Posted 5 March 2007
We have spent five nights in Coyhaique in two spells separated by two nights at a 5 star hotel in Chacabuco and a trip by motorised catamaran to the San Rafael Glacier, one of Chile´s most renowned sites.
Our time in Coyhaique has been largely spent avoiding the cold, which is inevitable in the absence of sunshine. It is otherwise a very pleasant town and at 50,000 is the largest town by far and the capital of the Carretera Austral Region, which we largely avoided by traveling south in Argentina instead. In traveler´s terms it has a big drawback in that it doesn´t have a central bus station but many small ones scattered across town which serve only individual towns. The other planning problem is that as a result nothing seems to be co-ordinated which becomes a planning nightmare when discovering that most routes are available on only a few days of the week. We thus had to abandon plans to go north on the Carretera Austral to Puyuhuapi by bus and could not get a booking on the three night catamaran Skorpios which would have included it with a trip to San Rafael. We had to work around Catamaranes del Sur which run only on Saturdays in March, and the ferry back to Chile Chico which gave its earliest date as Tuesday and the Ruta40 bus which runs south on even dates.
Friday was a glorious day, a reversion to completely blue skies, which we spent going through the beautiful local National Park areas to Puerto Aisen, which was once the port but now has become so silted up that there is no trace of its former maritime glory. So we had to go on a few more km to the present day port of Chacabuco, which as a town is little more than a shanty for dockers and seamen without decent tourist accommodation or restaurants, except incongruously just this one 5 star hotel Loberias, which exists mainly for tourists who arrive by air 50km north of Coyhaique and get on a transfer minibus, and depart a couple of days later by the same route. In season I imagine the hotel is full of tour parties, but the crowd with us in March had arrived independently like us. The hotel and the catamaran are owned and operated by the same firm, as is the local Park Aiken.
The catamarin trip was superb, one of the really unforgettable days. We started with a call at 6am and coffee in the hotel and then were ferried to the boat which eventually left half an hour late at 8am.
On this occasion there were only 40 passengers, just half the number of seats, and meals were served on trays as on a plane.
However there was complete freedom to walk around on deck and watch in awe as the boat made its way along the fiords and around the numerous islands in the half mist and low cloud, all densely covered in evergreen trees right up to the snow line. We pulled closely on shore to one island to see the sea lion colony lying on the rocks the shore. The first signs of the glacier around 5 hours later were the lumps of ice which started to appear in the water. They had not only been sculptured into wonderful curved shapes but were also glowing in wonderful shades of blue. We were told that the colours are better in an overcast day, as in bright sunlight the ice reflects white light.
Finally we were heading straight for the Glacier San Rafael, which loomed larger and larger as we homed in. Painted dates on the rocks illustrate how the glacier had shrunk year on year since 1978, which it does by breaking off in chunks which float way thus creating the ice flows.
When we were as close in as was safe we were split into four groups and each got into heavy inflatable dinghies to go close up. We were in group two which was fortunate to be in the right position when an unusually large chunk broke off, almost disappeared under the water, then rose back to its original height setting of a swell with waves several feet high, and then breaking up to fill the bay with floating blue ice.
Our boat had previously been out collecting small pieces of floating ice, and on return passengers were given whisky with 18,000 year old ice chunks, then started the party which lasted until we pulled back into harbour at 9.30pm. There had been a free bar all day but wisely they had not advertised the fact until everyone was safely out of the dinghies. A saxophonist/guitarist/singer with pre-recorded backing kept us in the party mood and encouraged the various Latin American visitors in particular to display their prowess on the dance floor. There were people on board from Argentine, Mexico, Uraguay, Brasil, but mostly from Chile. Many of these had reduced the cost by staying in Puerto Aisen and not at Loberias.
Whilst on deck at night I was joined by one of our fellow guests, one of a party of 4 Germans who were touring in a 4WD. He was much the same age as me and he had traveled a great including driving north beyond Hammerfest (Norway), the most northerly port in the world town. I was there but only as far north as Tromso (from where Artic explorers normally start) some twenty years earlier, as a hitch hiking prelude to summer vacation work near Stockholm. He told me to be sure to sign on for a similar catamaran tour at the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentine, which includes walking in crampons across that much bigger glacier. They were now headed for Esquel.
It was Diedre a Scots lass who hailed from Inverness with whom we made the closest contact. Her mother came from Orkney where she had spent much time as a youngster, her father traveled the world building Hydro-electric plants and was now retired in Cape Town. She had a wonderful outgoing character who found the Chileans didn´t pay much attention to suggestions from women, but as she said ´I don´t give a shit any longer, it´s a wonderful experience just to be here´. She conveyed how thrilled she had been with the day, something we all felt but were not as good in radiating our enthusiasm, and as a reward was given a picture book by the organiser. She was in Chile, at Puerto Montt for a year on an exchange with a Chilean colleague in the same Dutch firm, which obviously is big and worldwide in feed for fish farms. She explained that Chile had now overtaken Norway as the biggest producer of farmed salmon in the world. The company also dealt in food for trout farms, bass, halibut, turbot and also cod There were many salmon farms along the coast line here, but we were pleased to note how unobtrusively they fitted in with the landscape.
