Car Adventures Round 1 and our trip to Puyuhuapi and beyond!

Heading off to the Chilean port town of Puerto Aysen was our first driving destination. An hour away from Coyhaique, and mostly flat on a winding valley road through some amazing mountains, it was a good start to a future road trip of indeterminant length. We got to Puerto Aysen, and were loving the driving, so we crossed a large orange suspension bridge and continued onwards to Puerto Chacabuco, about 20 minutes away. Right as we pulled into Puerto Chacabuco I noticed all the lights in the dash come on, the car shut off, and I rolled us onto the shoulder of the road. Damn! We killed the car already, perhaps we were a little overly optimistic to think we could just drive with a broken car. I get out and start inspecting the engine to see if I can figure out what´s going on, and its definitely related to the smoke coming off the radiator. I check the car´s heat gauge, and its off the hot end. Shiiiiit, just over heated the engine. And then it started raining

We had pulled off the road, sorta blocking a driveway. After about 5 minutes of hoping we didn't hurt the engine too much a man honked a greeting at us. He hopped out of his truck and began asking what was wrong with the car and after seeing that the car obviously was overheated he instructed John to pour water into the lid that says 'don't open if the car is hot'. Thecar cooled and the man who had been helping us introduced himself as Juliano and invited us to his home because he had a friend who was a welder who would help us fix the radiator. Soon we were meeting Juliano's family, who invited us in and made us a snack . Ruben, Juliano's friend from Puerto Aysen arrived with his daughter who went to play with Juliano's daughter and we all gathered in the garage to learn about radiators. After the radiator was taken out we could tell that it was much more broken than the one epoxy patch on it had indicated. Juliano and Ruben both thought it was pretty laughable that we were going to try to make it all the way to Puyuhuapi, about 300 km north along the Carratera Austral, which was mostly a pothole laden dirt road.

Who doesn't love a broken car!?

Essentially, someone had definitely bent one of the water tubes out of place, so there was a hole along one of the main tubes where it had bent, and the previous owner had tried to patch it with epoxy, but did so poorly. Since it had still been leaking for who knows how long, water had run down the radiator for a while and it was rusting along the whole side of the radiator. Ruben had brought a saudering iron and some lead? to melt over the crack and seal it. After trying for a while, though, he realized that his metal wasn´t sticking to the aluminum radiator and decided we needed epoxy. But, neither Juliano nor Ruben had any epoxy. Thence began the first loop through town to find epoxy. Juliano drove us all around town, stopping at the random house of a friend who might have epoxy while Ruben would jump out and ask their friend for epoxy. After one of the neighbours directed Ruben to one guy who had some boat epoxy, we headed back to Juliano´s to proceed with the repairs.

Luckily, beer had also been purchased on this trip around town, so nobody was thirsty. Ruben and Juliano were very dedicated to the work on the radiator. The rust had to be completely cleaned off and the epoxy applied and then more holes were checked for. It was quite a long process because more and more holes kept showing up. After the 4 of us finished the 6 pack we went for more beer while the epoxy was drying a bit. Juliano had stopped drinking because he was driving, but Ruben happily passed out beers while we were toured around the tiny town to see the hotel, the port, the port from higher up, and an old boat. Ruben told us all about everything we were seeing, in simple enough Spanish for me to understand almost all of it. We went back to Juliano's garage and epoxied more and more. The originally mixed epoxy went bad because it was already starting to harden, so we had to go back to the guy in town who had epoxy and grab some more. After we got back, Juliano's daughter shyly brought us another snack of yogurt and quickly left. Our radiator looked like it was coated in silly putty. The common phrase of the night was 'Tu radiadora esta mal, cambiarlo.' Around midnight Ruben decided it was sufficiently patched so Juliano drove him and his 5 year old daughter Dani home and John and I tagged along.

Chacabuco

Kiara and one of the family's dogs

Along the way to take Ruben home we stopped to grab beer from the market which we took to the epoxy guy, and then got to Ruben´s house in Puerto Aysen. Before we left his house, he brought us out a gift. It was a box with a glass panel on the front, in the box was a joint and a bag of weed glued to a piece of paper that said in Spanish 'in case of emergency, break glass'. It was great. We said our goodbyes to Ruben and then headed back to Juliano´s house. Upon arriving, Juliano´s wife had prepared us a delicious salmon filet dinner with potatoes. We ate with the family, though they were eating hamburgers, and I showed them pictures of Shadow and my family. Acacia and I were both exhausted at this point, and Juliano had offered us his shop to sleep in. Before we went to sleep Juliano's daughter, Kiara brought us a stuffed animal raccoon as a gift, which we have named Rocky, cuz what else could you name a raccoon? Acacia set up her bed in the back of Alejandro, and I set out a tarp on the ground in the shed and we crashed around 1am after 6 hours of dealing with the car. Unfortunately, that night was one of the windiest nights in history, and there were bushes/trees that blew against the roof all night, which leaked a bit and got me wet. Around 4am, Juliano had to move stuff around in his yard to keep it from blowing away. In the morning I went for a walk around town, which took about 7 minutes, and then came back to a greeting from Juliano´s three adorable dogs and found Juliano awake in the house. The epoxy needed 24 hours to set, so we had to stay around his place until the afternoon when we could leave. While Acacia and Juliano´s wife and daughter were still sleeping, Juliano and I showed each other pictures of travels and things.

