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Villa O’Higgins sounded interesting and so we decided to go there for Christmas. The Carretera Austral  (Ruta 7) is long and winding road in Southern Chile, 1240 km long, it starts in Puerto Montt and runs all the way south to Villa O’Higgins. It is interrupted by fjords that are crossed by ferries. Construction of the this road started in the 1970s on the orders of General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean president of the time. Patagonia is very challenging when it comes to building a road, everywhere you look there are obstacles, mountains, lakes and fjords, rivers and glaciers. There was no land route that provided access to the isolated territory of southern Chile until this road was completed 2003. It finally connected the north with Villa O’Higgins. Lago O’Higgins marks the end of the road.

It has been described to us as a very beautiful road and we planned to drive it from one end to the other.
But our plans changed. On our way to O Higgins we encountered fog rain and snow.
O’Higgins is a strange little town, few people out and about, a new and empty square, trails that look nice on the tourist information but most are really not passable or disappear. The bad weather didn’t help. We camped at hostal El Mosco, more or less a biker hostal.
Lots of bikers here. Remember, the ones that we saw heading to Lago Desierto from El Chalten. They hike, bike and ferry over from Argentina, there is no road.
I looked for the church to see if there was maybe a service on Christmas Eve, a piece of paper nailed to the door said there would be a service at 8 pm. The little church is very small and holds 20 people at the most. So I left it to the locals.

We had our own little Christmas celebration in the camper. I made Glühwein, sausages and sauerkraut, lit the candles, put on Christmas music from back home and we had a very nice evening.
To get away from the bad weather we took off and headed north, and we drove and camped and drove and camped and it rained and rained. Every time we had a few hours of nice weather we took some pictures.

December snow in the middle of summer.

Rock falls and mud slides are a common occurrence on this road

“Socked in”

Villa O”Higgins

At the hostel “El Mosco”

The black lines are the trails, we tried to hike up the Mosco river….

It got worse and eventually the trail disappeared….

Some of the original buildings in town.

Time to get ready for Christmas, the kitties are waiting.

Our neighbors brought a sheep in the back of their car, in no time it was butchered and ready for the Christmas feast.

Leg of lamb and Perro wants his share too.

The old church on the right, the new church with the nativity scene on the left.

Below the nativity scene it looks like they are trying to grow the Christmas trees.

Wow, the sun is out!

Christmas in our camper.

At the visitor center Las Torres at Torres del Paine National Park we were allowed to camp for a few days under a tree and use their facilities. A nice spot, we went for hikes and enjoyed the views and nice weather.
The towers are really a spectacular sight and we were lucky enough to have great weather while we were there.

This is a world-famous destination and gets very busy. I hiked up a hill on the opposite side of the famous sendero Mirador Las Torres and watched hundreds of people file up the trail. Günter had taken it very early the same morning to beat the crowds. (He met them on the way down and had to step off the trail constantly to let large groups pass). You can hear many different languages on the trails. European and North American mostly. I was glad to be all by myself on that hill on the other side, the wind was not up yet. I layed in the grass, watched and listened to the birds and smelled the air – perfumed by the mata negra bushes. Being together so much while traveling is not always easy and can take its toll on any relationship, so having some quiet time to myself was a treat. It was early summer and the flowers were starting to bloom, a great sight. Beautiful orchids and bright red fire bushes were all along the trails. After a few days exploring different sights and going on some hikes we left for Lago Azul, it was incredible blue, lived up to its name. We were not allowed to camp there and after checking the weather forecast, we decided to head for Mount Fitz Roy before the clouds and rain will hide it from view.

Getting closer to the torres.

Breath taking views

When you first drive up to the visitor center at Torres, this is what you see. I just can’t stop taking pictures of the guanacos.

Our camp spot for a few days.

The trail Günter took up to the mirador, right side and start of the “W” treck.

Meanwhile, down below, the rest of the hikers get going.

The mirador!!! What a view!

Mata Negra, I love the smell of this bush.

The mountain in the back is called Condors Nest, the story of the name is on the next photo.