The next morning she came with us to Coyhaique, but being Sunday we had to solve the problem of how to link her with a transfer minibus with everywhere closed, solved at last by going to one of the better hotels and asking them to arrange it. It arrived almost full 15 minutes later, just in the nick of time.
Today, another fine day we went for a several km walk out to the National Park of Coyhaique, which was inaugurated in 1948 but shows sign of lack of development like so many things in Chile. Lack of signposting had not stopped the circular footpath being walked and it had certainly not stopped the wild life being of great interest to Joan.
Tomorrow we are out by 7am to get a transfer to the ferry and with luck should make it all the way back to the town of Perito Moreno in Argentine, where we hope to catch the Ruta 40 bus south to El Chalten and El Calafate, though we have been unable to book it over the internet or even via travel agents.
We have spent five nights in Coyhaique in two spells separated by two nights at a 5 star hotel in Chacabuco and a trip by motorised catamaran to the San Rafael Glacier, one of Chile´s most renowned sites.
Our time in Coyhaique has been largely spent avoiding the cold, which is inevitable in the absence of sunshine. It is otherwise a very pleasant town and at 50,000 is the largest town by far and the capital of the Carretera Austral Region, which we largely avoided by traveling south in Argentina instead. In traveler´s terms it has a big drawback in that it doesn´t have a central bus station but many small ones scattered across town which serve only individual towns. The other planning problem is that as a result nothing seems to be co-ordinated which becomes a planning nightmare when discovering that most routes are available on only a few days of the week. We thus had to abandon plans to go north on the Carretera Austral to Puyuhuapi by bus and could not get a booking on the three night catamaran Skorpios which would have included it with a trip to San Rafael. We had to work around Catamaranes del Sur which run only on Saturdays in March, and the ferry back to Chile Chico which gave its earliest date as Tuesday and the Ruta40 bus which runs south on even dates.
Friday was a glorious day, a reversion to completely blue skies, which we spent going through the beautiful local National Park areas to Puerto Aisen, which was once the port but now has become so silted up that there is no trace of its former maritime glory. So we had to go on a few more km to the present day port of Chacabuco, which as a town is little more than a shanty for dockers and seamen without decent tourist accommodation or restaurants, except incongruously just this one 5 star hotel Loberias, which exists mainly for tourists who arrive by air 50km north of Coyhaique and get on a transfer minibus, and depart a couple of days later by the same route. In season I imagine the hotel is full of tour parties, but the crowd with us in March had arrived independently like us. The hotel and the catamaran are owned and operated by the same firm, as is the local Park Aiken.
The catamarin trip was superb, one of the really unforgettable days. We started with a call at 6am and coffee in the hotel and then were ferried to the boat which eventually left half an hour late at 8am.
On this occasion there were only 40 passengers, just half the number of seats, and meals were served on trays as on a plane.
 |
| SMILING IN SPITE OF DISLOCATED SHOULDER |
Finally we were heading straight for the Glacier San Rafael, which loomed larger and larger as we homed in. Painted dates on the rocks illustrate how the glacier had shrunk year on year since 1978, which it does by breaking off in chunks which float way thus creating the ice flows.
 |
| SAN RAPHAEL GLACIER, CHILE |
When we were as close in as was safe we were split into four groups and each got into heavy inflatable dinghies to go close up. We were in group two which was fortunate to be in the right position when an unusually large chunk broke off, almost disappeared under the water, then rose back to its original height setting of a swell with waves several feet high, and then breaking up to fill the bay with floating blue ice.
 |
| DIEDRE, THE SCOTS FRIEND WHO CONVINCED JOAN SHE COULD CLIMB DOWN into THE DINGHY |
 |
| ICE CONTINUALLY FALLING |
 |
| OUR CATAMARAN FROM DINGHY off SAN RAPHAEL GLACIER |
Whilst on deck at night I was joined by one of our fellow guests, one of a party of 4 Germans who were touring in a 4WD. He was much the same age as me and he had traveled a great including driving north beyond Hammerfest (Norway), the most northerly port in the world town. I was there but only as far north as Tromso (from where Artic explorers normally start) some twenty years earlier, as a hitch hiking prelude to summer vacation work near Stockholm. He told me to be sure to sign on for a similar catamaran tour at the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentine, which includes walking in crampons across that much bigger glacier. They were now headed for Esquel.
 |
| RETURNING IN THE EVENING from SAN RAPHAEL GLACIER to CHACABUCO |
The next morning she came with us to Coyhaique, but being Sunday we had to solve the problem of how to link her with a transfer minibus with everywhere closed, solved at last by going to one of the better hotels and asking them to arrange it. It arrived almost full 15 minutes later, just in the nick of time.
Today, another fine day we went for a several km walk out to the National Park of Coyhaique, which was inaugurated in 1948 but shows sign of lack of development like so many things in Chile. Lack of signposting had not stopped the circular footpath being walked and it had certainly not stopped the wild life being of great interest to Joan.
Tomorrow we are out by 7am to get a transfer to the ferry and with luck should make it all the way back to the town of Perito Moreno in Argentine, where we hope to catch the Ruta 40 bus south to El Chalten and El Calafate, though we have been unable to book it over the internet or even via travel agents.
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