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Published: January 16th 2007
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Who said travelling around South America would be easy? Flexibility is the key. Yes, yes, we’ve always known that, but from Puerto Deseado we changed our plans so often that we almost forgot what we originally wanted to do!
Plan A - travel to Comodoro Rivadavia then on to Bariloche to cross into Chile, visiting Puerto Varas en route to Chiloe. (discarded because we fancied trying somewhere different and had heard good reports about the Carretera Austral)
Plan B - travel to Caleta Oliva then on to Los Antiguos to cross into Chile, going up the Carretera Austral to Chaiten before crossing to Chiloe. (discarded because there has just been the annual Cherry Festival in Los Antiguos and every hotel is full. Really, EVERY hotel is full!)
So, we took the bus to Comodoro Rivadavia……….
Plan C - from C. R. travel on to Coyhaique in Chile, then the Carretera Austral to Chaiten and finally to Chiloe. (discarded because the next bus with space leaves in 6 days time!)
Plan D - from C.R. travel direct to Los Antiguos then cross into Chile the same day and follow Plan B. (discarded because it required a 5.30am
Beaten!
We just couldn´t be doing with it really! Trying to reach the snow was just beyond us today. bus and I don’t really do mornings that well!!)
Plan E - from C.R. travel straight up to Bariloche then follow Plan A. (discarded because there was no space on any bus for the next 30 hours or so!)
Plan F - stay in C.R. overnight then catch the overnight cama bus to Bariloche and rejoin Plan A. Hoorah! We have a winner!!
And so, a night in Comodoro Rivadavia it was. It took 3 attempts to find a hostel with space which rather took us by surprise. We hadn’t expected accommodation to be a problem as it seems nobody really wants to stay here.
I took no photos of C.R. (sorry!!) but we were quite lucky with the weather. We caught the tail end of the best weekend there possibly for decades. The newspapers reported “This is the day we have been waiting for” suggesting the sun coming out and the wind dropping at the same time are a once in a blue moon event and our lunar satellite had turned a delicate shade of turquoise. Unfortunately for us we caught the tail end of it so we got a morning of sunshine with the
The Hotel Llao Llao
We really, REALLY, wanted to stay here. Maybe when we win the lottery eh! usual fierce Patagonian winds. Trish’s baseball cap was claimed by the Atlantic Ocean and we are lucky that’s all we lost. That’s why the camera didn’t come out of its bag!!
Anyway, an overnight bus to Bariloche was our first cama experience since the first leg of this journey from BA. Unfortunately at 3am the heater broke down just as the temperature outside plummeted to around zero. It was freezing and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Now, in Bolivia, we would have had a blanket with us anticipating the likely event of such an occurrence. In Argentina we just had too much faith.
We arrived in Bariloche very tired, but at least the sun was shining and the wind was nowhere near what we had become used to. It was nice to be back, and it’s still a beautiful place, but it would have been nice to route through somewhere different.
Even from there, it was 4 days before we could get onto a bus to Puerto Varas in Chile. We chilled out, drank hot chocolate, ate WONDERFUL ice cream, wimped out of climbing a mountain (it was too steep and rough for our delicate legs!) and admired the view. Oh, and the temperature soared towards 30 degrees so we sunbathed on the beach too!!
Nice and relaxed, we looked forward to seeing what yet another Argentine/Chile border crossing would be like!!!
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nat
non-member comment
yes, flexibility!!
The flexibility factor definitely plays a major part in how happy you end up on these trips....And it is the protagonist in many a story, right? It's sort of a luxury to be able to have that flexibility - look at it this way: be thankful that you aren't stuck in some office job and freaking out about getting back to work!!! Thus, you have your flexibility!