Week 4/5: Carretera Austral (Part 3)

Greetings!

When we embarked yesterday on a ferry from Chaitén across to the island of Chiloé, we bid farewell to the Carretera Austral.  As I've mentioned, driving the Carretera is known as one of the world's great road trips and I couldn't agree more.  We didn't complete the whole thing (there are many more miles to O'Higgins), but the experiences we had on the portion we completed were incredible.

Many people drive, bike, or hitchhike the entire length of the Carretera (or further, passing into or out of Argentina at O'Higgins).  We met two ludicrous men who started their bike journey in Rio de Janeiro, rode south to Tierra del Fuego, and are now making their way north on the Carretera on their way to Colombia.

We picked up hitchhikers almost every day.  There are always a group of hitchhikers waiting at each end of each town on the Carretera.  In the morning, they are excited and hopeful in their attempts to find a ride; by the late afternoon (and we were told that many wait all day), their mood visibly sours and their smiles are replaced by frowns of disbelief when you give them the "all full" signal.

Speaking of the "all full" signal.  One of our rafting guides in Futaleufú showed me the sign to make with your hands to let hitchhikers know that you don't have room for them.  It's kinda like if you were plucking a cherry down from a tree using all five fingers.  When we left Futa, we took along with us one of our new friends - Alex, a Canadian biking by himself, who didn't want to endure the 70k dirt road back to the Carretera from Futa - with his bike loaded into the back of our pickup truck.  With no room for hitchhikers, I let a few know that we were full using my new hand signal.  Their reaction was two parts confusion, one part offense.  After a while, I began to think that the rafting guide may have been playing a joke on the tourist, giving me a signal that means something else completely.  We eventually figured out that a much more effective (and less offensive) signal is to make a circular stirring motion with your hand/index finger.


When we last posted, we were heading south to Coyhaique. Just before leaving, we ran into Christian, a 20-something German from near Nurnberg we had met in Futa, and gave him a ride before spending the day with him in Coyhaique (Note to Maria: We told him we'd arrange a meeting between the two of you.  He's very nice :)

Maria: Christian is behind Cam, on the right.  Just FYI

Since then, we've given rides to an Israeli traveling alone, a young man from Puerto Varas trying to get home as quickly as possible, and, most mysteriously, a family of four (parents, daughter, and grandma) walking in the middle of the mountains in a downpour with one backpack and seemingly no origin or defined destination.

After weeks in tents, hostels, and inexpensive AirBnBs, we decided to treat ourselves to a couple nights in a nice lodge in Coyhaique.  We stayed in the Coyhaique River Lodge, a very nice, small lodge catering toward groups of fly-fishers.  The dozen or so other people staying there were mostly a group of men from the U.S. who visit every year.  The lodge was lovely - and the people working there very friendly - but the other guests were not our speed.  They were clearly very wealthy and Aimee and I had the sense that we shouldn't discuss politics with them.  If you know what I mean.

Coyhaique River Lodge

The prix fixe dinner at the lodge restaurant was expensive,
so we made camping pasta (for the boys in the room
before Aimee and went to the restaurant, of course).

We have, however, discussed politics with almost everyone else we have met and spent time with in Chile.  The kind of people who travel the world are fascinated - and a bit scared - by the current state of U.S. politics and government.  But all of that is for a different blog, I suppose.

The highlight of our time in Coyhaique, which itself is a nice city, was our day-trip an hour south to hike Cerro Castillo.  Cerro Castillo is a jagged peak that rises to 8,776 feet.  The hike takes you up 3,500 feet on a 7 kilometer trail ending at an alpine lake at the base of the peak.  It's steep almost the whole way and Aimee and I were both quite astonished that the boys made it all the way.  The entire hike is exposed to beautiful views of the valley but the top is unlike anything we've ever seen.  All of the rivers and lakes in Patagonia are beautiful blues and greens, but the blue of the lake is a color I've never seen before in nature.  We've been told by several other travelers that it rivals or is more magnificent that the peaks of Torres del Paine, the more famous mountains to the south.

