On the move – yet again!

After our Choripan, burrito and nachos, we were feeling quite full, but we were hoping to be a bit sleepy as we had the overnight bus from El Chalten to Los Antiguos. After killing time for a few hours sat on a park bench (with me reading and Hoff off patch hunting again) our bus finally arrived and we settled in for the nearly twelve our ride to the border. As we sat down we were handed our supper – a cheese and tomato roll, a chocolate biscuit, and a carton of juice. It might not sound much, but by bus standards it was gourmet, and we munched it all whilst watching our new favourite Amazon show, James May’s ‘Our man in Japan’. Hoff was soon fast asleep and I wasn’t far behind her, and before we knew it we were waking up 600 km north on the border with Chile. We had to wait an hour or so for the next bus to take us across the border, but we were soon on our way and, apart from some swift munching of trail mix at the checkpoint (no fruit or nuts allowed to cross into Chile), we arrived in the Chilean border town of Chile Chico. Here I left Hoff to guard the luggage whilst I went to bust out my best Spanish. I quickly worked out that we’d just missed a bus to the next town to the west (Rio Tranquilo) which meant we had two options – wait and hope that there would be another bus later on (once they had enough people) or commit to getting the afternoon ferry across the lake and then a bus to Coyhaique, the next stop on our trip. Not wanting to take the gamble on a bus, I committed us (in Spanglish) to the ferry option, so we then had 6 hours to fill until we needed to be at the terminal.

Six hours sounds like a lot, but once we had had a coffee and a beer (after noon obviously), done some car hire research, made a few Skype calls, and then had lunch, it was basically time for us to go, and we schlepped all our bags down to the dock and walked into the ferry across the lagoon. The lagoon is massive and is owned half half by Chile and Argentina. Surrounded pretty much in all sides by snow covered mountains, it’s an impressive and beautiful ride, skirting the border all the way south to north across the lake. The wind was blowing hard and had it not been for the clear blue sky and sunshine, it would have been pretty chilly. Eventually we’d had enough of being windswept so went inside to read our kindles. It was just as well that we did as as we rounded the corner heading north west towards the port, the wind was stirring up the lake into thrashing white horses and the ferry took a fair few clangs from big waves as we came in. Quite a few car alarms went off and as we pulled into the dock, I felt sorry for the people waiting to go back across.

The ramp came down before we’d even stopped moving, and before it had touched the ground, the cars were driving off. Dodging a lorry and a motorbike I grabbed our kit – which had been helpfully piled up in the gangway – and we trooped off like marines leaving a landing craft, heading for our bus. Luckily the driver was there shouting out the name of the company and we were quickly loaded up and belted in. He zipped off at top speed climbing the mountain away from the town. The views were simply amazing in the fading sunlight – it was coming up to 8pm by this time and the sun was beginning to go down – and we would have enjoyed it more had we both not been feeling a little car sick. ‘Drives’ was taking the corners at speed, and it didn’t help that they were pretty much all hairpins, and this, coupled with the lack of ventilation in the back, meant we both felt pretty green. Thankfully the guy behind us must have been feeling the same as once he opened his window, and the road straightened out, we felt a bit better.

Two hours or so later and we were dropped off outside our hostel. It was almost 10pm and getting dark, and we both just wanted some food, a shower, and then to get some sleep. Having slept in bunks or tents for the last two weeks we also just wanted a proper bed. We were greeted at our hostel by three huge Great Danes – dogs that is, not three huge Danish people! The hostel smelt of tuna and dog food (not a good combo) and the owner couldn’t have wanted to get us into our room and get away fast enough (evidently she had better plans for the evening). When I say room, what I really mean is a double bed put into what clearly used to be another non-bedroom part of the house (and had been fashioned into something for human habitation with the addition of some chipboard walls, fibreboard ceilings and see-through plastic for a window.) It was a real dive and had it not been for the fact that it was late, that we were hungry and tired, and that we knew that there were very few other options nearby, we’d have walked out. Hoff braved the shower and came back telling tales of slug trails across the ceiling. All in all it was a bit of a disaster, but we were so knackered that we fell asleep in the dirty bed anyway.

The next morning, having had what turned out to be actually a pretty good night’s sleep (it was warm and not a sleeping bag, and we were pooped from all the walking and travelling, so we were bound to sleep well), we reluctantly paid the rather rude hostel owner and got out as quick as we could (Hoff having looked under the bed when doing her final sweep of the room and almost gagged at the dirt). Our plan was to walk into town and have breakfast, over which we would sort out our next moves. Our initial thoughts had been to stay in Coyhaique for a few days of hiking, then aim for Puerto Montt, a larger town in the north of Patagonian Chile, then reassess from there. However, our knees were still recovering from all the hiking, so we decided to press on sooner to PM. However, we weren’t quite sure how we were actually going to get there. On the way to breakfast we tried all the local car hire places, all of which were full or charging ridiculous amounts for a one way heading north. Writing that option off, we found a small cafe to eat at and decided that our next port of call would be the ferry (no pun intended). However, thirty hours sat in a non reclining seat didn’t really tickle our fancy, so we decided against that one too.

That left a bus or a flight. We decamped and wandered around the town, looking for some WiFi to get online and somewhere to stay for another night. We found a cafe and reluctantly coughed up for some Lipton tea. When you ask for a black tea I.e. English style tea, overseas, out come the Lipton tea bags. They are pretty low down on the ‘decent tea’ scale and produce what can only be described as a slightly off white (once milk is added) and very weak cuppa. Nevertheless, it was cold outside and we needed the WiFi, so we chugged down the milky nothingness and got on Google Flights. Minutes later we were on the verge of making what for us felt like the most spontaneous travel decision we’d ever made. Hoff had found a flight leaving in 3 hours from the local airport. It was only £50 or so each, and having found that there was an uber they could get us to the airport in time to make the flight, we decided there and then to throw caution to the wind and book the flight the same day. As we hurriedly paid for the crap teas (forgotten in our excitement) and I set about booking the uber, Hoff started booking the flights…….