Carretera Austral

The Carretera Austral or ‘Southern Highway’ stretches for over 12,000 kilometres through the wettest, greenest, wildest region of southern Chile and is trailed as one of the world’s most scenic road trips. Our journey along this route began on Tuesday 13^th February after leaving the border town of Chile Chico.

Chile Chico sits on the shore of Lago General Carrera, a huge and beautiful lake which it shares with Argentina (where it is known as Lago Buenos Aires) and in order to join the Carretera Austral it is necessary to drive 120 kilometres around a huge section of the lake. It was a good dirt road although quite narrow and vertiginous in places.  However, we had the most wonderful views of the aquamarine lake, the black snow-capped mountains and the verdant green of the forests and we both agreed that this was the most beautiful road we have ever driven.

On the road from Chile Chico around Lago General Carrera

View of Lago General Carrera and mountains beyond

Deep river gorge leading to the lake

Lunch stop by the lake

Local flora

We camped for the night by the lakeside near the village of Puerto Rio Tranquillo and next morning got on a launch to the Capillas de Marmol (Marble Chapels).  These chapels have been formed due to erosion in a series of marble cliffs and islets which has created the most wonderful shapes in the rock. 

Capillas de Marmol

Capillas de Marmol

Capillas de Marmol

There were pinnacles, columns, peaks, peep-holes and caves into which we could take the boat and the colours were everything from the creamiest cream through to startling pink and green and brown.  The lake itself was of the most beautiful turquoise blue and when the sun shone, and mercifully it did for us, the reflection of the light from the water onto these marble swirls and decorated pillars, columns and ceilings was quite startling.

Capillas de Marmol

Capillas de Marmol

By Wednesday evening we had reached the small town of Cerro Castillo which sits at the bottom of the mountain from which it takes its name.  Unfortunately, we could not see the mountain because it was entirely shrouded in mist and cloud. Luckily the sun shone next morning and so we climbed up the hill and had a wonderful view of the mountain with its sharp castellated ridges and attendant cloud.

Cerro Castillo

Back on the road again we encountered tarmac for the first time since we set off from Chile Chico which was very welcome. We drove through forests and for much of the time following the course of a river.

We arrived in the small city of Coyhaique on Thursday where we stayed for a couple of days to stock up on provisions, do the usual admin and get an oil change for Footloose Lucy.

Whilst we were in Coyhaique we met an interesting guy by the name of Tim.  Originally from Hampshire, Tim has lived and worked in Coyhaique for the past fifteen years and gave us all sorts of useful information.  He also happens to be a part time guide at an estancia some 50 kilometres or so from Coyhaique where condors roost.

We duly arranged to go to the estancia with Tim to see the condors early on Tuesday 20^th February.  Having achieved all that we needed to in Coyhaique we spent the intervening couple of days at a lovely cabana in the countryside a few kilometres from the city. It was situated in a semi meadow which was covered in wild flowers and with views across to the mountains and down to the small but pretty Rio Baguales below us.

The owner of the cabana told us that the Rio Baguales was full of small but very hungry trout and he was right.  We walked down and spent a morning there during which time Alan caught three fit and feisty trout, each weighing about three quarters of a pound.  He also cast a fly or two in the much larger Rio Simpson, said to be full of very large trout, but had zero success.

Rio Simpson

We left the cabana on Monday and then drove along dirt road to a dried up river bed which Tim had told us about which was close to the estancia.  There we set up camp for the night and, as it was very cold, we lit a campfire and we sat round it and had our supper and then chatted until about ten o’clock by the glow of the fire.

Bush camp near Estancia Punta del Monte

Keeping warm by the campfire

During this time a couple of vehicles went past, that was about it, but then just after ten o’clock the police arrived with their lights flashing and required us to put the fire out forthwith which we did with their assistance. We were about to go to bed by then, so the fire had pretty much died down anyway.

The bonus was that once the fire was out and the constabulary had departed, lights still flashing, we stood and looked at the sky, a wonderful clear sky, no ambient light whatsoever and a million stars!  Alan saw one shooting star, we saw the Milky Way as clear as it is probably possible to see it, a great white swathe of a million, million stars crossing the sky.  We saw Orion and we stood for about half an hour just gazing up in wonder.

