Category: Roadtrip

From the deep southern reaches of the Patagonia we were headed to one of the northernmost provinces of Argentina; Salta. It wasn’t really the right time of year to be heading here, but we were having to last minute fill 12 days that were meant to have been in Antarctica. Given we’d already included all the things we really wanted to do in our 4 month itinerary, it was challenging to find things – particularly given the time of year, and that it was leading into Christmas. We knew December was the start of the rainy season in northern Argentina, and could prove problematic for the roads. And we knew it was going to be hot. But we rolled the dice. So from sub 15°C in Ushuaia we landed at 8:30pm with mid-20°Cs in Salta (via Buenos Aires).

[As a side point for anyone travelling via AEP in Buenos Aires – there is a currency exchange available for foreigners which has reasonable exchange rates. Given the difficulties of finding places to exchange in some parts of the country it is worth changing money there. We were lucky to have a bit of time between our flights as we were in the queue for 45 minutes. Once we got to the front we found we needed to provide proof of our arrival in to Argentina to get the advertised rate. For most people that would be easy as they likely have just flown in, but in our case we had to dig up our bus tickets from a month earlier. Of course there is no signage telling you what documentation you need to provide in advance. I’m sure the queue could have moved twice as fast if everyone was aware of what they needed to show!]

Similar to our hire vehicle in Chile, we ended up with an almost brand new 2WD SUV. We could only hope it had a bit more guts than the earlier vehicle. With some short flight delays, and a bit of difficulty finding our AirBnB it was 9:30pm by the time we arrived. Our host was lovely and helped us get a pizza delivered (Spanish definitely not up for phone ordering of pizza!) so that we could actually get some dinner that night.

The next morning we left Salta city on our 7 day road trip around Salta province.

Our first day we took Route 68 South to Cafayate. If you just drove straight through it would be a bit over three hours (185km), but the last 50km (Quebrada de las Conchas / Gorge of the Shells) has many road side attractions to stop at, so we took about six hours. The landscape really reminded us of South-West USA – all red rock.

We gave a local a lift from Tres Cruces lookout a short way to Santa Barbara and used more Spanish talking to him for 10 minutes than we had in weeks! The drive was spectacular as we were rising from 1,200m in Salta through to 1,700m in Cafayate – we went through many different rock strata layers.

Despite the heat we did a couple of short hikes – Yesero to Los Estratos (~4km round trip?), and we went rogue near El Obelisco and wandered out to the rocks behind it. We found a couple of small canyons which was fun.

I was pretty happy I’d prioritised getting accommodation with a swimming pool, and we were quick to get in once we arrived in Cafayate. (NB. Just when you think you’ve got your head around Spanish you arrive in Argentina and have to adjust for their pronunciation differences – kah-fah-SHAH-teh being the way to pronounce Cafayate)

The next day we decided to get our exercise by walking to the vineyards, and had a sweaty 5.5km walk to Finca Las Nubes. We did a tour and tasting – that was conducted in Spanish (we knew this when we signed up). Given we’ve done so many other winery tours we could kind of follow along since you know the topics that are likely going to be covered. The main reason we were there was the winery got props for being the one of the most scenic in the area – we had lunch with expansive views looking across the vineyards to town.

The slight downhill back to town made the return walk feel far easier. Tom decided we needed another tasting so we managed to sneak in just before closing at Domingo Hermanos. We were glad to get a English speaker running our, very enjoyable, matched cheese and wine tasting.

The other big thing on the ‘to do’ list for Cafayate was to have wine ice cream – so we hunted down the ice cream parlour which supposedly started the flavour. Then it was time for a well earned swim back at our accommodation.

Our exercise the next day was another walk to a winery – but at least this one was only 4km and there was a slight breeze! We got a biligual tour this time, then a tasting. Disappointingly a few of the wines in the tasting had been open a bit too long, and the person leading the tasting didn’t really seem to understand the issue. Fortunately lunch was much better and the service was excellent.

We had to be a bit creative in getting food supplies for the next few days. We wanted to have some lunch items with us – but with the 30°C+ temperatures we could only get things which were going to survive the heat. The next morning we headed out of Cafayate, with 20km of sealed road, before hitting the dirt for the rest of the day. The estimate was 4 hours driving for the 130km we were planning to cover. The road was better than I was expecting – there were no particularly bad corrugations (it may have been recently graded), it was very slow as it was constantly winding in and out of many dry washes. It was a bit disturbing watching the google map showing us driving into rivers – they were dry but could easily change if the rains arrived.

The Quebrada de la Flecha section was stunning. We enjoyed the chance to get out of the car and stretch our legs walking up to a lookout.

It took us about 2h 15 to get to Molinos, where the car was claiming it was 38°C. Sitting in the shade in the tree filled plaza it didn’t feel much over 30°C (cause we’re such good judges of temperature!). The road from Molinos to Colomé Estate was a bit more interesting – a lot more pot-holes, blind corners, sandy sections etc, it probably took us around 50 minutes for 18km.

Our two nights at Colomé Estate were a treat to somewhat compensate for the disappointment of our Antarctic trip being cancelled. Colomé is the oldest winery in Argentina, founded in 1831, and also one of the highest altitude wineries in the world. The original estate is at 2,300m (they also have plantings at higher altitudes).

The James Turrell Art Museum is on site, which we visited on our first evening. No photos allowed in the installations so only one of Tom in his funny shoe covers. Given neither of us are particularly arty, we enjoyed our visit. The only downside was that the tour needs to coincide with sunset (for reasons which will become obvious if you do it) and given how close we were to the summer solstice this was quite late in the day. So we were pretty hungry by the time we got to dinner after 9pm.

Tom had unfortunately picked up some blisters with all our vineyard walking in Cafayate so he decided to have a chill day. I decided to do one of the walks on the property. I lost the directional arrows part way through, but figured since I was supposed to be walking to some cascades (in incredibly dry country) I could just keep walking up the creek that the route had been following. I found an entire cliff full of nesting parrots. We’d seen a similar site on Ruta 68 but, the parrots had largely been out and about, whereas these ones were all home.

I was feeling pretty intrepid as I kept rock hopping my way up the creek, which was now flowing slightly. Then I got to some infrastructure in the creek and realised there was a road that ran the whole way there – which I was probably meant to have been on. I found some cascades just above the infrastructure so figured that was likely the goal, but then I spotted some locals winding there way up the hill. I scrambled up to where I’d seen them and found a foot track which I followed. This took me further up the gorge through some gorgeous granite sections – reminiscent of Morong Deep.

By this point I thought I better head back since I’d told Tom I’d probably be a couple of hours, and I’d already been going over 1.25 hours. As it turned out I took the road on my return and was back much quicker. I still have no idea where I went wrong – but I daresay I had a far more enjoyable time taking my own route.

Sadly we couldn’t enjoy a second leisurely breakfast on the terrace as we needed to be in Seclantás by 8:30am to meet our guide for a trip to Cuevas de Acsibi. That said, it was a far more pleasant temperature to be driving in when we left Colomé at 7am! It took us about 1.5 hours to get to Seclantás (not the 1h per google) – probably in part because there was a road diversion as they were sealing a section.

We met Tony our guide, and got into his 4WD and headed out of town for about an hour onto Tony’s property. The 4WD had its work cut out for it driving in and out of dry washes. We stopped about half way for photos, in the midst of many cacti, with views of the mountains – stunning.

We parked the 4WD about 9:30am and then had 1.5 hour walk up the watercourse – through a canyon initially, then a wider valley. The rock was constantly changing – some sections very much reminded us of Goblin Valley in Utah.

The caves themselves were probably a little underwhelming (if that was all you were going for) but combined with the rest of the walk it was a well worthwhile trip.

We were dropped off back in Seclantás at 1:30pm, so we had lunch in the plaza (the remains of our packed breakfast), before hitting the road again for Cachi.

Even though it was only another hour of driving it was twisty and hot, and I was very glad to stop when we got to Cachi. Once we’d checked in we wandered around the village trying to find an open ice cream shop – we were eventually successful.

There was one winery within easy walking distance from town, though from the reviews we weren’t sure if it was going to be open. It was quite the revelation – going from a dusty street front, to walk through to a lovely terrace with stunning views of the surrounding mountains. We had a lovely relaxing time here.

The next day we had another scenic drive – this time Ruta 33 through Parque Nacional Los Cardones (‘The Giant Cactus National Park’). It was spectacular – we did four very short walks, and stopped at a few lookouts.

We’d been climbing as we drove and made it up to 3,400m before needing to descend back to Salta at 1,200m. The road down was full of switchbacks, though fortunately quite wide so not the same nervousness as some other roads we’d driven!

We got into Salta (city) mid-afternoon. We only had that afternoon/evening so walked across town (~3.5km) to the cable car. We were close to closing time so didn’t spend too much time at the top.

While Salta hadn’t been on our original itinerary we enjoyed our last minute trip here. It would have been better to have come in the dry (& cooler) season, so that we weren’t constantly watching the forecast nervously for any rain. It felt a fair bit cheaper travelling here compared to the other parts of Argentina we visited. It did feel somewhat ironic that we were only a day’s bus travel away from San Pedro de Atacama where we had been 2 months earlier – if this had been part of the original plan there would have been better ways to incorporate it!

With Christmas almost upon us it was time to head to one of the biggest tourist towns in Argentina – Puerto Iguazu.

From El Chalten we flew south (from El Calafate) to Ushuaia. This was meant to be so we could board a ship bound for Antarctica, but as it had mechanical issues it had been cancelled. We decided to go to Ushuaia anyway, since the arrangements were all made. If we hadn’t done so much hiking in the previous few weeks then we may well have chosen to stay in Tierra del Fuego and hiked to replace the cruise. But we were sick of hiking!

Not so much that we didn’t go to Tierra del Fuego National Park for the day. We managed to hire an automatic car at the last minute – a low slung sedan, which I cautiously drove on the almost exclusively dirt roads out to the park. The weather wasn’t great so we stuck to the lakeside Hito XXIV track for our first walk. It was quite pleasant following the lake around till you hit the Argentine/Chile border and for some reason it stopped there 🙂

On our way back we finally managed to spot a pair of Magellanic Woodpeckers. We’d been hoping to see these for weeks so we were delighted to spend half an hour watching the male on a tree, and female on the ground. Not long after we started walking again it started raining so the timing was also perfect.

We were glad to dive into the car once we got back to the trailhead. We decided to continue onto the far end of the park – there was a lot of traffic out by this point, and the road was pretty wet with the rain. It was incredible the speed some drivers were getting up to given the conditions. Once at the Puerto Arias car park we ate lunch in the car, and waited, and waited, for the rain to stop.

An hour and a half later we decided it had eased off enough to get out and do some of the short walks which surround the area.

Tom was keen for a few more walks, but I felt we’d had a reasonable cross-section of the park and was happy to call it a day. Fortunately the crazy drivers had eased off by mid-afternoon and we had a less fraught drive back to Ushuaia.

That night we walked down to the harbour to see if we could spot our broken boat. Just as we spotted it, it started heading out of the harbour – presumably to go get repaired somewhere else.

Overnight there was snow which beautifully covered the surrounding hills.

Since we were no longer going to Antarctica we took a day trip on the Beagle Channel. Besides the scenery, the main points of interest were a comorant colony (which our guide had to explain weren’t penguins), a sea lion colony, and then the thing we were really all there for – penguins.

The penguins are on Isla Martillo which is the turn around point for the longer Beagle Channel boat trips. It’s feels somewhat intrusive – the catamarans basically beach their noses on the shore where the penguins are all hanging out, and then the passengers get about 20 minutes to watch them. You can pay much larger amounts to do trips that allow you onto the beach, but given we were less than 10m away from them on the boat I’m not sure the cost is worth it.

Throughout South America the streets are full of different shaped metal baskets. They very much reminded me of disc golf baskets, but in they are actually for rubbish to be but in for collection. I had meant to get a collection of photos but this is the only one I ended up taking.

The weather had cleared by our last morning, and we finally got to see the views of the surrounding ranges from our apartment. (Since Ushuaia is largely built on a slope it seems like every apartment in town has a great view)

I’d been able to change our tickets, at no cost, to fly to Buenos Aires the next day, so that was the end of our very enjoyable time in Patagonia.

The Carretera Austral was the least structured part of the trip with around 3 weeks to see how far south we could get, and which way we might get back. Despite being the least structured it probably had the most research put into it before we left.

The Carretera Austral is the name given to Chile’s Highway (Ruta) 7. It is a 1,240km stretch of road passing through some incredibly scenic landscape. The southern end of it at Villa O’Higgins is a dead-end for vehicles, though cyclists and pedestrians can go cross-country, with some logistical challenges, to El Chaltén in Argentina. Due to the terrain – glaciers, mountains, fjords – some sections require ferry travel to access them. The highway is mainly sealed to Villa Cerro Castillo. There are whole guidebooks dedicated to it, and while it might have still been ‘off the radar’ 15 years ago it is definitely well travelled now days.

The main decisions to be made in advance are how are you going to travel it:

• Will you hire a car?
  • If so what sort? 4WD? Camper trailer?
  • One way hire or loop?
  • Are you going into Argentina?
• Where are you starting from?
• What sections are you doing?
• If not a car then what? Hitch-hike? Bus? Cycle?
• Camping or not?

You need to work through the various options, as they all have their own difficulties. Eventually we settled on doing a loop trip out of Puerto Montt. We concluded that one way hire, for at least the options we were considering, was expensive, difficult and added a whole lot of boring driving on the Argentinian side. We decided to go with an SUV rather than a 4WD – since all the information we could find suggested that a 4WD was a nice to have rather than a necessity if just doing the main route (and it saved a significant amount of money). With the variability of the weather we decided not to rely on camping (despite my use of the tent icon on the map!).

Even with the broad brush decisions made there were lots of decisions which were going to happen on the road – we expected these to be largely based on the weather.

