Blogs from Aisén, Chile, South America - page 15

Trudging up the hill, the only thing that prevents us becoming airborne it seems is the suction of our boots to the slop. The poncho that envelops us isn’t helping much aerodynamically, but beneath its shelter, shackled to my back, Kiva somehow manages to sleep. "It’s possible to experience four seasons in a single day in Patagonia", I recall, as a hail seeded wintry-mix swirls up through the valley gusting every-which-way, the sun's rays somehow penetrating the squall from a crystal-clear blue sky above; leading me to believe in the possibility of experiencing them simultaneously. Begun in 1976 by the late neo-fascist Augusto Pinochet, in order to penetrate as far south as possible (lest Argentina lay claim to the territory) the Carretera Austral reached Villa O’Higgins in the year 2000, where bound by glaciers, virgin evergreen ... read more

Z Chile Chico jsme vyrazili odpolednim autobusem, nebo spis malinkatym busikem, smer Puerto Guadal. Male mesto (nebo spis vesnice) u velkeho jezera (2. nejvetsi v Jizni Americe). U mesta jsou fosilie, vodopady a niklovy dul. Odbornici spatne spocitali kolik tam toho niklu je a tak to vypada jako by melo tohle male mestecko byt zanedlouho vetsi a vetsi. Bohuzel je dul zavreny a nove stavby zeji prazdnotou. Prochazka kolem pobrezi a pak do stareho dolu, konci pozde vecer. Spime v opusenem kempu na konci mesta. Dalsi den vyrazime do nedalekeho Tranquilo. Projeli jsme se lodkou po pobrezi a ... (vice na fotkach) z plaze, kde jsme stanovali nas chtela vyhnat mistni policie. Pry se tam nesmi kempovat a ten ohen na plazi se jim taky nejak nezamlouval. Nakonec nas nechali na pokoji a odjeli - machani ... read more

The Carretera Austral links the previously inaccesible (well, only by boat) villages south of Puerto Montt in Chile. It's a pretty rough track, winding past fjords, lakes and rocky mountains. While travelling on it, one sees the vegetation change from south Patagonia's lenga and ñire woods to a lush temperate rainforest. Tall trees, damp moss, bamboo and a really sexy scent coming of the forest make for quite the new outdoor experience. If it weren't for the pretty damn low temperatures, this would feel very tropical. I started of in Coyhaique, a rather uninteresting town with the very nice camping Alborada (or was it -o). The owner thought i was slightly out of my head - ¡¿Quieres acamper te en este tiempo?! It was raining and the temperature was around 2 degrees celsius indeed, but well, ... read more

After our amazing horse trek in the Andes we made our way to Puerto Montt, where we launched our 5 day Navimag cruise to the glacier at San Rafael. We checked our bags and strolled around the city for a few hours before disembarking. On board there were 130 passengers of which 110 were Chilean. The remaining 20 were English, Spanish, French, German, and Canadian. Rounding out the passengers were 40 crew so it was quite a full ship. The ship was originally a cargo vessel that has been partially transformed to transport passengers. It's a little rough around the edges but we enjoyed it! We boarded at 4 pm and noticed we only had one roommate - we were expecting two - so that gave us a little more space. Our roommate was Alberto from ... read more

WE ARE IN A NICE town called coyhaique at the moment waiting on a ferry up to peorto monte. it is a 20 odd hour ferry trip up through a load of islands and past a volcano in chaiten that has been erupting for the last 2 weeksthat is why we are getting the ferry the whole road and town is gone and everyone has been evacuated.so it should be fairly cool. any how back to where we are.we came here because there is a road through the middle of chile called the carretera austral that we read about boasting the best scenary in the world.but the catch is there is no buses that pass through all of it because its basically not a road but a track.so we knew that with our lifetime of driving ... read more