Patagonia #1

Turns out I was spot on time to pick up Mum so after a coffee and a chat we went into the city to our nice hotel that mum had organised from Australia, a welcome change for me after four and a half months of slumming it. We had a couple of days for checking out Santiago (probably the nicest city in SA I've been to) and giving mum a chance to recover from the jet lag and then caught the overnight bus down to Puerto Varas in the Chilean lakes district.



Santiago




We arrived in the early morning and while we were waiting for the hostels to open we spent a few hours down by the lake eating left over bus food and watching some local fisherman reel in a dozen or so big trout off the pier. The afternoon was spent walking around the lake taking in the stunning volcano views and eating a hearty lunch of paella, a huge wok full of slow cooking rice, seafood and chicken.



The view across the lake from Peurto Varas

From Puerto Varas we caught the bus over the Andes and into Argentina to Bariloche. The ride was pretty horrible as we were seated right next to the toilet and got a big waft of stink every time we hit a bump or turned a sharp corner. Possibly as a result of this our two days in Bariloche were spent moping around with a stomach bug although we did manage to organise a rental car and get in some good steaks and plenty of chocolate (Bariloche is overflowing with chocolate shops).

The plan was to drive from Bariloche down to Ushuaia and back again in two weeks, then spend the last four days cruising up to Buenos Aires for Mum's flight home. Probably should have consulted a map first as a couple of days in we realised we would now have to do 10-12 hour driving days with only two days off in between. It was going to be a mission......

We took it easy for the first day to get used to the car and to driving on the wrong side of the road (which was a lot easier for me because I don't drive much in Australia, Mum nearly killed us at the first intersection) and spent the night in the little rural town of Trevelin.

Nice hostel too

Trevelin

The next morning we drove back over the Andes and into Chile once more for a two day trip down the the Pacific coast via the Careterra Austral to Puerto Aisen, for a boat trip through the fjiords to the San Rafael Glacier.





Through the pass, so cold....



On the first day we picked up a hitchhiker who was lucky enough to witness our only breakdown on the trip; me hitting a head sized rock square on at 50km an hour and almost destroying the front right wheel. None of us had changed a flat before so it took a bit of head scratching to work out what to do but we sorted it out and got back on the road fairly quickly, now with no spare and 300km of rough gravel between us and the nearest proper town. When we arrived in Puerto Aisen we took the wheel in to be fixed and realised the rim was completely bent back upon itself and the tire had a ten centimetre gash in it. Luckily the tire guy had an old bald spare in his repair shack that fit the rim and after ten minutes with a wrench and a hammer had the wheel looking relatively normal again. (when we took the car back they gave the spare a quick poke and that was all, hehe....)



We set off on the boat trip at seven in the morning into the murky clouds which gradually cleared as we went along, revealling more and more of the stunning scenery of steep snow capped mountains jutting out of the sea. The landscape was very similar to Fjiordland in New Zealand, just a little bit bigger and a lot colder.



Four hours later we entered a narrow channel leading to the San Rafael Laguna, a vast iceberg filled lake at the foot of the glacier.



Approaching the glacier



When the big boat had gotten in as close as it dared the Zodiacs were lowered into the water and we were divided into four groups to take turns weaving our way through the massive chunks of bright blue ice to the foot of the glacier, called the terminus.




We spent a good forty five minutes cruising around through the ice, listening to the creaking and groaning of the glacier and looking out for the occaisional big chunk falling off the face and crashing into the sea. As we first approached a particularly big chunk broke off and actually caused a decent sized wave to come roaring towards us, glad we weren't closer when that one fell....



On the way back to port we were treated to an open bar with live saxophone and dancing, and drinks made with 20,000 year old "milleniary ice" from the glacier. Mum and I opted for a scotch on the rocks each, which in Patagonia means four shots of Johnnie red......



Cheers Mum!


We made it back to the hotel at six that night, and crashed early for a good sleep before a big drive back into Argentina the next day.