Patagonia - Hot Springs, Steaks, and Hikes

Eli and I are still on the road and still loving the freedom of our car, although after a long day or two of driving, we are more than ready for some breathing room outdoors. We try to get in a hike day or some sightseeing every few days so we don't feel too confined to our car. Our Easter was a memorable one. We picked up our first hitchhiker, a young kid travelling a few hours to see his family. I was embarrased at the condition of our car...stuff piled everywhere to make room for him...but he didn't seem to mind, as he slept the whole drive...and we could hardly communicate with him since he only spoke Castillano. After we dropped him off, we stopped in a town called Coihaique to refuel, get groceries, and shower. We found free showers at a hostel. A guy staying there offered to let us use his showers as the owner was away. Sweet! Although cold, a shower is ALWAYS appreciated. I have a new love for hot showers and nothing feels better than a hot shower after a week or more of cold showers. For Easter dinner we had to finish off our supply of hot dogs. We keep hot dogs on hand for those times when we can't find a decent grocery store. This time, instead of eating them in a bun, we mixed it up and diced them with eggs and avacado. Like I said, a memorable Easter!

Our friend Anibal from Punta Arenas suggested that we make our way to his favorite thermal hot springs near a little town called Chaiten in Chile. When we were in New Zealand, Eli and I had been wanting to experience some real hot springs but due to our budget constraints, we had not yet splurged on them. This time, we were determinded to follow through. We were very pleased to hear that these springs were only $6 each and they were nestled in a garden like setting opening up to the surrounding valley. It was a bit drizzly out but it made the hot water steam more dramatic.

We spent about 2 hours soaking up the warm water. After our bodies were totally shrivelled up, we headed North to the town of Chaiten. In 2008, Chaiten was hit by a devastating volcano and has since become an ash covered ghost-town. It was quit the site to see. 75% of the ocean town was abandoned with nothing but piles of ash and derelict houses. But then, every so often, there was a remaining perfectly spotless building amongts the debris. There were also still numerous amounts of stray dogs and people living in this town. We saw some older ladies shoveling ash, I wondered how often they do that. I assumed that the people still living there were the ones who could not afford to move. The town was so eeary and it made us thankful that we have not had to experience such devestation in our lives. That same day, we continued up the road a little ways to an area called Santa Barbara, a small black sand beach. We turned off onto a bumpy dirt road, drove by the 2 house neighborhood, and found a black sand beach that we had entirely to ourselves. We drove right up on the sand and parked just before sunset. We had read that this beach often had dolphin sightings at sunset so we were surprised that no one else was there. We also wondered if maybe the dolphins had left for the season. To our delight, as I was getting our stove ready for dinner, I caught a glimpse of a black fin in the water. Eli and I jumped and ran to the shore to find a family of dolphins swimming nearby. There must have been about 10 dolphins! Eli said the scene looked like one of those cheesy Hawaiian paintings with the mountains, sunset and dolphins.

If it had been warm enough, I would have jumped in the water to go swimming with them. They were so beautiful as the sun illuminated their fins. That night we were easily lulled to sleep by the ocean after our relaxing day of hot springs and dolphin watching. This was one of my favorite days in South America so far! Not everyday on our trip has been so rewarding but we have continually been blessed with safety and health. We never go hungry and we always have a place to sleep, eventhough each day we have to figure out where that place will be. We have definitely gone through a sort of transformation on this trip. Our priorities have changed for sure. Our daily regime not only consists of trying to see as much as possible, but we also have to consider how to make our money stretch, what we will eat, if we have enough fuel to cook with, enough gas to drive with, what's the weather today, are we driving on paved or dirt roads, where will we shower, where will we sleep, and will we be able to communicate with the people we run into. I guess with all of those things to consider, when we do have a hiccup in our day, we usually take it in stride. Good thing we've adapted because the day after our perfect day, we got a flat tire. This could have totally messed up our day, but seeing as how blessed we have been, the timing couldn't have been better. Eli was driving and we pulled over to make some sandwiches for lunch. We heard a loud hissing and discovered that it was our tire. Without hesitation, Eli and I got back on the road knowing that the next town was only 10 minutes away. We pulled into this town, our tire was getting pretty low, and right away we found an open mechanic. We made our sandwiches on the hood of the car while the mechanic merrily sang some tiring changing songs. Within 2 hours, we had our tire changed and we were back on our way. Too bad he couldn't fix our original tire and didn't have the right size so now we were driving on our spare and would need to stop in the next town to get a new spare. And he gouged us $60 to change our spare out. Oh well, Eli asked "where's a Discount Tire when you need one?"