I slept fabulously, for the first time in a long time, since John and I have pretty much opposite sleep schedules. He consistently wakes up at sunrise!! How crazy. Anyway, John and Juliano woke me up at 11am to tell me they were going to return some of the supplies from the repair from the night before. I decided to join them, so the three of us and Juliano's scrapper tiny dogs walked to town and  the dogs picked fights with every dog behind a fence. We met Juliano´s father and brother and checked out the brother´s welding (I think?) shop. When we got back to Juliano´s we looked at some pictures from his mechanic work, trip to Chiloe, an island where he has family and where we will go to visit soon, and the towns futball teams.

We then showed Juliano a bunch of pictures from our trip and from past trips via all of the pictures on my facebook account. It was pretty fun, and since he spoke little English, and we spoke little Spanish, it was a good way to interact for several hours while we hung out at his house. After a bit, Acacia and I checked on the car and then tossed the frisbee around in Juliano´s backyard with his dogs. Kiara saw us and came out to join us. She had never played frisbee before in her life, but was such a natural! Serious. Forhand and backhand (I actually have no idea what to call those throws), she had it down. So the three of us hung out playing frisbee and trying to talk to Kiara about her school, and her soccer team. It was a nice sunny, and surprisingly windless day. Around 2pm Juliano came out and had us check on the epoxy and run the car for a bit to get the radiator hot and see if it was still holding. Juliano checked it and looked up at me with a big smile, 'zero water!' he said. Awesome. AND then Juliano topped off our oil. Throughout our stay we were blown away by the hospitality of this family and kept asking each other how we were going to thank them. We have dirty clothes, my library, and some basic food items. Absolutely nothing to share. We concluded that we would send them an epic package as a thanks. So we collected contact information and took some pictures before we left. Juliano was more interested in documenting the car engine and repair with his camera, and while he was finishing taking some pictures and telling us to change the radiator as soon as possible Kiara came up with another gift for us, this time a mini basketball! 

John, Kiara, and Juliano

As we began to pull away I noticed Kiara had decorated our car with a dandelion on our mirror. My kind of girl! She was awesome. We waved goodbye and drove less than 20 m before I realized John had left his coat in the kitchen. He ran back to get it and brought Kiara his copy of Common Sense, our only book that seemed slightly appropriate as a gift because it looked pretty fancy and wasn´t Edmund White´s too-graphic-for-a-10-year-old-even-if-she-doesn't-speak-English biography (google it). I liked the book though. Anyway, she dug the gift, which made us feel a little better, but we still plan on sending a surprise.

And we were off! Finally, a semi-functioning car and heading north was our plan. Our first stop was Puerto Aysen because we had kind of just driven through on our way to Chacabuco. We first went to the grocery store and got some lunch from the pre-made hot food area. I got meatloaf and hashbrowns and Acacia got salmon. The beer guy from the rally vendors in Coyhaique had said that his brewery was in Puerto Aysen, so after lunch we tried to find the brewery. No luck though. We checked out the suspension bridge, and I read a sign explaining that it was the longest suspension bridge in Chile, so Chile´s Golden Gate? It spanned a pretty big river, so we snapped some pictures and then started going north. Puyuhuapi was roughly our plan, about 300km north. The road was paved for the first 200km or so along some beautiful country surrounded by mountains and farms. We had our first police stop where I gave them my passport and we were waved on through.  Eventually the road turned into dirt so we slowed way down. A few kilometers further we entered Parque Nacional Queulat. Here, the ecology changed dramatically. 

But we couldn't really tell, because it was getting dark. It became pretty obvious that we weren't going to make it to Puyuhuapi before it got too dark, and I didn't want to keep going because I could tell there were loads of new plants to study! Plus we were switchback'n up a mountain, so we knew if we kept going we were going to miss some views. The thing that finally made us stop was a trailhead called 'bosque encantado,' obviously I wasn't going to skip an enchanted forest. We camped in a pull out and crashed fairly early. When we woke up the rain from the night before was clearing. There was some sunshine breaking through, mist, and clearing clouds. Perfect weather for exploring a temperate rainforest, if you ask me. For whatever reason I am struggling to verify this, but I am pretty sure I read that Queulat means the sound of waterfalls in the native language. I like that. Anyway, as we entered the forest everything changed. The forest canopy was closed, making it dark where we were walking, but there were so many plants, fungi, and LICHEN (C and DBR!!) living in the shade. It was unlike any forest I had ever been in and I dawdled a lot trying to remember enough details about each new plant to look them up later.

When John says super blurry, this is what he means

I was stoked too! It was such a good forest. And we were the only ones there. The trail was flat along a creek for the first mile or so, under trees and just super green. Then the trail climbed a bit and eventually left the dense forest and opened up to a glacial river that was fed from about a half a dozen waterfalls all pouring into a granite bowl with a lake at the bottom. Because we had already taken so many pictures along the way, the camera lense got water on it, so it was super blurry for the waterfalls and lake, but it was beautiful. We made some breakfaste burritos of cheese, avocados, and hot sauce by the lake and just sat by the lake for a bit. We could have spent all day in that forest really, but the park had about 5 or 6 day hikes listed that we were trying to tackle by the end of the day. After we got back to the car and started heading through the park, I was on trail lookout duty. This turned out to be a fairly useless job because the one trail outside of a paid-entry area was closed anyway. About 25km north of the enchanted forest trail we got to Ventisquero Colgante, which was the part of the park that had visitor information, camping, and more trails. We got there, paid the entrance fee, and then asked the ranger about the trails. He pointed to 4 different trails all from the parking area there, and Acacia and I set off to do all of them before sundown. The first trail took us about 3 minutes to get to a lookout into the valley. First trail, check. The second trailhead lead to three trails, an interpretive super short one, the trail that climbed up to the moraine of this overhanging glacier, and a trail that followed the river to a lake. After crossing the bridge over a large glacial river, we headed up the one that climbed to the moraine. 

