Sunsets in Vina
Ivan, Nima, Adriana, and Jeremy. Last pic before we left.
Salta de Laja, a little Niagra-esque treat off in the woods.
Thermales Pazones, crystal clear and relaxing
The famous Bife de Chorizo
The also famous Tinfoil Dinner Cook Off
Morning view from our sweet campspot on the Espolon
The Washington/Utah/California raft team
After this excelent day on the river Jeremy and Nima vowed to start Kayaking
Hanging out with Josh, head of Futaleufu Explore
The most horrible place on earth!!
We hear the fall colors of Patagonia even beat N.H.
Camped just shy of Fitz Roy on a cloudy day
Good morning Glacier Perito Moreno!
Sunset over Torres de Paine
The Straight of Magelan, no joke
You can imagine how nice it was to see this sign
Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel, first snow of the season.
Even in the most southern city in the world!
255 days later, we made it!
This, for many of you, may be the southern most article you’ve ever read. Yes folks, we have made it; Salt Lake City to Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world. It has taken us 254 days and approximately 24,000 miles. We are well and the van, against what many of you nay-sayers thought, has made it here in one piece.
But first let us backtrack to Vina del Mar where we spent a few days with Jeremy’s Chilean family, the Sanchez’. They were all very excited to see Jeremy and took us right in. Here we ate like kings, took showers, and tended to some much needed laundry. Jeremy had spent 6 months studying at the Universidad Catholica de Valparaiso back in 2004 and knew his way around town pretty well.
Vina del Mar and Valparaiso are two cities side by side that share the same bay. To the north is Vina, the more modern town where Jeremy lived. Here we spent the first night cruising the streets and eating way too much ice cream. We thought we were being clever by surpassing the ice cream parlors and going straight to the giant supermarkets. There we could get twice the ice cream for our buck. After a half hour and a full chocolate-mint ice cream cake later we weren’t too sure about our cleverness. This is not the first time on our trip where a chocolate cake has got the better of us. We finished off the night drinking a few Chilean beers at Roxanne’s, this cool little pub over looking one of Vina’s well populated streets. There was a young crowd out and it felt good to be back in a city with lots of people.
The following morning we toured around the older city of Valparaiso. This place is famous for the acensores that climb up the mountainsides, giving access to the upper neighborhoods. They are like a mix between an old elevator and an escalator, old and rickety, they slowly make their way up the hillsides that surround the city. In our exploring of the town, we found two sweet BMW motorcycles with California license plates and Santa Rosa stickers. We waited around for the two totally rad dudes but they never showed.
Our plans next were to get truckin’ south A.S.A.P. The seasons down here are switched and we knew that the Patagonian winter was slowly approaching. With the generosity of Jeremy’s family we were able to rest a little, get our batteries charged and get off to a good start on the next leg of our tip.
Directly east of Vina is the capital city of Santiago. We stopped here briefly for a movie and a bite to eat, but from what I could gather it was a pretty hip and modern city. Probably the nicest city we’ve been to so far…sadly I’ll have to wait till my next trip to really explore it. We were about to enter the Chilean Lake District, famous for being, like the name says, full of lakes and littered with lush pine forests. This is the one area I’ve been waiting for all trip, and it turned out to be every bit as impressive as I expected. We first stopped in Pucon, a little, touristy mountain town nestled between the picturesque Lago Villarrica and a huge snowcapped volcano of the same name. We were lucky to be traveling well after the tourist season and enjoyed much of the town to ourselves. The volcano is famous for trekking and skiing, and Jeremy and I really looked into renting some ski gear, but we were a little too early in the season, and the approach would have taken at least five hours to reach the decent snow.
The even more amazing part of Pucon though is that the hills are filled with numerous hot springs of every caliber. From a simple afternoon soak to full hot spring resorts. Based off Jeremy’s last trip, we went straight to the Termales Pozones. This place was by far the nicest springs we’ve ever been to! You descend a long staircase down into a steep canyon, crystal clear river running by and five steaming pools built along the canyon walls. The main pool has a wood cabin changing room built over the corner of it. From here you can change and take the basement-like entrance into the pools. Perfect for getting in out of the pools in the late fall without even getting cold. We had the whole place to ourselves and spent the afternoon reading and turning into giant prunes. It was great.
