After spending two days camped in an abandoned rodeo ring, it was time to move on. Dylan made a calendar to help keep track of the days whizzing by and reminded us that we were still traveling south, which is in quite the opposite direction of our final destination. It was time to make decisions about where we were going and where we were not. Distances like 150km down a dirt track off the main road to see a quaint little town (Caleta Tortel) can easily take two days of travel, and unfortunately we don't have tons of extra days to see every nook and cranny. We have to be in Northern California by 8 August for a family reunion!
One thing that is amazing about this part of Chile is that there are a ton of wild rose bushes lining the highway. Right now it is fall and the bushes are all yellow and filled with rose-hips, or Rosa Mosqueta, which the locals pick and make into this incredible jam. Occasionally you find a rogue bush that still has a flower or two--imagine what a road like this would look like in summer!
One thing that is amazing about this part of Chile is that there are a ton of wild rose bushes lining the highway. Right now it is fall and the bushes are all yellow and filled with rose-hips, or Rosa Mosqueta, which the locals pick and make into this incredible jam. Occasionally you find a rogue bush that still has a flower or two--imagine what a road like this would look like in summer!
Well, our first stop out of Puerto Rio Tranquilo was no more than 1 km south. Our friend bought a bunch of land with two of his friends while on a bike ride adventure in the early 90s and hasn't returned since. It's a beautiful spot near the famous marble cathedral that tends to appear on those "20 places to see before you die" lists. We told him we'd go down and say hello for him to the caretakers and take some photos for him. The fall colors were in full effect!!
We traveled along the Rio Baker (pronounced baa-ker) which is this amazing turquoise color that looks almost unnatural. This river is in danger of being dammed for hydroelectric power. That would be a tragedy. As all the bumper stickers around here say, "PATAGONIA ¡SIN REPRESAS!" (without dams) Check out more about the effort to help conserve beautiful Patagonia here: http://www.patagoniasinrepresas.cl/final/index.php
We noticed a sign at a little parking area that announced "Confluencia Rio Baker y Neff" and stopped. WOW. This stop is kinda easy to miss since you can't see anything from the road, but make sure you stop. The hike is short and easy, and there is even a nice outhouse! The mixing of the waters is incredibly dramatic because the Baker is a dark turquoise and the Neff is a milky army green and you can see two distinct colors of water touching and turbulently churning into a more milky turquoise color. It reminded me of when people put cream into their coffee and then are hypnotized by the two liquids swirling together...but on a much larger scale, and with a giant waterfall.
Getting back into the car we had our first "uh-oh" with the car (since the big "uh-oh" when the engine blew up and then had to be rebuilt). Jules wouldn't start, and we didn't have jumper cables. But we didn't leave any lights on or anything. Hmm. Ben unpacked the back and looked at the engine. Seemed okay. Hmm. He then crawled under the van and saw that the starter cable had jiggled loose on all the "ripio," or gravel roads we had been driving on. He just reconnected them and Jules roared to life. In my Eskimo language there's an expression that describes someone who has that look that you get when you're proud of yourself: 'uŋa' (pronounced oong-ah). So, how I'd describe this to my mom: "Man, Ben sure uŋa that time." Hahaha! I sure love that guy.
During our drive we'd been talking about reoccurring things we wanted to take photos of along the way. Ben has his "Strange Freight" idea. I think "Car Tinkering" might be a possible theme. Will I regret saying that? Oy.
Another thing I want to document is road-side shrines. There are a ton of them of all sorts of shapes and sizes and reasons. Here's my first entry, a shrine for San Sebastián at the confluencia of the Rio Baker and Rio Chacabuco. The ground was all charred from a recent wildfire that raged through the pampas grass, though you can already see some new growth taking place.
Doug Tompkins and his wife, Kris, started a conservation group that uses their personal wealth to buy giant swaths of land and converts them to public lands. They build the infrastructure and then turns them over to the local government to run as national parks. We visited Parque Pumalin, which is on a peninsula north of Chaitén, Chile, in December with Ben's parents and brother and were impressed with their efforts. Classy is the only way to describe it. They are now constructing Parque Nacional Patagonia near the Chile/Argentina border close to Cochrane, Chile. This park is going to be amazing. You can learn more about them here: http://www.tompkinsconservation.org/about_kris_and_doug_tompkins.htm
Everywhere you go in Patagonia you can see billboards and bumper stickers for PATAGONIA SIN REPRESAS, but once in awhile, on the back of road signs, you'll see PATAGONIA SIN TOMPKINS. This is silly stuff, really, that has to do with anger surrounding a foreigner owning land in Chile (which he then donates back to the government) and limiting the size of the road through Parque Pumalin which slows people down while traveling. In my opinion, Tompkins is doing amazing things and I am impressed with their drive to aid conservation efforts in this amazing place. Here you can see someone covered up Patagonia Sin (I assume) Represas with an anti-Tompkins sticker! Won't be long till this sticker is torn down.