We were cruising on the climb, mostly because I think we are both feeling a bit exercise depraived. Along the way we passed three Koreans and a German who were on their way up too. Most of the trail was on a ridge that had tall trees growing on either side, giving the impression that it wasn't nearly as steep as it was. Literally 1m to the left the ground was at least 50m down, and to the right 30m. We reached the lookout, which was quite amazing, but relative to what we had seen the morning before, standard (how ridiculous! I am being amazing views desensitized)

At the view point, we sat on the bench there for a bit to enjoy the view of the overhanging glacier and lake below. The Koreans caught up with us, and right before we were heading back down, I asked one of them where he was staying, and he told us about a super cheap hostal in Puyuhuapi, which is where we wanted to stay anyway, but were planning on crashing in the car. We got back from the hike up to the lookout, decided we didn´t need to do the hike to the lake that we had seen from above, but did do the interpretive sign trail, which was super funny but didn´t teach us anything about the local plants. 

Then we drove the 10km or so into Puyuhuapi and made it before dark! We walked around the town, a small German settlement, and met the Koreans, a German, and a couple Israelis back in the hostal that evening. It was a solid hostal, with legit kitchen access, so I made chocolate chip pizzookies before bed. Yum. John forgot to mention that the hostel had the most adorable kittens! I was in love with this one. Clearly.

GIANT KITTEN

Our plan the following morning was to hang out in the hostal, shower, make a good breakfast, and then head north towards La Junta where we heard about hot springs nearby. The Israelis who stayed in the hostal with us were trying to hitch hike south towards Queulat to hike the enchanted forest. After a bit we saw them walk by the hostal going north and they said they had givern up and were going to try to hitch hike north. About 2 hours later, as we were trying to leave, we saw the Israelis still sitting on the corner of the road out of town. A cycler from the UK rode by us as we were packing up the car, so we chatted for a bit with him. He´s planning on biking all the way up to Alaska, but had his bike stolen in Coyhaique, so took a vacation from his vacation to hang out in the UK to re-supply his bike and gear. We picked up the Israelis on our way north, warned them about the fragile condition of our car, filled up on gas, and headed towards La Junta. 

We had hoped that La Junta would be a large enough town for us to do a bit of internet cafe'ing and possibly send international mail. When we got there, however, it was that magical closed hour in Chile, and it was definitely a small town anyway. Acacia finished up her taxes in the car while I hung out in the central plaza with a beer and some swings. After a couple hours the internet cafe opened up so I called a few mechanics in Puerto Montt to let them know we needed to have Alejandro fixed. Not sure if communication failed because I kept calling Alejandro by his name or if it was that language barrier thing, but after a few calls I determined at the very least it would be relatively quick to get the parts replaced, even if I couldn´t manage to make a reservation. I took a look at the ferry schedules in the area, we headed towards the post office to mail taxes and letters. Low and behold, it only sent domestic mail. Bummer. Off to find hotsprings!

There were some fairly developed hotsprings in Puyuhuapi that we passed up in favor of the ones east of La Junta that were supposed to be 'rustic'.... We took the road east out of La Junta figuring we would find signs for the El Sauce hotsprings. The first sign we got to was a billboard advertising the community (more like the farm, I think) of El Sauce and an arrow pointing down the road that had a board nailed over it as if to say it was closed for the season or something. So we followed the arrow. When we dead ended in a farm, I suggested we talk to the other car driving around that also looked lost. Acacia pulled up next to this SUV and asked 'El Sauce termas?'. The lady driving turned to her husband and said a few words, then quickly spoke some spanish at us, which Acacia was knew meant we should follow them. Acacia turned Alejandro around to follow the SUV, which was flying down this dirt road, and she raced after them. A few kilometers down the road we found them waiting at a locked gate with a sign for El Sauce termas. The husband got out of the SUV and explained that we had to wait a few minutes for the key to the gate, which arrived in a convoy of SUVs that were all heading east. The husband grabbed the key from one of the drivers and then we followed the family in the SUV another 3 kms or so to a campground and hotsprings.

The husband invited us down to the hotsprings where we met the family of his wife, mom?, and kid all hanging out in a thermal bath boarded into a cold river, which was super nice because we could thermoregulate by jumping back and forth between the two, or take the hose from the cold river and spray yourself with it while sitting in the hot bath. We had the usual conversation explaining that we were from California, travelling for 11 months, just got to La Junta, etc. After a bit, the family was going to leave and the husband asked if we were camping there, which sounded fantastic! Turns out he owns the place. What a coincidence, and super lucky we saw them! Anyway, we paid for camping and then had the place to ourselves for the rest of the evening and night. We had ourselves some local beer and wine, and made an epic dinner and went to bed early, because we had to get up early. There was some loud yelping creature in the middle of the night, like a rabbid dog or something, that kind of terrified both of us. Luckily I´m a heavy sleeper so I just went to bed and forgot about it, but it was like nothing either of us had ever heard before, and seemed to be a tranquilicist (I think he means ventriliquist?) or something.

