Chile

Waking up, the weather outside was foggy and wet, reassuring us that not waking up for the sunrise was correct! Down at the dining room, the host brought out some really awesome breakfast. With real coffee, tasty bread and delicious jam. The whole setting reminds you of wonderful B&Bs you’d get in Niagara or somewhere warm and cozy! Talking to the host, we confirmed that she was indeed born in the village and the daughter of one of the founders of the village. This whole house was built by her father, and the craftsmanship is astounding as everything in the whole place is ORIGINAL. Our hardwood floors couldn’t last a single winter without showing signs of shitty craftsmanship, theirs lasted 50 years…. Looking around the house, it was full of interesting objects and pictures of this towns short but storied history.

We headed out, bid our farewells to the host, and wandered aimlessly around the town. There was a carpet factory tour, but they were on siesta when we got there. The town itself was very small, and lots of little hotels and shops dot the streets. Not in much of a hurry, we ate lunch at a recommended spot, and had possibly the best steak AND best beer we’ve had on this trip so far. The beer was actually produced by another child of the original founders, and never have we had such a tasty fruity lager before. Unfortunately, they don’t sell it anywhere else! And only a few restaurants have it!!! Such a shame…… and as much as we loved to stay and relax here for another day, we had much more ahead of us.

On the road for the rest of the afternoon, we made it to the Chilean border town of Futuleufu around sunset. There’s one thing that’s almost as impressive as the Chilean tourist offices, it would be their parks. Every city, town or village has a BEAUTIFUL and MASSIVE park located in the middle, with lots of public space all over. You really feel that the gov’t here is at least doing something, and seems pretty organized as well. We snapped a few pictures and headed to the road leading us back into Argentina. Getting out of Chile this time was much easier, and we got out of the office in about 10minutes before driving another 5minutes to the Argentine customs office. We rolled in, and the office pointed us to a spot to park…strange, seems like all the officers were all standing outside. When we got out of the car, they yelled at us “MAS RAPIDO, RAPIDO!”. We were confused, but never are we going not do what the customs officer says, so we ran inside and did our stuff. A slight confusion occurred with Alan’s dual passport situation, as his Cdn passport is almost running out of pages he opted to switch to his HKSAR passport, which gave the customs officer too much to contemplate. Nevermind, they were too eager to shut down and head back home as they closed at 8pm! Turns out, we got there at 7:58pm…. lucky us, as a car got turned around as soon as we got outside.

Driving into the even bigger city of Trevelin (est. 10,000 people!), we had a hard time finding the hostel we wanted to stay at. It was recommended by our guidebook, by our hosts in Puyuhuapi and the website pictures looked amazing!! Luckily, the tourist office was still opened at 8:30pm and we headed in to ask, only to find out IT HAS BEEN CLOSED FOR TWO YEARS! W T F? We had a tough time finding a place to stay, but drove around and found a really cute B&B run by an old lady in her own home…..

Cooking dinner, which was once again pasta with dehydrated soup mix, our host saw us cooking, then came in with a bag of apples saying she had too many and it was a gift to us. I think she pitied us at our meager (but tasty) meal, and gave us the apples out of kindness. What a nice lady! The apples were great too….haha!

We can’t wait til tomorrow, as the real reason we came to Trevelin lies in one, and only one reason….

Waking up and having some sweet freshly baked bread in our cozy hostel, we had a nice breakfast while our Polish friends already ate in the comforts of their own room. During breakfast, our host asked us “Quieren mas vida?”, and we were quite confused until she repeated “Quieren mas agua?”, which meant would you like more water. This was rather strange but every region has their own little version of Spanish, which made the ONLY graffiti we saw all of yesterday make so much more sense…. “Agua es Vida!”. Ha ha. Water is Life.

We headed out and drove to the airport located in the town of Balmaceda, a bit out from the city of Coyhaique. The Polish couple was extremely grateful, and we were also grateful for having their company. They would make their flight, and we made their day. Public transportation is NOT easy in this part of Chile, so they were happy to make Iit to the airport.

The drive towards Coyhaique are some beautiful rolling hills with farms harvesting their crops, as it is harvest season in the Southern Hemisphere. We didn’t plan on spending much time in the city of Coyhaique, but we had some errands to run to do it all. On our way into town, we saw two young girls with backpacks twice their size, and we thought “Why not?”, and picked them up! We weren’t going to the same spot so we dropped them into town centre, we later saw them working the streets hoping to collect money for food or bus? A pretty crazy way to travel….

In town, we were totally shocked by the massive amounts of traffic and the lack of parking space, both of which are never a problem in Patagonia! Stopping by the tourist centre, we got an EXCELLENT map for free , with the person speaking fluent English helping us out. He even pointed us to a great and cheap place to eat lunch! At first, he recommended us to go to a place downtown, which would’ve costed about $30CAD per person, and he made it sound like it was “reasonably priced”…. W T F? That’s SUPER expensive for lunch! Then he offered something else outside of town, and for about $5CAD we had a comfy, hearty meal cooked up by what appears to be an awesome, chubby mother. Chile is so expensive…. And what was even more surprising is that, in this town of 10,000 people…. They have a Mercedes-Benz dealership. What? Okay…

By 4pm, we were on our way out of town! We drove north, and after going past a strangely wet and humid National Park (it felt like the Amazon…but in Patagonia!), the sun started setting and we were in some pitch darkness, rounding a lake. There were some really strange buildings in the lake, and resembling something like a run-way with lights and red carpet? Yup, in the MIDDLE of the lake, so we’re thinking this must be one exclusive resort or something? There are thermal spas around here, but red carpet and flood lights floating on the lake seems a bit excessive… After driving for about an hour in the dark, we finally reached what appears to be civilization.

Our guidebook tells us this town is inhabited by about 600 people, and was formed by the hard work of 4 German immigrants back in the 1940s. Rolling into town, we turned into the first hotel, Casa Ludwig. It was the only place recommended by our guide book, but to be fair, this place was so small that it only warranted barely a page of words.

The hotel was charming, with a classic wooden interior, antique objects laying around corners, and a beautiful reading room with a fireplace warming it up. The owner was this charming German lady who spoke fantastic English, and being a very warm and welcoming host. The house was beautifully decorated, and within the reading room lays some great information about the history of this settlement, and some old photographs…. We cooked dinner, showered and huddled up in the reading room drinking mint tea and checking emails on Wi-Fi! Yes, Wi-Fi!

Honestly though, walking in the dark around the house was sort of creepy…haha!