Sadly the whole hot spring experience wasn’t as good for the van, while driving up the canyon late at night, we had a little run-in with an oncoming SUV. The encounter was more of a close sweep, but it was enough to wipe our rear bumper clean off. It wasn’t till later that we noticed the slight difference in the vans appearance and had to back track a little in bumper pursuit. We soon found her soon enough though and now she has a sweet new home strapped down to our roof rack, awaiting her reinstallation.
The way things work here in Chile is that the highways are top notch but they come at a price. The Carraterra is littered with peajes (tolls) that charge between $5-10US and they seem to pop up every hour or so. The other problem is that gas in Chile is about $1.20US a liter. That means we have to pay $60US+ to fill our tank each time, and this as you may know is not a stocky country. At this rate, driving from San Pedro de Atacama to Pucon, Jeremy and I were about out of money. The nice thing about Chile though is that from any point in the country one can drive about an hour east and be at one of a million Argentinean border crossings. The beauty of Argentina, among many, is that the gas is cheap and the steaks are world famous. For $35US we can fill our tank and enjoy a ridiculous steak dinner. Thus, we decided to hop the border and explore the Argentinean Lake District.
Border crossing is made easy here; they don’t bother with all the usual Latin border bureaucracy. They just verify your passport number, licence plate, and VIN, then you’re in!
My first glimpse of Argentina was the little posh town of San Martin de Los Andes. This place was like an Argentinean Pucon with a Deer Valley feel. I was pretty impressed, for a country with such a bad economy, this was by no means a bleak place. We took a quick lap around town past ritzy outdoor clothing boutiques in search of seguros (insurance). Argentina, along with Costa Rica and Colombia, requires car insurance, but as we soon found out, they only offer them at very inconvenient hours. Not wanting to wait around we drove south to the famous ski getaway of San Carlos de Bariloche.
The geography here in the Andes along the Chilean/Argentinean border can easily be explained by looking at the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. On the Chilean side there are huge expanses of lush green pine forests that get much more rain and snow, kind of like the Cottonwood Canyons. The Argentinean side is more like Park City and Heber, the mountainsides are less vegetated and quite a bit drier. This is a bit of a generalization but helps to illustrate the area.
Bariloche was even more beautiful, set at the banks of the beautiful Lago Nahuel Huapi, this was a classic European resort town. Filled with tour companies, bistros, boutiques, and really good looking people. Sadly Bariloche also offered seguros at really inconvenient hours, and we had some miles to make and thus couldn’t spent much time there. Driving out of Bariloche during sunset is something of a treat. Here we found some of the most jagged mountains we’ve seen all trip. Imagine these savage looking peaks, covered in blue ice, set in front of the setting sky light with the ever changing reflection of the pastel colored clouds. Another one of those beautiful moments the natural world surprises us with.
South on the Route 40 lies the little town of El Bolson, nothing much here to mention except for my life-changing Argentinean steak dinner. No Joke…it’s called Bife de Chorizo, and it is hands down the best steak in the world (except for maybe a steak on a river trip). We found this little rustic mom and pop restaurant and ordered two plates and a bottle of wine. It took a good forty-five minutes while the mom ran around waiting on tables and the dad out back at the barbecue but it was all well worth it. Here they serve just the steak, no sides and no sauce, just a mean looking steak knife and a glass of wine.
The following half hour was pure bliss, I’m not even a big steak eater, but this was amazing. Just plain juiciness! You should all put Argentinean Bife de Chorizo on you list of things to experience in life.
Speaking of steaks and things to experience in life, there is nothing like the exhilaration of running a world class whitewater river. Still traveling south, we crossed back into Chile to the little town of Futaleufu. This river town is in prime Patagonian country and blessed with two crystal clear and characteristically different rivers; The Espalon is mellow, transparent, and a fly-fisherman’s dream, while The Futaleufu is full of solid rapids, tastes sweet like sugar, and will win over the hearts of all boaters.
Late April is not exactly prime Patagonia river running season, and when we arrived to Futaleufu we found all but one outfitter closed down for the season, Futaleufu Explore. Here we found Josh, a classic old-school river rat, with, visor, crazy curly hair, and a huge smile…he really fit the part. Josh came to Chile fourteen years ago when he’d heard of this crazy Rio Futaleufu and fell in love with the place. Turns out we were in luck, he had a couple from Washington coming two days later for a trip and then he was packing up for the season. Within two days we’d be running the Futaleufu!
