The jouney from Villa O´Higgins was part of the Carretera Austral,
The road is one of the worlds remotests and spectacular road journeys. Many, slightly crazy people cycle it! It runs for about 1,000 kms through range after range of mountains. From Villa O´Higgins to Cochrane was about 200 kms, the second leg of the journey is to small town called Coyhaique about 7 hours drive away, another bus for 7 hours takes its passengers to La Junta. In order to reach Chaiten to catch the 10.00 am ferry to Chiloe means leaving at 6.00am! We had decided to leave the Carretera here and catch the ferry to Chiloe. The road continues to wind it´s way through forests, over lakes and mountains to Puerto Montt. It is gravel road the whole way. We didn`t know from one day to the next how we were going to get to our planned destinations! Here is our story.
We left Cochrane in a bus!
Quite comfortable despite the bumping. It was raining again! But I managed a few photographs of spectacular scenes.
The River Simpson was a most remarkable blue.
Lakes suddenly appeared.
Luckily we stopped for ¨five¨minutes, for a quick bite to eat and drink - coffee here is always in a packet - thanks to Nestle!
small rather dilapitated towns, but we are a long way from anywhere!
More bumping and whizzing along.
We arrived in Coyhaique. It was Sunday, and towns on Sunday are always a little dreary.
People were in the park.
And a group was trying to get the locals to exercise more!
The Mall was empty.
Except for an exhibition of tree roots by an artist with a good sense of imagination.
In the evening we found a very nice restaurant and remarked that it looked a little German.
I had a delicious piece of salmon with scrumptious sauce.
Tony had a dish called ¨Poor Man´s dish of pork¨!
We were also begiining to realise that the Chileans like their food hot!
The locals douse everthing with this sauce.
As I said life was sometimes difficult along the Carretera - and we had to change our plans several times. We had a shock as we discovered the boat we wanted to catch only ran once a week! We thought it went every day! And, we discoverd that we had to catch a 5.30am bus from a town we had not planned to stay in to catch the boat! So - onto La Junta to catch a 5.30am bus, that turned out to be at 6.00am! After all this changing around we decided to stay in a better hotel than normal!
The next morning the waether didn´t look too good, but off we wnet on aother bus, bumping and racking around the bends up the hills and down the dales.
We were quite surprised that Coyhaique was powered by wind.
Brief glimpses of mountain ranges came into view.
Trees flashed past, with huge waterfalls cascading down the cliffs.
And what cliffs they were!
We stopped for our break and so did this guy!
We wondered if he was running here afterwards.
The weather was slowly getting worse, the clouds descended, the road got worse, we went up and down mountain sides and we entered into a temperate rain forest. Thh trees were covered in lichens, mosses and fungus. It was all quite remarkable and so close to the bus it was virtually impossible to photgraph. But here are a few!!!
Lakes appeared trhough the mist.
We stopped briefly as we entered a national park, I had never seen such huge Gunnera
and ferns.
We didn´t realise we had been climbing up the mountain side untile we started to go down.
Finally arriving at a very beautiful lake, where the light was playing funny tricks.
In the calm waters, salmon was being farmed.
We arrived in Puyahaupi, where we had planned to stay the night.
Onwards arriving late in La Junta, and it was raining.
The next moring it was raining too. But our hotel was beautiful and the garden too.
These are the huge Gunera we saw in the wild.
In bloom.
I would not like to get stuck on it´s thorns.
It rained all night, but the next day we wandered around the village. Another isolated, village with a german feel about it.
The roads in need of repair, or earthquake damage?
Small houses
Tumbledown houses.
Working in the garden.
The park was beautifully laid out.
And little shops lined the streets.
A couple of carefully carved signs made us smile.
We had a good nights rest and got up at ´5.00am! It really was tipping it down as we walked to the bus with our head torches on! The weather was so bad that I took no phots until we got to Chaiten - guess what - the boat was late! So we sat around with the locals - who do a lot of sitting around - and looked at the volcanic ash that had been spewed on the village twice in the last six years.
The boat came in a couple of hours late.
And disgorged some amazing things - this lorry just made it after trying to poison everyone - yes the smoke is the exhaust fumes.
And road building is in progress.
These are the noble souls setting out for Villa O´Higgins.
And we say goodbye to the Carretera Austral.
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