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Published: March 6th 2009
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After a couple of days in Puerto Tranquilo we got the bus a couple of hours south to Puerto Bertrand which was somehow even smaller than Tranquilo. There were less than 20 houses, 2 tiny shops and more stray dogs per capita than any village on Earth. It lies on the shore of a small lake called Lago Plomo which has beautiful clear, turquoise water and is the start of the Rio Baker, one of the largest rivers in Chile.
We found a house that allowed camping in the garden and put the tent up under the watchful eye of a tiny kitten whose name was Nicole. It was pure white and had one green eye and one blue so naturally, we renamed it Bowie. Bowie took an immediate like/dislike of Sarah´s hair and started to hunt it. He would wait patiently, watching Sarah get more on edge and then sprint and jump at her hair and start chewing it. It was funny. Sarah disagrees. After a couple of hours of this, we went to a building with a huge blue raft outside to find out about a possible rafting trip as we´d never done this before. We put our
names down for the next day and spent the rest of the day trying to walk into the almost ice-cold lake water, watching Bowie hunt things and also trying to buy food to cook for tea. The 2 shops were very poorly stocked and we ended up with pasta, tomato sauce and type of sausage which, when we chopped it up and started to cook it, looked like some sort of minced alien, so we left it in a bag hung up on a fence until a mentally ill dog came up and wolfed it down in one. The sky at night was clearer than we´d ever seen before and there seemed to be about ten times more stars in the sky than at home. It was good.
The next day we turned up for the rafting. There were 4 others which meant that the raft was full which was better. We were kitted out in a full on wet suit (or dry suit, not sure which one) life jacket, helmet etc... We all carried the raft to the lake and sat while the bloke explained all the rowing instructions and safety instructions about what to do if we
All aboard
Not sure what lies ahead fall out or something. Then we had a bit of a practice row on the lake before the raft drifted into the first set of rapids. They were only grade 3 rapids on a scale of 1-6 so we didn´t expect to be tossed around too much but the first set was a bit of a shock. After about 2 minutes of crashing around and trying our hardest to row to the shouts of the guide, we finally got to the calm part. Everyone was screaming and laughing and the older bloke behind Sarah had dropped his oar into the river and was lying flat on his back in the middle of the raft. It took a few minutes for everybody to stop laughing and we drifted for about 5 minutes until the next rapids which were even longer and just as, well..... rapid. After the second set we were allowed to jump into the water and have a little swim around, keeping near to the raft. The views were stunning and the water was absolutely clear but the water was very, very cold! After another couple of smaller rapids and 6 km of river later, we rowed ashore and
had a hot drink. It was one of the best things we´ve ever done and a great laugh. We´d do it again but probably never higher than a grade 3!
The next day we got the bus 50km south to Cochrane. That was Sunday and we leave tomorrow, Friday. To cut a long story short (because this internet place is really, really slow and we need to go) we arrived on Sunday, on Monday we bought bus tickets for Tuesday morning to go down to Villa O Higgins at the end of the Carretera Austral. We then went to the bank and found out that we can´t use Visa in the cash machine and the bank was shut. (We needed enough money to last a whole week as there are no cash machines between here and El Calafate, where we plan to be next week at some point.) So Tuesday we had to queue in the bank to draw money on credit card, then go back to the bus company to transfer our tickets to the Friday bus (there are only 2 a week). So, we´ve been hanging around, regrouping and restocking to go to Villa O Higgins tomorrow
(8 hour bus). On Saturday morning we have to get a bus to a lake, get a boat over the lake, walk 15 km to Chilean border, 7 km to Argentine border, then boat another lake, then bus or walk 37 km to El Chalten. We plan to camp near the border so we won´t do it in one day but it will be tough. We will then be doing some trekking around El Chalten and then moving down to El Calafate. So we´ll try to find a computer there and hopefully update next week. OK Bye!
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Beth
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hehe
I'm sitting here laughing at the description of your rafting, the poor bloke, it sounds really funny! It's something I have always wanted to do. Glad you enjoyed it x x x x