To kill time we explored the area, and although it was fairly cold we found two prime camping spots on the Rio Espolon. Here we spent the days fishing and reading, we knew that once our river trip was over we had some miles to make south bound and there would not be time for kicking back. At night we had tin foil meal cook offs. Jer went for the bold, all in one steak, onion, garlic, and potato, while I went for the safer split and made two smaller batches. Both turned out to be simply amazing. Life is sweet when you have a nice little fire going, beautiful river, starry night, and an amazing feast with Gato Negro.
Friday morning we met up with Josh and three of his buddies, all expert kayakers from abroad living in Futaleufu for the wild river. We had Nate, Mitch, and Jaime, and they were our rescue boaters. Along for the ride in their quick and nimble little kayaks, they could help out our big rubber raft if we were to flip or lose someone to the big holes. We met with the Washington couple and set down the river; bright blue sky, wet suits, and brisk, clear water. Before we knew it we were right in the thick of it, huge wave-trains and big hits. We were doing the 8km, bridge to bridge section. Although 8km doesn’t sound like much distance, it is plenty on the Futaleufu where you’re paddling through class IV-V rapids and the only time to rest if you fight hard and eddy out. We had rapids named Purgatorio, Infierno, Terminador, and Tiburon..which if you had to swim any of them, could be quite daunting.
Needless to say we had a wild day of rafting we would recommend it to anyone. If any of you make it down to Patagonia, it is well worth making a trip up to Futaleufu and checking out Futaleufu Explore. The whole operation was very personal; like we were all a couple of Josh’s friends out for a day of rafting, not ritzy clients along with a big rafting outfitter. Thanks again Josh, we’ll be back! www.futaleufuexplore.com
We were soon back on the road and racing south. We had three major stops to make before we got to the big island: See the famous Fitz Roy peak, listen to bits of the Glacier Perito Moreno break into Lago Argentina, and enter into Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. Argentina has two major routes for this, the almost coastal and paved Route 3, or the at times picturesque and almost never paved Route 40. Sticking close to the Chilean border and the heart of Patagonia we took the Route 40.
The days that followed trying to get to these sites were not our greatest and recalling on them would just cause a headache, but I will sum them up in few words: we had horrible roads, destroyed six tires, spent way too much money, awake thirty-six hours trying to get new tires back to the van, slept in a gas station, and did all this in stupidly cold weather.
We finally made it though to the little known climber’s town of El Chalten, the front steps to the famous Mt. Fitz Roy. Fitz Roy is the peak on the Patagonia Clothing logo, and if you’ve never seen a picture of this incredible mountain it’s worth googling. And in fact that is what we had to do. We’d made it to the trailhead about 30km north of the town and the next morning we were to hike the two hours and arrive at the ultimate viewing point. But that night, winter was upon us and by first light it was obvious we would have no view and nothing but snow to hike through.
Trudging through snow and mud after months of hot sandy beaches is not a bad change, but I, of course, was cold and poor Jeremy had nothing but his Rainbow sandals to walk in. We gave it a good effort though and were treated with our own forested valley of beautiful turning fall colors. It was quite a place, the fresh snow and the ice cold river running slowly by, it was calm place to be after such a rough past few days.
El Calafate is the southern Argentine hub for exploring the Patagonia region and for us it was a welcoming delight. We went straight to a nice parilla and both ordered two huge Bife de Chorizos and a bottle of Wine. Of course it was just as amazing as all the rest and gave us the juice to make the evening journey to Glacier Perito Moreno. Although we are fully aware that rule #1 in any Spanish speaking country is “Do Not Drive at Night!” we assure you all that with over a record 100 Night Drives under our belts, we’ve become experts at this misunderstood rule of the open road.
The following 24 hours were by far some of my favorite of the trip. We were in the perfect part of the world to see some amazing natural beauty. Pulling into the national park late in the night, the gates were open and we made ourselves a camp spot perched just up and across from the middle of the glacier. The geography here is perfect because Glacier Perito Moreno is one of thee in the world that is advancing or slowly creeping forward. It makes its way down the canyon and onto Lake Argentina, while directly across from it is a huge mountainous peninsula protruding out towards it. Thus the park service has built a parking lot on top of this mountain with a set of three huge viewing decks that make their way down towards the foot of the glacier. To give you an idea of how close you can get to the glacier there is a huge posted sign stating that 30 people since the 80’s that ventured a little closer than these viewing decks have died from flying ice shards due to the breaking ice.
