Heading South on the Carretera Austral

Sheri and I arrived back in Santiago on November 8th. We then took a taxi from the airport to the Jeep dealer to reunite with Hank. Hank was quite pleased with his new crankshaft, and I was grateful to the folks at Guillermo Morales Jeep for their excellent, friendly service to help me get Hank back on the road with no worries. Sheri and I went to Patagonfox Camping for the night to get organized and get ready to start heading south.

We did not have a lot of time to drive through Patagonia since we had to be in Ushuaia by November 20 to get ready for our Antarctic cruise. We left the next day and we drove to Pucon. We walked around town and enjoyed the sunset by the lake. We then went to the same great Italian restaurant that I had visited with Zach and Cam, followed by some live music at the rock and blues club. Slept the night in the Jeep by the lake, then got up early to start heading down the road.

Our first stop for the day was at a beautiful hotsprings called Termas Geometricas. The hotsprings sits in a gorge surrounded by the Valdivian rainforest. It consists of about twenty pools with a range of hot temperatures and bright red walkways running along the pools. We spent about two hours relaxing in the different pools. After a good soak, we needed to get back on the road to our next destination, the Carretera Austral.

The Carretera Austral is a highway that runs south from Puerto Montt through Chilean Patagonia for 1,240 km (770 m). The objective of the highway was to link a number of remote communities which prior to the highway were only accessed through Argentina or by ferry (dependent on weather). Only about 100,000 people live in the region with about half living in the largest city, Coyhaique. Most of the highway was constructed between 1976 and 1988 and extended to Villa Higgins by 2000. Building the highway was quite a challenge. Most of the region is thick forests, fjords, steep mountains, and glaciers.

About an hour south of Puerto Montt, we had our first ferry crossing. On the other side of the crossing, we headed to a very nice campground with a friendly host. Also at the campground was a family from Brazil with three young children who were riding their bikes from Cusco, Peru, to Ushuaia. Despite all the rain and probably some tough riding, the kids were having a great time. Impressive.

Next day we headed down the road to our next ferry crossing, a three hour crossing from Hornopiren to Caleta Gonzalo. We drove to the ferry landing and learned that the next ferry leaving that evening was sold out, as were the ferries for the next day. Fortunately, the clerk seemed to change her mind, and we were able to buy a ticket for the first ferry in the morning. We headed back north up the coast and found a nice wide spot in the road overlooking the sea for the night. Got up the next morning and caught the ferry.

It was nice watching the beautiful scenery going by on the ferry. One of the valleys to the east is where Douglas Tomkins and his wife, Kris Tomkins, once lived. He was the founder of North Face and she was the former CEO of Patagonia, Inc. They had invested well and with their wealth bought up a lot of very steep, forested land in Patagonia. For years, the park near their home was Chile's largest private nature reserve and was open to the public. In 2018, the park was gifted to the Chilean government and became the Pumalín Douglas Tomkins National Park.

Shortly after getting off the ferry, you come to a spectacular grove of ancient Fitzroya cupressoides in the Pumalín Douglas Tomkins National Park. Sheri and I went for a nice hike in the stand. Fitzroya, or alerce in Spanish, is the second oldest living tree species in the world, after bristlecone pine, with one tree found to be more than 3,600 years old. It is the largest tree in South America, up to 70 m tall and 5 m in diameter. Logging of Fitzroya was economically important to colonial Chile, with many boards exported to the Viceroyalty of Peru. It is now a protected species.

After our hike we drove further down the road looking for a place to camp for the night. The scenery was spectacular, but with pouring rain, we decided to keep on heading south hoping for some better weather. We found a nice campground next to a friendly older couple's home.

The next day we headed to Coyhaique, got a hotel for the night, looked around town, and went to dinner at a good restaurant. Coyhaique is a nice town, about the size of Corvallis. It is a hub for tourism in the area.

We left Coyhaique the next day and drove through more beautiful scenery including through Cerro Castillo National Park. Our objective was Patagonia National Park. Patagonia National Park was another initiative of Douglas and Kris Tomkins to set aside unique ecosystems of Patagonia. Beginning in 2004, the conservation organization created by Kris Tomkins, Conservación Patagónica (later Tomkins Conservation), began to buy former large sheep ranches to restore and create a continuous large nature reserve when combined with nearby national reserves. In 2014, the land was donated to the Chilean government to create Patagonia National Park.

Patagonia National Park is located in the transition zone between the arid steppes of Argentinian Patagonia and the southern beech forests of Chilean Patagonia, resulting in a diversity of ecosystems and wildlife. It is home to one of the largest populations of endangered huemul deer. As the former ranchland is restored, populations of guanacos are increasing, which in turn is leading to increased numbers of the major predator, the puma. The story of the rewilding of Patagonia National Park is told in an excellent Netflix documentary called Our Great National Parks. There is also an excellent visitor center in the park.

Given our tight schedule, we only spent a day in the park before needing to head towards Argentina. The road to Argentina goes past a beautiful large lake called Lago General Carrera in Chile and Lago Buenos Aires in Argentina.