Carretera Austral – Part 2 – Chaitén to Puerto Gaudal

Having exhausted all our hiking options in Pumalin National Park we continued south along the Carraterra Austral. Our first stop for the day was a short walk (6km) to the Yelcho Glacier viewpoint in Parque Nacional Corcovado. Unfortunately the glacier was only just visible below the cloud, which lifted about 20 minutes after we left! We did get a reasonable view of it from one of the lookouts near the car park on our way back. This walk was free at the time we did it, but definitely looked like they were gearing up for having an entry booth sometime soon…

Then we drove past our overnight stop in Puyuhuapi to Parque Nacional Queulat and did a series of short walks. At least for this park we already knew that the longer walk we wanted to do – to the Hanging Glacier – was closed, so we were not overly disappointed. Besides three of the five walks led to glacier viewpoints! The best of those was the “City of the Caesars” walk – which also had a big climb. This park was even worse than Pumalin – it closed at 4:30pm even though there was another 4 hours of daylight available. Given how crowded it gets it just boggles the mind that they don’t let the crowd spread out over the daylight hours. We helped some touring cyclists with the gate just as we were leaving, about closing time, we really hoped for their sakes they would be allowed in!

We really enjoyed our night in Puyuhuapi. We stayed in a very cosy cabin, though given how delightful the weather was we didn’t really need the fire which had been started in anticipation of our arrival. It was a lovely evening along the shoreline and we had a great meal, and first of many Chilean Carménère.

The next day we had a long drive to Villa Cerro Castillo via a short walk to a waterfall (Salto El Condor), and provisioning in Coyhaique, the major town in this part of Patagonia.

I had convinced Tom that we needed to get some camping gear as the next leg of the trip was going to have too much driving if we didn’t camp. So guiltily we bought the cheapest tent we have ever owned (a 1-season tent!) & a couple of air mattresses at the Chilean equivalent of Bunnings. By the time we’d done a grocery shop, got possibly the last gas cannister in the camping store, and got the camping equipment, we were running somewhat tight on time. The accommodation I’d booked in Villa Cerro Castillo had all been done via WhatsApp and was going to be held until 6pm, and we didn’t want to lose it.

Of course, as we were driving to Villa Cerro Castillo we spotted a few Huemuls on the side of the road. Apparently there are only about 1,500 of these left in the wild, so seeing them is not that common. After about 20 minutes I had to drag Tom away so that we could get to our accom!

As we were coming down the windy road into the valley that Villa Cerro Castillo is in we got about 10 minutes of rain. We weren’t to know at this stage but it was the only rain we got in the first 11 days of this leg!

The views of Cerro Castillo from town were pretty spectacular. We were a bit disappointed we weren’t able to do the main day walk of the area (though only a bit since it is a 1,300m ascent/descent!). At that time of year, due to the low-lying snow, it was closed unless you went with a guide. We’d tried to arrange a guide but no one was available – possibly (or not) because Villa Cerro Castillo was celebrating its 59th anniversary the weekend we were there.

Since we couldn’t do the hike, and the weather was still in this wonderful high pressure pattern, we did some quick decision making for the next day. It hadn’t been on our radar at all in our planning, but we decided to drive to Puerto Ingeniero Ibáñez and take the ferry across Lago General Carrera to Chile Chico.

Once again I convinced Tom we should arrive 2 hours in advance for the ferry, since that is what the tickets said. This was even more unnecessary than the last ferry since no one else turned up until about half an hour before! So we enjoyed an empty port and did some stretching…

The ferry left exactly on time at 12pm and we disembarked around 2:15pm. We drove up to the lookout above town before hitting the X-265. It is a truly spectacular road. The conditions were better than I was expecting – the other dirt roads we’d been on up to this point at been quite rocky but this one was pretty smooth. We stopped a few times for photos – one of the most beautiful roads I’ve ever driven.

There were definitely a few sections of the road where I was very glad we didn’t meet anything coming in the other direction though! Just before Puerto Gaudal we stopped and visited a waterfall, which was quite impressive.

We “splurged” on a more expensive AirBnB so we could get Wi-Fi for the night. It seemed a shame, a bit like Puyuhuapi, to only spend one night in Puerto Gaudal, but besides the beautiful scenery there wasn’t much to keep us there for longer. What we’d realised as we visited these small towns was two things; firstly they were still waking up for the season, and secondly that meant often a pizza restaurant was the only open dinner option. We were getting a bit sick of pizza or burgers so we’d hoped to visit the local pub, but it was closed when we first went past. We went back at bit later, since we had found that sometimes restaurants closed between lunch and dinner. It was still closed, so we were about to give up and go to the pizza place, when the proprietor came out and sort of invited us in. It was unclear if she actually wanted to feed us, but we had a delicious meal (Tom had a pork chop, I had a chicken leg with peas. It wasn’t what I thought I was ordering but it wasn’t pizza, so I was happy!)

From Puerto Gaudal it was only a short drive to rejoin Ruta 7 and continue south.