We spent the next five days in Bariloche, Argentina. Yes we crossed the border again. I hope my passport doesn't fill up so I can still leave the country! Eli had spent about a week in Bariloche 4 years ago and has always bragged to me about there delicious steaks, home-made ice cream, and his "favorite hike of all time!" I couldn't wait for all of this. First order of business was finding showers. We found some hot water showers at a hostel, it was well worth the $2.50 each! We also paid the hostel owner to watch our car while we planned to do the 3 day hike. Eli warned me that this hike was difficult but I was eager for the challenge. We set out for our 3 days with perfect weather and plenty of food. I packed extra fruit and snacks for this long hike which made my 20 pound pack feel even heavier. Eli offered to take some of my weight but I was stubborn. Day 1 took about 7 hours of hiking up and down through steep rocky ledges and valleys. Halfway into this day, we skated down a "scree field" for about 15 minutes with our hiking shoes and trekking poles. It was really fun but exhausting. I didn't realize how tired my knees were until we started descending down steeper, bigger, loose rocks. I told Eli that I felt like a newborn horse trying to learn to walk since my knees were so wobbly. Sure enough, right after I spoke those words, I tripped, took a couple of tumbles, and landed very akwardly. Luckily a big rock broke my fall as my chin smacked against it. There was some blood and some tears but Eli did a good job of bandaging me up and showering me with sympathy. I managed to muster up the courage to continue down...No way was I going back up! By hour 7 we made it to flat ground which should have been easy sailing with just a few yards to go. But my legs were still weak and shaky as we walked through some mud. I thought I cleared a log sticking out through the mud but my toe tripped me up and I body planted right into the mud and scraped my shin on the log. Eli once again came to my aid as I was crying and laughing at the same time while I asked "are we there yet?" It was quite humerous with the mess I was making.

We finally made it to a campsite, I washed away the mud and my hurt feelings in the cold stream and felt better. Eli then told me that day 2 and 3 were going to be more difficult and longer. He also let me know that there was an easier hike out through a valley if I wanted to leave. I told him I needed to sleep on it. The next morning, I woke up feeling like I had been hit by a car and I got really nervous thinking about taking another fall. I didn't want Eli to have to rescue me or call a helicopter to lift me out so we decided it would be best to walk out. Plus the weather was changing and we didn't want to be hiking in the rain. Ok, so I swallowed my pride and took back my self proclaimed rating of "expert hiker" and we left. It was still 7 hours out of the valley but it was not as difficult. Since we had left our car in town and took a bus and a ski lift to start our hike, Eli told me that we might have to walk a little ways to get to another bus back. He didn't realize that the valley would end at a dirt road that was about 6 miles from a main road. Arggg. That added a little more time on our day and my pack was starting to get heavy and my feet were telling me I had some blisters forming. Funny how 12 days hiking in Nepal I was blister free but 2 days hiking here was causing me so much grief. Half a dozen cars drove by us on that dirt road but nobody stopped for us even though we were sticking our thumbs out. This was my first time hitchhiking and I was not impressed. I told Eli that I had a new respect for hitchhikers and I vowed to pick more up if they weren't scary, homeless, male, or escaped convicts...that probably rules out all hitchhikers in the USA. After about 2 hours on the dirt road, we made it to civilization. We ran to catch a bus heading into the center of town. I was so thankful to have a ride, I barely noticed how smelly, dirty, and blood stained I was. Only while I was standing, holding onto the handrail with my arm over a girl's head, I began to notice the uncomfotable odors. I was embarrased but tried not to think about it and instead I focused on our next priorites. In this order our priorities were ice cream, showers, then a steak dinner! Notice in the picture below the bandaid on my chin.

I promise by my description it was alot more traumatic than it looks. Hahaha! That night for dinner, we ate at El Boliche de Alberto's, known to have the best steaks in town. It did not disappoint! Eli ate a sirloin the size of 2 fists and I ate a tenderloin. This was by far the best steak I have had in my whole life.

