Zelfa e Gunnar viajaram pelo Chile em 2001 e contam um pouco de como foi esta aventura pela "Carretera Austral".

In 2001 we went twice to Chile to drive the Carretera Austral. This fantastic & scenic gravel road in southern Chile was opened in 1988 by President Pinochet with a total of 1013 Km. Construction has been under way since then and it was not until 2 years ago that the last portion of 237 Km of the road was finished.
Our plan was to drive the complete route to Villa O'Higgens, the last settlement where the Southern Continental Ice Cap starts.

From previous experience, Bariloche is the best place to a rent car with the permission to cross to Chile. As agreed, Rent a Car waited for us at the airport in Bariloche with a standard Gol 1.6 with extra tires and gas containers.
We immediately drove north to Villa Langostura to cross over to Chile. The first time we crossed from Argentina to Chile through the same border at 'Los Pajaritos', everything was gravel...well now, there was an incredible paved road recently finished, just like in the first world!

We reached the Osorno volcano of 2650 meters high at the beautiful village of Ensenada. We tried to get as close as possible to see this fantastic mountain covered with snow. For our surprise, as we reached the road to go up the volcano, a construction was going on; a new ski resort had just opened. As we got to the volcano, we rode the chair lift to the first stop at 1400 meters and the lift continues up to 1700 meters. It was an incredible view over looking Porto Varas region. This new ski resort has been built by a German holding. This part of Chile is of German descendents. Restaurants and hotels all have German names. Locals are excited with the possibility of having more tourists coming during the ski season.

Our first night we spent in Puerto Varas, a beautiful spot on the shore of Lake Llanquihue, overlooking the splendid Osorno volcano. This is a booming town with nice hotels, a busy casino, great restaurants and gorgeous roses all along.
In the morning, we made our way down to the fishing town of Puerto Montt. From there we went to the end of the highway where we took the ferry to the Island of Chiloe. This island is 250 Km long and 50 Km wide. As always, we took the back roads to see the scenery and the way people live. Very interesting wooden houses and Jesuit little wooden churches found everywhere.

We met local people riding on beautiful & big ox carriages. We got to Castro, the capital of the province, a very friendly town. Our main objective was to buy our tickets for the ferry to Chaiten, where we would really start driving on the Caretera Austral. The ferry was scheduled to depart at 4 PM, it was running late? and we only left after 9 PM. It was great fun seeing four Commerson?s dolphins following us at full speed and playing along the ferry very close. We arrived in Chaiten at 4 AM, parked the car on the side road along with several other folks and continued sleeping in the car.

There was no place for an early cup of coffee, so we continued our way south until we found a house that offered food & rest. This was an early Sunday morning; we knocked the door and asked if the lady could prepare some breakfast for us. With pleasure, was her reply! All over Chile, breakfast is always the same, Nescafe with some kind of homemade bread. Talking to the owners of the house, we then heard about Douglas Tompkins, a Canadian who is buying land in Chile and transforming them into National Parks. Mr. Tompkins acquired his fortune through North Face, Patagonia and Esprit. He has recently purchased 7,000 hectares in Chubut.

Driving through Queulat's National Park, we could not stop taking pictures of this magnificent scenery. High mountains covered with snow, glaciers, white water rivers, water falls, natural forest, all in a 50 Km drive.
The weather was fantastic and hot for that part of the world. Chile is nice & green because of all the rain that comes from the Pacific Ocean, and on this trip we had plenty of sunshine.

We spent the night in Puerto Cisne, a community of fish industry. All around the lakes and channels we saw signs of fish farms where they raise salmon. Chile became the world's largest salmon meat exporter in the world after Norway.
On the way to Coyhaique, the road was under construction. There were lots of trucks, caterpillar tractors when we had our first and only flat tired. On our first trip, Feb 2001 we had unbelievably 7 flats!.. We arrived in Coyhaique, the administrative and commercial center of the XI Region of Chile (Aisen), where there are direct flights from Santiago.

Almost 200 Km south of Coyhaique are now paved. Going through Cerro Castillo at 2675 meters high, which is a ski resort & National Park was for us an easy ride. Four years ago in May 2001; this was gravel, very steep and completely snowed in.

We arrived in Puerto Rio Tranquilo to spend the night. This is a cozy spot right by the Lake General Carrera, Chile's biggest lake with its magnificent blue & light green waters and in Argentina the same lake is called Lake Buenos Aires. Last time we were there, we had heard of a new road being built to Laguna San Rafael National Park. Next morning we drove through this most splendid gravel road, inside the mountains, where there were no humans, cows, birds, and very impressive native forest. Eventually this road will reach Bahia Exploradores where people will be able to take boats to visit Laguna San Rafael, where the northern ice cap starts. We reached the End of the Road, at Km 59.

The only people living on this road are Thomas & Katarina, from Switzerland who four years ago sold everything in Europe and moved to Chile. They are finishing building a lovely mountain cabin on Km 44 which is also a place for people to stay and to spend the night. We stopped and talked to Thomas who was eager to tell us his story. Near by we climbed up a mountain where we could over look a huge glacier. The Explorer's Road was by far the most incredible drive, where we'll return as soon as the road has been completed to the Bahia Exploradores.

We continued south to Cochrane, a town over 1,500 people which in the past couple of years has also grown with tourism and the locals told us that about 30 foreigners have settled in the area. It's a dry and hilly region with incredible scenery. Just before Cochrane, we stopped at Puerto Bertrand, a very charming spot on the Caretera. Lake Bertrand, with its most incredible blue tone surrounds this area. Along the road to Cochrane is Baker River with its 165 Kms of bright clear blue glacier water.

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