Reaching the end of Carretera Austral

The bus ride to Villa O'Higgins seemed endless. At least there was a free ferry ride with nice views in between to spice things up, but the whole thing took like 7 hours. Research had told us that it was gonna be very cold and the positive reviews of a hostel with a true Finnish sauna convinced us to choose that rather than camping in lots of rain and 2-7 degrees. It ended up being a good decision, and one that most people took as we recognised a lot of hikers there that we met earlier on the Carretera Austral.

Villa O'Higgins is one of the smaller towns on the route and the one where the road simply ends. There is no land-line, there is one turbine and a diesel-generator for electricity. Card-payments and phone calls only work if the reception is good. The Internet is unstable since everything goes via satellite. To say it with the words of our hostel: 'Think about how difficult it was to get here. Similar things happen to our WiFi.'

As there is no road to southern Chile, the only ways to get there are via long ferry rides, or by driving back north and driving via Argentina. We however are going to Argentina anyway to check out El Chaltén and meet up with Franzi.

Our main goals for the day were buying some food for dinner and breakfast and organizing transportation for the border crossing. Turns out that other people were right, there is really not much available here. Vegetables are limited to half-rotten carrots, pumpkin and decent cucumber or courgettes, and fruits are rare. Thinking of a meal and then buying it doesn't work. You have to see what's available and then make a meal of it. We ended up with a decent tortellini with tomato-olive-sauce dish.

We headed out early to find out prices for the border crossing. The way from here to El Chaltén consists of first taking a boat to cross a lake. Afterwards there is a 22km hike in which you pass the Chilean border office in the beginning and the Argentinean one in the end. You then arrive to the next lake where you can either again take a boat or hike around. From the other side of the second lake you can hitchhike or take the bus to El Chaltén.

Us being undecided as always, by the time we had finally decided on how we wanted to do the crossing, the first tour operator did not have space for us anymore on Wednesday. Luckily there is a second one in town and we could reserve our spots here. However, the weather is unpredictable here and because of strong winds the first lake can be unpassable by boat on Wednesday. So we have to keep our fingers crossed.

The rest of the day we enjoyed the very cosy hostel, updated some footprints and enjoyed the company and stories of some other travellers.Read more