2019 holiday card photo frontrunner

The view of the valley from about halfway up

Definitely not posing

Once we were past the scrabble of rock that makes up the top 2k of the trail, the boys and I ran the remaining 5k down the mountain.  They each fell about every 200 meters, covering themselves in dirt, but they laughed and laughed the whole way down.  After a baby wipe bath on the back of the truck, they promptly and deservedly fell sound asleep on the ride back to the lodge.

Cam's neck is stuck like that still

A few notes about the boys.  They haven't been perfectly behaved the whole time - and neither have Aimee and I, for that matter - but given the fact that they've been away from their home and friends for a month, spending almost all of their time only with their parents, they have been amazing.  They are getting along with each other better than back in Wisconsin or at the beginning of the trip.  I think they are having fun and that these experiences will be memorable/formative for them.  They have been doing math, reading, and writing here and there.  Cam has passed most of our driving and flying hours by consuming books.

I have to admit that during our first week in Chile it somewhat dawned on me that we were  all going to be together - just together - for three months.  I was a bit startled by that "realization," even if I knew it already somewhere in the back of my brain.  Perhaps our arrival here just brought it into focus.  But while much of this trip is about experiencing Chile (and eventually New Zealand), it's also very much about that constant togetherness, something we don't get to do in Milwaukee.  You're at work all day, the kids go to school and play with their friends and, in the end, you spend at most a couple hours together each day.  Even Aimee and I, before or after kids, never really spent day after day together for long periods of time.  After a month, we're better at it, all of us gradually becoming more patient with each other.  We're learning how to just be together and at the same time even learning more about each other.  So, yes, that's good.

Anyway, after another nice dinner with our new friends Jody and Ged (the couple from California we met in Futaleufú - we have had dinner with them in every location since Futa), we sped up the Carretera back to Chaitén for the ferry over to Chiloé.  

Aimee and I look a bit haggard in this photo,
but it's the only one we have with Jody and Ged.

We spent yesterday playing on the beach near the Parque Nacional de Chiloé and are heading back toward Puerto Montt for our flight tomorrow to Punta Arenas, at the bottom (top?) of the world.  

We will check in again after our time in Punta Arenas and Torres del Paine. Only 12 days left here in Chile, which is hard to believe.


With love,

Max, Aimee, Cam, and Wes

Week 4: Carretera Austral (Part 2)

Greetings!

Well, we planned on staying in Futaleufú for one or two nights and ended up staying for five.  Futa is awesome.  It sits near the confluence of two rivers: Rio Futaleufú (which means "big river" in the local language) and Rio Espolón.  Many people who come to Futa come (and stay) for Rio Futaleufú, which is known as one of the three best rivers in the world for rafting (some will tell you that it's the best).  The other two, in case you're wondering, are the Colorado and the Zambezi.  In addition to the rivers, the mountains around Futa are amazing.

As I mentioned in our last post, we rafted with the boys on our first day there.  We took a calm route through the upper portion of Rio Futaleufú.  Thanks to Sarah, a wonderful American working at Las Natalias (and among many other wonderful people at Hostal Las Natalias), where we stayed for all but one of the nights in Futa, Aimee and I did a half-day on the "real" part of the river, consisting of mostly Class IV and V rapids.  We were lead by another Italian guide, Andrea, and an army of safety kayak and cata-raft personnel.  

Andrea was excellent.  If you've never done river rafting, the guide is perched in the back, half standing against a long board, steering the boat with long oars.  The other thing he does is scream at the rafters, which are the engine of the boat.  "Adelante!"  "Adelante con fuerza!"  "Al piso, al piso!"  Andrea was very good at yelling.  And he needs to be because well, Class IV and V rapids are serious business.  Andrea does not care about your feelings; he cares about you not dying.  That's an important qualification for a river rafting guide, I think.





