. The problem was that the next town was one of these deserted places in the caraterra. Quickly we realized that this is not the place to catch a ride and on the same day we took a bus to the next town (also deserted).

In this town we waited for 24 hours. About 15 times a day a cars passed us (some of them the same car) and no ride was in the horizon. We stayed the night there and the next day we caught a bus back to Cohiaque where we took a bus to chaiten, where we found out that the bus out of the caraterra was only in two days and thus were forced to stay there more (yes, yaniv again).
We found a nice hostel where we intended to settle in for the days we had in chaiten. The streak of bad luck continued when on the son of the hostel Senora had died (we don't know how) and we were suddenly surrounded with morning family (we thought about taking another hostel, but there was a storm in the town and there was no electricity and lights in the whole town - just our luck).

Finally we took the bus to the Argentinean border and the world started to smile again. The sky cleared and the sun came out. We reached the end of the caraterra. The smell of freedom cows was in the air. Bariloche here we come.

* Chilean food sucks!!! (sorry macarena)

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Photos

Villa amangeual - nowhere land
we stayed the night here

Happy in argentina
Yael, Eyal, Naor, Rotem and Ariel