Our steaks, mashed potatoes, bread, pesto dip, and bottle of wine was a total of $35. Outstanding! Eating steak was much better then spending a night in a tent on the side of a mountain! After stuffing ourselves silly, we drove out of town a little ways to find a good place to park our car to get some sleep for the night. Our plans for the next 2 days would keep us in Bariloche getting our new tire, doing laundry, connecting to internet, and eating more home-made icecream.

Bariloche was a great little touristy town and we managed to get everything done that we needed to do. Bariloche was as far as we had planned and we had no idea were our next destination would be. Generally we wanted to head north and Eli had read about a place called Cochamo Valley. There wasn't much written about this place in any of the books we read but online it claimed to be "the Yosemite of South America" so we knew we had to go there. We crossed back into Chile and got a complete shake down at the border as we were asked to empty out our car. This was the first time the border crossing had been so thorough so we were a bit frazzled trying to lay out all of our personal belongings and handmade bed for the border patrol. We passed the drug dogs sniff test and luckily we weren't smuggling any Argentine fruits, so we were given the all clear to pass. Whew.

After a couple of hours of messy dirt roads, we made it to the town of Cochamo and found a another dirt road that we hoped would leave us to the entrance of the valley. Since it was getting late, we slept at the end of the road not knowing if this was the right way, in hopes that in the morning we would find our way...finally a real adventure. Yes we were feeling like we hadn't been very adventerous until now, strange I know.

We woke up to beautiful sunshine with plans to spend 3 days hiking to and around the valley. The trail wasn't labelled and there was a questionable bridge leading to a trail that was being guarded by a fearless looking bull.

Luckily 2 Chiliean cowboys on horses came along and informed us that we were heading the right way. After we scrambled through a few barbed wire fences to avoid the bull, we were on our way. The trail was another challenge in itself. Never before have we walked through so much mud and muck.

Since this trail was covered with a dense mossy canopy of trees, it never saw sunlight, and was primarily used by horses and cows, it was pretty sloppy. I didn't have any major falls this time. but a couple of times I was grumpy and was wishing we hadn't started this adventure. But I wanted to keep going because another cowboy along the way promised there was a "Refugio" campsite not too far ahead. Plus, we were excited to see what this valley really had to offer. It took Eli and I about 6 hours to tread through the mud but once we arrived, it was totally worth it! It was like Yosemite! The campground was deserted, except for some cows and a little building made for campers if it rained. There was a massive pasture of green grass surrounded by large rock faces all around and through a small forest there was a beautiful stream.

We set up our tent, cooked our hot dog dinner over a fire pit, and we were visited by a guy from Nevada that was living up there with his wife and 5 year old child. He had been taking care of the campgrounds during the camping season for the past 6 years. He was a nice guy and gave us some ideas for day hikes. We went to bed when the sun disappeared. That night was exceptionally chilly and we woke up to a frozen tent. Once the sun came out and everything thawed, Eli decided to go off exploring some of the trails the guy had mentioned while I napped in the sun. It was a great day! The next day we got up early, as we were warned that a rain storm would be coming, and we started our hike out. I don't know if the mud was less or if we were just super hungry, but we managed to make it out of the valley in half of the time it took to get in. I promised Eli a big bowl of guacamole when we got to the car and it was like a carrot dangling on a string for us the whole way. It worked! Yum, we cannot get enough of the avacodos here. We eat 1 or more each day. We made it to our car just in time for the rain to start. We were filthy so we headed off to find showers. We had heard that we could take showers at certain gas stations. We found one that cost $1 each and it was pure heaven. They were clean and hot! I never would have guessed I would be one to shower at a gas station, but I swear by them now. For camping that night we parked not too far off of the interstate, not our usual choice for sleeping but it was getting late. I was so tired but couldn't fall asleep. I must have sensed a possible disturbance coming. Finally around midnight I must have dozed off because at 2am Eli and I were startled by flashing lights of the Carabineros (police). It is hard enough to get in and out of our car on a good day but imagine Eli trying to get dressed, squeeze out of the car in the rain at 2am with the police hassling him. They didn't seem to happy waiting for Eli to scramble out of the car and they told us we had to leave and couldn't park there. They did let Eli know that we could drive 1 km down the road to a truck pull off and sleep there. I was still under the covers while all of this was happening. Luckily we were able to get some more sleep in our new designated parking spot. We would be headed to another Chiliean town the next day, Pucon, that was recommended to us. We are hoping that the rain will let up and we won't have anymore hassle from the Carabineros!