The plan already had 3 nights in Puerto Varas at the start, as we were expecting to be tired after the involved travel days from Cusco to San Pedro de Atacama. However, we arrived in Puerto Varas sick as well as tired, and at that stage the whole trip just seemed so overwhelming we were contemplating just heading north to Pucón and hiring a house on a lake for a week.

Fortunately after a couple of days in our lovely AirBnB we were feeling slightly more inspired and with a less aggressive start managed to get on our way.

I’ve split the trip up into 4 sections:

• Days 0-4: Puerto Varas – Chaitén
• Days 5-7: Chaitén – Puerto Gaudal
• Days 8-11: Patagonia National Park
• Days 12-19: Cochrane – Puerto Varas

 

Day	Date	Finish	Driving Km	Travel time	Activity
	Fri 31/10/25	Puerto Varas			Rest & recover
	Sat 01/11/25	Puerto Varas	0		Rest & recover
1	Sun 02/11/25	Hornopiren	125	2h 45 + 30 min ferry	Travel
2	Mon 03/11/25	Chaitén	135	1h 20 + 5h 30 ferry	Travel, Pumalin NP Day 1: Cascadas, Los Alerces Trails
3	Tue 04/11/25	Chaitén	90	2h	Pumalin NP Day 2: Laguna Tronador, Volcan Chaitén Trails
4	Wed 05/11/25	Chaitén	60	1h	Pumalin NP Day 3: El Mirador, Darwin’s Frog Trails
5	Thu 06/11/25	Puyuhuapi	235	4h	Ventisquero Yelcho Trail, Queuelat NP
6	Fri 07/11/25	Villa Cerro Castillo	328	6h	Travel & resupply
7	Sat 08/11/25	Puerto Gaudal	143	2h 30 + 2h 30 ferry	Travel / scenic drive
8	Sun 09/11/25	West Winds Campground	70	1h 45	Patagonia NP: La Vega Trail, Sendora Cañadón Chacabuco
9	Mon 10/11/25	West Winds Campground	0		Patagonia NP: Lagunas Altas Trail
10	Tue 11/11/25	Cochrane	82	3h	Patagonia NP: Avilés Trail
11	Wed 12/11/25	Cochrane	10	20m	Patagonia NP (Tamango Sector): Los Carpinteros Trail
12	Thu 13/11/25	Villa Cerro Castillo	232	4h 40	Marble Caves boat tour
13	Fri 14/11/25	Coyhaique	95	1h 30	Bad weather
14	Sat 15/11/25	Coyhaique	0		Bad weather / walk around town
15	Sun 16/11/25	Puerto Cisnes Ferry	207	3h 15 + 23h ferry	Travel
16	Mon 17/11/25	Cucao	82	1h 10	Travel (stuck on ferry)
17	Tue 18/11/25	Cucao	45	1h 10	Muelle de las Almas, Chiloe NP
18	Wed 19/11/25	Puerto Varas	225	3h 15 + 30 min ferry	Travel
19	Thu 20/11/25	Puerto Varas	110	2h	Vicente Pérez Rosales NP
		Total Kilometres:	2,274

There were a couple of things we’d read before we went that didn’t match our experience:

• “You need to carry lots of cash” – we only used cash in 2 places during our time on the Carretera Austral: for accom in Villa Cerro Castillo & for the Marble Caves boat tour. Everywhere else we were able to use credit card. We could have got more expensive accom in Villa Cerro Castillo using credit card.
• “Fill up the car with petrol every opportunity” – we were driving a relatively fuel efficient vehicle, so maybe our range was a bit better than driving a camper trailer? We didn’t feel any anxiety about this and had no issues getting fuel.

Bear in mind that we were travelling in shoulder season (November), and only went as far south as Cochrane. Otherwise the only other thing which tripped us up was our hire car only had USB-C outlets, so we had no way to charge anything in the car. Bring a USB-A to USB-C adaptor!

Our wonderful weather was looking like it was going to come to an end, and I was keen to get through the dirt road and back to Villa Cerro Castillo (where the seal starts/ends) ahead of it. From Cochrane we made it into Puerto Rio Tranquilo mid-morning and instantly had touts pimping their tours to Marble Caves. We ended up just going with the guy who had helped direct us to a car park – which in the end made no real difference. With the poor weather due that afternoon, and it being shoulder season, there were barely enough passengers to justify a boat going out at 11am (which was good as there was lots of space!). Subsequently, everyone who was signed up, regardless of who with, ended up on the same consolidated boat.

The weather wasn’t too bad when we set out, and at the caves themselves it was sunny and still. I was more impressed than I expected – but I’d had very low expectations. Condors nest on the cliffs near the caves so we saw them flying around above us which was an added highlight. The boat trip back was a bit exciting as the wind had picked up creating quite large waves – the boat went airborne several times as we cut across the waves.