(photo courtesy of abicyclestory.com)
After cruising through Parque Patagonia, checking out the amazing sights, the cool llama-like Guanacos and ostrich-like Ñandú, and filling up our jugs of water right out of the river, we headed towards the Argentinian border. This is where we encountered the giant psycho rabbits. I kid you not. For about 100km, every 30 seconds or less a giant Liebre (or two or three) darted across the road. Sometimes when you're driving at night, which we were, the Liebres get hypnotized by your headlights and charge your car. These are like 20 pound rabbits, eyes glowing red, hopping out of the grass and running head on at your car and jumping up at your lights (which on a Vanagon is right under the windshield so it looks like it is trying to jump into your car). The kids were scared. We thought perhaps we came upon a rabid colony of bunnies. One jumped at us and broke the fog light off our car before hopping away. It was totally stressful, but we, and the rabbits, survived. The Argentinian border guard told us that there are frequent accidents and car damage caused by people hitting or trying to avoid the Liebres. All you can do is drive without headlights. Yeah right. Here's a photo of one of the psycho rabbits chasing us (well maybe that's an exaggeration...)
We continued on into the dark Argentinian desert and began looking for a camping spot. Suddenly Ben stopped and, without explanation, turned around and stopped in the middle of the road.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"You said you wanted to see an armadillo, there's one for you."
"You mean that dead thing?"
"Yup."
"But there are bunnies out there."
It appears, though I only made a quick inspection, that this poor armadillo was killed by getting something (it looked like a type of net) wrapped around its neck at some point and then, as it grew, it was strangled. Cheap.
We finally found our camping spot next to Lago Ghio, which is mentioned briefly in Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia, and feels like you really could be the only one in the world looking at that giant lake at that moment. It's a quiet, lonely feeling.
The next morning we awoke to sunshine. It was warm. We made pancakes in celebration. As we were stinky, Ben and I took our first sponge baths of this trip. Funny how much something like a simple "bath" in the middle of nowhere can re-energize you. The sun felt great. I was a new woman.
There is this tiny tiny town called Bajo Caracoles in Argentina whose claim to fame is the only gas for hundreds of kilometers. This was the first time we experienced the sticker-covered gas pumps that seem to be the norm along Ruta 40 in Argentina. We happened to have some stickers, given to us by Go Westy and our friends at Light Rail Studios in San Francisco, and I decided to tag the gas pumps with them. All I know is that I think Elton at Light Rail would approve of this tiny place.
Here's a good time to mention that Patagonia is a cash-based society, but most little towns don't have ATMs. So get plenty of cash whenever you can, or you'll not have enough to buy a FULL tank of gas--which is what you need to get to the next gas station. This part of Argentina is a whole lot of desert and during a full day of driving on the "main" highway--the famous Ruta 40--we literally only saw 3 other cars. I spent the day a little worried about this man we helped out by giving him a 2 liter bottle of water. He was hitchhiking north and had run out of water and then had lost his bottle when the wind blew it away the day before while waiting for a ride. Not much traffic (or water) in these parts.
We continued our journey towards El Chaltén, Argentina, which is the base for accessing the spectacular Mount Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. In the dark, we somehow got lost amongst huge gravel piles that we thought were the highway near Tres Lagos. I have no idea how we left the highway and wound up in there, but it was freaky. We just had to drive around the piles, tall enough to block out the horizon or any other landmarks, until we found the way out again. Who knows, maybe it was only 3 piles and we just circled them for awhile, but when we rediscovered the highway we were pretty relieved.
And then the wind started. WTF. Now there's windy and then there's WINDY. There are warning signs on the highway about the wind, bizarrely an illustration of a palm tree being blown over. But, in reality, there are no palm trees in these parts. Only pampas grass, which is stiff and doesn't move except for a kind of vibration. Maybe that's why there are signs, because it could be blowing 100 km/hr outside while it looks like perfect calm. Our bread-loaf-shaped car shakes like crazy and is blown all over the road, but the land looks still. On flat ground, our velocity can vary from 30 km/hr to 100 km/hr depending on whether heading into or running with the wind. It's kinda freaky.
(photo courtesy of afewmoremiles.com)
We finally got to El Chaltén and found shelter behind a couple of wind-beaten trees. We raised up the tent and you wouldn't believe how much the car shook. Dylan was scared the car would flip over and we had to assure her that we'd be fine. I'll admit, I was a little scared that the wind would catch the roof and rip it off, but Ben did his best to position the car facing down-wind and we awoke the next morning fully intact, if not a little rattled. We slept in the parking lot for hike to a beautiful waterfall. Only once explaining our great campsite to a ranger did we lean we had camped illegally. No harm.
