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Published: March 3rd 2009
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Cerro Castillo range
On the road from Coyhaique to Puerto Tranquilo So, we got the bus on the Wednesday morning and travelled about 6 hours south down the Carretera Austral to a tiny village on the shores of Lago General Carrera called Puerto Tranquilo. The road down had some spectacular views of jagged mountains and we saw our first glaciars hanging around the top of some of them. Puerto Tranquilo consisted of about 50 houses, a couple of minimarkets, 2 cafes and a few places to stay. We found a friendly little hospedaje behind a shop and stayed there for a couple of days wondering what we could find to do.
On the first night, we got talking to an Australian woman who told us about a tour to a glaciar about 80 km to the West down a road that had only just really been completed. We couldn´t see the tour advertised anywhere but we decided to knock on a couple of doors and see what it was all about. We managed to find the tour place and book ourselves on for the next morning so we turned up at 9am wearing our fleeces, coats and hat and gloves in the bag. We got into the van and were driven
about 2 hours down a bumpy, gravel road which followed a cristal clear river. The scenery was amazing, with waterfalls coming down from the glaciars at the top of some of the huge mountains. We arrived at a refuge where we got given crampons to carry with us to the glaciar. After about an hour of steep uphill climbs we got to a viewpoint where we saw the glaciar for the first time and the mountain range behind in the clouds. It was a further 2 hours downhill, through some very thick vegetation round a lake and then over the part of the glaciar covered in rocks before we got to don the crampons and get walking on the ice. On the way we heard ice cracking and as we turned around we saw a couple of huge pieces of ice break off the side of the glaciar and come crashing down into the river of meltwater below. It was a little bit unnerving because it made us realise that the thing we were walking on was moving and breaking all the time. It was strange walking on the part that was covered in rocks and stone because you forget
that you are actually walking on ice until a water hole appears and you can see right down through the water and ice under the rock.
After a lunch break and after we got our crampons on, we had about 2 hours walking on the clear white ice. The sun was so bright reflecting off the ice that we had to wear sunglasses and it was so hot that we ended up carrying our coats, fleeces, hat and gloves. We may as well have turned up in shorts it was so warm and the guides told us that it was one of the clearest days that they seen recently and absolutely perfect conditions. It was also only the second day that month that the top of Mount San Valentin, the highest peak in Patagonia was visible. The ice was striped with a weird blue colour and there were dozens of huge crevasses and caves formed from the melting ice. When we ran out of water we could fill our bottles with glaciar water. After about an hour, things started to get a bit weird when about 4 of the group we were in started singing in a really serious,
choir-like way. They did the Chilean National Anthem and a couple of other non chart-toppers before things got even more surreal with a rendition of Oh When The Saints Go Marching In. The guides had to stop us from jumping into one of the bottomless water holes.
The glaciar tour was one of the highlights of the trip so far and after walking 2 hours back and another couple of hours in the van we were shattered and settled for an early night to get up early for another tour the next morning. This one was to see the Capilla de Marmol, (Marble Chapel) a group of rock formations and caves formed in a limestone outcrop on Lake General Carrera. When we got up, the weather didn´t look as good as the day before and the wind was starting to pick up, just in time to start kicking up some hefty waves on the lake. We took a couple of travel pills to prepare and hopped on the boat with 4 others. The wind blew us quickly to the rocks and we bobbed around going into a few of the caves that had been carved out of the rock
Mount San Valentin
The highest peak in Patagonia by the lake water. The water was cristal clear and when the sun broke through it looked like we could have been on a Greek island. The rocks were nice and quite interesting but not half as interesting as the boat journey back. The wind had picked up and we were against it all the way back. We crashed into some huge waves and it was like being on a rollercoaster or fairground ride, bouncing up and down with people screaming and laughing all the way. We crawled off the boat feeling a bit shakey, completely soaked and glad that we had taken the travel pills. Having said that, it was another highlight for us and we had not stopped laughing all the way.
After a busy couple of days we got on the bus a couple more hours down the road to Puerto Bertrand to see what we could see........
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