Trekking Around Cerro Castillo: By Thumb and By Foot

Can you believe that there were some difficulties with transportation? Isn´t it amazing that this entry is going to begin talking about a bus station?

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!

Carretera Austral: The Long And Winding Road

So we bumped our way through 13 plus hours of gravel road, waterfalls, glaciers, tourquoise lakes, jagged mountains and coastal rainforests. The Carretera Austral´s construction was started under Pinochet and is a highway that connects southern Chile with the populous north. It is accessed in the north only via ferry, and it dead ends in the south of Chile, but there are several connecting roads into Argentina along the way.

We opted to break the journey with one night at the end of an oceanic fijord in the town of Puerto Puyuhuapi. We camped out under blue skies near the ocean and enjoyed some wine and local baking. We were taking public transport, not tour buses, so stops were minimal and there is only one bus per day, so we had to take care not to miss it. The road is less travelled on the Chilean side than the Argentina version which is Route 40. We were originally thinking of taking the Route 40 because Argentina is slightly cheaper to travel in, but as a result of it being more economical and accessible it is frequented a lot more. That combined with the fact that we are told that Rt 40 is more Andean steppe, while the Carretera Austral is right in the thick of fijords, rainforest and mountains on either side. That being said we are trying to head to El Chalten in Argentina and we might have to take Rt. 40 to get down there.

Life in the small towns here is nice and relaxed and the locals are all keen to say hello and to welcome you to their neck of the woods (with their slang filled spanish that makes it really hard to understand). We have been blessed with sunny skies and virtually no more than a few wispy clouds in the last two days, so we have been soaking in the views from the bus windows.

Today we are resting in Coyhaique wandering the deserted Sunday streets (it is always fun to see what will and will not be open on a Sunday). We also went to check out a local camping option (because they range in price and quality, from someone´s backyard to nice camping complete with hot showers and refugios) and on the way we got molested by a stray Bouvier (dog).

Tomorrow, transport permitting, we will try to catch a bus two hours south to a trail head for a 4 day trek around Cerro Castillo. Busing is sparse as although it feels like summer, smells like summer and is hot like summer, the people have yet to arrive and the busing reflects that. We should be back in 5-6 days and from there hope to head down into Argentina towards treks in the Fitz Roy range.