In La Junta I had researched ferry routes and departure times because we wanted to plan a fun route that would require the least driving for Alejandro until we reached Puerto Montt and could get him fixed. The plan we agreed upon was to catch a ferry out of Raul Marin Balmaceda at 9:15 the next morning to the island of Chiloe. It seemed like it would work great, but the catch was the 2 hour drive from the hotsprings to a ferry that crossed over the Palena River, which separated Balmaceda by land from La Junta, at 8:30am. The  morning of our hotsprings camping, I woke up at 5:30 to make coffee and oatmeal, and then jumped in the hotsprings for a morning soak, woke Acacia up at 6 and we were on the road by 6:30. We got to the locked gate, searched around for a rock that we were told would have a key under it, found it, and were off to catch us some ferries.

After about an hour and a half of flying down this dirt road probably faster than our car with a bad radiator and CV joint could reasonably handle, we arrived at the Palena River ferry crossing right at sunrise. The ferry operators saw us pull up from the other side of the river, and immediately fired up the engines to come pick us up. Free private ferry service? What a deal.

Sunrising on Rio Palena as we wait for the ferry

We continued the 10 or so kilometers into Raul Marin Balmaceda and followed the main road in town until it dead ended into the ferry ramp.

Alright, we made it by 8:50, 25 minutes early! By 9:50 when no ferry had arrived and a couple locals loading some supplies onto a small boat from the ramp saw us standing there looking in need of a ferry informed us that the ferry had actually gone by around 6 or 7 am. Damn. Based on my research that meant the next one wouldn´t be coming until Saturday, and it was Wednesday. So we explored the beach out of town and were joined by a couple super cute dogs. Cute and playful and loads of fun, which means you now have to see way too many pictures of them because like always, I fell in love.

How could I not, right?

 It was sunny, there were dolphins, and the water seemed warm compared to the glacial rivers we´ve been dealing with. We tried to play fetch with the dogs, but they mostly just ran to the sticks, but it was a nice walk along the beach nonetheless.

Professional!

We sat down on the beach when we got to a river we couldn´t cross without getting wet, even though there were some giant sounding waves on the other side of the dunes past the river. After sitting for a bit, I wanted to find a place to rent kayaks, which I had seen in town. We walked back along a road in the dunes and got back to town to search for kayaks and fresh fish since it was a fishing village. Both kayak places were closed, and we didn´t find fish, but we played on a playground and ran into the town drunks on a beach with a rope swing. At that point we had pretty much conquered the town. In 4 hours. And we had 66 hours to go until the next ferry. After talking to a store owner about getting on the saturday ferry, he informed us that we were the last stop before Chiloe on the way north, so the ferry might even be full by the time it got to Balmaceda. At this point, we bailed on our Balmaceda to Chiloe plans. We caught the next ferry across the Palena River and then headed back through La Junta to the capital of the area, Chaiten.

My holder of things I always misplace

After a couple hours of driving we crossed a bridge and hit pavement for the first time in a few days which was nice. Though, it made it evident how bad the CV joint was since the shaking of the steering wheel could no longer be attributed to gravel. We arrived in Chaiten after dark, went to the first open restaurant we saw, got two giant meals and slept in our car that night in town. The next morning I woke up and explored the town a bit, and discovered that it was pretty deserted. A volcano had erupted in 2008, and the Chilean government cut off electricity and water to the city for a while with the hopes of evacuating the residents? The theory we heard was that the Chilean government wants to pursue projects that would destroy a lot of the natural landscapes around Patagonia, but needs supporters living in the area, so wanted to evacuate the capitol city and then sell the homes cheaply to political affiliates from Santiago and other urban areas to fill it with supporters of the projects.  Anyway, nothing opened until 9, so I grabbed some dulce de leche, apples, and bread and then sat along the water until Acacia woke up. We popped into the ferry office and got the schedules to come up with the plan of leaving from Chaiten either Friday or Sunday depending on how cool the Parqe Pumalin to the north was. We grabbed some food from the store and headed to the park. 

Ghosts disappearing into the fog

John still doesn't read Spanish...

I suppose we were too sidetracked talking about beer to put one of us in the pictures for scale. Oops

Our view waiting for the ferry

On the second ferry of the day, this was a common view. Overcast above us and beautiful on the otherside of  the mountains

