From the big city of Coyhaique, we headed to Villa Cerro Castillo next – a little village in the middle of nowhere. Getting a ride out of Coyhaique was easier than expected – we just had to walk out of the city and wait for the usual approximately 30-40 min. This time, there were lots of cars passing and we even had competition! But it still worked out. The first ride dropped us at a crossing in the middle of nowhere, where just after putting our bags down we luckily got a ride again! Fastest one so far, not even 1 min! The guy dropped us right in front of our camping in Villa Cerro Castillo, from where we already had some pretty nice views of the mountains where we were going to hike the next couple of days.
You can do different hikes in the Cerro Castillo nature reserve, whereas most people opt either for a 4 day or 1 day hike. We decided to do something in between – a 3 day hike that would lead us the steep way up the „emergency route“, then cross over the pass and hike down on the other side. This option is potentially the most expensive one, since it crosses the private land of 2 different owners who charge separately from each other. Somehow we got very lucky though: the first station was closed and the second one only asked us to register. We guess they assumed we already paid before, since our route was a bit unusual. Yay, savings!
As mentioned, the first day took us up on a steep trail to the main viewpoint of Cerro Castillo and the perfectly turquoise lake in front of it. It was steep, but luckily there were no steps this time and my knees were happy! We made it up in a little over 3 h even with many stops along the way as the views over the valley were just stunning!! This is the place where I really fell in love with Patagonia.
Up at the viewpoint, a fierce wind was blowing – but the view made us forget about that! There were still some clouds covering the top of the mountain at the beginning, so we stuck around and waited at a sheltered place for around 2 h. And it was sooo worth it!! Cerro Castillo came out fully for the only time during the days we spent here. We were so happy that our timing and all the weather research worked out in the end!
After hundreds of photos, we finally decided to move on to our camping for the night, La Tetera. It was a good decision to spend the first night here so that we were able to stick around until the mountain fully came out and we had the perfect view. Also, the camping was at a really cool spot with a view of TWO glaciers!! Awesome.
Our night in the tent was a bit chilly and not that awesome and next day started with us losing the trail, wasting about an hour and then walking in the snow rain. Brrrr. Once we reached the pass though, clouds started clearing up and we had beautiful views once again of the valley down below!
It was a long walk down, but the views made it much easier. We opted to walk a little further to the campsite Neozelandes, nicely located in a little forest. Mathijs then hiked up to Laguna Duff still, whereas I had to give my knees a little rest. Too bad, the lagoon was very pretty even with the weather having turned grey again.
The last day was an easy downhill walk with few highlights, and once back on the gravel road we were lucky to catch a ride back to town. Another successful 3 day hike! After one more night in Villa Cerro Castillo, we stood on the road again, our sign reading „Puerto Rio Tranquilo“. We had competition this time: 2 guys from Chile were first and another couple lined up later on. But – we ended up being lucky once again when a car stopped for us rather than the guys in front of us. Yay! (I know, life is not fair and for them it must have sucked.)
In Puerto Rio Tranquilo we found a nice camping where we spent two rather stormy nights. On our arrival day, we walked around the village a bit and up to the beautiful lake. Some pretty views as always in Patagonia!
We then found out that we could still do the boat tour to the Marble Caves this afternoon – there are tours leaving all the time and they all sound and cost the same. Weather was sunny, if a bit windy, so we thought, why not? Umm. The little windy turned out to a bit more stormy on the lake and there were quite some waves, so we got splashed by ice water on the way to and from the caves and on the way back I found the waves a bit scary even! Crazy, such big waves on a lake. Felt like being back on the ocean.
The marble caves themselves were really nice to see. There are different formations which the tour visits – some are more smaller caverns and some really cool. The highlights came at the end of the tour with some of the prettiest shaped and coloured caves and the „capilla de marmol“.
Overall, it was a nice tour and the price is right. The caves are maybe a bit hyped up, but it’s still really cool to see when you’re in the area. I was glad though that we hadn’t come all the way just for the caves.
After a crazy-weather day which we used for laundry, stocking up and planning some stuff, we stood on the road again – hitching a ride to Cochrane first, with a Chilean family on holiday in a luxury camper van. They were driving super slow, made a stop at a waterfall (which was nice but also took a while) and then about 15km from Cochrane a tire ran flat. In the end it took us about double the usual time to Cochrane, but all this is part of the hitchhiking adventure of course!
From Cochrane, we got a lift rather quickly whereas there was a little misunderstanding. We thought the guy would take us within walking distance of the ferry crossing to Puerto Yungay which would have been perfect. Nope! He ended up stopping in the middle of nowhere at his house, only halfway between Cochrane and Puerto Yungay. He offered us to camp at his place in case we couldn’t get a ride further anymore, and we almost did.
5 min before we were about to call it a day, an empty bus stopped. Oops, we wanted to hitchhike not pay for a bus! After explaining to the drivers, they had a brief discussion and decided to take us anyways. Nice!! They were only able to drop us at a crossing in the middle of nowhere again though. From here, it should be an easy thing to get the last couple of kilometres to the ferry and then onward to Villa O’Higgins, we thought. Our first time stuck in the middle of nowhere and wild camping! Also an adventure, if the weather wasn’t all cold and drizzly… Like this we ended up cooking under a bridge and felt a little bit homeless.
Next day, weather was still bad but we had to make one of the few ferries so got up early. We sat down at a bus stop which thankfully had a roof that gave some protection from rain and wind. Here we waited. 3.5 hours. There were almost no cars and no-one picked us up. We were very happy when finally a car stopped and took us all the way onto the ferry where at least it was warm. There were almost no cars on there though, only a bus that went to Villa O’Higgins with quite some tourists. But we weren’t going to give up now! Since there were no cars other than the ones on the ferry, this meant that we had to wait 3 h until the next ferry arrived, hoping that someone nice would be on there with enough space in their car for us. Fortunately, there was a little waiting hall which gave us protection from the weather again and we were able to dry our wet tent and work on photos until the battery died. Not too bad!
And finally, the ferry arrived and we stood ready one last time with our Villa O’Higgins-sign. One car passed, another one… until finally the second last one signalled us to get in. The last two hitchhiking days were not easy, but in the end we made it!! We hitchhiked the Carretera Austral, from North to South all the way!
In Villa O’Higgins we spent an uneventful day with a little day hike in rather grey weather. The surroundings are pretty, so it would have been nice with some sunshine.
We also bought our ferry tickets for the next day to Candelario Mancilla with a detour to the O’Higgins glacier. From there, we were going to cross into Argentina on foot…
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