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."