The Route and the Road

By the end of our honeymoon, our adventure to the bottom of the Americas involved:

30 days in the air, on the road, and in the water;
13,500+ miles in airplanes;
1,500+ miles over mostly dirt roads in our beloved Macumba, of the Toyota family;
8 border crossings;
3 rides on car ferries;
26 cities and towns (Chile: Puerto Montt, Puerto Varas, Frutillar, Cochamó, Hualaihué, Hornopirén, Chaitén, El Amarillo, Santa Lucia, Futaleufú, La Junta, San Marin Balmaceda, Puyuhuapi, Coyhaique (1929), Villa Cerro Castillo, Puerto Sánchez, Puerto Rio Tranquilo, Cochrane/ Parque Patagonia, Baja Caracoles (Argentina), El Chalten (Argentina), El Calafate (1927/Argentina), Puerto Natales, Torres del Paine, Punta Arenas, Buenos Aires (Argentina), La Colonia (Uruguay).

The first half of our road trip centered on the famous Carretera Austral, a mostly unpaved road that winds down Chile’s interior coastline.

The northern stretch of coastal road is dominated by small towns boasting infinite cabañas, deep fjords, salmon farms, and mountains shrouded in Valdivian temperate rainforest.

This is what a salmon farm looks like. You can even spot them from the plane. They cause serious problems for the local marine ecosystem, but offer economic opportunities for many people in this region.

This is Valdivian rainforest. Much better images to come.

Lenticular clouds abound throughout Patagonia.

Our beloved Macumba, still young and untested. She served us well.

Endless dirt/dust plus washer fluid = mud.

Always top off when you can when riding on the Carretera Austral.

Awwwwwww…battle scars riding on the Carretera Austral. Good thing Europcar forced us to buy the premium insurance.

All travelers on the Carretera Austral must take the Hornopiren ferry, whether traveling north or south. The absence of a road cuts off southern Chile from the rest of the country. Plans to link Hornopiren to Caleta Gonzalo via Parque Pumalin–a signature nature preserve–have been proposed but never finalized. Construction would take many years, enormous effort (given the rocky pathway along very steep fjords), and cost many times more than simply adding a new, efficient ferry. But even that has not been established. The Hornorpiren ferry has scrambled many a traveler’s best laid plans.

We discovered an alternative to 3D viewing…

Fun furry ferry friends.

At one point this crashed airplane was converted into a cafe.

A smaller ferry prepares to cross the river to bring us to the serene fishing village of Raul Marin Balmaceda.

As we continued south, the mountains upped the ante.

The resilient town of Santa Lucia still stands strong a decade after the 2011 mudslide that devastated the valley. This is Museo Casa de la Bandera.

The rafting capital of Futaleufú, Chile.

It’s not the destination. It’s the furry friends we made along the way.

Here is a tiny, tiny taste of the endless smorgasbord of stunning wildflowers–especially those known as Chocho (in Chile) or Lupina (in Argentina). The kaleidoscope of rainbow flora for hundreds of hundreds of miles was a delightful surprise.