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Published: March 4th 2015
After a day of crazy long, stunningly beautiful drive we arrived at Chaiten. Driving in to Chaiten was like driving into a desolate ghost town, still in many places covered in ash. In 2008 Volcano Chaiten blew it's top......the town of was thankfully evacuated but the floods and ash destroyed much of the town. The town of Chaiten is a hub for taking ferries to the main land of Chile, there are a few different options for ferries but as we have discovered schedules change often and the ferry company closes at 2pm.
We made it just before it closed and found out we had 3 options
1. turn back and go over the Argentine border again and then back into main land Chile
2. wait for 5 days in Chaiten to catch the big ferry
3. Drive up the coast 50km stay the night and go on a ferry extravaganza to catch the first of 3 ferries.
We decided to choose #3
Driving up the coast we had lots of time as we didn't need to catch the ferry until the next morning.
The drive was right through Park Pumalin.....Park Pumlin is owned
by an American -Doug Tompkins. It is Chiles largest private park and one of the largest in the world. This pristine 2889sq-km park consists of clear rivers, farmland, seascapes and temperate rain forests.
Driving through the park we drove beside Volcano Chaiten ( we were up close and personal with the steaming Volcano........kind eerrie we stopped and was able to hike up part of it, walking through the ash and tons of volcanic rock.
Check out this video on YouTube:
