Diesel and Dust wind-down

Back up to 45'C inside Babe, windows are down, down to one speaker, cruising to house music with junk food at our disposal. This is a real road trip! Too bad it ends tonight.

Big day! Zach crossed the 10000km mark today in Babe! He has a long way to go before reaching Columbia but he's roughly at the halfway mark of his journey. For me, it marks the 3200km mark of "Diesel and Dust".

Today's extra-curricular activity was a stop at the Lapostolle Clos Apalta winery. It's in the Colchagua valley near Santa Cruz, a big wine area. It was an impressive facility and they make good wine but it was expensive to taste 3 wines - 20k$. Hmmm.

After all these kilometres, I finally took a turn at the wheel.

Right after the wine tasting may not have been ideal timing though! It was my first time driving on the right side of the car on the right side of the road. It took some thinking but I did alright after a few hiccoughs! I probably only drove 15km in total but I was perfectly happy with that...and I was pretty sure Zach wanted his baby back anyway!

As a result of my time behind the wheel, I earned my stripes!

The scenery has changed a lot on this trip! Glaciers, dirt roads in the pampas, gorgeous lakes, ripio on the Carretera Austral, mountains, volcanoes, lush forests and now...concrete!

Santiago was a real surprise. I didn't really have any expectations of it prior to today. I was very impressed with how clean, organized and modern it is. We stayed in Las Condes which is a very nice area. I expect I'm seeing one of the nicer parts of Santiago but my first impressions were very favourable.

Marathon Drive

08:20 -- Alarms go off. Time to get up. It's going to be a long day. Looks nice though!

09:20 -- Treated to an aero press coffee! Nice!

10:20 -- Willie Nelson serenades us with the mandatory first song of the day for any road trip - "On The Road Again"

11:20 -- 4000' of altitude and still working our way up to the top of Volcan Villarica when we pass a man whose truck is stuck. Babe to the rescue.

11:50 -- Nearly needing rescue ourselves, Babe has a basketball sized volcanic rock wedged into her wheel base followed by a three wheeled attempt at getting through a rut. We decide to walk the rest of the way to check out the views from the volcano.

Babe...just about to lift off!

13:15 -- Back down to sea level from our 5500' ascent and back on pavement after a rocky ride.

14:50 -- A spa visit for Babe! Un cambio de aceite.

16:00 -- A big sigh of relief! My seat on the bus to Mendoza on April 1st from Santiago is sorted. $40 by bus beats the fares of $400 I was seeing online for flights!

17:35 -- Driving north on highway 5 and laughing at the confused expressions on everyone's faces as Babe's driver isn't in the left seat! Of course many people are probably wondering about the blue pair of 'truck nuts' too!!! I love watching peoples' faces light up when I smile and wave to them as we drive past.

18:30 -- A late lunch or early dinner in Mulchen. A break from Babe was required as we still have 411km to go and temperatures inside have reached 45'C in the cab. Why is today the hottest day without a cloud in the sky? Ugh!

19:45 -- The GPS just switched to the night setting. The sun is low on the horizon. Speedometer reads 80km/h and we have 329km left. We knew what we were in for today but it was worth it to stay a bit longer in some of the gem-spots we've found along the way!

21:45 -- Chilling in Chillan at the Copec station. When we were finished our evening snack/wifi break, spent mostly trying to find a hotel in Santiago for tomorrow night, we looked at our food tray and were disgusted at all the junk we'd mindlessly consumed. Groan! It's a road trip requirement I guess.

22:50 -- The trance music comes on as we push on.

23:05 -- I can't keep my eyes open.

23:15 -- Can't those remaining kilometres just melt away???

01:35 -- Tent up at the side of a dirt road just off Ruta 5. So tired!

Volcano Day

I love this place. Lago Llanquihue instantly got into the top 5 on my list of favourite spots I've been to on Operation Penguin. It is so green, scenic and peaceful. I need to come back sometime for at least a week and play. I know the world is a big place and there are lots of new places to see but I want to explore this area again another time. Someday...

I am also inspired by what Rafael and Pauline are doing. They left their 'previous lives' and are now running a B&B for eight months of the year. It's obvious they love it. Maybe when I'm ready for my next life it's something I could consider.

Zach was disappointed that we couldn't drive up Volcan Osorno volcano any further than the ski hill parking lot.

Instead we walked up as high as the first ski lift would have taken us (9000$/pp?! No way!) and enjoyed the clear views. We've been so lucky with the sunshine!

Another 350km or so north and east brought us to Parque Nacional Villarica where we camped for the night at the base of Volcan Villarica. The campground was 20,000$ which was a lot but it was right on Lago Villarica.

We cooked up all the vegetables that had survived the rough roads since Coyhaique (!) and I introduced Zach to quinoa. It's not all pasta and grilled cheese here! It was movie night where Zach in turn introduced me to the 'classic' comedy Supertroopers! It was exactly the brainless-mind-fluff that we were both in the mood for.

Monsieur Ma-Na-Ma-Na!

Today was a full day. We went from Castro to Puerto Varas, through the northern part of Chiloe Island, another ferry across to the mainland and then a couple hours further north to Lago Llanquihue. It wasn't all driving. Along the way we saw and did a lot, such as:

-The Castro Museum of Modern Art.

They were closing for the season but had a fair number of exhibits still there. Many were beyond me (!) but I really like this one made from reclaimed wood.


-Dalcahue is a picturesque town we were told not to miss which had another of the wooden churches...

