Day 48 - we left Baraloche today finally in Amber, Eoin and Oli arrived with her just before midnight last night. We headed about four hours drive south to Trevelin for lunch, a small pretty town just before the Argentina/Chile border crossing at Futaleufu. We had more border crossing fun, every time it's a different experience. Stamping out of Argentina was straightforward, then a short drive through no mans land to Chile s border patrol. We got stamped in easy enough but then the customs officials decided to do a thorough check of everything. They looked through everything on Amber, all the lockers and everything left on the bus. They had no bag scanning machine or sniffer dog's which we've had at previous borders so manually searched everyone's, 23 peoples, luggage. The most thorough search Vikki our tour leader said she's ever had at a border. Finally about 6:30pm we got an all clear and drove the short distance to Futaleufu town. We dropped Oli and the evenings cook team off so they could go food shopping and then the rest of us continued to our camp site to set up camp. Our crew have never done this leg of the trip before and the campsite turned out to be much further out of town than they anticipated, about 25km. It was a pretty, rural campsite in a lovely valley with basic facilities and a round rustic shed with a great fire pit. Just the shelter we needed for shelter and cooking as it started raining. Eoin dropped us all off plus all our camping gear then returned to Futaleufu to rescue the others. Too late when the cook team arrived, just before 9pm, to cook the sausage casserole they'd planned so they cooked a quick pasta meal from Ambers emergency food rations instead. It was a wet night, it rained on and off all night, our first real wet day. Hopefully the weather will dry up, we're mostly camping now for the next couple of weeks.
Day 49 - it was still raining when we woke up but luckily eased after breakfast. It remained overcast and cold most of the day though. We joined the famous Carretera Austral or southern highway 7, a fantastic dirt track route that passes through untouched Chilean wilderness, past snow capped mountains, glaciers, fjords and beautiful valleys. The route opened in 1980 and was the first road to link remote Patagonia to the rest of the world. Being rough and unpaved it was quite bumpy and slow going, especially as there were lots of road works along it too. We passed through a couple of very small, small towns stopping at Puyuhuapi located at the tip of an inland sea fiord for lunch which had tsunami evacuation signs. It was a bit chilly for a picnic lunch. We continued a further 25km south of Puyuhuapi to Parque National Queulat where we camped for the night in the park campsite. A short walk from the campsite there were fantastic views of the Colgante Glacier, a chalk blue hanging glacier. 3km away from the glacier we could see and hear chunks of ice breaking off and crashing down the mountain.
Day 50 - We continued south along the Carretera Austral, part paved part unpaved today. We stopped for a brief visit to a waterfall, Sendero Padre Garcia on route, then we stopped in a small town, Villa Amengual, looking for toilets and ended up in somebody's house/cafe. We tried to buy takeaway coffees and teas from the very friendly lady owner but were served sit down drinks so about eight of us enjoyed a very civilised cup of coffee/tea and biscuits. We had a picnic lunch stop on the roadside then next stop was a larger town, Coyhaique, were we had an hours break. We stocked up on some snacks and bought a small handmade Patagonia/Chile wool wall hanging from a craft market taking place in the town. Another hours drive and we reached our campsite, Cabalgata Aventura, in the Reserva Nacional Cerro Castillo on a lovely setting with views of the rocky snow capped spires of Cerro Castillo. The owners served us hot coffee/tea and donuts on arrival.
Day 51 - another drive day south heading to Perito Moreno back in Argentina, a decent time and simpler border crossing this time. We're getting lots of stamps in our passport! We arrived in Perito Moreno mid afternoon and stopped at a large supermarket to do some food shopping, it was our cook groups turn to make dinner, then breakfast and lunch the following day. An hours drive further south we headed for the Cueva del las Manos, 'Cave of Hands', we followed the signposts for it turning off on a dirt track. Half way down the track, Amber being a temperamental truck, her exhaust came loose, but Eoin and Oli climbed underneath and fixed it within half an hour. A bit further down the track we reached a 'Cave of Hands' estancia. The owners told us we had the wrong road for the main cave entrance, from them it we would have been a few kilometres hike to reach the caves. So we had to turn back and head another 30km round by road to the cave entrance, we gave a lift to a hitchhiker from the estancia who had also gone to the wrong cave entrance. It was just past 5pm and we were told the last tour was 6pm so it was a race to get there. We picked up two more hitchhiker's at the roadside turn down the proper dirt track to the caves, the caves were still 18km away. We reached the caves at ten past six. After enquiring Vikki was told there would be a tour at 7pm. It was a bit of a dilemma for the crew, we had a long drive day the next day so wouldn't have time to come back in the morning and if we stayed to do the hour long tour we'd arrive very late to camp in the dark. It was decided we'd stay and do the tour and the crew, Eoin, Vikki and Oli go and set up camp and start preparing dinner, about a half hours drive away, then Eoin come back and collect us all at 8pm. Nigel didn't fancy the caves so he went with the crew. By the time we got to camp at dusk, 8:45pm, Vikki had set all the tents up and Oli and Nigel had made soup and spaghetti bolognese, so all worked out OK. We were bush camping the night in a lovely rocky valley setting.
Day 52 - we were on breakfast duty so were up preparing it at dawn, 6am. There was a beautiful red sunrise over the rocks, we finally got to see in daylight our pretty bushcamp setting as it was almost dark, dusk, when we arrived. We were all packed up and on the road for 7:15am. We had a long drive day south today again, 580km along the classic 'Route 40' a very bumpy long straight dirt road to El Chalten a small tourist town considered to be the trekking capital of Argentina and the northern gateway to the Los Glaciares National Park, near the Fitzroy mountain range. When we get there though we're staying for three nights thankfully, we've had a lot of driving the last few days. We arrived at our camp site mid afternoon and as soon as tents were up we all headed for the showers after four nights with no shower for some of us! We had a wander around the one street town of El Chalten then stopped at a restaurant and had a very nice warming local stew dish.
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