Since I arrived in Chile, I had one conviction regarding Patagonia: it had to be done by car! From top to bottom, through Chile and Argentina, this area has more than 2500 kms length, two mystic dirt roads (Carretera Austral in Chile and Ruta 40 in Argentina) and a tempting lack of regular connections and civilization in general. With a 4WD vehicle you can go (almost) everywhere and, with time, it is the perfect companion to discover the true unexplored Patagonia, far from the tourist traps. This adventure started taking shape when two friends from Portugal came to visit me and we decided to go to Patagonia. A 17-day road trip through the entire Patagonia was the plan, from Chaitén to Ushuaia, driving more than 5000 kms across the most remote parts of this remote place. Another friend from Paranal joined the group and the four of us departed to the end of the world. We flew to Coihaique, in the middle of the Carretera Austral and there we rented a vehicle, which played one of the main roles on this trip. Suzuki Grand Vitara 2010, 4-Wheel Drive (4WD), air conditioning, 7000 kms, 2400cc, manual transmission and a lot of character!
The first unexpected event happened already before the trip started. One of my friends had his bag lost somewhere on the way to South America and we had it sent to Coihaique. Fortunately, it arrived the day after and we didn't lose much time with that. We spent one night in Coihaique, the capital of the XI region of Chile and the center of this part of Patagonia, and went the next day to Puyuhuapi after getting the bag from the airport. We basically went North through Carretera Austral, which is paved around Coihaique but soon becames an exciting and dangerous dirt road. Distances here are large and the road conditions are bad, so every 300 kms we have to drive takes not less than 6 hours and this is the normal distance between villages. In between, the landscape changes quite often from high basaltic snowed rocks to deep green forests, always sided at some point by rivers or crossed by water streams. The road traffic is barely existent, we could drive for 6 hours and pass by just a couple of vehicles. Mobile phone coverage is zero and sometimes phone coverage in villages as well...
We reached the first checkpoint of the trip. Puyuhuapi, a small village by an amazingly calm lake, known in Chile for its top level hot springs (which we didn't visit) and for the big Queulat National Park, which we trekked the morning after, to try and see a glacier. It was covered with the typical morning mist, so it was a flop, but the trek was very nice, through dense woods. We met the first israeli group of the journey. Like every other group we met, they were hitchiking, but we had the car full, so no luck for them. We went back to the village, filled the tank (Petrol is another big issue in Patagonia) and departed to the next stop: Futaleufú, known by its world-class rapids, the best rafting in South America. We kept going North through the Carretera Austral, until the second unforeseen event happened. One of the girls asked to drive, full of confidence, and after 15 minutes we had the car sent outside the road and landing on a considerable rain pond and several wood trunks. Result: A bad wheel, a damaged door, the front bumper heavily damaged and a car in the water without any hope to get out of it, in the middle of nowhere! First thought: How the f*ck do we get out of here?! Second thought: This is it, concerning holidays!
Luckily, after a few minutes, we stopped a car passing by and asked for help. They went to get a rope and came back to help us get the car out of there. A second car stopped as well to help. The plan was quite simple: tie a rope to our jeep and pull it out of the pond with another jeep. Easier said than done, the car was stuck with some logs underwater and it took a while and one broken rope to get it out. I was helping with the independent 4WD torque, but while in the water it was useless. We finally made it, thanked the people who helped (they were priceless), changed a wheel and it was on the road again, though we thought it wouldn't be possible. We drove to the closest village and called the rent-a-car company to report the event. They advised us to get back to Coihaique to have the car properly checked... Ok, we didn't get any further and went back. On the way we stopped at a proper garage to see if the car would make it to Coihaique and to report the event to the police, for insurance matters. We slept another night in Puyuhuapi and the next day drove all the way to the beginning. We arrived at noon, thinking the trip had come to an end... Miraculously, at 5 pm we had the car checked and they told us we could still use it for the rest of the trip. The tire we changed was actually good, though the steering was a bit damaged, however the car was able to continue. We got back on the road immediately, with a damaged door, a couple of lights less and a front bumper half ruined, but happy and grateful that we could go on with the plan. We slept close to the Argentinean border and prepared to cross it the next morning. We didn't get to raft, but in the end we gained one extra day to spend elsewhere... Who would have thought?...