...and an outdoor gym!

-The ferry from Chacao to Paragua which was efficiency as its best and a nice contrast to the Chaiten ferry! This brought our time on Chiloe Island to an end as we returned to the Chilean mainland.

-It was a beautiful drive from Puerto Varas along Lago Llaquihue to Casa Ko B&B. What a find! Check out the view from our room:

This is Volcan Osorno at sunset. While I have enhanced some pictures on the blog but this is untouched. Beauty au-naturale!

The french family running the B&B is lovely. Their two-year old daughter, Lila, was adorable especially when she called Zach Monsieur Ma-Na-Ma-Na! She apparently thought Zach was a muppet because of his orange, orangutan coat!!!

C..C..Castro

It's no wonder I'm having a hard time keeping track of all the places we've been. It seems all towns in Chile begin with the letter C! Chile Chico, Cochrane, Coyhaique, Chaiten, Chiloe Island, and now we're in Castro!

And it was quite the effort to get here! We got the truck off the boat at 1AM this morning (How can they honestly have been caught off guard by the tides??? They're known years in advance!!!) and then found a quiet road to park on and set up camp....18hours after we set out to catch the 4-hour ferry! Groan. "It's all part of the adventure" she says through gritted teeth!

We both slept really well which speaks to how comfortable the safari tent is. Our alarm clock, what eventually got us up, was the quiet sound of crunching gravel followed by a rattle on the ladder. I imagine it must have been like a spaceship landing overnight on these people's property! Naturally the owners were curious to who the heck we were and what we were doing. We got a minor scolding for not asking permission to park there (at 2AM?!) but Zach diffused the situation with a classic "lo siento" and his winning smile and all was well.

One of the reasons we were discouraged from coming to Chiloe Island was because it's rainy a lot. We got really lucky and so far today's been sunny. That has given us a really favourable impression of the island and the town of Castro.

Castro is famous for the palafitos, or wooden houses on stilts. They are quite photogenic when the sun is right.

Upon arrival in Castro we sought out a hotel and a laundromat. One of the most exciting parts of our day was dropping off 10kg of laundry to be cleaned and ready for tomorrow morning. How wonderful!

Chiloe Island is famous for wooden churches. It has something like 12-14 chilote-style churches which are protected by UNESCO. The Iglesia San Fransisco in Castro is stunning. Here's a photo from the outside and one from the inside:

The Plaza Ferial is the main market where they sell many crafts. Knit hats (toques!), sweaters and knit dresses were on offer all over the place and in many colours:

In the evening Zach and I 'logisticized' about the remaining 4 days of the trip. Time is running out. We still have 1200km to go before we need to be in Santiago on the 31st. We decided we wanted to see a volcano and a vineyard on our way up north. So many to choose from! Ha! I think we managed to split them up nicely and have got it sorted so that there's only one mammoth driving day, on the 30th. I have yet to drive so maybe I can take a shift then to help out a bit. I can't not take a turn driving after all!

Chiloe...eventually!

After one of the coldest nights of camping yet, we got up before the sun rose to take some pictures of the homes that used to be beachfront property. The lesson here is if you're going to live near volcanoes, build on high ground!

A look inside:

On our way to the ferry dock, we drove through town looking at more devastated homes. Check out some of these homes. Amazing but sad:

Mother Nature is a powerful lady!

All that rush just to find that there was no boat waiting for us! We never got the complete story but there was something about the wind and the tides. We were supposed to be at the dock for 9h to leave by 10h. At 12h they came to tell us we had time to go into town for lunch. By 16h we finally pushed off.

It's all part of the adventure. I didn't mind waiting but it was the not knowing when we could expect to go that was most challenging for me. The '30 more minutes' game does get tiring.

Once on-board I happily watched a couple of movies and was eager to reach land so we could check out Chiloe. Silly girl! The adventure isn't over.

Because of the 4h delay, the tide is out and we can't get the vehicles off the boat until after midnight. Why am I not surprised?!?! So here we are in a pub, waiting it out, drinking a beer, getting a wifi fix and saying yet again "¿Qué puede hacer?" Gotta love it!

Finally on Chiloe Island:

Chaiten

Our destination today was Chaiten. It was about a 230km drive along the last bit of the Carretera Austral that we were going to cover on this trip.

It was also the last stretch of gravel roads, or ripio, for the trip. Neither of us were particularly sad about that! It won't be gravel for much longer though. As with Ruta 40 in Argentina, they're hard at work paving the roads:

We stopped in Puyuhaupi to fuel up. When we asked if they had fuel they said of course...they always have fuel. Indeed! While still part of Aysen, obviously they missed all the fun!

A peek in the visitor centre crossed our paths with Paul and Kelly, two lovely Americans cycling from Punta Arenas to Quito. We stopped and chatted with them for well over an hour.

I admire them for embarking on their journey. It'd be a tough slog being exposed to the elements all the time. I do love being able to get warm again when we turn on the heater in the more-or-less weather-proof Babe.

Dusk along the Carretera Austral nearing Chaiten:

Gorgeous sunset:

We got into Chaiten after dark but saw enough to appreciate some of the devastation that occurred when Chaiten Volcano erupted in May 2008.

I have to say that tonight's camp spot was one of the most unusual places I've ever stayed. We huddled up next to an old A-frame house that was buried a good metre deep in sand and volcanic ash. It had a ghost town feeling to it; it was empty, eerie and still. Here's an attempt at capturing the view by night. The red smear is Zach's headlamp!