Chile's Highway Hazards

I consider myself a prudent driver and somehow, in Argentina, I’ve managed to avoid any road accidents—an impressive record given the recklessness of so many Argentine motorists, a topic on which I’ve written at some length.

My long-ago confrontation with Buses Don Carlos on the Carretera Austral. At that time, the narrow road had steep edges, so almost everyone drove down the middle.

I’ve been less fortunate in Chile, though I generally consider it a safer place to drive. Once, on the Carretera Austral, I had a blind-curve bus confrontation that effectively demolished my own car and left me with broken ribs. A few years later, on the same route, I rolled a rented SUV when a tire blew on rough gravel (at that time, in 2001, almost the entire route was rough gravel), but I managed to avoid injury.

Not the SUV that I rolled.

Nothing quite so serious has happened since, though I later lost another car when I loaned it to a Santiago friend and an uninsured driver blasted through a stop sign, forcing her into a sidewalk telephone pole. She, fortunately, was uninjured and my own insurance company reimbursed me for the damage. That enabled me to buy my current vehicle, a Suzuki Grand Nomade with far lower mileage, so in that sense I actually came out ahead.

My current car on the southern segment of the Carretera Austral, almost none of which is yet paved.

On my current trip, there’s been nothing to match those occurrences, but other issues have manifested themselves. For one, Chile’s prosperity has meant a burgeoning fleet of modern automobiles—most notably SUVs—apparently owned by people with a great sense of self-entitlement (Yes, my own car’s an SUV, but I like to think I’m more considerate and I have pragmatic reasons for owning it). Many appear to be people from urban areas—probably Santiago—who think they can drive as fast on gravel as they can on a freeway.

That’s significant because a couple weeks, as I drove at a reasonable speed on a remaining gravel stretch of the Carretera Austral, south of Villa Cerro Castillo, one of these jerks passed me at high speed and threw a rock that hit my windshield. At first, the sound seemed worse than the actual damage but, in the following days, a crack appeared that’s now progressed almost all the way across the dash.

The windshield's due for replacement on Monday.

It doesn’t really affect my driving, because the crack does not obstruct my view of the road. When, however, the car next receives its annual revision técnica inspection, it would not pass and, therefore, I’ll now have to replace the windshield in Santiago. This will cost money and time that I’d prefer to devote to other parts of my trip, which ends on April 14th.

Another lesser issue was more easily but oddly solved. One of my tires was clearly losing air and, before leaving Puerto Varas for a nine-hour freeway drive to Talca, we pumped up the pressure (Anecdotally, it’s interesting that, even in these metric countries, the default option for measuring tire pressure is pounds per square inch). I thought a nail or broken glass would be the culprit but, on Thursday, the local Firestone store found no such thing—instead, apparently, air was leaking from a loose seal on the tire. It’s not a big deal like the windshield—remounting the tire cost only about US$5—but it’s a reminder that bad roads (like much of the Carretera Austral) can cause unanticipated problems.

Support Southern Cone Travel!

If you've found this article entertaining or otherwise useful, please consider clicking on an ad to earn me a few pennies.

Another Ferry Tale, from Hornopirén

Many times I’ve driven Chile’s Carretera Austral, but it’s been some time since I began at its official starting point in the city of Puerto Montt. On Tuesday, though, I chose to take the shortest leg of roughly 100 kilometers to the port of Hornopirén, where I would catch the Wednesday ferry to Caleta Gonzalo—or so I thought, as I’ll explain below.

The port of Hornopirén

Leaving Puerto Montt, it’s a smoothly paved two-lane road until Caleta La Arena, where the steep headlands still necessitate a ferry crossing to Caleta Puelche, where the road continues to Hornopirén. At the moment, though, this latter segment is one big construction project, with slow single-lane traffic, until within about 20 km of the town.

Once in town, I found a room at a funky hotel which, however, was reasonably comfortable and had better WiFi than I’d had in purportedly posh Puerto Varas the previous couple days. I’d purchased my Caleta Gonzalo ferry tickets online, but had to report to the local Somarco office to get them printed out.