Parque Pumalin is one of the ones Doug Tompkins (founder of Patagonia) had purchased and administred through his nonprofit. It was officially opened as a park in 2005 and administration was transfered to a Chilean non-profit. Anyway, we stopped at a trail through some Alerce (Fitroya cupressoides) trees--evergreens that get super old, like 3,000 years--and met a Floridian who was motorcycling through South America.  Back to the trees though, for a second. Not only are these trees amazingly long lived, but they are also huge. I mean, no bristlecone pine or giant sequoia, but still imprsesive. We got onto the topic of beer and he told us about a beer festival in Puerto Varas (north of Puerto Montt) that was happening in 2 days, Saturday, and about a ferry we could take 15km north of the Alerce tree trail that would get us within an hour and a half of Puerto Montt. Although we both wanted to spend more time checking out Pumalin, it sounded like a pretty great plan to catch the ferry north and attend a beer festival with cheese and sausage. Also minimizing the time we would be driving an undependable car in the middle of nowhere. We caught the first ferry, without paying, that lasted about 20 minutes, and then drove another 10 km to catch the long ferry. Here they were checking tickets, which we didn´t have because we were supposed to have purchased them 70km south in Chaiten. Whoops! After some confusion with the ticket checker, meeting a senator waiting in the ferry line, and kind of just driving onto the ferry, we figured they couldn´t send us back now. We ended up paying the full price of both ferry rides once on board, which required borrowing money from our Floridian friend Jeff. No free ferry I guess. The ferry ride was 4 hours through a Patagonian channel flanked by mountains and fjords. It was pretty amazing and British Columbia like. We arrived in Hornopirens, found a bank, and then found a hostal with Jeff. Acacia and I chopped vegetables while Jeff made a super tasty sauted veggies and rice dish with some white wine. 

Alejandro, the Sub

Alright, so I think its time to let the world in on the news. We bought a car! A 1998 Subaru Legacy station wagon named Alejandro (Al for short so Acacia can use the same nickname as her old Sub because it feels like the same car). Buying it was a little bit of a pain, but I´ll explain the process...

First, I needed a RUT number, which is a Chilean identification number. This was pretty easy. I went to a government office of some sort--SII I believe it ws called--walked in to the guy at the front desk, looked at hime with a questioning face and said 'RUT?'. Luckily I was there at 8:05, right after it opened, and Chileans are such late risers that I was in there before it got super crowded later in the day. The receptionist guy took care of me, I gave him a fake permanent address in Chile and walked out of there with a temporary RUT paper by 8:15.

Second, we walked all over town looking for used cars for a couple of days and writing down the car and phone numbers of all of the cars. Our goal (at least partially because Acacia was inspired by one of her coworkers in Powell River) was to find a Mitsubishi Delica--a 4x4 diesel van--but discovered that they were all either too expensive, too broken, or both. Anyway, I spend a couple hours calling via skype from an internet cafe, reading my Google translate script beginning with 'yo soy estados unidos,' which Acacia got a kick out of everytime. Then saying that I wanted to buy the car and asking for the price, and understanding little to nothing of whatever the local on the other end of the line said back to me. 'necessito un coche... si....no entiendo....uhhhhhh....' It was quite the struggle. But eventually we set up a few test drives. So, later that evening we drove a few cars around the town and settled on Alejandro.

Third, and this is where it starts to become a pain, we had to go to the notary/'Aduana' and make the transaction of handing over the cash and signing the papers over in front of a notary employee. The guy we were buying the car from spoke enough English for us to communicate pretty well, and he was a pretty good guy, taking us to a mechanic to have the car checked out and telling us the process of what the sale would be like. Anyway, we went to the Notary and they told us that the necessary paperwork couldn´t be filled out until the next morning because there the seller had to get proof of ownership from the Civil Registry which was already closed that day. So the next morning we met the seller, drove to the registry watched him prove he owned the car, and then drove to the Notary. To get the cash for the car, we had to withdraw it all from ATMs. So, at the notary we had to show the lady that we had the money for the car, and as I pulled out this huge wad of 5000 and 10000 peso bills, the equivalent of a bunch of 10´s and 20´s from the atm, to pay for the car, the entire office was laughing as they spilled out onto the floor and desk at the notary. We filled out the paperwork, went into a back room where they had a money counter (which made it feel a bit more like a drug deal) and then drove the seller back to his house and hung out with him and his dogs.

Fourth, the following afternoon we had to go back to the Notary to get the paperwork which proved we now owned the car that had to be stamped by the Civil Registry. Unfortunately the paperwork said the car belonged to JHON VIVIO (Chileans seem to like spelling my name that way) so it had to be sent back to the registry which the correct spelling of my name, re-stamped and then handed to us 2 hours later. At this point we were told to go to the Civil Registry one week later to get our ownership card because the paperwork we had was temporary or something.

In the meantime the mechanic told us that Alejandro needed a new radiator and a new CV joint. So we went to the parts store and ordered them, which would also take a week to come via truck from Santiago. This is when we decided to go on that backpacking trek we wrote about in the last blog. We originally tried to drive out to the park up in the mountains... 50 minutes later

Acacia: 'is that smell coming from our car?´
John: 'no, i´m sure it´s fine'
Acacia: 'we do have a broken radiator'
John: notices smoke coming from under the hood. pulls over. 'damn'

I take a look at the radiator and it was definitely smoking/steaming, so we spent the night in the car on the side of the Carretera Austral. The next day we drove downhill back to town, spent the day there doing taxes and meeting those old guys in the bar, and then took the bus to the park the following morning.