As soon as we crossed the Argentinian border, the landscape changed dramatically. We left the green forests and the snow covered mountains behind and found ourselves in the middle of the endless plains on the other side of the Andes. The weather also changed, from rainy and rather cold to sunny and warm. These are the famous pampas! Here we took the also mythical Ruta 40 in Argentina, a road that crosses the country all the way through, from the Bolivian border up North to the Chilean border at the southernmost Patagonia. We just did 1/6th of it approximately and this was more than 1500 kms! At these latitudes the road is basically a dirt road, but quite wide and safe, in the sense that you ride across plains and there isn't the risk of falling into a river or a big slope if you go out of the road. We drove south, for 12h straight, with just short stops to refuel and buy something to eat. It is amazing how you can drive for 5h across the same landscape, sprinkled here and there with guanacos, sheeps and ñandus, a sort of ostrich, and suddenly arrive at a small village, which has not more than a dozen of houses and a petrol station. Of course, they charge whatever they want for the petrol, there is no competition and everyone (literally everyone) has to stop here to refuel since the next station will be 300 or 400 kms away. Even though they inflate the prices, fuel here is 1/3 the price of that in Portugal!
The goal for the day was to gain the extra day and reach El Chaltén, a small town existing since 1985 with a very specific purpose: tourism. It is strategically located inside Los Glaciares National Park, the symbol of the Argentinian Patagonia. From the town it is easily possible to do day treks to amazing places: glaciers, lagoons, waterfalls and Patagonian forest. We arrived at night and rented a fully equiped cabaña, managed by a very friendly Argentinian from Buenos Aires. The day after, we did a beautiful 4h-trek to Laguna Torre to see a glacier and the plan for the next day was to get up early and leave in the morning but... it was Friday night.
As good latinos and since we believe it is one of the best ways to assimilate the local culture, we couldn't miss a Friday night. We had a few beers at home while playing cards and we decided to go out and see what was happening. We immediately met another group, a local group, who were going for the same. Armed with Quilmes (aka Kill Me), the national beer, we went to a bar and this was the best night of the whole vacations and the most memorable one as well. I will not go into full detail around this epic night, but one of the remarkable moments was when the DJ started playing Buraka Som Sistema, a Portuguese electronic group, and among the fuss we made about it, I met an Argentinian girl who had been in Portugal recently! Needless to say, the next day nobody woke up early and we decided to stay an extra night. We took the evening to drive to a lagoon nearby and see some waterfalls and more glaciers. We spent the extra day here, but it was definitely worth it.
The next day we left early to see the biggest tourist attraction of the Argentinian Patagonia. On the southern part of the Los Glaciares National Park is the Perito Moreno glacier, one of the very few that is not retreating and is able to regenerate itself. This monster glacier is in a lake (Lago Argentino) and acts as a natural dam, dividing the lake in two. There are one-hour boat rides that approach one of the glacier sides and where you normally can see some ice collapsing from it. The total area of the glacier is equivalent to the area of Madrid and it is indeed an impressive view. At the end of the day we went to El Calafate and decided to stay there for the night. After an hearty discussion, where the four of us needed to distress from the tight schedule, we decided to loosen it up a little bit and cut part of the trip, namely the incursion to Tierra del Fuego, and gain two days with it. It was getting stressful! The next day we drove the last miles of Ruta 40 to reach the Chilean border via Rio Gallegos, on the Atlantic shore. This was all from Argentina. It is interesting as Patagonia is normally more associated to Argentina than to Chile, but the symbolic spots of its Argentinian part are gathered in one single National Park and it is just in the border with Chile...
