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

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Chaitén Reborn

Almost every year, when I head to South America for the summer, I look forward to revisiting the Chilean port of Chaitén – in reality, a modest ferry terminal that connects the major port of Puerto Montt with the Carretera Austral, the southern highway that winds through an area as wild as the Alaska Panhandle.

I first saw Chaitén in 1992, while updating a guidebook, and the view of the Andes rising steeply behind the shoreline was unforgettable. At that time, the town and its surroundings had only about 3,600 inhabitants, but it would soon become one of the access points to Parque Pumalín, the audacious forest conservation project of the late environmental philanthropist Douglas Tompkins. I revisited regularly, but there was a hiatus in 2008, when a surprise eruption of the town’s namesake volcano forced its evacuation.

For a time, Chaitén was a Chilean Pompeii – the volcano did not set the town on fire, but waterlogged ash flowed down the Río Blanco to bury many of its wooden houses under two meters or more of cement-hard debris. The Chilean government tried to move the settlement north, to a more protected area but, while visiting Futaleufú a year later, I drove to Chaitén for the day and found, to my surprise, that a quite a few residents had decided to return. The mountain was still smoking, and many houses and vehicles barely showed beneath the ash, but several residents had cleaned up their properties – including a couple waterfront hotels – and forced the government to provide tanks of potable water.

I’ve had my doubts about Chaitén – and probably wouldn’t invest in local real estate – but seven years later I’m impressed by the effort to rebuild. Last January, I saw a new regional airport, new ferry installations, a new park and playground along the river, and private initiatives including a sparkling new hostel, restaurants, and even an appealing food truck (not so long ago, its espresso would have been unthinkable here). There’s a trail to the top of the volcano now and, while Chaitén is no luxury destination, it’s a rewarding one. I look forward to returning again in November.

Food Trucks for Patagonia

Perhaps my favorite route in southernmost South America remains Chile’s Carretera Austral, running through a region as wild as the Alaska Panhandle and the Canadian Yukon. Its downside, though, is the paucity of services – there is only one city, the regional capital of Coyhaique, and except for scattered resorts, there are few places to grab a bite along the highway.

That’s changing, though, even in some of the smaller settlements as the highway improves and road trips become more common. One intriguing aspect is the arrival of food trucks such as Coyhaique’s Kawescar (pictured at top), just a block off the pentagonal Plaza de Armas, but also in out of the way places such as Villa Cerro Castillo, where La Cocina de Sole (pictured above) occupies two parked buses where the southbound pavement ends (though preparations for paving the next segment are well underway).

Lupe’s is basically a roadside sandwich shop, with quality versions of Chilean comfort food such as the Barros Luco (beef and grilled cheese) or ave palta (chicken with avocado, pictured below) on homemade pan frica (hold the mayo, please!). It’s comfortable inside, prices are modest, and it gets plenty of motorists and cyclists passing through town (or staying in town, for that matter). For me, it’s the best of the bunch.

On the way north, though, I found another appealing food truck (a bus really, like Sole’s) in the town of Chaitén, which is making an impressive comeback after a major volcanic eruption and subsequent forced evacuation in May of 2008. I still wouldn’t buy property there, but I’m happy to stay in a town that hasn’t completely recovered an already limited restaurant scene, the new Natour food bus is a welcome development.

That said, the region’s food truck scene is in its infancy compared to more northerly destinations. The resort town of Puerto Varas, outside the ferry port of Puerto Montt, has the most diverse food truck scene along its lakeshore. Varas also has many fine dining options, but the food trucks (and buses) – with Chilean, French, German and even Mexican choices, are a welcome change of pace.

Up the Volcano!

This past southern summer, one of my goals was to climb a volcano. The original idea was to strap on crampons to reach the crater of Chile’s Volcán Villarrica (pictured above, it's Rukapillán to the indigenous Mapuche), near the resort town of Pucón, but a seismic alert that culminated in a startling eruption on March 3rd postponed that option.

I returned to Pucón late last month – with the volcano still smoking if not quite threatening – but in the interim I had found an alternative. While driving north on the Carretera Austral, I reached the town of Chaitén, recently resettled since a dramatic eruption of its own namesake volcano (pictured above) in May of 2008. The clouds of ash and a subsequent flood had forced its evacuation then.

When I visited the town a year later, the volcano was still smoking, with cars and houses nearly buried beneath the ash, and the southern beech forests of nearby Parque Pumalín – an audacious private conservation project – were nearly denuded (as pictured above).  This year, though, a lush green understory of ferns, rhubarb-like nalcas and shrubs (pictured below) surrounded the still pallid tree trunks – a handful of which had resprouted - and the park had opened a trail to the rim of the volcano’s crater.

A misleading sign (pictured below) suggested a three-hour round-trip to the rim and back but, on a hot late-summer day in this usually cool damp climate, it took me twice that - especially given the steep staircases that comprised much of the trail, and the blisters I favored after another hike in Torres del Paine. Statistically, the climb was 600 meters in just 2.2 kilometers, a roughly 27 percent gradient, though it seemed even steeper and longer.

There were quite a few other hikers, several of them Argentines taking advantage of a three-day weekend to cross the border from the city of Esquel. Four Chilean hikers included two women, one of whom was wearing heels – not quite exactly stilettos, but more like high-heeled sneakers that could not have been comfortable, and would have been especially awkward on the descent. They didn’t quite make it to the rim, but their husbands did.

Seemingly designed for NBA forwards, the staircases (it's not I in the photo above) made it exhausting but when I reached the rim (pictured below), at the same time as a couple young French sisters, we could see the smoke seeping from the crater and hear a low rumble. Still barren at the top, it was nevertheless not at the point of expelling large clouds of ash, much less volcanic bombs or lava. Still, in late afternoon, we didn’t tarry in returning.

Given the steepness and loose ash, the descent was trickier than the ascent, but less tiring. At the end of the day, I was glad to have done it, and glad that it was over, and I’m still hoping to tackle Villarrica the next time I’m in Pucón – presuming the threat of another eruption continues to recede.

Skiing the Carretera Austral? In Summer?

Over the past week, as I’ve proceeded south on Chile’s Carretera Austral, I’ve seen many cyclists on what is one of most scenic routes in the Americas – a decade ago, it was still a little unusual but, as the highway has gained notoriety, I’ve seen dozens or more every day. Leaving the town of La Junta, though, I spotted something so unusual that, at first, I thought I might have been hallucinating: on a rise ahead of me, there appeared to be an upright human figure waving his arms in the middle of the route as he advanced south.

If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it was a skier and, as I overtook him, I was surprised to see that my guess was correct, in a way. Pulling off onto the roadside and engaging him in conversation, I learned it was a young man from Viña del Mar wearing wheeled “skis” as he attempts to travel the road from Chaitén (about 150 km north) to Villa O’Higgins (another 840 km south).

In effect, it’s cross-country skiing without the snow, fairly easy when the road is smooth but more difficult when there’s loose gravel (as there so often is). Traveling by car, I doubt I’ll see him again, but everybody else on the highway should keep an eye out for him and, if you should see him, please let me know.

Meanwhile, I did manage to spend a night in volcano-ravaged Chaitén for the first time since late 2010, when the ash-clogged town was a mess. While there’s still some evidence of that, as the photograph above suggests, most of the town shows signs of revival, though the population is certainly less than half the 4,000 it was before the eruption and evacuation. There is now daily subsidized bus service to and from Puerto Montt via Caleta Gonzalo and Hornopirén that includes two ferry connections.

Southbound connectivity, though, is not nearly so good. There are daily buses (also subsidized) to the white-water Mecca of Futaleufú, but only three per week southbound to Coyhaique (where I arrived yesterday afternoon by car). That accounts, in part at least, for the number of hitchhikers along the road.

As I proceed south, the pavement is advancing between Puerto Cárdenas and the turnoff to Puerto Cisnes, a distance of some 200 km, and there are frequent stops for construction.. Beyond Cisnes, there’s smooth two-lane blacktop all the way to Coyhaique (where I arrived yesterday afternoon). After a couple days here, I look forward toward continuing south but, as I understand it, floods along the Río Baker have blocked the highway so that it’s presently impossible to reach Caleta Tortel and Villa O’Higgins overland from the town of Cochrane. This wouldn’t be the first time that rain and flooding slowed or stopped my progress on this memorable route.