Another day in Futa, Aimee took the boys on a hike in the Reserva Nacional de Futaleufú while I took a river kayaking course.  The course was three hours of instruction and about one hour of time on the river.  I had another fantastic guide, Fidel, teach me how to paddle and how to get back upright once turning upside down in the water.  After my day with Fidel, I was desperate to head out with some of the other kayakers staying at Las Natalias but needed a few more days of (mostly safety-related) instruction before that could happen.  Unfortunately, that will have to wait until our next visit to Futa.

One of the other things I also got to do in Futa was suit up for a local league soccer game in the Futa "stadium."  They never ended up subbing in the gringo (Concerned about the gringo making them look bad?  Concerned about the gringo being too old and hurting himself?  We'll never know.), but it was fun to watch the game from the bench.

Truly, the best part of our stay in Futa was the hostal itself.  Las Natalias is owned and run by two American ex-pats who are gracious hosts and have established a culture among the others who work there that is warm and festive.  That culture seems to infect all of the guests who walk through the doors.  We met and spent time with so many interesting, friendly people that it probably deserves its own blog post. 

Sarah, who we mentioned before, is an awesome young woman from the States (who actually has relatives in Whitefish Bay) and is in Futa doing a work-trade at the Hostal for the summer.  The boys fell in love with her and I'm certain we will see her again.  

Fabrizio is a guy from Santiago who moved to Futa and now works (and lives) at the hostal with whom I became fast friends.  We will see Fabri again one day soon, as well.

Among the other guests were a couple from Silicon Valley who are so nice and wonderful with the boys.  We have since met up with them on both nights after leaving Futa, including sharing a dinner last night where we are now in Puyuhuapi, and hope to see them again one day.

There was a Frenchman from Brittany who comes to Las Natalias for the entire summer every year and with whom I discussed wine and books and whether we should just stay in Futa with him for the rest of the summer.  We met a guy from Vancouver who is biking the Carretera but didn't want to redo the long, gravel road between the main highway and Futa, so we threw his bike and saddlebags in our truck and gave him a lift South.  

And there was a family from Argentina traveling with a 10 year-old boy named Matias.  When Matias and his parents walked into the hostal for the first time, he gasped and pointed at Cam. "Harry Potter!" he exclaimed to his parents.  Matias, Cam, and Wesley went on to spend their days playing soccer in the yard and Matias only ever referred to Cam as "Harry Potter."

Finally, the gracious owners of Las Natalias invited us one evening to a barbecue at the home of one of their local friends to participate in the traditional celebration of the construction of his new home.  We understood this to be the first time any hostal guests have been invited to one of these special "asados" and we truly felt honored.  It was a special evening.  We met many more wonderful people who we hope to see again one day.

After an emotional departure from Las Natalias, we headed South to spend an evening on the beach in Raul Marin Balmaceda, a tiny, quiet town on the coast.  The spot we found on the beach was spectacular.  The boys ran around the shoals at low tide in the evening before bed and then watched dolphins play in the water just off the beach in the morning.

The next day took us further South to Puyuhuapi, a port on a fjord near the Parque Nacional de Queulat and its famous hanging glacier.  It was amazing to leave a warm beach on the Pacific Ocean in the morning and spend the afternoon at a glacier on top of a mountain surrounded by rainforest.

Today, we are heading to Coyhaique for what may be our last stop on the Carretera before heading back North.  Coyhaique is known for great fly fishing and we're all going to try our hand at that while we're there.

On Tuesday, we catch a ferry from Chaiten (on the Carretera) across to the island/archipelago of Chiloe on our way back to Puerto Montt for our flight to Punta Arenas on Thursday.  We've made a slight adjustment to our itinerary to allow for some time in Valparaíso at the end of our time in Chile by shortening our say in Punta Arenas/Puerto Natales at the bottom of the continent.  Instead of a few days in Punta Arenas, we are going to focus our time on Puerto Natales and the Torres del Paine National Park.  That will leave us 3-4 days on the coast in Valparaíso before our flight to Auckland on February 11.