The section of road between Puerto Rio Tranquilo and Villa Cerro Castillo was the worst we encountered on the whole trip. There were lots of potholes – which we hadn’t really encountered on any of the other gravel roads. And by this stage it was raining and some sections of the road did not have much traction. There was also more oncoming traffic than we’d had elsewhere – despite all that we only took half an hour longer than the Google estimate.

We stopped at a lookout just out of Villa Cerro Castillo. It was so windy we could barely get in/out of the car, and Tom wasn’t able to hold his camera still enough to take a photo!

When we arrived at our accommodation in Villa Cerro Castillo our host said the wind was at 100km/h – and that was down in the village – I can’t imagine how windy it was on the peaks. Needless to say we didn’t try and secure a guide to go walking this time! I didn’t sleep well as I was waiting for the roof to blow off, or for something to smash into the car. Fortunately neither happened! Given the weather there was little incentive to get moving, indeed there was more reason to stay put, so we checked out as late as possible.

The first half of the drive to Coyhaique was relatively protected but the second half was on open roads and there was a lot of buffeting of the car. Given the forecast for the next couple of days wasn’t great, and we’d largely done what we wanted on the way south, we decided to have two nights in Coyhaique to see off the weather. It was good to have a bit more selection on the dinner front and enjoyed two nice meals (not pizza or burgers) while we were there.

Our main exercise over the time there was a walk along Ruta 7 to Mirador Rio Simpson. I would have liked to climb Cerro Mackay, the prominent peak, but with wind forecasts of up to 70km/h it didn’t seem like the best idea.

There’d been a lot of options on how we could get back to Puerto Varas: back the way we came or ferries from about 3 different places. In the end we’d opted to take the ferry from Puerto Cisnes to Quellón. The reasons for choosing this option were – it limited the repeat driving we had to do, we would get the opportunity to see all of Chiloe Island, and (less importantly) it was an overnight ferry so we’d save a night’s accommodation/didn’t spend all day travelling.

We hadn’t factored in it being a Sunday and many restaurants/cafes being closed en route and in Puerto Cisnes (though it could have been November rather Sunday that was the problem). We were pleasantly surprised to stumble on a cafe which did a decent coffee and excellent mini croissants. Dinner however ended up being hot dogs (completos) from a food truck. As it turned out most of the traffic on the ferry was trucks, and they had to back on, which was quite complex. Unsurprisingly the (few) cars were loaded last and we were allowed to turn around on board making life a lot easier. There weren’t many passengers on board so we happily commandeered a row of three seats each and got a reasonable sleep.

I was quite happy when I woke up and it was light – that meant we should be docking soon, as it was a 12 hour ferry (8pm-8am). Unfortunately Tom then told me we hadn’t moved for some hours…. Checking our position using the GPS/map app we were some 10km south of Melinka (the only stop on the route). We got a free coffee and a packet of biscuits each for breakfast, but no information. And then spaghetti bolognaise got given out for lunch, but still no information. Eventually about 1:30pm we started moving, and got into Melinka at 2pm.

There were a lot of passengers waiting to board, and the ferry was pretty packed by the time we left Melinka around 2:30pm. We finally got into Quellón just after 7pm – 24 hours on the ferry instead of 12! We had a mad dash to the supermarket and then hit the road for our AirBnB which was half way up the island. So much for our leisurely day of sight-seeing. Fortunately we got there just on dark as it would have been tricky to spot the driveway in the dark.

The next day we headed to the sculpture Muelle de las Almas (Pier of the Souls). By complete coincidence our AirBnB host was the artist who created it. Like many things it’s become an instagram favourite, and in peak times gets crazy – as evidenced by the sign advising 2 minutes per person. There was one other couple visiting that morning, so we had as much time as we wanted. It’s a 2km walk each way from the car park, and we had surprisingly good weather.

We then had to toss up whether to go to the newer sculpture which was a much longer walk, or whether to visit Chiloe National Park. We opted for the national park, which was somewhat underwhelming (especially given the entry fees!). Of course, several of the walks were closed. We did everything that was open, I enjoyed Sendero Dunas de Cucao the best.

The next day was (sort of) our final day of the road trip as we were to get back to Puerto Varas that night. It was also the worst weather day – in that it rained on and off the entire day. We had our final ferry to get back onto mainland Chile and then back to the AirBnB we’d stayed in when we arrived.