We arrived on a full moon and had this incredible glacier all to ourselves and in the perfect silence of the night the falling ice was brilliant. First we’d see distant chunks breaking off and a moment later we were hit with the thunderous sound. It was like sitting a few feet back from a 50ft H.D. Plasma screen with full surround sound, but even better. After about an hour of cold, yet worth wild spectacle, we saw the mother piece break loose. Perhaps two-thirds the height of the glacier, like the first five stories of a building, came to a free fall and then disappeared into the lake, then moments later came bobbing back up in a hundred pieces. It was enough to satisfy the soul.
Morning brought the whole glacier viewing experience into a new light. Now things were noisy and we were surrounded by a parking lot full of tour buses. The terraces were filled with “oohing” and “aweing” travelers of all respects; but there we were, hundreds of us staring in awe at the same magnificent glacier; bright white and ice blue, slowly coming towards us, a force to be respected and marveled at by all. I would recommend experiencing this glacier as a priority and even higher up than the Bife de Chorizo on anyone’s Life List of Things to Experience.
Last stop, the famous Torres del Paine. The glacier and the park are actually right near each other, but the drive takes you on a huge loop and then swings back up into Chile. It was close to sunset when we came around a set of mountains to see Las Torres in the distance. We were on the Argentina side and the sun was diving fast right behind the park. Then at about the peak of the sunset we came upon a flooded meadow with perfectly still water. The towers fell right behind them, the reflection perfect, and the colors surreal. It was such a beautiful way to see The Torres…but sadly turned out to be as close as we’d get.
Soon after we crossed the border and turned north for the park, one of our brand new Argentinian MaxiSport tires was slaughtered. Maybe it was the road, maybe the tire, who knows and who cares anymore. It was far more than we wanted to deal with. It was late, cold, and our spare tire could hold air for only a few minutes. We raced south to Puerto Natales, stopping every few minutes to pump up the tire and both pretty upset we were missing the park. The sixth tire in such a short time was just too much to bear. We pulled up across from the tire shop and passed out for the night.
Puerto Natales turned out to be a welcoming place, with amazing surroundings. Snowcapped mountains to the north and ice cold pacific blue to the southwest. The tire guys were nice and we found a sweet American style diner. Two coffees with milk were all we needed.
We were south now, really far south and just shy of our destination. There were two borders to cross, one little strip of water, and our last stretch of dirt road. The borders were no problem, just more of the same for us, but the little stretch of water turned out to be pretty fun. The Straight of Magellan was so cool to actually see since the last time I ever gave it any thought was high school geography. We, by chance, caught the last ferry and were soon standing on the captain’s deck, overlooking the van, and water. It was cold and narrow, but an experience nonetheless, and we were now on the island of Tierra del Fuego!
Chile and Argentina split this island right down the middle…Chile owns the western side with all the islands while Argentina has most of the land mass and the cities. To get to Ushuaia, everyone has to travel through a 100km section of deserted Chilean land. Chile, having no interest in the land, has not bothered paving their section of road and probably never will just to spite Argentina. For us another dirt road was horror but it was the last thing keeping us from our destination. We took it nice and easy and made it through with no trouble.
That was how it happened, we were soon looking at a “Ushuaia Centro” street sign. We had made it! It was late, we were dirty, and in search for our first hostel in weeks. We had much celebrating to do. Jeremy’s close family friend, Jerry, had given us a well aged bottle of 68’ Jim Bean as a going away present and we’d been saving it for months. Jerry, it was well enjoyed!
We toured the town and had a wild night…nothing like celebrating after such a long haul. But we weren’t quite done yet. There was still more road that went south into the Tierra del Fuego National Park. Back in the van, we drove through the park with more beautiful fall colors and snow!
There it was though, the end of the Ruta #3…engraved on a big sign and all! It was such a wild feeling. All those times Jeremy and I were out at college parties putting plans together, talking about how great our trip was going to be, and there we were looking at that sign. Who would have thought, what a great feeling of success.
Well, as many of you are probably figuring out, it is way past the fifth of May and we are long gone from Ushuaia. The following week and the trip north has been interesting (to say the least) and is going to take some time to put into words. We are safe and well though, and should be back in the States before too long to share the last chapter of our trip.
Hope everyone is well, and we can’t wait to see you all!
Nima
Buenos Aires, Argentina
