Chewed Up on the Carretera

Patagonia feels supernatural. I think it's the vast distances, the remote places that I pass in a flash on the road. It's an exercise in decision overload being here; I wish to be everywhere doing everything all at once. Scanning a map of the region just begs the question "And what's there?" at each branch of road that sprays off the Carretera Austral. After all, Google's binary "green" or "not-green" color code for its map fails to shed enough light to answer this question. So I've resolved I would need years here to answer that question each time it comes up. If only they sold more of those in the markets alongside the little plush penguins here :/

The Carretera Austral: Chile's Southern Highway

When I arrived in Chile, I knew little about the route between Santiago and the southernmost point in the world. Not one for over-researching a place, I figured, if I decided to head down into Patagonia, I would just ask folks as I went where to continue from one town to another. At the very least, I knew that if I kept the compass pointed south, I would probably end up in Ushuaia, Argentina, one way or another. However, by word of mouth, I started to catch word of a slice of Chile known as the Carretera Austral.

One read of the Lonely Planet's Guide to Patagonia before take-off would've probably put this stretch of road on my radar immediately. Alas, whether by guidebook or local recommendation, I feel that every traveler moving by land is destined to pass over a piece of Chile's Southern Highway on their way to the even higher-profiler parts of Patagonia like Torres del Paine or El Calafate.

This Patagonia is far different than the Patagonia of Argentina. Greener, warmer at times, and snowcapped, Ruta 7 in Chile knives through the cordillera of the Andes mountains from Puerto Montt all the way down 1,200km later into the small mountain village of Villa O'Higgins. From there, only once the tourist season begins (November 1) can you take a mountain pass across two Andean lakes and through a few canyons across the Argentinian border and land in El Chaltén in a day's time.

Since I'm not Ernest Hemingway, it's hard to describe what it's like meandering through the Andes on this highway - one that turns from pavement to gravel road halfway down once exiting the regional capital of Coyhaique. You have to move slow, even if you have a car. In a day, you can transition from lush, snowcapped mountains to roads along fjords carved by glaciers ages ago to a lakeside drive reflecting shades of turquoise that I've only ever seen in the Caribbean. The fact that I never had any expectations of visiting this place originally, there wasn't much that could've disappointed me. Though I believe even with high expectations, the Carretera Austral would still exceed them.

To Hacer Dedo

The Carretera Austral is not friendly in two ways: coordinating plans and budget travel. Bus tickets in this part of the country are pricey. There are very few that run and still plenty of people that want to get from Point A to B. Even someone willing to stomach the cost though will encounter the other obstacle traveling on the Carretera. Especially outside of the spring and summer months, you'd be hard pressed to find a bus at a convenient time. The Carretera Austral is not a route you want to speed through. Stopping in small towns is part of what makes it so worthwhile. That being said, the journey gets a lot harder when you decide to hop off that bus.

Some legs of the journey are covered by different providers. One company offers Monday and Wednesday. The other offers Tuesday and Saturday. For other legs of the Carretera, there's only one bus that leaves each week. And if you arrived in town a day (or an hour) late, you're by all means stuck there until the next week. Even better is that online bus schedules don't exist for this road. There are only two ways you're getting that info: calling the number of the local office at the same local bus terminal or showing up yourself. In my experience, as it was rare for someone to pick up the line, going in person is the best option.

It was at those bus terminal windows, when I would inevitably discover that XYZ town's weekly bus left that morning, that the attendant would give me the universal signal for my only other option: 👍

To hacer dedo on the Carretera Austral is about as common as taking a train in Europe or a scooter in Southeast Asia. Just as I found in every other corner of Chile, the citizens of the Aysen region here are consistently helpful and want to share their homeland with the travelers willing to come all that way to visit it. When I was dropped off a boat in Puerto Cisnes at 5:30 AM on a Sunday with insufficient gear for the cold, a local salmon fisherman brought me four hours down the road and out of trouble. In another pinch, a friendly crew of horse breeders brought me to Coyhaique. On this particular ride, I hopped into the backseat with two other guys. Both introduced themselves as Cristian. Both were horse jockeys. Needless to say, I had plenty of room in that backseat. I also had a French couple on their honeymoon save me from days of waiting in a lakeside village by driving me five hours to Chile Chico on the country's border. That's just a small slice of the overwhelming amount of gracious people I've met on the road so far. Hopefully one day I'll be able to rent a car elsewhere in the world and pay it forward too.

David & Laura - Crashing the Honeymoon!

Road Reads

I'm switching between two books in my mountain downtime. One is romantically cliché while roaming Patagonia. The other is also so fitting for the occasion, it's almost equally as cliché.

1. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

   1. Said to be a classic in the world of travel writing, and I'm starting to notice why. Chatwin's dry observations of his adventure through Patagonia paint an accurate picture of the strangeness of this area of the globe. Indeed, Chatwin's 1970s Patagonia is clearly not the same Patagonia I or anyone traveling in the region witness today; he also received his fair share of blowback for sensationalizing aspects of his encounters. Yet the novel itself has been an interesting companion as I pass the same places and landmarks Chatwin did all those years ago.

2. The Vagabond's Way by Rolf Potts

   1. Well if you can't tell by now, Rolf Potts is a bit of a guru when it comes to long-term travel. Author of the famed travel book Vagabonding (among other travel works), Rolf has now released a follow-up 20 years later. The book is split up into 366 one-page meditations on travel, one for each day of a leap year. If you've read Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic, you get the idea. In the weird case that In Patagonia doesn't get your out of your seat, I'd be floored if anyone cracks open The Vagabond's Way and doesn't take at least one glance at Google Flights during a reading session.

Crossing the Border on Foot

When I arrived at the border town of Chile Chico, I had a few options when it came to crossing the frontera. I chose on foot - and I filmed it. Well, some of it. Think of it as a video companion to this edition. Check it out below.

Facing Changes in a Plan

When I left the vineyard, I had every intention of traveling from Santiago to the southernmost point in South America by land. I had dreams of four-day treks and romantically imagined myself forging into Bruce Chatwin's frontier that he so excellently displayed in his novel. Instead, I was met with a different reality.

I started at a disadvantage when I realized I lacked any of the necessary gear to combat the extreme range in temperatures of Patagonia. Not only that, I found myself longing for a tent and a car to give myself the freedom to stop where I wanted and sleep where the road necessitated. Excursions were astronomical compared to other parts of South America I visited previously. I found myself passing through amazing landscapes and towns without participating in some of the adventures they had to offer (except for trekking a glacier; that was happening no matter the cost). Without these pieces of preparation and without much room on a skinny budget, Patagonia became expensive. So expensive that continuing in the region for even another three weeks was going to come at the sacrifice of three months in the future.

Glaciar Exploradores

So, I changed tack. I decided at the border, that if I was to continue in Patagonia, I wanted to do it in a way that enabled me to reach the peaks and depths of the experiences there. Tent, car, and climbing gear - all missing this time around. Proper planning and reservations (which are necessary for places like Torres del Paine) - also missing. A budget built to spend on all that Patagonia offers - needless to say, not there either. There will come a day when I'll make the trip to Patagonia for the sole purpose of experiencing everything I was passing up on. It will have to be another time. This trip has other goals. So I got on a bus heading anywhere but south, and let it whisk me away.

If you enjoyed this edition, be sure to share it with someone. My goal is to have this newsletter reach those interested in traveling in an unconventional way. And if not that, be an entertaining narrative of times on the road in South America. Either works for me.

Until next time,