Blogpost 14 - Villa Cerro Castillo to Puerto Rio Tranquilo to Cochrane to Puerto Bertrand to Puerto Guadal

We got away from Cerro Castillo early after breakfast to escape the filthy shared kitchen. Our cabana was really nice but the shared kitchen was a disgrace. The Chilean people are not into keeping things tidy. Apart from a few places, most people’s sections are an untidy mess of all sorts of stuff just lying around. Old bikes, bits of building material, rubbish, and anything else you could imagine. The mess detracts from the otherwise nice locations. The guide books do say that visiting the towns is not the reason for going to Patagonia.

As we headed south, the landscape changed once again with the area opening out into a wide valley mostly divided into what liked like quite productive farms. The area was still surrounded however by high snow capped mountains.

One of the river valleys we travelled down had a wide braided river just like in NZ. Quite a contrast to the narrow fast flowing torrents we had seen further north.

We located the hostel in Puerto Rio Tranquilo that someone we met a few day’s earlier recommended. It was by far the best hostel we have stayed in.

The chap who owned it was a bit over the top at times making sure that we did everything according to the rules that we read out to us as we arrived. It was beautifully clean and warm and as we were staying a couple of days, it even felt a bit homely and we cold relax and enjoy the space.

We met a young Polish chap who was cycling the Carretera Austral who we talked to quite a bit and learned a lot about the politics in his part of the world. He worked as an engineering software IT support firm for a business in Scotland but spent most of his time cycling the world. He worked on line in the mornings and travelled in the afternoons. We have met a lot of digital nomads on our travels in SA.

The roads we were driving on since Tranquilo are all gravel but they are generally wide with few potholes but we are in no hurry so cruising along at about 70 km/hr was very comfortable and gave you the chance to view the scenery and spot and avoid the potholes.

Puerto Rio Tranquilo is famous for its marble caves. These have formed in the marble cliffs on the edge of Lac General Carrera, the second to largest lake in South America. Some reaction between the lake water and the marble has eroded the marble cliffs to form the most spectacular cave like formations. The main business in town is to provide boat and kayak trips to see the marble caves. See photos.

We decided to do the boat trip as it would have been mighty cold in a Kayak. We booked our 2.5 hr trip for the next day and paid out $120 and headed to the local supermercado to stock upon a few essentials.

Some of the local supermercados in the smaller towns sell everything from yogurt to wood splitters to perfume. If you cant find what you are after, you probably don’t really need it.

We did a walk that evening with the Polish chap up onto a high point above the town to watch the sun set on the snow capped mountains across the lake.

We woke to another beaut day ready for our boat trip. Donned all out thermals and other warm gear and headed to the lake shore for out trip. It did not disappoint. See photos. I don’t know how lake pristine clear lake water causes the marble to erode but is has occurred of millions of years so we should not need to worry about our marble benches.

In the afternoon we headed off for a drive west to check out the Glacier Exploradoro. The glacier had receded a lot and was a long way back from the viewing platform. Whilst the galacier has not receded much in length the reports say that it had become a lot thinner. It flows off the Chile’s largest permanent use sheet and the highest amounts in, Mt San Valentin.

Then it was south again heading for Cochrane, the last sizable town on the Carretare Austral.

You drive part of the way along the Rio Baker, Chile’s largest river. The colour is just amazing. A dark inky blue is the best way I can describe it. There were a number of look out points where other rivers joined it and the merging of milky glacier water with the clear Rio Baker was good to see.

Before reaching Cochrane we did a short trip into the headquarters of the Patagonia National Park. The part of the park we entered was restored from poorly overgrazed farmland into a beautiful national park with lots of replanted native vegetation and thriving herds old guanacos, a type of Lama. The park was part of the Tompkins work that I referred to in earlier blogs. It has been gifted to the Chilean nation and was combined with parks to the north and south to form Patagonia National Park.

Then on to Cochrane. A less than inspiring town. We had made contact with a hostel but when we arrived we just moved on as it looked dreadful from the outside. We found an OK cabana instead but at $120 it was hardly a bargain.

We have decided that we were not going to go all the way to the end of the road at Villa O’Higgins. It was at least 240 km further south and the only real reason to go there was to complete the drive on Ruta 7 and that was not worth the extra 3 or so days of poor gravel road driving

So next day it was up early and back up to the national park to check out which day walk we would do. The park headquarters, info centre and museum are amazing buildings with staff very welcoming and keen to provide advice.

We decided to head a further 24 km into the park and do a 16km hike that turned out to be really good. It travelled up one side of a valley with great Mountain View’s, across an 80m high bridge over a narrow ravine, a bit scary, and back down the other side. See photos.

We moved on that afternoon to Puerto Bertrand at the outlet to the Lac General Carrera where we stayed in a very nice little cabana. Some of the locals know how to do it well. Unfortunately most don’t.

We awoke to a wet morning but delayed our start for the day until it cleared and headed north again to leave the Carretera Austral to head up towards the Argentina border. We decided to have a rest day and stayed at Puerto Guadal looking out over the lake towards mountains in the distance. The wind is howling and snow flurries have fallen off and on during the day. We had a very cold night despite having 4 big blankets on the bed.

Tomorrow it’s off to Chile Chico for a couple of days just before we cross over into Argentina. We hope to do some more walking in the northern sector of the Patagonia National Park.