Skip forward 5 days to post trek. We spent the night in a hospedaje so we could have hot showers and a bed. The lady who ran the hostal was super weird, and the place smelled weird, but it was the cheapest place around with hot showers, though it didn´t have a kitchen. While Acacia showered, I went out to the store for huevos rancheros ingredients and to check the auto parts store for our radiator and CV joint which the guy working there told me would be in the next day. After I got back, with some local beer I found, and showered, we both started prepping ingredients for the huevos rancheros. My plan was to cook outside on the camp stove since we weren´t allowed to use the kitchen. So I´m out in the fron yard cooking, and the man of the house comes home and kind of gives me a weird look and then goes inside and I hear hime say something to the woman working there who then comes out the front door and procedes to grill me about cooking outside. Of course its all in spanish, so after about a 2 minute rant with me catching some words, I look up at her and say 'no entiendo', I don´t understand. Well, this made her more angry and she went on another rant and I gathered that at her house only she can cook, she doesn't like gringos cooking in her front lawn, I wasn't allowed to eat the food in her house, and I had to clean it up immediately without bringing the food or dishes inside. How the hell am I supposed to clean it up then lady? The man comes back outside to shame me and then brings a flashlight to show me all the 4 grains of rice I had spilled and had to clean up without bringing it inside to the trash. Okayyyyyy. At this point I had already dished up Acacia´s plate and she was eating in the room, and then hid all the food when she heard me getting destroyed out front. She finished eating in the room, and I walked out and sat in the passenger seat of the car to eat my now cold huevos rancheros. It was still hella good. But I was pretty terrified to go back inside. Eventually I worked up the nerve to re-enter the house and Acacia and I spent the rest of the evening playing backgammon and drinking the local beer (in secret!).

Beer and Taxes

The following morning we went straight to the auto parts store to see if our parts were in. The guy there told us to come back at 4:30pm because the truck would reach Coyhaique by then. Cool, we´re leaving this city today! We drove over to the mechanic and told him we´d need to get the parts installed around 4:30 and he said he coould have it donw that evening. Yes! We spent the rest of that day working on more taxes and blogging, and while Acacia was working on her taxes at Cafe Ricer, I drove over to the parts guy who told me to come back at 6:30. Jenky. So I walked around a bit, checked out a thrift store and a bookstore, and smoked a Cuban Cohiba in the park while I waited. 6:30 rolls around and he hasn´t gotten the parts yet. Because he had been wrong the previous 3 times telling me when he would have the part, he felt bad and closed up shop, and drove to where the truck was delivering the parts, and came back around 7pm. No parts in hand though. He was pretty angry with the delivery company at this point and felt really bad for me and told me to come back at 10:30am the next day, a saturday. Poop! I don´t even know if a mechanic is going to be open on a saturday. I quickly drove to the mechanic we had been in communication with, discovered that he wasn´t open on saturday, and asked for a mechanic shop that was open on saturday. He told me it wasn´t the best mechanic and gave me rough directions to the shop. After driving close to where I thought the shop was, and then wandering around asking everyone where the mechanic was for about 20 minutes, I finally found this guy working on a car, explained that I needed work done on my car the next day around 11 in the morning, and proceeded to point to the other cars he had to describe what was broken on ours since I had no idea how to tell him in Spanish. He gave me a price, told me he could do it on saturday, we shook hands, and I went back to meet Acacia at Cafe Ricer. After that whole stressful mechanic situation, I ordered us each a ´grande´ draught beer. Boom! The waitress comes back and sets two liters of beer on our table. Well, it certainly was grande. After all the tables in the cafe got a kick out of the liter beers we were drinking, we walked across the plaza to the local brewery and went up to our trusted second floor bar. Again, we met some English speaking locals. Both of whom were from Santiago, and had moved down to Coyhaique. One guy had lived in Chile his whole life and was super into fly fishing which is why he loved northern Patagonia. The other guy had lived in Niger, Hawaii, Switzerland, and probably some other places while he was married to a woman working with the UN. We had fun chatting with them for the rest of the night, and ended up closing the place out. First time either of us have done that in a while! When we were walking back to our cars, one of the ladies who joined us later had not one, but two flat tires. We hung around while the other guys helped inflate her tires enough so she could get home, then walked to Alejandro and crashed.

I woke up having to pee super bad, and ended up trekking across town to find a place that was open and had a bathroom, which ended up being near the parts store. I checked in and he didn´t have the radiator in yet. I walked back to Alejandro, woke up Acacia, and we packed up the car to drive over to the parts guy and wait until the radiator and CV joint came in. 10:30 rolled around, and then he left to go grab the parts. He came back and gave me a thumbs up. Yes! Finally! I go in to pay, but he first wanted to check to make sure the radiator was the right one. After popping the hood and having him compare the old broken raditor with the new one, he looked up at me with this face that said 'this is definitely the wrong radiator. it´ll be another 10 days for the right one to get here'. So, Acacia and I got our deposit on the parts back, went to the internet cafe to research how to tell if you are going to mess up your engine with a broken radiator, and then took off. It felt great to finally be on the road north again!

Stuck in Coyhaique

Well, we are still in Coyhaique for a reason that you will discover later (can`t announce the news to the world quite yet, but soon...). It´s nothing bad though, we promise.

Anyway, since the last post, we discovered that receiving mail while travelling is incredibly difficult, so we`ve basically given up hope of getting a new phone from my folks along with the music and potential cookies that were going to come. However, I managed to get a Chilean identification number which allowed me to purchase a pay as you go phone sim card and stick it in a full priced Samsung Galaxy S3 that I bought at a phone store (Sierra and I can now do that bluetooth bump and share pictures thing that everybody probably saw commercials for. Stoked!) So we have a foreign phone number and a phone that is capable of downloading music and surfing the internet, etc.