By the way I have become a sucker for stray dogs. I was able to avoid eye contact with them in Asia but they are more persuesive here. Especially the puppies or the mommy dogs. I sometimes have to sneak them a few bites of tuna fish or crackers. We always know when it is lunchtime as every town has sirens that they blare at noon and the stray dogs all begin to howl.....

South America - "El Pinguino", Guanacos, and Torres

Ahh the joys of having a vehicle. It has been 10 days since Jodie and I left Punta Arenas and we are overwhelmingly thankful to have our own vehicle and the freedom that it brings. We always feel sorry for alll the poor suckers that we pass on busses between the well beaten backpacker stops. Now whenever we want to stop and take a picture, we pull over. Or if we see a cool side road, we don't hesitate to see where it leads. Or, if we need to go to the bathroom... well you get the idea. All things that can't be done when travelling by bus. We also get to hand pick some beautiful places to camp, usually out in the middle of nowhere with no sign of people in sight. We feel very blessed to have a car and we are trying to make the most of it.

Shortly after leaving Punta Arenas, Jodie and I christened our car "El Pinguino" (the Penguin) after both the first drive when we took in it out to the penguin colony and the name of the local newspaper. It just seemed fitting. So if our car is El Pinguino, then the coffin-like space we sleep in must be "La Cueva del Pinguino" (The penguin cave).

We are now adjusted to sleeping in the confined space, but the first night proved to be a little clastrophobic as we awkwardly tried to climb up and slide in onto our bed being careful not to elbow each other in the face or bang our heads on the roof of the car. It is quite comfy, we are using our camping mattresses, sleeping bags and our newly purchased pillows. Definitely more comfortable than some of the questionable hostel beds that have ancient mattresses shaped like canoes. The platform that I built is working quite nicely at keeping us from falling through onto all of our food and the stuff stored underneath. Jodie even added her touch by making some curtains out of a sheet that she hang up so that people can't see in at night. Another added benefit of the bed platform is we can make a table out of it by sliding half of it out of the back and resting one side of it on the bumper and hanging the other side from a rope connected to the tailgate. El Pinguino has become our little home and we love it.

Our first stop with our new wheels was Torres Del Paine National Park about five hours North of Punta Arenas. The Paine Massif is a group of mountains that contain some spectacularly shaped peaks. The most unique of these are the "Cuernos" or horns and the "Torres" or towers. The Cuernos are beatifully colored mountains with the bases of them almost white, and then close to the tops they suddenly turn very dark so they almost look like a vanilla ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. The Torres are three huge granite teeth that rise out of their bases and turn fiery colors when the they are first hit by sunlight at sunrise. All of this is surrounded by glacially fed aquamarine lakes that add to the splendor. We were originally planning on doing a 4-6 day trek in TDP but when we arrived the weather was not great so we opted to do a short day hike and wait and see if it cleared up. We hiked along one of the lakes to get views of a nearby glacier and some of the iceburgs that had broken off the glacier and floated down the lake. This part of the world is famous for its wind and crazy weather and this day was no exception. We stood on the lakeshore and couldn't believe how strong the wind was. We were getting blown side ways as we walked so we had to lean real hard into the wind to keep from blowing over. It was crazy and the beginning of our interesting relationship with the Patagonian wind. We camped that night and awoke the next morning to more bad weather so we nixed the hiking plans and decided just to drive around and maybe get some nice views if the weather decided to clear. We drove around and watched guanacos (lama looking creatures),

condors and nandus (flightless emu type birds) as we took in the scenery. We camped next to a beautiful lake where the Torres were masked in the clouds behind. Over night the weather cleared and we awoke to a spectacular sunrise.

The Torres glowed pink then red then orange as the sun made its way over the horizon, it was amazing. We ate our breakfast of cereal and yogurt as we watched the show. Having our fill of the scenery we drove the two hours to the Argentine border on our way to our next destination.

