Puerto Montt is really one of those ‘transit’ towns, with not all that much to see, although it has some charming seaside houses but with the stiff competition of nicer towns further north – principally Puerto Varas from where I arrived – not much of a stop on the route. I only stayed for a few hours before embarking on the Magallanes, the ferry ship that would take me, and another couple of hundred (mostly backpackers) passengers to the very south of Chile along the coast. I had decided this would be a good, and different, way of viewing the Chilean coast – since there are no roads down to Puerto Natales, the only land option being the unpaved carretera Austral in Argentina which takes you along the other side of the Andes and is quite a different experience – Steve would be following it on his bike…
I staked up on books and booze for the 3-day trip, previous passengers I met in the last days recommended these two activities for what could be, at times, a tedious trip. Although I found that I used more of the first than the latter… drink and rough sea not being an ideal combination as far as I was concerned!
It seemed to take most of the afternoon to get everything and everyone on board and I was happy to meet once again a few previous acquaintances – Don, from
Puerto Varas and Helen from Easter Island (!) on the boat. As in most of these “choke points” (not that many options to make your way south) one ends up seeing familiar faces. Don was traveling for a number of months, for the fifth or sixth time now, originally from Chicago but not really your typical American by any means.
The trip itself was unfortunately rather less noteworthy than I had expected. The coast was supposed to be similar to that of Norway (or thereabouts) with many inlets, islands and a completely ‘wild’ untouched environment. I suppose it might be, but the slight detail of the necessity of appropriate weather conditions only comes in the small print, if at all. Once again the lush coast and green mountains proved not be this way simply by chance, rather the result of the copious amounts of rain that falls pretty continuously coming in as a result of the prevailing westerly winds from the Pacific Ocean. I shouldn’t be too harsh because we did have one afternoon when it was possible to play chess on deck – with one of those “large pieces on the floor” chess sets and enjoy a little sun in the process. But the truth is that 2/3 of daylight time one was more likely to be in than out enjoying any view. Maybe is also that I am not much of a sailor J
In any case it was good enough I suppose. Got talking to a few people, exchanging semi-life stories. Met Torsten, from Dresden in Germany, who was on a 6 week trip and had a stimulating exchange of thoughts on the current political situation in Europe – don’t always get something like that on the trip up to now J - and had a good time with him, Don and Helen. Nevertheless felt a little confined by day three, on a boat with a load of other backpackers – we all seemed to be doing pretty much the same thing, so any feeling of novelty / adventure was rather drowned in the “commonality” we shared – strange that, how part of feeling different or new comes with not being surrounded by others doing what you are.
On the whole, I probably wouldn’t have taken the boat – mainly because the money (expensive) and the time (almost 4 days) could have been spent more effectively during this period – I was rushing a little to get to Ushuaia or Christmas, but I don’t regret it though. Always good to put these things down to experience and hey, when is the next time I will spend 3 days traveling down the coast of Chile? J You have to try to know, and it could have been quite different with great weather – which is not common, but not impossible either… One unfortunate aftereffect I hadn’t counted on was a slight but constant dizziness that lasted for the next 3-4 days and didn’t help me get down to writ very much.
Puerto Natales, where the ferry trip came to an end, is not the last major town on the southern coast of Chile – I believe the honour goes to Punta Arenas, but it is the port of entry to the majestic National Park of Torres del Paine and a good point to cross over to Argentina and visit the grand National Park on the other side of the Andes. A mix of a fishing/depot/tourist-base town, P. Natales had a good feeling to it and I met charming Yoka and Linda at the hostel – two girls from Amsterdam – which made the stay very amenable. I found a groovy lounge bar – yes, all the way down here, but owned and run by an Englishman, of course – where I not only enjoyed some good food and drink but also managed to exchange three of the books I had with me – acquired in Puerto Montt – for three others, this time in Italian and English. Surprised to see a book in Catalan lying around too…the world is definitely much smaller than we think. Yoka and Linda had pretty much the same plan and time span that I did so we organized our 2-day visit to the National Park, about 2-3 hour bus ride form Puerto Natales itself. The Park is a trekker’s heaven, with spectacular paths and dazzling landscapes. The traditional trek is the “W” which takes 4 days. Unfortunately I didn’t really have the time to do that, so together with Yoka and Linda we instead took a boat ride up to see the Grey Glacier the largest in the Park and my very first glacier. Although not much compared to the ones I would later see on the Argentinean side, it was still quite impressive for a first timer.
