Chile: Cochamo & Puerto Varas

I spent most of the next day getting ready for my next trekking. Ben left in the evening. I went a bit in the city which is actually very touristic but still nice. I went to a restaurant with great seafood in the evening and met Miguel Angel (we shared a table as both of us were alone), a spanish guy working and living in Amsterdam and who was traveling for 1 month. We spoke for more than 1.5 hours in the resto as well a bit with a couple of Argentinians behind us and with the waitresses. Great evening :)

January 17th, I took a bus in the morning with my trekkin bag (left some stuff at the hostel) and went to Cochamo valley. It's not a national park and therefor no entry fee. Lots of people go there for few days of holidays with friends or family. Mostly Chileans from santiago. The bus goes as far as the road can go at the beginin of the valley. Then there is a 3 hour hike (5 hours according to the information) to a campground called La Junta. It's in the middle of the valley with great mountains around which look a bit like Yosemite park for those who know it. It's very famos for climbers as well. I arrived at la Junta quite early so I decided to continue to he next campground as I wanted to explore a bit further the hike which goes all the way to Argentina. The second part of the hike was actually really boring: always in the trees without views, the path is destroid by he horses and full of mud; really no interest. He only cool thing was the cascade when arrivig at the camp El Arco.

The next day I went a bit further toward Argentina but leaving my bag at El Arco. Nce again not muh interest even if it was a bit better than between La Junta and El Arco. Once back at El Arco, I packed evry thi and left to go back to La Junta where I arrived in the evening.

January 19th I went on a hike to Cerro Arco Iris which is a summit next to the camping. It's only going up all the time and is pretty difficult some times with ropes and so on to be able to climb. The view from the mirrador is amazing. You can see the entire valley! I didn't go al the way to the laguna because I got an inflamation in my knee and even had to go back down to the campground walking backward because going down normaly was too painful. Just before raching the camping I went to a natural slide in the river really fu to do and with the water not too cold :)

January 20th I went back to Puerto Varas where I could finaly buy some cream for my knee which was really not getting better.

I stayed in Puerto Varas until today (27th of january) doing pretty much nothing to try to get my knee back to normal. I went to see the doctor which gave me some drugs to take for one week and told me to put ice on my knee. I'll stay in Puerto Varas until Friday at least...

January 28th I went by bus to Ensenada which is one hour away from Puerto Varas. It's a beach which is at the feet of the volacno Osorno. Super nice view and good to finaly do something!

Chile: Carratera Austral (Tortel, Chaiten)

The next day I tryed hitch hikking to Cochrane but no one took me for 4 hours (we were too many people trying to hitch hike) so at the end I took a bus. Bad weather but still some nice views.

January 11th, I took a bus to go to Tortel, a small village whih only have wooden path (no streets on the ground). I got lucky ad actually managed to take a boat for the last part of the trip and arrived to Tortel by boat throuht the beautiful islands. I met 2 chilean guys on the boatwhich wee here to do some tourism prospections... The village is really unique and even if it was raining a bit, I found it really nice. Arriving by boat was a big plus cause I started at the end of the village where there are no tourist. It was actually much bigger than what I thought and had to hurry a bit my exploration of all the streets to catch the bus to go back to Cochrane. Once again the bus was stopping in super remote places where few families are living.

The next day I took a bus from Cochrane to Coyhaique where I stayed one night. I wanted to go directly to Cochamo from Coyhaique the next day but there are no direct buses and I actually have to pass by Puerto Montt to catch a bus down to Cochamo.

At the end, on January 13th I took a bus to Chaiten. The bus passed through the park of Queulat on a very bad road and bad weather but the vegetation is super dense and impressive. It realy looked like the jungle!! I met Ben, on american guy, on the bus with whome I stayed the next 2 days. He is doing some woofing around Chile. We arrived mid afternoon in Chaiten and found a hostel. He weather got mih better and we saw a great sunset on the city. Chaiten is really nicely placed with the ocean on one side (with otaris swimming around) and mountains with dense jungle on the otherside. And amon the mountains around, there is an active volcano which has smoke coming out of it; really nice!