The whole buying a car in another country was very nerve racking, and with that process over my next fear was that we wouldn't be able to cross the border with it. Even though I had done my research, I had a fear of the Cabineros at the border sifting through our pile of papers and saying "Sorry gringo, but you can't take the car out of Chile". Thankfully this was not the case, and other than my near drowning in the sea of Spanish, the border crossing was uneventful at both the Chilean and Argentine side. I thought the Argentines would want to rumage through our car and make sure that we weren't smuggling drugs, dogs, fruit or Mexicans, but they didn't even bat an eye. Maybe they wanted to get back to the exciting game of Nintendo they were playing when we walked in.

Within two minutes of crossing the border we were lost. Apparently road signs are not any sort of priority in Argentina. There was no town to get lost in, just a couple of intersections that we managed to drive through about five times before we figured it out. Part of our confusion came from Ruta 40 which is the main artery that runs North and South along the Andes from the top of Argentina all the way down through Patagonia. I have heard that it is not a busy road, and is pretty remote in places. This particular section of Ruta 40 was nothing more than a one lane dirt road. Sure it was wide enough for two lanes, but when about 10 cars pass on it per day, everyone drives in the middle of the road so it looked like one lane. I said to Jodie "THIS can't be Ruta 40" but sure enough it was and we were on our way.

Although Patagonia has some spectacular scenery, about 90% of it is pretty barren, consisting of dry rolling hills with short grass and tough looking shrubs. Its not ugly by any means, its rather pretty, just not all mountains and glaciers like you might see in pictures. This is what we found ourselves driving through most of the time, everyonce in a while broken up by a herd of guanacos or nandus sprinting off the road. The scenery reminded us of Arizona and even made us a little homesick.

Since I had been in Patagonia four years ago, I knew a bit about the places to see and where to hike. Our next stop was the town of Calafate where we would stock up on some groceries before heading to the Perito Moreno glacier. While leaving the grocery store we were stopped by a parking guy who said we needed to pay two pesos (about 50 cents) to park on the street. I had spent my last pesos on some gas earlier so I told him I needed to run to the atm while Jodie packed the groceries into the car. Five blocks later I found an atm that was out of order so I kept searching and shortly found another one. After taking my money out, the ATM decided to keep my bank card. The bank was closed for the weekend, so I tried everything I could think of to get it back with no luck. Now I had a dilema. Jodie and parking meter guy were waiting back at the car for me, but I didn't want to leave for fear of someone else coming to use the ATM and it spitting my card back out at them and then they decide to go on an ebay shopping spree courtesy of myself. I decided to go get Jodie and the car and hope that no one would use the machine in the meantime. I sprinted down the streets back to our car, paid the parking meter guy, jumped in the car and quickly drove back to the bank. We stopped the first person who used the ATM, they got their money and card no problem but no sign of my card. I copied down the help phone number and went to the nearest tourist business to find someone who could help me call the bank and translate. I found a guy who got ahold of the ATM company who said to call my bank and cancel my card. Because there was nothing they could do until Monday. Bummer. I called up my bank and luckily they could put a hold on my card without cancelling it, so we would have to come back in two days to see if the bank could get my card back.

We decided to go to the glacier the next day and then come back through town on Monday to stop at the bank.

The Perito Moreno glacier is a huge river of ice that slowly inches its way down to the lake Lago Argentina where it breaks off (called calving) in house size chunks violently splashing into the water below. The face of the glacier is three miles wide and over 150 feet tall. The glacier causes a very unique phenomenon as it moves forward. Every couple of years the glacier advances enough to cut off one arm of the lake from the other. This causes an ice dam that makes one side of the lake rise faster than the other side. Eventually the water melts away at the ice dam until a pathway is made through the ice for the water to run, creating an ice bridge. The huge bridge slowly erodes until finally the whole thing collapses into the water below creating a spectacular scene. When I was at the glacier four years ago, that ice bridge had collapsed 2 days before I arrived. This time the bridge had not yet formed again but the glacier still managed to amazed us with huge chunks of ice calving off every 10-15 minutes. It was addicting watching and trying to predict where the next piece would fall from. Every time a piece fell you would hear a load cracking sound like thunder, then you would have to quickly turn in the direction to try and see it before it hit the water. It was hours of entertainment.

