The rest of Northern Patagonia and then?

No rest for the wicked, or maybe, just a bit. I needed a couple of days off from the hiking, the walking, the climbing, the planning, all the stuff that one does when adventure, budget travelling. It's fun but sometimes I admit that it would be nice to have more funds at my disposale to be able to eat out more instead of self catering almost all the time, to be able to stay at fancy hotels with heat, and use flights more. I guess I could, but my retirement funds would likely come to end before I would come to an end. I am definitely not complaining, I feel super furtunate to be in this position, I'm just musing, commenting you might say... 😉

After Villa Cerro Castillo, we had a couple of other towns to hit, hikes to do, and stunning lakes and mountains to ogle going south before turning around and heading back up to Coyhaique. Normally one might not be too keen on retracing one's steps but in the case of the Carretera Austral, we're more than happy to do it because the scenery is truly stunning.

First up was Puerto Rio Tranquilo where the big draw is a boat ride or kayaking out to the Marble Caves (Capillas de Mármol), a series of intricate caverns, tunnels, and islands composed of solid marble, sculpted over thousands of years by the lapping waves of General Carrera Lake (Lago General Carrera). For more info check here,

https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/marble-ca…

We kayaked of course because that's way more fun. We took the tandem kayak which provided more stability for our resident photographer, Gigi!, to be able to take pics, while yours truly was working it at the back, paddling and steering. The formation of at least one of the caves is, shall we say, interesting. See if you can spot it. As an aside, 'kayak' is another English word with fucked up spelling...I mean, why Ka annd not Ki...bloody English. Anyhooo...it was quite lovely and we even had a spell of crazy Patagonian weather when the winds really picked up and the waves became a little unnverving. It felt like sea kayaking for a while.

OK, on to our most southerly stop in Northern Patagonia, Cochrane, where Gi and I did a couple of pretty easy hikes in Patagonia National Park one day totalling about 17 or 18 km. This steppe region is quite different from what we'd been hiking previosuly in Patagonia and it was nice to have a change of scenery, especially right before we go to Southern Patagonia and the massive mountains of Torre del Paine in a few days. Guanacos rule the land here as you'll see by the pictures and videos I took. Trying not to confuse all the camelids I've seen on this trip, I did a quick Duck Duck Go search to come up with, "There are four species of South American camelids: llama, alpaca, vicuña, and guanaco. Two of them are domesticated (llama and alpaca), while the other two live in the wild (vicuña and guanaco). All are perfectly adapted to the altitude and extreme climate of the Andes." So there you go.

We also saw a condor, some other interesting birds, such as the Cinereous Harrier, ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinereous_harrier ) and Southern lapwing, but alas, no pumas. Now you might be wondering if wanting to see a puma is smart, and I'd understand that sentiment because if you see a puma, it definitely sees you, which might be a problem. But apparently, puma attacts on humans, in this area at least, are exceedingly rare and we were told there's only been one recorded human death at the hands, or should I saw, the paws of a puma. I think they prefer the various fauna on offer around them, like the many, many, guanacos. There are pumas where we hiked and sightings are not super rare but we had no such luck. There was a very cool, slightly unnerving suspension bridge that took us over the Rio Chacabuco about 80 metres below. Once we crossed, we headed down another km to a lovely spot for our lunch, as is our custom.

I took the next day off but Gi, who's becoming quite the trekker, did a nice 20 km hike and walked from town to and from the park entrance adding about 8 km! OK, I think that about covers it for now. Maybe a quick word on the towns...they're cute, chill and each has it's own character. I thnk my fave was Cerro Castillo - mostly because of the all the hard core hikers and hitchhikers we saw. Not too many frou frou travellers here.

Oh, and more more thing, the Maracuá variety (passionfruit) that is found is South America is sooo delicious. I've had the juice, ice cream (amazing!) and just now, a maracuyá cheesecake tartelette, maybe the yummiest cheesecake I've ever had.Read more