Puerto Rio Tranquilo is a tiny and windy little outdoorsy town on a beautiful lake with mountains, rivers, and glaciers surrounding it. This was to be our southernmost stop in Patagonia (this time around at least) and so we took full advantage. We got a sweet cabaña, tasted the local craft brews and delicacies (i.e. fries with meat, onions, and an egg), and… let’s see what else, oh we walked around on a GLACIER.

Glacier Exploradores was a highlight of our time in Chile, and actually our whole trip. It’s definitely up there with walking across Spain and riding a dromedary in the Sahara desert. It was an investment to be sure, paying much more than our daily budget, but we knew it would be worth it. And it was. We got up super early at our cabaña after a good night’s rest to join our small group. A family of four from Argentina were the only other folks in our tour with El Puesto Expediciones, so it was nice and intimate. We took a shuttle to the trailhead, where our guide Hoka met us.  Hoka was super sweet from the beginning, and greeted us all with warm hugs. We got our gear together – crampons, gators, helmets, and backpacks – and headed straight up through a lovely wooded area. Hoka was very knowledgable about the local flora and fauna, and helped us identify some of the birds we had been seeing in the area. We got to the top of the public trail and had our first glimpse of the glacier.

Amazing! So vast and sooooo cold looking. After taking it all in for a bit, we moved past the public viewing area into the area restricted to permit holders. It was a scramble down a rocky hill (the “moraine” or debris field the glacier leaves as it moves) and over the “dirty ice” area. But slowly and surely as we walked, we started to notice we were walking on blue ice. It was super surreal. Finally Hoka said it was time for the crampons so we strapped on those weird spikey shoes and moved on to the really icey part, where all those epic Instagram photos are made. It is almost indescribable, walking on ice. Especially when you are surrounded by it as far as you can see. The pictures never really do it justice, and we were just so stoked the whole time that we invested in this experience. The Argentinian family was great, Hoka was great, the scenery was amazing, and we were happy. One of the most insane moments of our entire trip so far was when we could literally feel the ice cracking and opening up below us and shaking the ground we were standing on. Hoka called it “el Latigazo del Diablo” or the “Devil’s whiplash.” Hoka couldn’t hide her excitement that we were lucky enough to have experienced it twice in one tour and we were in awe of our good fortune. Overall it took about two hours from the trailhead to get to the ice, then about two hours on the ice, then two hours back so six hours total, plus a few hours for vehicle travel to and from the trailhead. A long day but unforgettable. That night we slept really well, especially after a couple of draft beers and a plate of “chorrillana” which as far as we can tell is the Chilean entry for a Man vs. Food show.

After The Glacier it was time to head back north. This actually took such little time compared to heading south it was kind of hilarious. We stopped at a few favorite spots we visited on the way down, including a campsite where a Spanish host and his wife run an organic farm and give lessons on etiquette for drinking mate tea Gaucho style (Argentinian/Chilean cowboys). Javi was thrilled to learn authentic caffeination techniques . After that we headed back to La Junta and then Raul Marin Balmaceda. This time around we actually spent some time in Raul Marin and witnessed the absolutely magical beach and scenery there. To be sure, it is a tiny town with not much going on, but the beach that starts at a lake and then winds around to the ocean with a snowcapped volcano and surrounding mountains as a backdrop… man. Too good.  We had one of the best beach walks of our life that day, and then crashed out in a parking lot happy and exhausted.

We then hopped on the long ferry to Chaiten, where we then crashed in yet another parking lot and then immediately hopped on another long ferry up to the part of the Carretera we hadn’t driven before. It was nice to check this area out after skipping it before. Hornopiren is a small gateway town to Pumalin and the only way south on the Carretera from Puerto Montt. It requires ferries on both ends but it is a quaint little town with lots of outdoorsy stuff happening. We walked around and checked out a local gastronomy festival. As with the first gastronomy festival we attended in Chiloé, we happily noshed on beers, sopapillas, and empanadas.

After Hornopiren, we headed straight for Purranque near Osorno to work out logistics for our next adventure – Festival Nomade. We had bought tickets for this week-long electronic music festival back in December and had been basically planning our road trip around it. It took place on a beach in a gorgeous bay in an area called Manquemapu, which is located on indigenous Mapuche land. The community of people living there have been opening their doors to visitors for a while and have maintained a good relationship with the Nomade crew for several years. We were so excited to visit this special land and hear some good music. We couldn’t drive there because the road was too rough, so we found a place to stash Condorito in Purranque and hopped on a little bus to start our crazy journey to the festival. The bus dropped a group of us off in the middle of nowhere (it couldn’t go any further on the unpaved road) on a freezing day, where we then left our backpacks in an enormous wet pile and stuffed ourselves into the back of some 4×4 pickups provided by the festival. As we flew down insanely bumpy and steep dirt roads, we weren’t sure if we would ever come back again. We realized we are most definitely in a South American festy situation because this would never happen in the states. Too much liability. But we were having a blast. We got dropped off yet again in a random field where we were given our wristbands then proceeded to hike along the coast for another two hours. The hike was beautiful but again caused us to question our survivability as we were traversing rocky cliffs and had to go in small bursts of people to avoid the crashing waves from a rising tide. Somehow we made it to the site. We were stoked! When our backpacks eventually arrived several hours later we set up our cheap-o tent that was already broken on its first use (you get what you pay for), and then proceeded to have the time of our lives. We met amazing people, we danced the night away next to the ocean, we hung out with pigs and cows, we drank lots of beer. A perfect week at a charmingly imperfect festival.

After Nomade, we hit the Lakes District for a while. Laura especially was excited for this since she loves lakes. We had a special Valentines Day at a gorgeous B&B called Zapato Amarillo, where we had a backyard view of Volcano Osorno. After that we took an amazing drive around Lago Ranco on a warm blue sky day and had a picnic at a fantastic “mirador” or lookout. Laura was very pleased. Then we visited Pucón, a fun little outdoor town that is definitely touristy but also very charming, complete with a marina and looming volcano. And also yummy craft beer which we obviously helped ourselves to.  Unfortunately the weather didn’t allow for a summiting of the volcano, so that particular adventure will have to wait.  Still, we did manage to have an excellent hike in a surreal moon-like setting next to a volcano at Parque Nacional Conguillío. Despite it being “summer” in Chile, we had been hounded by foul weather on and off since we’d started on the Carretera and the Lakes District was no different.  When the storms got bad, we said screw it, and even though we had planned on visiting more parks in the area we buckled into Condorito and hightailed it right back to the coast, which the interweb told us was much sunnier.

We scooted back through Concepción and hit some of our favorite beach spots we saw on the way down to Patagonia. We took care of some car stuff too – in Chile everyone has to get their car checked to ensure it’s road worthy every February so we did our auto-owning duty. Then we made our way back up towards central Chile. As were were heading north, some Nomade friends we’d kept in touch with convinced us to attend another weekend-long electronic festival near Valparaiso. It didn’t require much convincing. It was a blast seeing our festy friends again and partying it up at the beautiful Playa Las Docas. We were sad to leave after reconnecting with everyone; what a treat to have actual friends again. But we were also exhausted so we headed back to Santiago to decompress in an AirBnB for a few days. Although we told ourselves we would do more touristing in Santiago, we ended up just doing more car stuff, cooking, internetting, and catching up with folks back home. Just what the doctor ordered.

Plus we needed to rest; the next phase of our adventure to Northern Chile would soon begin.

THE ROAD NORTH