The whole area is particularly pristine. The scale of the mountains, hills, fields, etc. is so large that it leaves the few individuals you see – and yourself – feeling like little visitors rather out of place in the immensity that surrounds you. One of the most impressive things of Patagonia is the immediate and direct way it conveys the majesty of nature and puts human endeavors and achievements in their proper place, i.e. reduces any feelings of grandeur and importance that people construct to a much more healthy realization of how
fleety all these things really are…
On our second, and last, day in the Park we planned to take a small morning walk to the base of the Torres, but Yoka unfortunately fell in the shower and had a nasty cut on her ear. Nothing too serious, fortunately, but she did require 6 stitches to put it all back in place, so she left with Linda at 10:30 or so all the way back to Puerto Natales. No para-medic or qualified staff were present in the Park at all, no facilities even, quite surprising. You definitely don’t want to break a bone or have a serious injury around here… Could take quite a few hours to get any kind of medical assistance. Anyway, we were lucky this time and I set off on my own to have a closer look at the magnificent mountain range. I was lucky with the weather, but again – as on the boat – ferocious gales, rain or just heavy clouds are not at all uncommon here, and it is said that one can ‘enjoy’ the four-seasons in the course of a single day’s walk. It didn’t get quite there, but one has to be quite prepared for almost anything here. In fact, I did think about the type of trekking / walking that people come to practice here – paying thousands of euros at times to be able to do so. It is quite different to the one I did on the Camino. I suppose the idea that one is walking towards some kind of destination – rather than simply in a circle – at times with quite a few others (as can happen here in high season) and where there is little history to the land, although definitely an amazing nature – are some differences. Not necessarily worse, but I somehow feel les attracted to this than I thought I would be. Even in Peru, on the Huayhuash trek, apart from better weather (at least during the day) there was a thrilling feeling that those heights were made somehow more ‘human’ by the fact that there had been ancient paths crossing those mountains together with the odd shepard that one would find now and then high up in the cordillera, but I digress…
The Park was certainly worth the visit and was a great introduction to al the nature I would be flabbergasted with during the following days as I went to El Calafate and visited what was essentially the same natural area, but on the other side of the border. I would now say goodbye to Chile, after having crossed the border with Argentina about 3 times (as witnessed in all those stamps in my passport) which I will not be visiting again on this trip (except for a technical stop in Santiago on my way to Auckland. Very much coming towards the end of this partial South American tour and starting to realize it, although there is still some time left in Argentina
El cruce de Bariloche a Puerto Varas o Montt (el primero queda a unos 30 km al norte del segundo) es fácil y cómodo. Aquí los Andes ya no son esos mastodontes de 6,000 km que se encuentran más al norte. Más bien entre 2,000 y 3,500 m con pasos bien habilitados. Lo que más demora en realidad son los controles de frontera… De tanto cruzar de un lado a otro voy a llenar las hojas del pasaporte con sellos argentinos y chilenos.
A la vuelta de Isla de Pascua me quedé un par de dias en Santiago para hacer, entre otras cosas, unos cambios a mi billete de avión Después de muchas explicaciones y tiempo en colas parece que he salido ganando, por una vez, de un error que se hizo en mi último cambio de billete (ruta). Básicamente se me ha permitido hacer más vuelos de los que se hubiera permitido normalmente en las condiciones del billete. Esto quiere decir que ya no podré cambiar el itineraro del mismo sin perder los vuelos adicionales que se me han autorizado por error... quizás las fechas, pero nada más, o sea que el itinerario se queda tal cual.
