Sam in South America: The Careterra Austral

Hola! I write to you from the tiny village of El Hoyo, 3 miles from the organic farm that I´ve been volunteering on for a week now. I love it here, but internet is not close and so I´m a little behind here. Before the farm, I spent a week in Chile and so here´s that summary. I´ll write all about my farm experiences in the next blog entry.

Ah, the unexpected! I had no intention of crossing back into Chile after Torres del Paine... but faced with a decision of a 22 hour boring bumpy bus ride on ruta 40 in Argentina or a more exciting and unpredictable route through Chile with the potential for hot springs... well, you know which way I went...

Lush beauty, constant rain, and complicated, barely existent buses are what characterize this region of Chile. Ira and I sort of knew what we might be getting ourselves into when the word on the gringo trail was be prepared to get stuck. As in stuck in a tiny village without a bus leaving in the next few days. We were mentally prepared to hitch-hike if that happened. Many folks do and it´s safe here. In the end, we did really well figuring out the bus schedule and only got ¨stuck¨ for 6 hours waiting for our bus in tiny Villa Santa Lucia (dubbed a dot of misery on the map... there is nothing there!). Could have been much worse though! This was a trip of extremes... we had some of our best and our worst food and lodging within 24 hours.

The Chilean side of the Andes is shockingly different from the Argentine side. This region of Chile reminded me of the Olympic peninsula in Washington state... lush, wet forests, cool misty rain, overcast skies, waterfalls, snow-capped mountains, delicious seafood along with picturesque fishing boats in tiny villages, and lots of water all around. It´s a world away from the rain-shadow induced desert-like environment just over the border.

The hot springs that tempted me into this little detour in the first place were definitely worth it (imagine soaking in hot water looking out over the fjord to the mist-shrouded mountains; jealous yet?), and we even had an unexpected companion when a small golden brown dog joined us for the long walk back to town (Puyuhaupi).

In the end, with only a few stressful moments of wondering if we´d make it onto the next bus, the Careterra Austral was worth the detour from ruta 40.

After crossing back into Argentina, we made our way back to the gringo trail in El Bolson, and Ira and I spent one last day together exploring this laid-back hippie town and surrounding forests. This area has a unique microclimate that lends itself to growing yummy fruits and veggies. There are locally-made products everywhere and the fresh fruit makes for the best licuados and ice cream! More on El Bolson and farm life in the next post!