Stay tuned for more!

We miss and love you all.

Max, Aimee, Cam & Wes

P.S.  The boys have been doing really well, still.  That said, I think they hit a bit of a too-much-brother-time wall a couple days ago, which is to be expected.  They got to FaceTime with a couple friends back home for a bit, which really helped.  Cam, in particular, misses his buddies and I'll leave you with one, hysterical exchange he had with a friend back home:

Friend:  "Are you going through puberty yet?  I'm not."
Cam: "No, not yet."

The Welsh Brothers' Report: Episode 2

First, I forgot to include the picture of Rigby's Chilean cousin from Pucón.  Here it is.

Not as fat.

Here are the most recent updates from the boys, which we sent to their teachers by email but didn't have a chance to post here until now, so they're a bit belated.

Week 3: Carretera Austral (Part 1)

Greetings!

It's definitely harder to keep track of the days when the days of the week don't really mean much.  It feels like it's been a while since we last posted, but I think it was...Monday?  

When we last left you, we were about to embark on our trip South via the Carretera Austral. We're now in a town called Futaleufú, which is 10 kilometers from the border with Argentina.

Our trip to Futaleufú began in Puerto Montt, where we stopped to load up on groceries and supplies.  High on our list was peanut butter, which is apparently a precious commodity in Chile.  In grocery stores in Chile, the peanut butter is locked in glass cabinets near the check out aisles and you have to request it when you are checking out.  The store employees gave me an odd look when I told them that we wanted four jars.  They had to go to the back to find more.

While its surrounding area is lovely, Puerto Montt itself is not the nicest.  It's a port/transportation town with lots of traffic.  We had to drive through it twice (once to make ferry reservations, once to get onto the Carretera) and we are currently planning our trip purposefully to avoid going back through.  

Once through Puerto Montt, you're officially on the Carretera Austral.  The remainder of our day took us to Hornopirén, where we stayed the night before getting on the 9:00am ferry the next day.  There are several places along the Carretera where the road ends and you have to cross the Pacific Ocean.  The first, from Hornopirén, is a 4.5 hour ride.  Our trip started cloudy, but the sun eventually peeked through and the view of the mountains was beautiful.

Same hair.

We arrived in Caleta Gonzalo without a specific destination planned.  The Carretera itself is mostly a gravel road, punctuated at times by paved sections and portions under significant construction.  It's difficult to tell why the paved sections have been constructed where they are or if the construction is a means toward more pavement or just better graveling.  No, I'm not sure graveling is a word.

The people traveling the Carretera are an amazing mix.  There are huge trucks and buses.  There are people on dirt bikes and in small cars with no business traversing gravel roads.  And then there are the people who are biking the Carretera.  These people are people who have not thought things through.

When we settled on a campsite, we met a couple who had planned to ride the Carretera but realized that they probably had made it as far as they could.  The road is so bumpy, the dust of every passing car is suffocating.  And if it rains??  My God.

Just before we found our spot for our first night on the Carretera, we passed through the town of Villa Santa Lucía and saw one of the most incredible scenes.  As we descended through the mountains toward Villa Santa Lucía, it began to appear as if someone had logged acres and acres of mountainside along the road.  The entire landscape, which otherwise would have been forested in a fascinating mix of alpine and rainforest vegetation like the rest of the region, had been wiped clear.  It went on for several miles, all along the Carretera.  We didn't take any photos - we should have.

When we reached the town, we saw that what appeared to be half of it remained while the other half had been completely destroyed.  The remains of buildings sat among huge mounds of dirt and rock.  We read and then learned later that in December 2017 a part of one of the mountaintops fell off (the mountaintop fell off!) into a lake, causing so much displacement of water that a mudslide ran down the mountain into the town, carrying boulders and huge chunks of ice along the way.  Twenty two people died.