There’s not a lot to do in Hornopirén other than wait for the ferry, but I found the pleasantly surprising Cafetería Rincón Piedra Lobo down the block for an ave palta (chicken breast and avocado sandwich) on homemade bread, plus a calafate sour for a nightcap. Later at night, though, it started pouring rain and, the next morning, I learned our departure was tentatively moved from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Even if that change had happened, it would’ve been inconvenient because the Ruta Bimodal itinerary I’d booked is a ferry shuttle, with two separate crossings linked by ten-km gravel road. This would have meant a very late arrival at my planned destination of Chaitén where, I learned, the storm had left the town without electricity. There were also rumors of trees fallen onto the gravel road from Caleta Gonzalo through Parque Nacional Pumalín Douglas Tompkins.

Hospitable Hotel Hornopirén is about as good as basic gets.

That meant another night in Hornopirén, where I moved to the gracious (and slightly cheaper) Hotel Hornopirén, where my room was smaller but far cozier. During the night, though, heavy rains still pounded the sheet metal roof (typical of this area), and I worried there might be another postponement.

Boarding the Capitán Andrade at Hornopirén

At first light, the clouds still hung low over the mountains, but the movement of ships in the harbor showed that the navy had lifted the port closure. And, as it happened, the Capitán Andrade—a spacious ferry with comfortable seating for passengers and small cafeteria with empanadas, sandwiches and kuchen—sailed on time up the lengthy Fiordo Comau. From the ramp at the hamlet of Leptepu, all the vehicles (and bus passengers) rode the 10 kilometers to Fiordo Largo, where we boarded the Andrade’s twin ferry Hornopirén for a shuttle to Caleta Gonzalo.

A view along the Fiordo Comau

I wasn’t sure what to expect here, especially since I’d received a friend’s alarming Twitter message about floods, the park’s evacuation, and conditions in Chaitén, but those turned out to be mistaken. But for a few potholes, the road was fine and, when I got to Chaitén, all was back to normal (though a crew was restoring some power lines). After a brief stop to purchase a ferry ticket to Chiloé on the 19th, I was on my way to La Junta’s Hotel Espacio y Tiempo for a restful evening.

My modest quarters at Hotel Espacio y Tiempo

Support Southern Cone Travel!

If you've found this entertaining and/or informative, please consider clicking on an ad to earn me a few pennies.

Patagonian Pinot Noir.. and Other Oddities

In mid-summer, the vines are lush at Nant-y-Fall

Last year, I wrote about what was then (and still is, for the time being), the world’s southernmost winery. In Argentina’s Chubut province, Viña Nant y Fall lies just across the border from Chile’s whitewater Mecca of Futaleufú but, at that time, its owner/founder Sergio Rodríguez could not yet offer any wines from the young Pinot Noir vines. Everything was in place, but the first harvest was still aging in the tanks.

A roadside sign points the way to Nant-y-Fall

While driving from Argentina into Chile, I first saw Nant y Fall in 2014, when its roadside sign drew my attention. It was, it turned out, was more than just a winery—it was also an offbeat hybrid of motorhome park, campground and farm that stocked and sold products from throughout the area. While its owner/founder Sergio Rodríguez could not yet provide wine on my previous visits, this time I anticipated tasting the product, though there was one glitch—actually getting there from Futaleufú, as I had driven north along Chile’s Carretera Austral.

In early 2014, the vines at Nant-y-Fall were sparse.

A couple weeks earlier, I had walked from Chile Chico to Los Antiguos, Argentina, because a bureaucratic glitch would not allow me to take my car across the border, and the same was true for this visit to the Argentine side of the border. In this case, though Nant y Fall, unlike Los Antiguos, was some 30 kilometers from the border post—not a distance I could walk in an hour or so. I can cycle that distance on pavement but, on an undulating gravel road, it would have taken me several hours.

The Argentine border post at Futaleufú is barely 100 meters from the Chilean side.

Fortunately, after I spoke with Sergio, he recruited his father to pick me up at the border. After leaving my car on the Chilean side and passing through Chilean and Argentine immigration, it was only a few minutes before he appeared. Within half an hour, we arrived at Nant y Fall, where the vines now covered four hectares of low rounded hills and a narrow road led to its namesake arroyo.