Also, we`ve discovered Cafe Ricer which is a pretty good restaurant that sources all of its ingredients from local producers, has a mean vegetarian sandwich, amazing bread, and a hearty meal of the day that`s pretty delicious. We have eaten lunch and gotten coffee there several times now, and it also has internet so you might call us regulars there. While we were walking back to our hostal about a week ago now, we ran into a couple of Israelis who we met along the trail while we were hiking Paso del Viento, and a guy travelling from Wyoming who was hanging out with them. They had just hitched from El Chalten and around Lake General Carrera through Chile Chico about a day behind us. We got a couple of drinks with them at Mamma Gaucho`s, a local craft brewery, and chatted for a bit about their plans and where the guy from Wyoming was going to grad school. They told us about a hike in the Cerro Castillo park, and we came up with some trekking plans because it sounded like a pretty amazing trip (one of the top 5 in Patagonia according to some guidebook).

The following day we attempted to get to the park, but due to some complications ended up just camping out of town. Bummer.

One of the cars everyone was gathered to see

The next day we came back into town and discovered there was a rally car race that was going on the following 2 days in Coyhaique, which sounded pretty fun, but would require us to stay in town even longer. But, there were lots of vendors and a huge stage set up in the middle of the town square, so we hung around town and met a brewer from about 65km out of town who was selling his beer at the event. We had lots to talk about, tried some of his beer (word of the day lúpulo), and hung around the square most of the day. I found a place selling Cuban Cohibas and bought a couple as we watched this event where rally cars basically just drove in circles around the square and we saw many young boys literally being dragged away by their parents as the night got later, crying to stay and watch. Fortunately, as the event was winding down, we found ourselves in front of Mamma Gaucho`s, so we popped inside to end the night.

Bravo Beer, with a cute little toque!

We went to the upstairs bar, which had only been open for a couple of weeks and ended up meeting a couple old Chilean dudes who were in the energy business. Most of the people around here have bumper stickers and signs on their businesses supporting `Sin Represas`, the organization that is fighting the installation of dams around the Patagonia region of Chile. Being in the energy business, these two had an interesting (albeit pro-dam) perspective. One of them owned a cattle ranch in the area with a lot of untouched forest where he hunts and enjoys the native Lenga trees. This guy was clearly very wealthy as he was leaving to cruise on his second yacht in Fiji around the world until October when his cows give birth. He told us about how huge fires raged through the region in the 1930`s, which is why there are so many non-native ponderosa pines planted in the area in order to grow quick and re-forest the land (Acacia does not buy it, though. Historically, perhaps, but now a lot of the pine plantations are being pruned, a huge investment to grow clear wood). He seemed pretty against logging in the area. The other guy, however, was the minister of energy (or something) for Coyhaique. He had a lot to say about how the dams would be the only totally clean form of energy that Patagonia could produce (although wind seems pretty available down here?), and that most of the people against the dams don`t want the `progress' associated with the large construction projects and increased industry that the dams will generate. Another component, though, which I was unaware of, is that in a decade or so other parts of Chile will start demanding water from the region which will require dams anyway, so he seemed to think the dams were pretty inevitable. He did have an interesting perspective on local populations causing protests and blocking projects from happening, and felt that the real way to deal with projects in the area is to talk directly with the local populations and get them on board rather than deal higher up politically, because Chileans have less respect for government than in the U.S. and will block projects they don`t like . He seemed to think the local action was generally a good thing because its a true representation of how the people feel, which seems like a fairly unique position for someone in his position. In other news, he is trying to go to Toronto to pitch an investment opportunity for producing rain in a giant blimp type thing with an electrically charged steel mesh that would attract water and could produce precipitation over any area in the world. Interesting fellows. They also bought us pizza and beer, so at least I dug them.

The following day we caught an 8am bus going south past the Cerro Castillo park. We got dropped off on the side of the freeway where the trailhead was. We immediately cooked some oatmeal for breakfast and admired the pretty epic view out into the valley.

Looking toward the park from the trailhead

A bridge on a bridge

Enough for 4 days? Imagine if John had gone shopping by himself. Yes, there are two bottles of hot sauce, 6 heads of garlic, and two kilos of flour.

While we were cooking breakfast a gaucho riding his horse along with 3 sheep dogs and a greyhound rode by us and went and moved some cattle around. We followed behind him about 30 minutes later. The first part of the trek wandered gradually up along a gravel road that crossed many property lines through gaucho territory. There were lots of cattle, which we had to scare off the trail several times by clapping loudly and hoping they didn`t charge us. Also, fall colors were out! The valleys and mountainsides were covered in amazing reds, oranges, and yellows. After a few miles we came to a set of steps that walked up over a fence and back down into the national park where there was a ranger station, a really crummy map, and a sign saying we had to pay 10 bucks to enter the park. Pshh! Well, nobody was there to collect, so we continued within the national park to the first campground that was at another ranger station which was definitely closed for the season. We had pushed on through lunch, so devoured some pretty crappy mac n cheese and then hung out in the campground and drank a beer from the brewer we had met the day before. After looking at the map and determining that this entire trek was 4 days, but only like 3 hours of hiking each day, we decided it didn´t make sense to press on and set up our tent and had the campground all to ourselves. It was pretty nice. We played some backgammon, and I fell asleep suuuuper early because it was rainy, cold, and dark outside.

