Carreterra Austral

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After a long bus ride up to Los Antiguos, Argentina, decided to begin the journey along the Carreterra Austral in Chile with a french couple, Mylan and Jeoff.

The adventures began pretty much straight away- Los Antigous is a very pretty village that overlooks Lago Buenos Aires (known as Lago General Carrera in Chile), but it is pretty quiet especially this time of year! We were told that there was a mini-bus-taxi service to the next village, Chile Chico, but after waiting an hour and a half with no sign we decided to walk across the border (a distance of between 3km and 15km depending on who we asked!) In between the two frontiers we tried hitch-hiking; a truck stopped for us and we passed the border sat in the back of a pick-up in true south american style! To top it off, after going through customs, one of the customs officers stopped for us and gave us a lift into Chile Chico.

After staying the night in a very homely hospedaje (basically someone's house with a few rooms converted into guest rooms) and the next day walking a little of the lake's shore, we took the bus to El Guedal. The route there was very beautiful, taking a bumpy road over the hills that surround the lake. The village was even smaller than the ones before; one hospedaje and a couple of houses and no buses. We set off early the next morning to hitchhike to the next village, El Maiten, and after a tough hour's walk finally a pick-up stopped and gave us a lift for the final 15km. No sooner had it dropped us off, another truck stopped for us and we managed to get a lift all the way to Rio Tranquilo. The road is pretty much a dirt track and weaves around the edge of the lake and over bridges giving amazing views of glacier-blue water. We then took a final bus to Puyuhuapi.

Puyuhuapi is famous for its thermal baths so we decided to try them out. We got a lift from the hospedaje owner pretty early and as we went down to the edge of the baths to take a look, we saw a pod of dolphins swimming around the sea inlet, just next to the baths! As there were no other people there, the owner let us borrow their kayaks for a couple of hours and we paddled around the inlet with seals, dolphins, cormorans and wild ducks. The scenary was again amazing, almost a 360 degree view of hills covered in lush green forrest with mountains and even a glimpse of a glacier behind. The water was so still as well that every detail of the panorama was reflected back. After a couple of hours kayaking, we all relaxed in the 42 degree volcanically-heated water.

That night we took a small bus to La Junta where we stopped just for the night before heading out early again the next morning to hitch-hike. We were picked up by one of the Chilean volcano monitors who gave us a ride all the way to Santa Lucia, where we could get another bus to Futaleufu. Again, the journey was just fabulous- at every corner there are beautiful lakes and valleys and the imposing hills are covered in a canopy of green pine.

Futaleufu is another pretty little mountain village, surrounded on all sides by peaks. Although apparantly very touristy in summer we were the only travellers there! Spent a day walking up to the national park, again for some lovely landscapes!

The following day we completed our carreterra austral adventure. We hitch-hiked a lift up to the frontier, then walked across the border, before hitching another lift to Esquel in Argentina. Finally took another bus from here to get to El Bolson.

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