Creekside campsite at Nant-y-Fall

Here there are several parking sites for RVs, with picnic tables and grills, and grassy sites for tents that would make it an ideal stopover for cyclists bound to or from Futaleufú (Nant y Fall is only half a kilometer north of the international highway between the Argentine town of Trevelin and the Chilean side), especially if the border’s closed (hours are 8am-9pm in summer, to 8pm the rest of the year). There’s a freestanding building with showers and toilets for campers and RVers, and also a couple rooms—one double with a private bath and a four-bed dorm with shared bath—in the nearby showroom/workshop/garage.

Family suite at Nant-y-Fall

Before returning to Futaleufú, I had a look at other regional products that the winery sells and here, and lunch with a taste of the 2016 Pinot Noir—and then bought a bottle to take back across the border and home to California. It was so recently commercialized that no labels were yet available, so I’ve had to improvise one.

This pioneer Patagonian Pinot awaits the proper occasion.

In March, the winery hosted its initial Fiesta de la Vendimia en Chubut, the showcase for the province’s small but growing wine industry. It’s worth adding that, although Nant y Fall is presently the world’s southernmost winery that may change—on the south side of the international highway there are newly planted vines, though no new winery is yet under construction.

Sergio Rodríguez with visitors at Nant-y-Fall

Chile Declares New Patagonian Parks Route

Long segments of the Carretera Austral still pass through wild areas with few or no services.

Imagine a highway through the wildest parts of Alaska’s Panhandle—where the terrain allows no continuous roads—and, if you look south, you’ll find the rough equivalent in Chile’s Carretera Austral. It passes through a thinly peopled region of sprawling steppes and craggy volcanic uplands, dense rainforests surrounding soaring summits, powerful whitewater rivers, and deep fjords and navigable channels with countless islands, marine mammals, and even glaciers that reach the sea. It makes a matchless road trip, with world-class adventure options for cycling, trekking, climbing, rafting, and kayaking, along a track that, relatively speaking, is still barely marked—much less beaten.

The Piedra del Gato viaduct bridges a section of the narrow Río Cisnes canyon.

In the early 1990s, the late environmental philanthropist Douglas Tompkins and his widow Kristine McDivitt envisioned a project to preserve Patagonia’s thinly populated Aisén region in an interconnected system of national parks. On a continent where skeptics have traditionally viewed large landholdings, especially those controlled by foreigners, with suspicion, they created the 1,117-square mile Parque Pumalín and the 1,015 square-mile Parque Patagonia—formerly a sheep ranch—with the intention of donating them to the Chilean state.

Kristine McDivitt (center) speaks to a group of potential donors at Parque Patagonia.

In some parts of the region, wire fences still keep sheep from becoming roadkill but, in others, the removal of sheep and fences has allowed native wildlife like guanacos to thrive, restoring a wildness that ranching had diminished but could not destroy. Now, after adding stylish infrastructure to mimic parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite, the Tompkins vision has finally gained approval from the Chilean government, which just announced creation of a Ruta de los Parques—“Route of the Parks”—that will promote a string of wildlands in the country’s southernmost region. Several existing reserves will be upgraded to national park status.

In the new Ruta del los Parques, access should improve to little-visited units like Parque Nacional  Corcovado.

Chile’s national parks will soon occupy a percentage of its territory comparable to that of Costa Rica, a much smaller country. In a Santiago memorial service, Socialist President Michelle Bachelet described Tompkins as a “world-class philanthropist.”

Highway improvements should reduce incidents like my encounter with a bus on a blind curve.

As pavement and other improvements proceed on a highway that’s still mainly gravel (and where I myself have wrecked two 4WD vehicles, with extenuating circumstances), 2018 will be a key year—the coming austral summer will be the first full season for the Ruta de los Parques. Even as the region’s appeal becomes better known and the infrastructure improves—long segments of the highway still have few or no services—the surrounding area should become an ever wilder attraction.

Parque Pumalín from the new trail to the crater of Volcán Chaitén