ANYWAY.  Just past Villa Santa Lucía, we found (using a great app for finding such places) an amazing, informal campsite on the beach of Lago Yelcho.  It was a stunning spot.  As many of you know, Aimee's not a huge camper, so it was a lot to ask for her first night(s) camping on this trip to be in a wild camping spot, without bathrooms.  But upon seeing this spot, she agreed that we couldn't pass it by.  We ended up spending two nights.  

I mean.  The fire matches the sunset.  Come on.

We met the woman who owned the property, Mariela, who has always lived on the lake.  We met Catalans (not Spaniards) who were hitchhiking the Carretera.  We met a Danish couple who didn't think things through.  We hiked the shores of Lago Yelcho and swam in its freezing waters.  We met the cows who passed through our campsite every day.

NOT WARM

The sow stood no chance

Today, we left Lago Yelcho and arrived in Futaleufú.  It's stunning here.  Yes, I realize that is becoming a bit of a refrain.  But I will say that this is the first place in Chile where Aimee has said, "I could live here."  It's beautiful.  The town is small.  The surrounding farmland hugs the river before rising steeply into the mountains, all of which are still capped by snow.

We went "whitewater" rafting today with the boys.  It's mostly floating, but there were two parts that neared Class 2 rapids.  They boys loved it, of course.  We were accompanied on the raft by an older couple and their 13 year-old daughter and guided by an Italian woman who is on Italy's national rafting team.  So we had that going for us.

We have decided to stay in Futaleufú for a couple nights, partially because we like the area and there's plenty to do and partially because the weather forecast for the areas South of here isn't so great.  We don't have any reservations for this portion of the trip and the day-by-day nature of it has been a bit exhilarating, actually.  Definitely not something we're accustomed to.

We will try to send something out before we leave wifi again.  

We hope all of you are well.  We love you and miss you.

Max, Aimee, Cam & Wesley

Week 2: Pucón & Puerto Varas

Greetings!

We moved on from Pucón yesterday and are now staying just outside Puerto Varas.

I mentioned last time that Pucón reminded me of a low-end Crested Butte.  After spending 5 days in the Pucón area – and now two weeks in Chile – I think that I viewed Pucón and Chile in general in a certain way only because it seems to have resisted the tendency you see in the US and in Europe to over-luxuriate.  None of the streets, homes, shops, hotels, or restaurants bear the hallmarks of modern, luxurious construction; instead, almost everything is built simply and efficiently.  I admit to the need to adjust my perspective.

None of this is to say that Pucón was inexpensive – it definitely was not.  It is very much a tourist town; the price of a standard dinner for 4 was at least as expensive as it would have been in a place like Crested Butte.  We’ve found restaurants to be similarly priced almost everywhere we’ve been.  Fortunately, for several reasons, we have sought out options for lunch and dinner that serve good food for far less.  We also have been cooking a lot.

We had a couple days of cloudy, rainy weather to start off our week in Pucón.  That put a bit of a damper on our outdoor adventure plans but meant that school was in full swing for Cam and Wesley.  Aimee and the boys spent most of a day doing some school work and I got some work done as well.

The main thing that the first couple days of poor weather meant, however, is that we didn’t see the icon of Pucón, Volcán Villarica, until Day 3.  Volcán Villarica is a gigantic, active volcano that absolutely looms over the town and surrounding area.  It’s gigantic and RIGHT THERE when you’re just walking down the street.  Except we didn’t see it at all until we woke up in the morning on Wednesday.  We had just been going about our lives without perceiving this giant volcano right above us.

Volcán Villarica last erupted just three years ago.  It was a big enough eruption that they evacuated the town.  There are signs along every road entering the region that tell you you’re entering a dangerous area.

