Thursday, February 4th 2016
For breakfast we had an interesting concoction made from the ingredients we were able to buy last night: instant mashed potatoes mixed with black beans, canned mixed vegetables, canned sliced mushrooms and canned slices of hearts of palm. It was alright and made enough to take some on the bus with us as leftovers.
We left Villa O'Higgins at 8 AM, having stayed less than 12 hours. We could have found something to do for a day or two, some hiking for sure, but we have heard of people getting stuck here, as buses out don't go everyday. We don't want to be stuck, so we took our first opportunity out.
We traveled in a Sprinter van along the bumpy gravel of the Carratera (highway) Austral. This highway was completed in the 80s, so is still relatively new. Towns along the highway were previously much more isolated. It is known to be a road that was very poorly constructed and caused a lot of environmental destruction. It is barely two lanes, so drivers must have a lot of skills and confidence in dealing with oncoming traffic. Along the way we saw a semi truck in the ditch that had run off the road! It was heavily loaded and looked like it would take a lot of work to get it going again. The road is 1,240 km (770 miles) long, stretching from Puerto Montt in the north to Villa O'Higgins in the South. There are few towns on the highway, most of which are quite small. The population total of all the towns along the entire highway only comes out to about 100,000! We rode for 6 hours, only once passing the turn off for a town. We saw a few ranches. We never left the mountains and we saw what seemed like an endless supply of rushing water in the form of rivers and waterfalls. We also saw many glaciers and plenty of forest. At one point we were stopped for 3 hours waiting our turn for a ferry ride across a narrow fjord at Puerto Yungay. The Carratera is know for being one of the most remote and challenging routes in the world and is popular with motorcyclists, bicyclists, and adventure seeking road trippers.
The actual drive time was supposed to be 6 hours, but with the wait time for the ferry we didn't get to our destination of Cochrane until 5 PM. We arrived hungry for real food and were very happy to find a restaurant with a number of vegetarian options. We each got a fresh raspberry smoothie, a lentil veggie burger with green beans, avocado and tomatoes as toppings and shared a salad with a falafel patty and avocado. What a joy it was to have fresh vegetation! Cochrane is a small town of only about 3,000 people in the middle of nowhere, so it was quite strange, yet wonderful to find this type of food here!
We checked into a guesthouse and settled in for the night.
Friday, February 5th 2016
Today, laundry was a goal of ours as well as figuring out how to go about visiting some nearby parks that we want to see. Cochrane is only 18 km south of the turn off to Valle Chacabuco, also known as the future Patagonia National Park. It is a private park started by Americans Doug and Kris Tomkins. She is the former CEO of the Patagonia outdoor gear brand and he started both the ESPRIT clothing lines and the North Face clothing and gear company. They left the business world many years ago and have since taken part in many conservation projects in Patagonia. The park is one of the largest private parks in the world and was purchased in 2004. Since its purchase, and with the help of volunteers and generous donors, they have been constructing trails and building visitor infrastructure. The land was previously a sheep ranch and had been severely overgrazed, almost to the point of desertification. They have removed countless miles of fences and removed non-native plants grasses. In the 12 years since they have owned it, the landscape has revived greatly, and native animals populations are flourishing. Unfortunately Doug died in a kayaking accident in December. He succumbed to hypothermia after spending nearly 2 hours in an icy glacially fed lake. We were very sad when we learned of this in the news, and were actually inspired to come down here because of it. It got us thinking about the park. Jeff first learned of this park years ago after watching the documentary 180 Degrees South. I have since watched it with him, and we have both shared the desire to visit the park for the last few years.
Even though Cochrane is so close to the park, there in no public transportation and no taxis that are willing go go that far and no one in town seems to know much about it or really care. It seemed no one had ever heard of it, and they certainly didn't know it by the name Parque Nacional Patagonia. We finally learned that people think of it as a farm and still call it Estancia Chacabuco, and they think that is where the Tompkins live. That seems to be the extent of their knowledge. We were very surprised by this.
The only option to get to the park seemed to be to take a northbound bus and ask to be dropped at the highway's junction with the park road. From there it would be another 12 km into the park and would require walking or hitchhiking. The bus ticket would be the full fare of a 6 or more hour ride, and all the upcoming buses are full.
We didn't want to hitchhike and get stuck waiting forever and have to compete with a bunch of other hitchhikers, so we formulated another plan. We read and re read our guidebooks and I read many online travel blogs and searched the Internet for ideas, and somehow I discovered a through hike that we could do that would allow us to start right here in town and visit 3 different parks and reserves. The only downside being that we would have to carry all of our stuff since we wouldn't be coming back to Cochrane.
The hike starts a few km outside of Cochrane at Reserva Nacional Tamango, a small preserve along Cochrane River and Lake. From this reserve it goes over a mountain pass and into Valle Chacabuco where the trail ends at the vistor center and campground area. Once in Chacabuco we will have to find a ride 28 km up the road to the start of another trail that will take us through several glaciated valleys and over two mountain passes to end at Reserva Nacional Jeinimeni, 60 km outside of the town of Chile Chico. This is a town we would like to visit and the scenery along the hike sounds amazing, so it seems like an all around great plan. We don't know how well the trail is marked getting between the parks, the trails aren't officially connected, but we are confident we can find the way.
Once our plan was finalized we gathered groceries for the trip and had a lavish meal, knowing we wouldn't have great food for several days. The selection of grocery items is even more limited here than in in El Chaltén, so our choices were limited. We managed to get enough food, but our purchases unfortunately include junk food!
<Jeff making the traditional Chilean photo pose while we admire the Río Cochrane.>
<View of Cochrane from a hill above the town. There are about 3,000 residents here.>
<Raspberry blended drink.>
<Bread is given at the table of most restaurants and if often comes with smoked chili powder and hot sauce. We are not sure exactly how they are intended to be used, but we spread on the hot sauce and sprinkle on the powder. It is often quite spicy! I think my sisters May and Shannon would like it!>
<Oatmeal, bananas, poison cookie rolls, bread, dried fruit, pasta and sauce, sweetened cocoa powder, canned peaches, and bean soup mix.>
Oh boy. Can't wait to hear how this one turns out...hike a few miles out of town...thumb a ride the next 20 miles or so (unsure of whether anyone actually uses the road regularly - or at all)...traverse mountain passes and glaciated valleys to some place 40 miles in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and the trail might not be marked! Big fun!
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty much how it was! Jeff wasn't a big fan of the idea, I had to convince him!
Delete