Orcida Porcellana

Lago Azul

Lady Slippers

Back in Ushuaia and with our heads still filled with the images of penguins and icebergs we picked up our camper and said good-bye to the friends we had made on the boat. When we drove out-of-town we reflected on the fact that for the first time we were heading north. Since we left Juneau we had been driving south, the goal was to make it to the southern tip of South America. And we made it! Now it is time to head back, we planned to work our way up the famous Carretera Austral, a road in Chile that winds its way up along the west coast of the continent. On the map it looks a lot like Southeast Alaska. High mountains, dense forests, glaciers, fjords and countless islands.
As it turned out, it WAS very much like Southeast Alaska, our other home.
On our way we visited famous places like Torres del Paine, Mt Fitz Roy and Perito Moreno.
Driving through the vast estancias with their sheep, cattle and wild guanacos it makes you think of the people who live here. So remote and so windy. Yes, the wind is still an issue and it is relentless. Often there is no place to hide and it grabs you (and your vehicle) and shakes you and tries to knock you over.

The indigenous people here lived in simple shelters, hunted guanacos and were more or less naked. Wow, I am walking around wearing a down vest and wool t-shirt, hard to imagine. The wide open pampa is not really that wide open anymore. It is fenced off and many roads are gated. Not so good for the guanacos who don’t always make it when they get tangled up in the fence. Private property is a big deal. Once, when we camped beside a bridge (on public land) and I decided to go for a walk along a big river that ran through estancia land, it did not take long for the estancia manager to show up and question Günter about “the person that’s fishing out there”. He was nice and told Günter that this is a salmon river and they charge people to fish for atlantic salmon in their river. Well, I was not fishing, having commercially fished for salmon in Alaska and with a net for many years, I don’t really feel like angling. (Salmon and trout were introduced in Patagonia and are not endemic, they belong in the northern hemisphere. Between 1904 and 1910 Patagonia in Argentina imported numerous consignments of fertilized eggs of brook trout, landlocked salmon and lake trout from Canada. Patagonia also received shipments of brown trout eggs from Germany, France, Belgium and Great Britain. A consignment of rainbow trout eggs came from the United States and Germany. The United States was the source for the fertilized eggs of sockeye, coho and chinook or king salmon.)

The estancias have huge shearing sheds, butchering sheds and corals for separating the animals. The horses are beautiful, sturdy animals with a nice gait, it is a beautiful sight to see the gauchos on their horses herding the livestock with their dogs.

An Estancia

A huge sheep shearing shed

Ringed kingfisher, he had a nest in the river bank near our camper.

We camped in a field in the middle of an old growth forest of  lengas, a southern beech (deciduous). A formidable tree that can withstand the fierce winds and rough climate of Patagonia. It reaches an average of 30 meters (~100 feet) in height. Its leaves are small and green with sharp, toothed leaf-margins.  Come autumn, the lenga puts on a striking color show across the mountainsides. As the weather begins to chill in April, its leaves change from green into a fiery array of yellows, oranges and reds.

Sadly, the trees are logged out in many places and have to make room for faster growing foreign species like pines and firs.

Guanacos share the pampa with the foxes, rhea and livestock.

Campanilla (Streaked Maiden)

South American grey fox.

The fishing fleet.

To go to Torres del Paine we crossed the border to Chile, stopped at some sleepy little towns, took the ferry from Porvenier to Punta Arenas and drove on to Puerto Natales. The sun was out and the fishing boats were in, so we bought a fish, broke out the bicycles and spent a few days there.

During the zenith of the sheep industry in Patagonia, two large “frigorificos” or cold-storage plants were constructed in the Natales area, of which one has survived. The plant at Puerto Bories, about 4 km NW from Puerto Natales, was a project of the Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego. It was inaugurated in 1913 and in production until 1993. The Cold-Storage Plant was constructed in “Post Victorian Industrial” architectural style and features of number of British machinery examples which reflect the technology of the beginning of the 20th century.

When the sheep industry collapsed and there were only two left (just joking) they turned the cold storage into a hotel (not joking) called “The Singular Patagonia”. We rode our bikes over there and stopped by for Kaffee und Kuchen.

“Wind lovers”