Dawn at the bush camp

A little later

On Tuesday morning we were up early because we had been promised the condors. Tim arrived just after half past six and we set off.  We drove with Tim in his vehicle up through the southern beech woods out onto a high rocky precipitous cliff and there we waited.  The wind was fierce and it was very cold but the views all around us were magnificent.

Jagged mountain top, condor roost

Windswept mountain top vegetation, living and dead

We were not disappointed with the condors.  We saw in total eleven at one time and Alan got some reasonably good shots. We hugely enjoyed being on this desolate, cold windswept mountain top with the stunted trees and the recumbent plants and the mighty view over the glacial plain down to a series of lagoons. We also saw a black faced buzzard eagle and a number of smaller birds, but it was the condors with their eleven-foot wing span that stole the show.

Adult male condor

Adult female condor

Adult male condor

On the way back Tim took us to a field on the estancia which is archaeologically unique.  It’s a place where the indigenous Indians used to gather and work stone tools.  We found obsidian which apparently is not found closer than a thousand miles from that location along with other quartz like stones, all of which had been worked.  He also showed us another place that was full of fossils. Many of them were like tiny starfish and there were other worm like casts and these were all presumably from the sea bed when the area was a shallow tropical sea, hard as that was to imagine. 

Fossils of starfish like creatures

Armadillo seen on the estancia

Finally, Tim led us to a very pretty river and after a bit of struggling we got down to the banks.  The river was undoubtedly full of fish, they were jumping all over the place but none of them was the least bit interested in any of the fly that Alan cast.

Tuesday turned out to be a very long day so we had one final night at the cabana before setting off north again on the Carretera Austral on Wednesday morning.

It was not long before there was a large diversion in place on the Carretara Austral and we were sent along a winding back road through the mountainous countryside. At the bottom of every valley there was a beautiful river, many of them wide and some of them small, full of boulders and chuckling little cascades.  The sides of the valleys led up to the mountains and these mountains were covered in trees, many of them apparently growing from the vertical rock sides.  The course of the road, which was all dirt and quite narrow in places, wound continuously from left to right and up and down like a big dipper.  Inevitably we didn’t make quick progress but the drive was quite beautiful.

Typical view from the Carretera Austral

Just another waterfall

Viaduct on the Carretera Austral

After stopping for the night at a pretty little campsite in the village of Manihuales, we continued north on a paved section of the Carretera Austral and then stopped to camp the following night on the banks of a fjord close to Queulat National Park.

Campsite at evening, by the fjord near Queulat National Park

On Friday morning we packed up and went into the national park which is full of extensive evergreen forest but also a spectacular hanging glacier. The glacier protrudes from a high valley from the bottom of which issue a number of snow melt waterfalls which go down into a large glacial lake.

Hanging glacier with waterfall

Hanging glacier

Snowmelt river fed by hanging glacier

Glacial lake with glacier in the background

Sue on the hanging bridge

Having seen all we wanted to in the National Park we then travelled the short distance to the delightful little town of Puyuhuapi which sits at the head of the fjord.  It is a quiet, gentle place and we have spent a wonderful couple of days respite here. 

Sunset over Puyuhuapi fjord

Boat no longer seaworthy, Puyuhuapi

Bored puppy

Local cottage, Puyuhuapi

We spent several hours yesterday kayaking along a beautiful stretch of the fjord and when we stopped for our picnic lunch we were entertained by three dolphins who cavorted about 50 metres from us for about half an hour.

Kayaking on the fjord

Lunch stop on the fjord (dolphins just visible)

Tomorrow is Monday 25^th February and our plan is to get back on the road and continue the short distance to La Junta where we will be leaving the Carretera Austral.  This is rather sooner than we had originally intended, the reason being that the road is closed after La Junta at the village of Villa Santa Lucia.  Just before last Christmas a huge landslide caused by the collapse of a glacial lake wiped out Santa Lucia along with 60 of its inhabitants and, of course, the road which has not yet been rebuilt.  We understand that we need to go to La Junta to book a ferry to circumnavigate the area and we are hoping that we can get on one to the island of Chiloe, but we shall see!