And it rained all night

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An interesting thing happened as the bus pulled up in Cerro Castillo. Carl, an English guy I'd first met in Futaleufu, then again in Puyuhuapi, got off to stretch his legs. Nothing too strange there you might think, you bump into the same people all the time when you're on the road. Except in this case, Carl had been cycling the Carretera Austral. So what the hell was he doing on a bus, and where was his bike? Turned out he'd managed to break it, so it was now lying back in Coyhaique, waiting to be fixed. Other people have bad luck too it seems.

The journey to Rio Tranquilo took us along the shores of the Lago General Carrerra, the second largest in South America. Instantly, I was struck by its incredible turqouise colour. How on earth is the water around here like that? In the town itself I decided to take a gamble on the weather and pitched my tent. I would come to regret this.

Rio Tranquilo's principle attraction is some impressive limestone caves, reached by a boat ride across the lake. At first, it seemed that we would have to wait until tomorrow, as the captains were refusing to sail as the weather was too rough. Half an hour later though, they relented, and myself, Carl and 2 Chilean couples were on board (along with the captain of course). The journey to the caves was pretty choppy, and on occasion we were even surfing along the waves. The captain seemed a little bit concerned, and was often reminding us not to shift about too much.

The caves themselves were indeed quite impressive, and our boat dodged in and out, and on one occasion even through them. The only problem is that everyone kept standing up to take photos, and therefore inevitably ended up in mine. Just my luck to be at the back of the boat. We were then taken to the "Cabeza de Perro" an outcrop of rock that is meant to look like a dog's head. The jury is out on this one. The final stop was a limestone island known as the Catedral, which was pretty cool.

Now it was time to head back, and the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was rather a rough journey to say the least, and we were all being thrown around quite a lot. I checked to make sure my lifejacket was done up properly. Thanks to our captain we survived, but I got another warning, as one of his parting shots was to tell us there was a storm coming tonight. Perhaps I should abandon tent now?

I didn't, and had a rather pleasant evening, visiting a little cafe to try Pichanga, a Chilean speciality consisting of chips, steak, hot dog sausages, avocado, eggs and olives. It was very nice, but a little lacking in quantity for 2 hungry Englishmen. The remainder of the time was spent chatting and drinking tea with one of the Chilean couples. It was during this time that I started noticing the rain outside. Uh oh. Despite this, my tent seemed dry when I went out, and I got to sleep fine.

I woke up doing lengths of the tent, or should I say pool. This was not good, and I bailed out as swiftly as I could. Sadly, my book took a bit of a soaking, maybe now I'll never know how it ends. The rest of the day was spent drying off inside. I'd planned to get a move on to Chile Chico, but this was going to mean hitchhiking, and I had no desire to sit out in the rain. Besides, the road was blocked, which seemed to seal the deal.

Or did it? I was reading my other, dry, book when I overheard the other Chilean couple from the boat talking about going to Chile Chico that evening. It's at times like this I'm glad I now have some Spanish, because otherwise my earwigging wouldn't have borne any fruit. The chap's sister is a customs officer, and was coming to collect them at 6pm to take them to Chile Chico, the road was open, and I was welcome to come alone with them. Fantastic! In the end, she didn't turn up until 8pm, but that was fine, I was on my way to the border.

All did not go as expected though, and the next entry will explain why.

Stewart

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Comments

[minglyn ;)]

limestone caves
when i saw this its wonderful its part of my study for our exam its wonderful to learn more about rocks