Well, surprise! We went to the bus station first thing in the morning, almost an hour before the bus left, and we surprised to be told that there were no seats available for us on the only bus going to the town where our trek started. After all, we are in S America, where they just pile more and more people into the buses, and crowd the aisles with people standing. We were told to come back 5 minutes before the bus left and maybe someone might not show up.
Well, to our disappointment, that did not happen. And, being deadset on doing this trek on our time schedule, we went out to find another bus. At the tourist office, we were told that there were micros that left some time, somewhere on some road. After some discussion with local taxi drivers, we found the micros. But to out disbelief, they all (3 or 4 of them) didn´t leave until 5pm, it was 9:30am!!
So, we tried a taxi driver. His quote: $25 000 Chilean pessos ($50 USD)!!!
Alright, desperate times call for desperate measures. Up the highway we walked, straight out to the edge of town, and out came our thumbs. That´s right baby, hitchhiking!! (Guess who wrote and who edited this blog) We figured if it didn´t pan out, we could take the 5pm micro and camp at the head of the trail that night.
Low and behold, we were picked up by the 5th vehicle that passed. Unfortunately, she didn´t take us all the way, and dropped us off at a highway junction half way to the trek. We thought we were in for a wait because traffic at this junction was sparse....But, the 5th vehicle by picked us up and took us the remainder of the way.
Our trek was around the Cerro Castillo mountain range. It was a four day three night trek. It was great. The weather wasn´t perfect, but we were happy with what we got. And, when it cleared up the views of the surrounding mountains were the perfect backdrop of spiky lizard tail mountains chocked in glaciers and blasted by icy fresh wind.
The route had improved a lot since our trekking book had been published, but we still had plenty to contend with. We had to do some route finding, river fording (upper thigh at one point), crossing mountain passes, desending scree filled creek beds, and nights chilled by the wind whipping off the glaciers. Not to mention night time fires which devored Chris´insole, burned a hole in Justine´pants and as if that wasn´t enough, we decided to have anothe fire and Chris riped a huge gash into his pants gathering wood.
If the sight of the face of hanging glaciers crashing down into high mountain lakes weren´t prize enough, we were blessed with having the trek entirely to ourselves until all but the last hours of the third day! Absolutely stunning glaciers, amazing views and steep mountain turrets, an amazingly scenic hike.
We arrived back in Villa Cerro Castillo in time to meet two buses that were coming through on their way back to Coyhaquia. But, it must be busy season, because they would not sell us a seat, saying they were full. But, we had our trusty thumbs, and the mountain gods must have been looking down on us, because after an hour on the road and only 5 or 6 cars going by, we managed to get another ride in the bed of a truck, all the way back to town.
We are off to Chile Chico tomorrow, and hopefully Argentina the next day after pre-booking our tickets on a bus that will pick us up at our hostal. Cross your fingers (or twiddle your thumbs) for us!
One last thing; in light of Davida´s recent engagement, Justine would like announce her candidatcy in the running for "baby" of the family!
1 comment:
Pfffffft.....dad said that seat is NOT up for election....not now....not ever!! =)
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