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Published: March 5th 2009
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Buenos Dias,
Now this may be a bit long winded but it is the tale of a 20 hour trip that turned into 3 days and our eventual surprising welcome to Chile! We thought we had it all worked out. Last time we were speaking to you we were going to get a bus to Los Antiguos in Argentina, get a 10 min bus ride over the border to Chile and a Ferry to Puerto Ibanez and a bus to Coyhaique. Simple. We started off on Wednesday at 8am on a lovely cool air con chariot, but were swiftly moved to a steaming hot coach, were we spent 15 hours! Hell.
We rocked into a tiny little town Los Antiguos with one hostel around midnight and stood about trying to communicate with the owner. We quickly realised they only had one 3 bed room left. There were 7 of us. So after scanning our remaining solo travel companions, one being a large toupee'd German and the other being a Chilean version of Richie Kavanagh, who had spent the day drinking cans down the back of the bus, we grabbed a German woman (Sonya) to take the room with us. It
worked out quite well cos she spoke really good Spanish. The next day 5 others and us got a mini bus over the border to Chile Chico (and half a horse town) to catch the ferry..this was Thursday...the next ferry was Sunday! Little did we know that morning that we would all be seeing a lot of each other over the next few days. So we tried to find out about other ways out of there, and after half a day of pleading and phone calls we found a man who would drive us half way to Rio Tranquila. At this point there was us, the German lady, a dutch couple and the Isreali couple (snore).
We didn't realise at the time but getting the bus rather than the ferry was a stroke of luck. Pat, our driver was a lovely man, accompanied with his wife Victoria we set off in a mini bus that has seen better years, possibly in the last century. But the trip was amazing. We travel the south part of the Carretera Austral, which means south road, around the second biggest lake in South America and it was breathtaking. We had a good auld laugh
and Pat let us stop as much as we wanted for photos and to tell us about the area.
About midnight after 6/7 hours again we stopped in Rio Tranquila at what we believed to be the only hostel in town. I think the building was made of cardboard and match sticks mostly. Between the cold, the wind, the bugs, the creaking of the bed every time you took a breath or blinked, the dogs barking, the chickens, and the geese having a major blow up right outside our door in the middle of the night we had probably the worst nigths 'sleep' of our lives.
But it was an experience, and a day that one young chicken will probably never forget. Colie (first aider extraordinaire) saved a drowning chickens life the next morning, when he put his own safety to the back of his mind and bravely dived into a basin of water and scooped the baby chick into his arms. We tried to heat him up in the sun, he spat up some water and slowly got his strenght back. The 'lady'who owned the place came out and saw us, we explained what had happen and passed him
over she gave him a little shake, she said she would heat him up and dissappeared into the kitchen. We didn´t see him after that.
This same lady had promised us the night before that she would organise transport for us to get to Coyhaique as Pat had to return to Chile Chico and couldn't take us. She then tells us that in fact she hadn't. The thoughts of staying another night was really making me panic so we went on the hunt for a bus driver who would bring us the rest of the way to Coyhaique. We found Alfredo and his mini bus thankfully who agreed to take us and some Isrealis we found on the road the rest of the way. The rest of the journey was just as amazing. Plus myself and Col slyed into the front seats when nobody was looking and spent the day buzzing off Alfredo, who was trying to teach us Spanish.
After 7 hours more we finally arrived in Coyhaique on Friday evening tired and a bit stinky but happy.
After searching the town, one smelly dark Hospedeja after another, we got a Cabana with the Dutch couple (Sofia and Edward)
and Sonya. As we were going separate ways the next day we decided to treat them to a curry. We also have to find our own place to life for the next 2 days as we were leaving on Monday. So off we went to the supermarket, and while we were standing in the queue, a guy came up to Colie and asked were we looking for a room. We said yes actually we are...his name was Ricardo and was staying in a Cabana by the river. His friends had moved out leaving only him and his girlfriend and they needed two others. Now we did find this a little strange, so we asked him was he going to kill us in our sleep, we laughed and said no...so we decided to go with it and arranged to meet him the next day. It couldn´t have worked out better. The place was lovely it not a little creaky and bug friendly. Ricardo, his girlfriend Natasha and the owner Christian were all lovely and after some intial awkwardness we all had a few drinks and some food, and great laugh, which ended up with us going to a nightclub called the
Black Sheep in the middle of the forest and dancing to chilean music all night. I think we got to bed for about 7am. So we're new bessies and will try to hook up again with Ricardo when we go to Chiloe, which is where he is from. All in all we are loving Chile. Its much better than Argentina...beautiful scenary and really friendly people.
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Terry Ward
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Happy St. Patrick's Day
Hi Darlings, Happy St. Patrick's Day to you and I am following your long journeys into the night with great interest. The photos are stunning I can't say the same for the people in them. I am glad I cant smell you but then my nose has been used to bad smells from the Ward Gaff. I have sent you an email to slapinthejaw which should be of interest to you. Keep on rocking there seems to be plenty of them about. Smell you later as Dar says. Luv Ter