In between bouts of rain, we hiked a bit on the lower part of the volcano, walked around the neighboring town of Villarica, and played soccer and hide-and-go-seek in a park and neighboring pasture.  When the weather turned and the sun came out, we caught an amateur soccer game in the city stadium and finally got to do our first major, full-day hike of the trip.

Our hike was through Parque Huequehue, about 40 minutes outside Pucón.  We had lunch halfway through on the edge of a beautiful lake.  The boys and I took a dip in our underwear.

 

It ended up being a much bigger hike than we had expected; it was longer and more steep than we would have attempted with the boys had we known better beforehand.  But all four of us ended up completing the entire 15 kilometer hike, which took us up about 3,000 feet.  I should say that Wesley did 14 of the 15 kilometers before finally coming to the end of his rope; I carried him the last bit of the hike. All of us had jello for legs by the time we were finished.

A couple other interesting observations about Chile.  First, the stray dogs.  They’re everywhere.  In town, out in the country, in the mountains, and along the roads.  So many.  One guy followed us along a lake in Caburga, outside of Pucón, and we decided he looked like Rigby’s long-lost Chilean cousin.  

Second, there are what seem to be programs that the country has implemented to create jobs for (mostly younger) Chileans. The two we have noticed so far are parking and gas station attendants.  There are no parking meters; instead, there is a person stationed on every blockthat is responsible for taking payment.  He or she places a receipt on each car when it arrives and then, when you leave, the attendant comes, calculates the elapsed time and takes your fee.

Gas station attendants are not an extinct phenomenon in the US, but they’re still pretty uncommon (do they still have them in New Jersey?).  Here, nobody pumps their own gas.  Each gas station has between one (remote places) and 10+ (heavily populated areas) attendants.  Aimee and I can’t think of any reason why these two jobs exist in Chile other than lingering custom and the creation of jobs.

The day after our hike, we drove South four hours to Puerto Varas.  Puerto Varas is another town on another lake next to another volcano, so we decided to make our first spontaneous adjustment of the trip and moved out of our in-town AirBnB in favor of one about 30 kilometers outside of town on a beautiful, remote farm.  The land we’re on has sheep and pigs and is worked by a husband and wife (Jacqueline and Marcelo) who are quiet but friendly.  They have a shy 5 year-old boy who refuses to tell us his name.

The area West of Puerto Varas (and Puerto Montt) is all rolling hillsides and farmland.  The mountains/volcanoes lay to the East and the Pacific is to the West.  Today (Sunday, as I write), we went for a long drive that took us to the island/archipelago of Chiloé, where we found (1) the most beautiful beach and (2) the most disgusting local cuisine.

The beach was amazing. Again, in the US or Europe, there would be houses or hotels lining the bluffs and people crowding the sand. Here, on Chiloé, there was nothing. The water was freezing, but the weather was perfect and the boys played for hours.

The food was Curanto, the signature dish of the people of Chiloé.  Given that Chile doesn’t have a lot of signature dishes, we sought out a place to give it a try.  It was advertised as a stew of seafood, meat, and vegetables.  Sounds delicious, right?  A bit like a paella?  Nope. It was a dry net-bag of shellfish, meat pieces, and mashed tuber-y stuff wrapped in plastic wrap.  I can still smell it…

 

We will be here on the farm (which is beautiful, as well) until Tuesday.  There’s no WiFi here, so I’m not sure when I’ll get this blog post out.  Tomorrow (Monday), we plan to get some laundry done and make some ferry reservations for our trip down the Carretera Austral, which begins Tuesday.  I hope to find a spot from which I can post all of this.

From Tuesday until January 31, we will be driving one road (the Carretera) South through Patagonia. We plan to get to Puerto Rio Tranquilo before returning North to Puerto Montt for our flight to Punta Arenas.  We will mostly be camping during that time, so there won’t be any blog posts.  We’ll put stuff up on Instragram as much as we can.

We miss all of you and would love to hear from you in the comments.

Love,

Max, Aimee, Cam & Wes