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Published: February 19th 2008
After walking in El Chalten, our next destination was Chonchi on Chiloe Island, Chile- chosen for its comedy name (Nic we were particularly thinking of you with this one!) and the local mythology of pirates and witches. The guidebook was a bit vague on the area between El Chalten and Chonchi, so we weren´t entirely sure that we would get there.
The first leg was a 24 hour bus journey to Esquel, through the cherry capital of Argentina (which had completely run out of icecream, though was fortunately still fine for cherries). The journey was much enhanced by the sound of vomiting by a Dutch girl with an attack of the trots.
We were thrown out of the bus in Esquel at 1am. A good time for finding somewhere to stay. Thinking we might have to resort to kipping quietly in someone´s garden, we were fortunate to find a nice man to take us to a campsite. He was a big talker - not sure what about!
After an exciting day trying to track down fuel for our stove, the next step was Esquel to Futuleufu on the Chilean side of the border. We got on a local bus
to Futuleufu. We were told to get out of the bus at the border (in the middle of a national park) and it promptly drove off. We were left instead with a minibus and too many people and luggage to fit in it. However Chileans are much more creative at filling minibuses than us!
We got to Futuleufu which turned out to be a leafy village with wooden houses and a hot contender for the 'Chile in Bloom' competition. It is also home to one of the best Whitewater rivers in the world (apparently), but we were content just to dip our very hot (and no doubt stinky) feet into the beautifully chilly water. We stayed the night in a tree house for midgets.
The next day was the bus from Futuleufu to Chaiten (the port for the ferry to Chiloe Island). This was a 4 hour dusty boneshaker trip though valleys, mountain passes, tiny wooden villages and teetering on the edge of deep gorges. We went from 40 degrees in Futuleufu to around 15 degrees and fog in Chaiten.
The highlights of Chaiten were the cafe which looked like a construction site from the outside, but which served
Chaiten harbour
Chaiten is squeezed between mountains shrouded in cloud and the seaus delicious seafood soup containing very tasty unidentifiable alien seafood items and sharing a bottle of wine with Jorge, the Chilean mate addicted cowboy, while watching the sun set.
Unfortunately the direct ferry to Chiloe was full, so we had to take a further diversion of a 10 hour ferry north to Puerto Montt then on to Chiloe by bus. The ferry passed by some fantastic snowy volcanoes so was no great chore. We fought our way through Puerto Montt bus station, which reminded Paul of Delhi airport, and straight onto the bus for Chiloe.
Our first impressions of Chiloe and Chonchi the next day were - Well its a lot like Anglesey in Wales!!
Time on buses scores: Mad 2, Paul 2
Getting off the beaten track scores: Mad 9.5, Paul 8.5
Comedy vehicle recovery system scores: Mad 10, Paul 10
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