Our campsite in the morning

The next morning I woke up kind of early, made some pancake batter and set that out to let it rise a bit while I made cowboy coffee. After hanging out in the sun and making a bunch of pancakes, I lit my second cigar of the trip and wrote a letter. After finishing my cigar and cleaning up breakfast I shaved. Then Acacia woke up. We hung out in the sun a bit longer and kind of just lounged around for another hour or so. By the time we started our hike it was around 2 in the afternoon, and we were embarking on our super easy hike through the valley, áll downhill´ according to the guy from the Northface shop.  After about half a kilometer we got to a super nice view, confirmed with a sign that just had an image of a camera on it, in a glacial river surrounded by mountains. So we hung out there some more, watched a couple of condors flying around, and then began walking again.

Except our super easy downhill hike was having a lot of uphill. And then only uphill. I´ve never done so much uphill for a ´downhill´ hike in my entire life. We were not mentally prepared for this. Anyway, we kept going up, following the river up a valley for some super nice views of fall colored, glacier capped mountains.

Rock throwing

Add caption

John trying to blend in

After a few hours we reached the top of a pass that had a decent amount of snow on it. It was also kind of steep at some parts, and we weren´t really sure the best way to cross the snow. Acacia tried sliding down on a rock (like in Ice Age) and I tried using a couple sharp rocks as ice picks.

John WAAAAY up on the mountain

We ended up just walking carefully. Not too long after the pass was a sign that indicated we had reached the campground. So, even though I was really hot wearing my sweater, I decided to keep it on since we were almost at camp. But then we had to cross some streams along log bridges. And then there was another picture spot with a nice view. Then we had to cross a big river with an actual bridge. Then I decided to take my sweater off because the campground was clearly not close. 50 feet later, around the next bend, I found Acacia unpacking on the table at camp. Such a deceptive day. We made our classic mango rice dish for dinner and some hot-honey-rum beverage and played some backgammon. Acacia gave me a pretty hard time about how we were going to manage the bagged honey that I had bought, which, admittedly, was not one of my better decisions. It was a clear night and so we could see some solid stars, and it didn´t even get that cold.

I woke up pretty early again the next day and made pancakes and coffee again.

Breakfast on a rock in the river in the sun. Some of Acacia's favorite things.

Although Acacia was up a bit earlier and we left the campground around noon. Today was supposed to be pretty short, around 8 km, but over a pass. As we were going up the mountain we stopped at a stream fed from a glacial lake that had a waterfall down at least a hundred meters to the trail. We decided it was a pretty good spot to do some off trail trekking.

Across the valley at the hill we would climb later

We climbed up the scree along the side of the waterfall and up to the lake where we sat in the sun for a bit, Acacia mountain babed, and we had some amazing views over the valley. But, it got windy and cold, so we headed back down. About 20 minutes later we got to another lake, and decided it was a good lunch spot. Our first lunch in 3 days...weird!?

Anyway, we ate lunch and then continued up the side of the lake towards where we thought the pass was, and dropped our packs to climb up one of the peaks next to the pass. It was an amazingly good idea, because from the peak you could see the entire valley we had been hiking through, both lakes we had seen, and the other side of the park out into the valley where the town Villa Cerro Castillo was, the spot where our trek would end, and the huge Rio Simpson that feeds into Lake General Carrera. It was one of the most epic views of the trip.

Our lunch lake 

We took a bunch of pictures, but when it was time for a timed camera shot of the both of us, our camera died :( Sad day. As we were headed up to where we thought the pass was, we realized that we were actually going to a much higher pass. Plus it got much higher than the peak we had just climbed, so turns out our map was pretty inaccurate. By the time we had gotten over the real pass, it was around 6, and the sun was on the other side of the mountain on its way down. Acacia, with her low battery headlamp, was booking it down the mountain so as to avoid being caught in the dark. It was steep! And it was large loose boulders. And it was like 1250 meters down to the campground. After about an hour and a half of pounding our knees flying down this mountain, we lost the trail and were definitely on a deer trail of some sort. We got back to the trail, and then followed it for another 30 minutes or so when we both had the feeling that we must have missed the campground. But how could that be? All the other ones had hugs signs and warnings like a quarter mile before getting to them. Noo, we couldn´t have missed it. Then it got dark enough to require headlamps, so we got those out and peered at the map, which certainly indicated we had gone passed the campground. New plan! Hike down to where the trail gets flat enough to camp and reaches the river in the valley we were in, pitch a tent, cook dinner, and crash! As soon as dinner was eaten, Acacia was out. Before me? First time this trip maybe?

Today was supposed to be a day hike up a side trail from the campground we were supposed to be at. Since we didn´t want to backtrack, and since that trail wasn´t that good anyway, we decided we would hang out by the river all day. It was pretty fun. I got up for the sunrise, then made my morning coffee and pancakes. I smoked another cigar by the river, and wrote a couple more letters. We spent the whole day juggling, lounging, practicing headstands, eating food, and stretching our sore muscles. It was pretty fun.

The next day we walked the 8km or so to Villa Cerro Castillo. It had rained literally the entire night, but stopped as soon as we started walking. So that was pretty nice. We had a pretty late start, as usual, but it was a short distance along a flat gravel road most of the way. Fairly uneventful except for the dead rotting cow carcas along the road. Gross. We got to town at the exact time the bus we were trying to catch into Coyhaique was going by, which was pretty miraculous considering my watch, phone, and camera (everything to tell time) had died. We caught it and headed back.

We`ve spent the last couple days here showering, doing laundry, uploading pictures, and writing blogs. Hopefully we´ll head north tonight