The next day Ben and I took a bus to hike toward the volcano. Super nice weather when we left but by the time we arrived to the place with the view on the volcano it got all cloudy and we coudn't see anything. We met 4 girls from chile, 4 guys from chile, 2 guys from the US and a guy from Germany while waiting on top fornthe weather to clear up. We managed to see up to some fumes but couldn't see the complet top. And of corse by the time we got back to Chaiten it was possible to see the entire volcano... Still realy nice and we spend a good time with the 4 hiean guys chating for quite some time there. In the evening we met 2 Australians at the hostel who were gong down the patagonia with inflatable kayaks. Quite impressive adventurers!

January 15th Ben and I took a bus to Puerto Montt (faster than the ferry at the end and the ferry was all booked anyway). Super oong travel with a not so great bus. The ool thin was that we had to take 3 short different ferries. It was a great way to have breaks and amazin views! Ben and a Chilean guy plaed great music on one of the ferry making the trip even better. We ended up catching a bus to Puerto Varas from Puerto Montt and found a hostel there.

Chile: Carratera Austral (Cerro Castillo and Rio Tranquilo)

We arrived the next morning in Puerto Chacabuco and took 2 buses to reach Coyhaique. It's a quite rich city and touristic as well because it is he largest city of the entire region of the carratera austral. There were no buses to go to Cerro Castillo the next day so I bought one for the 7th. I went around the city to buy a tent to be able to do trekkings here. At the hostel I et te french family that I met in Puerto Madryn several weeks ago :) I met again Juan and Aitana in the evening at a view point and gave my old shoes and sleeping bag to Juan (they were going to hike in el chalten and torres del paine) so that I had enough space for the tent and other trekking equipments.

The 6th I spent the day in Coyhaique, finishing to get ready for the trekk I wanted to start the next day.

The next day I took a bus which dropped me at the begining of the trekk of Cerro Castillo. The weather was great and I was all alone for quite some time. I had to remove my shoes to cross small rivers a couple of times, it was fun but cold! A bit before noon, I met Jeff, 68 years old and continued with him all the way to the camping. Jeff is from England (Galles to be precise), looks like Bilbo the hobbit and is the probably the most bad ass adventurer I met so far. He traveled around the world his entire life, doing trekkings, hitch hikking,... He did a bunch of jobs and in particular teaching in lots of different fields. Really an impressive person! After reaching the first camping I went to do a hike Jeff told me about to get closer to a glacier but unfortunately I was too short on time to get close enough. The campings here are not like in Torres del Paine: it's just a place where you are allowed to put your tent, there is one picnic table, one latrine and it's free.

The second day I left a bit before 9am after saying goodbye to Jeff and started hikking. I did a long day as I walked 21kms and had to do 2 path pretty hard (steep and in the rocks). The weather was cloudy but I still had amazing views! I met one spanish guy and a group of 4 Chileans later with whom I spent a bit of time but otherwise I was alone most of the time. The 2nd path is really impressive (altitude of 1700m) and gives a great view on the carratera austral and the summits around. And the way down is really dangerous because very steep, in he rocks and with big wind bursts. When arriving at the campin down the 2nd path I didn't really liked it so I continued to camping Neozelandes while it was starting to rain. When I arrived I was completely alone in the camping and I was at my physical limit (I was starving!!). Two guys arrived later at the camping but I was already sleeping :)

January 9th: amazing weather for the last day of the trekk! I decided to go all the way to a laguna in which a glacier ends and I actually went to swim in it! Really cold but really cool! I then went back down to the camping and packed up to go down and finish the trekk to Villa cerro Castillo. Amazing views gain on the way down on the cerro Castillo (named like this because it looks like a castle), the mountains around and the carratera austral. As I was finishing the trekk on a dirt road, two chilean guys gave me a lift in the back of their pickup all the way to Puerto Tranquilo (exactly where I wanted to go). The road was amazing and seeing it from the back of the pickup was just perfect (except for all the dust when following other vehicles). A bit before Puerto Tranquilo we took 2 other hitch hikers from Israel. When we arrived, we found a hostel and directly went with the Israelian couple to do a boat tour to the marbel cathedral (marble caves with amazingly blue waters). Really beautiful and lot of fun when I went swiming in the marble cathedral but as well on the way back when the boat driver was having fun in the waves (it was a small fisher boat).