That night (Wednesday) we discovered that tragically several people had died on the “O Circuit” in a massive storm on Monday. We were due to start the O Circuit on Saturday so we were unsure what that meant for us. So on Thursday we panic-bought some microspikes (given the likely conditions in Torres del Paine), and I got a new pair of boots as the ones I’d started the trip with were unlikely to survive an 8 day hike, particularly if we were walking in snow.

With our shopping behind us, we headed around Lago Llanquihue to Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park. Of course we paid a squillion dollars for 1.5 hours of walking tracks. The waterfalls through the old lava flows at least had some wow factor, so we didn’t feel quite as gouged as Chiloe National Park.

Friday morning we had an early start to fly from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales. I failed to pack my pocket knife in my checked luggage, but fortunately they let me go back and check another bag so I didn’t lose it altogether!

Thus ended our Northern Patagonian adventures.

From Puerto Gaudal it should have been a short drive to the Chacabuco Sector of Patagonia National Park. We had been warned there were roadworks and sections of the road were closed for large parts of the middle of the day so we were off early to try and avoid getting stuck in those. However I decided we had enough time for the 1km round trip walk to the confluence of Rio Baker and Rio Neff – famous for the colour differences as the grey glacial Neff merges with the blue Baker.

We didn’t hit any complete road closures but there was still some pretty slow sections where only one side of the road was operating so we were a bit later than anticipated getting to the Visitors’ Centre of Patagonia National Park.

Much of Patagonia National Park was created via donation of land purchased by a US Foundation led by Kristine Tompkins (nee McDivitt). Kristine was also the CEO of the company Patagonia (of apparel fame) for 20 years. It’s quite an interesting history of rewilding cattle ranches to what it is today. Kristine’s husband Doug (an original North Face apparel founder) was involved in a similar process for the creation of Pumalin National Park.

We spent 2 nights/3 days camping & hiking in the Chacabuco sector and then visited the Tamango sector from Cochrane. Our original plan had been to hire a tent & mats at the start of the road trip but that didn’t end up happening, and there’s very little option for doing so once you leave Puerto Montt. So to avoid a 40 min drive to/from Cochrane each day to visit Chacabuco, we ended up buying a cheap tent and air mats from the Chilean equivalent of Bunnings in Coyhaique. The tent proudly declared its use scenario – one season only! If the forecast hadn’t been good we never would have considered this but the weather was still on our side.

Arriving at the Park we had hoped to camp at the Casa de Piedra Campground, but (surprise, surprise!) it wasn’t yet open for the season so that meant our only option was the West Winds Campground. With that decision made for us we did the relatively flat La Vega Trail (7km?) before lunch. This took us past the graveyard, including Doug Tompkins grave.

On theme, of course, the loop trail we’d intended to do before arrival was no longer in operation, and so instead we did the 10km out-and-back Cañadón Chacabuco Trail in the afternoon. We saw quite a few Guanacos on this walk. The walk went out to a suspension bridge over a short canyon section of the Rio Chacabuco. The bridge was a pretty impressive piece of infrastructure but it was unclear what its purpose was. It didn’t appear to take you anywhere useful!

It was a pretty warm day and both the walks had little shade, so we were toasted by the time we finished. All I wanted at this point was to get to camp and relax. Unfortunately the road to the campsite wasn’t compatible with our car. There was one small rise that our 2WD vehicle wouldn’t get up. I then made the mistake of mentioning to the campground host I’d parked on the side of the road below the rise. He then insisted that we could only park in designated car parks, and so I had to park 1.5km from the camping area. This meant we got in a few more walking kilometres than we’d bargained for. In retrospect we shouldn’t have bothered walking the La Vega trail since the route to our car meant we walked a section of it several times over the next two days…

Our next hike was the 23km Lagunas Altas Trail. I had hoped to get started quite early to avoid the heat, but with the need to walk an extra 3km to the car to get gear and back to the trail head at camp, it wasn’t an overly early start (8:30am). Fortunately it clouded over as there wasn’t much tree cover! The first 6km of the walk is pretty constant up – climbing 850m. From there it undulates around and alongside rocky tarns and mountain tarns on the plateau.

By the time we got back to camp we’d clocked up 25km and were pretty tired! The campground had cleared out from the day before and there were only 2 cars in the car park (not ours of course). We enjoyed the hot showers (solar heated) and the picnic tables. A guided walking tour from the (very expensive) lodge, the only accommodation besides the campsite in the park, had a late afternoon tea in the picnic shelter next to us. The guide gave us their leftover teabags and energy bars – I was very happy about this because I’d left my teabags in the car and there was no way I was walking an extra 3km to go and get them!

We might have stayed a third night at the West Winds Campground if it hadn’t been for our inability to drive there. I was adamant I wasn’t doing that 3km round trip for another day. So we packed up and headed further into the park to the Casa de Piedra Campground (where we’d hoped to stay) – the trailhead for the 16km Las Avilés Trail. As we were getting ready to leave the car a large bus pulled up and about 15 trail runners hopped out – they were looking very cold in their skimpy trail running outfits (it was an overcast morning). They were on a trail running holiday – running every day for a week through the area.

