Chaiten-La Junta-Puerto Aysen Coyhaique, Villa O'Higgins, Cochrane, El Chalten (Argentina)
I was not lied to me, but now I My eyes saw the kingdom of rain that is the long and laborious southern route. But how to describe it as it is multiple? All
starting to Chaiten, after a magnificent voyage law on this huge volcano whose head is lost in the clouds, gliding slowly over a glassy sea ... The Carretera Austral
, had done much to dream and I was not disappointed! So, sure, there are these long hours of stop infructeux with my harmonica only companion, the icy rain that you slap in the face when they are accompanied by strong gusts of wind, hours of walking in the middle of this wrong track or it goes sometimes nothing for hours and hours. The wet and cool nights, waking to the sound of the drops crashing into the tent ...
is, despite all this a wonderful place that begins with this long valley that extends over 200 km, seeming to have no beginning or end, just this slow breathing when the forested slopes away or closer. Then there is the neck, or the impressive track becomes a track on which the vegetation, boosted by the endless rain would take its place. These majestic fjords, surrounded by curtains of rain and inaccessible mountains, great plains beyond Coyhaique ... It descends again along the huge lake of General Carrera and the track becomes mountainous after Cochrane. Along the carretera fast flowing waters and almost white-green of the Rio Baker. The last 200 kilometers
struck me as particularly long, probably because I was in that truck of cement, heavily loaded, was not moving quickly. We drove for hours along the lakes that seem to never end, down the mountains standing on the hump to avoid the truck s'embale. When night fell, the driver was deemed more prudent to stop there. So I pitched my tent in front of the truck for a short night. We are left with the east, around 5am. 8 hours for the 200km road and finally arrived at Villa O'Higgins, the end of the Carretera Austral in the early morning or I feel a strange relief ... The southern runway
spans more than 1000 kilometers thus links the villages and hamlets, some of which have no more than 9 houses and farms appears to have been placed randomly in the middle of nowhere. Previously there were only horse tracks and one hours sailing on the lakes along the ... and the old gentleman told me that before the carretera, he left over 20 days on horseback, with his wife to sell his cattle to the nearest market! But the villages themselves are not old, for the most part they were created in the 60's, linked to the country by airfields, ports and small horses in this track. And the arrival of men in the area of dense forest has not done without "collateral damage".
Newcomers, for many, cleared by the fires that sometimes escaped them.
is how, 30 years ago about a huge fire devastated two years in an area 300 km long and 70 km wide from a native forest. And all along the road you can see, than young forests, charred tree trunks, still standing and impressive size, after 30 years have witnessed huge fire!
And almost everyone here, this road is in any case that's built on General Pinochet. It is in this sector has many admirers which are apparently not aware of anything that happened during the dark years of dictatorship. And the subject is not easy to address because people here are more divided than I imagined on the subject. Thus, his death seems to have been more celebrated than mourned. At the announcement of his death, have been able to see, in Santiago, people take to the streets singing while the other headed for the military hospital to give him a final "tribute".
I was not lied to me, but now I My eyes saw the kingdom of rain that is the long and laborious southern route. But how to describe it as it is multiple? All
starting to Chaiten, after a magnificent voyage law on this huge volcano whose head is lost in the clouds, gliding slowly over a glassy sea ... The Carretera Austral
, had done much to dream and I was not disappointed! So, sure, there are these long hours of stop infructeux with my harmonica only companion, the icy rain that you slap in the face when they are accompanied by strong gusts of wind, hours of walking in the middle of this wrong track or it goes sometimes nothing for hours and hours. The wet and cool nights, waking to the sound of the drops crashing into the tent ...
is, despite all this a wonderful place that begins with this long valley that extends over 200 km, seeming to have no beginning or end, just this slow breathing when the forested slopes away or closer. Then there is the neck, or the impressive track becomes a track on which the vegetation, boosted by the endless rain would take its place. These majestic fjords, surrounded by curtains of rain and inaccessible mountains, great plains beyond Coyhaique ... It descends again along the huge lake of General Carrera and the track becomes mountainous after Cochrane. Along the carretera fast flowing waters and almost white-green of the Rio Baker. The last 200 kilometers
struck me as particularly long, probably because I was in that truck of cement, heavily loaded, was not moving quickly. We drove for hours along the lakes that seem to never end, down the mountains standing on the hump to avoid the truck s'embale. When night fell, the driver was deemed more prudent to stop there. So I pitched my tent in front of the truck for a short night. We are left with the east, around 5am. 8 hours for the 200km road and finally arrived at Villa O'Higgins, the end of the Carretera Austral in the early morning or I feel a strange relief ... The southern runway
spans more than 1000 kilometers thus links the villages and hamlets, some of which have no more than 9 houses and farms appears to have been placed randomly in the middle of nowhere. Previously there were only horse tracks and one hours sailing on the lakes along the ... and the old gentleman told me that before the carretera, he left over 20 days on horseback, with his wife to sell his cattle to the nearest market! But the villages themselves are not old, for the most part they were created in the 60's, linked to the country by airfields, ports and small horses in this track. And the arrival of men in the area of dense forest has not done without "collateral damage".
Newcomers, for many, cleared by the fires that sometimes escaped them.
is how, 30 years ago about a huge fire devastated two years in an area 300 km long and 70 km wide from a native forest. And all along the road you can see, than young forests, charred tree trunks, still standing and impressive size, after 30 years have witnessed huge fire!
And almost everyone here, this road is in any case that's built on General Pinochet. It is in this sector has many admirers which are apparently not aware of anything that happened during the dark years of dictatorship. And the subject is not easy to address because people here are more divided than I imagined on the subject. Thus, his death seems to have been more celebrated than mourned. At the announcement of his death, have been able to see, in Santiago, people take to the streets singing while the other headed for the military hospital to give him a final "tribute".
There were not many votes in Chile for regret that a dictator may have died without having known or benches of the courts, or prison, or exile, he who made assasinner, tortured, exile so many of these people.
They are against many who thank him for being the one who transformed Chile into a modern country and the economy healthy. These people do not visit the same country as me and they have not seen those Chileans who kill themselves to the task, working over 45 hours per week, under conditions that would innaceptables home to pay their can feed their families because the economics of doing good works. I am not having to acknowledge that general when you see what countries or gaps between the richest and the poorest are so important.
From my side, I left Chile by Lake O'Higgins, joining Argentina and leaving the forest to the west of the Campo de Hielo Sur and in this country s'émmiette multitudes of islands surrounded by channels of Patagonia. I go down to Argentina to return to Chile in a few days in Puerto Natales ... admit that it is entirely appropriate to spend Christmas.
From my side, I left Chile by Lake O'Higgins, joining Argentina and leaving the forest to the west of the Campo de Hielo Sur and in this country s'émmiette multitudes of islands surrounded by channels of Patagonia. I go down to Argentina to return to Chile in a few days in Puerto Natales ... admit that it is entirely appropriate to spend Christmas.
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