Coyhaique

Our drive here was super interesting...

Heading south, we were directed by our GPS to turn right suddenly down a terrible dirt road through what appeared to be nothing but barren fields as far as the eye could see.

We decided to trust it, potentially at our own peril, and ended up driving west through these fields on this, at times, BRUTAL, dirt road, crossed the border at a weird farm house in the middle of NOWHERE, and eventually ended up surrounded by these gorgeous Chilean hills and flowers.

We were immediately struck by the change in landscapes crossing the border between Argentina and Chile. The hills came out of nowhere, these gorgeous purple and yellow flowers lined the hills, and the road ended up cresting the hill over gorgeous Coyhaique.

Of course the pictures do no justice to the scale and grandeur of the valley in which Coyhaique lies.

Gotta say though, we were had, once again, by Chile. We had one day and had planned to do a hike in the natural reserve nearby, only to find out on our arrival that entry tickets were required to be purchased ahead of time, and the park closed at 2pm, which wouldn't have left us enough time to complete the 18km we had planned. C'est la vie en Chile!

Nonetheless, it's beautiful and we spent our time checking out a couple viewpoints near the town, and made sure we were well supplied for the next leg of our journey.Les mer