We did the trail in the direction it had been described to us at the Visitors’ Centre – which was the opposite direction to the trail distance markers. Just as we’d got 7km in (so the 9km marker) we got to a side creek crossing that was flowing pretty strongly. We headed upstream a fair way to try and find a dry feet crossing but no luck. Back at the original crossing point I was the guinea pig to see how the crossing would go – it was quite ‘pushy’ and would have been very difficult without walking poles. From there it was about 700m to the main river crossing where we hoped the bridge still existed!!

The trailrunners were crossing the bridge (along with much filming/photography) as we arrived. It was a one person at a time bridge, and far less substantial than the bridge we’d visited two days earlier. The section of canyon below it was quite impressive, though hard to get a good view of.

We got a bit of light rain and the wind picked up. Unfortunately the wind meant a couple of nice lunch spots were out of the question and we ended up at sheltering behind the ruins of an old hut. It was a surprisingly undulating last 6km, and from an interest point of view we were happy with the direction we’d chosen to walk the trail.

Back at the car mid-afternoon we headed out of the Chacabuco Sector and further south on Ruta 7 to the small town of Cochrane. Despite various claims on Google of restaurant opening hours, pizza ended up being the only dinner option.

The following day we decided we’d earned a lazy morning! We were under the impression that the Los Carpinteros Trail was a relatively easy track, so headed out to do it in the afternoon. Sadly, given how tired we were from the three previous days, it ended up being a lot harder than we were expecting. The first two-thirds of the trail felt like there was no flat – constant undulations – some of which were 100m+. That meant it was a much more interesting walk but I could have done with a “boring” track! It ended up being 3.5 hours for 9.5km, including a 20 minute break at the far end, and a few side trails on the way back.

Cochrane was our turn-around point on the Carretera Austral, and now it was time for us to start heading back north towards Puerto Varas. We never could have imagined the amazing run of good weather we ended up with on our way south!

Wanting to miss the road works closures we headed off early the next morning, hoping to make it to Puerto Rio Tranquilo and the Marble Caves before the bad weather set in.

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.

Our original plan had been to get to Pumalin National Park in one day, with a very early start from Puerto Varas. Instead we split the travel into two days. The first day we left Puerto Varas mid-morning, did some grocery shopping en route, took our first ferry from Caleta La Arena to Caleta Puelche, and arrived in Hornopirén mid-afternoon.

The next day I made Tom get in the queue for the ferry 2 hours in advance, which proved somewhat unnecessary. My understanding was that the ferry route from Hornopirén to Caleta Gonzalo usually runs as a bi-modal route, with two ferries split by a short drive in the middle. Information I’d read suggested that the second ferry was a smaller vessel compared to the first, so not everyone would get onto the first sailing. So I was trying to ensure we would be on the first sailing of the second ferry… except our ferry ended up just going all the way to Caleta Gonzalo!

We were quickly off the ferry and just had to find a park since our first trailhead was at the pier. Unfortunately the Cascadas trail had been shortened (now 3km?) in the previous couple of years, and the most interesting section no longer part of it. Most people probably have no idea – but if you look at old descriptions they say things like “Parts of the trail are made by going up and down wooden ladders and using ropes to get over the rocks along the way”. The powers that be clearly decided this was all too dodgy as now the trail is much shorter and doesn’t involve any sketchy river crossings but ends at a very civilised wooden platform.

We felt quite at home here – the vegetation could have been NZ or Tassie – until you ran across the Nalcas!

Our second walk was the Los Alerces Trail (1.4km) which leads you to some impressive big trees. Fortunately by doing the Cascadas trail we almost missed the bus loads of passengers that had been taken here straight from the ferry.

Our last walk for the day was the Lago Negro Trail (2.2km). I was pretty disappointed we didn’t have any camping equipment with us at this point. The trail starts from one of the camp grounds and it was a beautiful evening. We were going to have to drive back the next day to do some of the other walks, so it would have saved us a couple of hours of driving. But, with no tent, and a cabin booked in Chaitén, there wasn’t really any option.

The next day we headed back up the road almost back to Caleta Gonzalo to walk the longer Laguna Tronador trail. As was to become a bit of a theme, it had some “peligro” (“danger”) tape across the trailhead. We were pretty annoyed since we’d driven an hour to get there, and there had been no indication on the official websites about any closures. There was no information besides the tape so we decided to start off on it, we figured we were experienced enough walkers that we would be able to assess whether the track was dangerous. It was a pretty steady ascent, sometimes up ladders, alongside a canyon at times, to get to the underwhelming Volcan Michinmahuida lookout.

I hadn’t appreciated when looking at the map that the route went up to the lookout and then down to the laguna. We continued down until we got to a nice lookout. I questioned whether there was value in continuing on down to the lake but Tom wanted to, so we went on. In retrospect it wasn’t worth it – once upon a time there was camping at the lake but I’m not sure how many years its been since it was maintained. The camping area was completely overgrown and we ended up heading back up to the half-way lookout for morning tea. That section definitely had some rotten stuff and you needed to be careful where you walked on some of the raised walkways.

From there we backtracked up the ladders to the high point, and then down the ladders back to the road. Surprisingly (or not) we encountered a few other hikers on our way down, who like us had decided they could assess the danger for themselves. I think the route would have been unpleasant/maybe a bit precarious in rain – which in November is common – however, it had been (unseasonably) dry for over a week. I tend to think it was more the park didn’t have the flexibility to adjust its opening schedule based on the actual weather.

One of the couples we’d bumped into said they’d ended up there because the Cascadas Escondidas Trail (different from the Cascadas Trail) was closed for maintenance. We had hoped to do that trail next so we figured we’d go have a look. Unfortunately that had very official signage notifying of its closure and we didn’t feel we could justify ignoring that, so instead we had to settle for having lunch at a roadside lookout.

We’d also discovered that it was a good thing we hadn’t planned on camping because most of the campsites don’t open until mid-December – not that you’d be able to find that on any of the websites! (Though maybe my feedback was taken into account as I see they are now updated)

After lunch we continued back towards Chaitén to the Volcan Chaitén Trail. The car park at the trail head was packed! Not content with having put +/-500m vertical in our legs in the morning, we did another +/-600m (+?) on the Volcan Chaitén Trail in the afternoon. The trail was brutal being pretty much straight-up (650m ascent in 2.2km), at times quite steep. The good news was that everyone was on their way down, and by the time we got to the top there were only 2 other people there. We enjoyed the glorious views and the solitude (and rested our aching quads!) before heading back down.

Our last stop for the day was Playa (Beach) Santa Barbara. We were hoping to see dolphins here but the water was so flat it probably wouldn’t have been enough fun for them. We did acquire a dog for a walk along the beach (of course).

The next day we headed south to the El Amarillo Sector of the park. We were a bit confused when we got to the park entry and it was chained shut – with a sign saying it was closed “Opening hours 8:30am-5pm”* – given it was 8:50am. Eventually we worked out that there was an admin office a couple of hundred metres back down the road. The ranger there assured us the park was open (and hurriedly sent her offsider to go and unlock the chain!). Surprise, surprise, the trail we’d planned on doing (El Ventisquero) wasn’t open for the season yet, so we had to settle on two other shorter walks.

A couple of German backpackers turned up at the office as we were getting our briefing, and it was clear they didn’t have a car. I offered them a lift into the park which they gratefully accepted (otherwise it was a 5km walk in to the trailhead). Though that meant we awkwardly kept overtaking each other as we both tackled the El Mirador trail first. We got views over the glacier we’d hoped to walk to as our consolation.

After lunch, in one of the few picnic areas we’d encountered on the trip, we did the Darwin’s Frog Trail. No Darwin’s Frogs spotted. And to be honest the trail was quite boring. Back in Chaiten we tracked down an ice cream store – but I rolled the dice on the flavour (since it was in Spanish). I thought it looked like I was ordering something with chocolate chips in it – disappointingly turned out to be passionfruit pips 🙁

Our next challenge for the day was getting our first petrol. All petrol in Chile is pumped by attendants. We had no idea how to open the fuel cap – fortunately the attendant was able to eventually communicate to us we needed to unlock the doors and that would allow her to open it. We’d already had to google how to open the bonnet of the car (not that I can recall now why we needed to get into the engine) – turned out a nondescript lever was the answer. I thought Volkswagons were supposed to be user friendly!?

Unfortunately I got my first (likely) food poisoning of the trip that night. I’d had salmon & mash at a local restaurant and it all came back up again pretty quickly. Fortunately once it was out that was the end of it. I blame the salmon. Tom had gone for the local seafood stew and was fine.

Having done 7 of the 12 walks in Pumalin National Park (of which only 6 were open) it was time to head south. Pumalin is unique in the Chilean National Parks that it doesn’t have entry fees – we didn’t realise how good this was until we got nickel and dimed at every park (and attraction) after that. I assume this is something to do with the arrangements that were agreed when the land was donated to the Chilean government by Douglas Tompkins.

*Also, let’s mention how ridiculous it is to have a park closing at 5pm when it isn’t getting dark until 8pm or later…