We found a spectacular free campsite that overlooked a beautiful lake and some impressive mountains. The next day we went back into town to stop at the bank. I barely had said anything to the teller when he asked for my passport then pulled out a stack of about half a dozen bank cards that the ATM had eaten. A moment later I had my card back, and was very relieved. We then headed North to one of my favorite places, El Chalten to do some hiking. El Chalten is a dinky little tourist town that sits right in front of some unbelievable mountains.

Cerro Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre are my favorite mountains because they are so steep they almost look fake. Snow can't even stick to them they are so steep. We arrived in El Chalten in the afternoon and within an hour we were on the trail with our packs to spend three days hiking in the area. We camped at a campsite near the base of Cerro Torre.

We ate our dinner not to far away at a glacial lake that sits at the foot of the mountain. It was stunning. There was a full moon that night so I got up and walked to the lake for some more great views. I tried to take a few pictures but my trusty little camera doesn't take long exposures well so they turned out a little out of focus, but still cool. The next two days were plagued by cloudy weather so we could not see the tops of the mountains like we had hoped but it was beautiful none the less. On the trail we ran into the German guy who had stayed at our hostel in Punta Arenas the night we had the big dinner and drinks.

It was good to see him again and its always funny running into fellow travellers that are heading the same direction as us.

We got back on the now paved Ruta 40 heading North to cross back over into Chile. Before too long the pavement ran out and we found ourselves bumping along on the dusty and increadibly windy road. At some times the wind would blow so hard that the car would actually slide sideways towards the ditch as we were driving. Good thing we would only pass a car about every hour. I felt really bad for the crazy group of people who decide to ride their bikes down Ruta 40. We saw one poor lady going the opposite direction who was walking her bike, because it was too windy to ride. Actually the bike looked like it was walking her as she fought with it to stay standing. We asked her if she needed any help but she said she was fine so we kept on going. At the intersection of our road into Chile we stopped at a gas station. We were warned by our friend Annibal to always gas up whenever we could along this section of road because there weren't very many gas stations. Nobody came out of the store when I pulled up so I went inside and soon found out that they were out of gas. Now we had to make a decision. We could either head North and make it to the next town in Argentina, then cross at a different border, or take our chances and cross into Chile from where we were and hope our 3/8 of a tank would last us. Being the optimistic under-estimator that I have discovered that I am, I said "Sure we can make it, no problem". Jodie had her doubts but trusted my judgement. Little did I know that the road we took was pretty bad and we could only drive about 15 miles an hour. Not good for gas mileage. From our map we totalled up the kilometers between where we were and the next town in Chile that had gas. It was about 100 miles and the only thing between us and the next town were a few remote "estancias" (ranches). We slowly made our way towards the border with some beautiful lakes and mountains all around us. After about 2 hours I decided to count the cars we passed along the road, so far zero. We camped for the night and at about 8 o'clock the first car passed us going the other way. One car in about 5 hours. Then one more in the morning. We crossed the border with no problems and we thought the border police must get pretty bored out there, 100 miles from anything and maybe three cars per day passing through. As we crossed the border we were about half way and our gas gauge was a hair above the E. We had thought ahead and bought a spare gas tank that holds about two and a half gallons, which I had figured we would have to use at this point. Miraculously we made it to the next town about 2 hours later without using the spare fuel. We couldn't believe it.

We were now in Cochrane Chile, along the Carratera Austral which is the Chilean version of Ruta 40. Except in southern Chile, its the only road, your options are the CA or boat. We were happy to be in a town again, after twenty four hours of slow bumpy dirt roads. We decided to make camp early so we found another breathtakingly beautiful lake, parked, cooked some hamburgers topped with avocados, watched a movie then went to bed in the Cueva del Penguino.

Originally we were going to head South further down the CA before heading back North but we were getting tired of the horrible roads so we decided to start heading North. The scenery was different now that we were closer to the pacific, there were trees and lots of mountains, rivers and lakes, and no wind. It was all very beautiful. We kept to our 15-20 mile per hour pace as we climbed steep roads around cliffs and lakes. By lunch we had made it to Lago General Carrera, the second largest lake in South America after Lake Titicaca. Its kinda funny, in Chile its Lago General Carrera, but part of the same lake also lies in Argentina where it is called Lago Buenos Aires. It took us 3 hours to drive its windy southern shore, and it has been one of the more beautiful stretches we have driven. We stopped in the small border town of Chile Chico where we lucked out and got there just in time to catch the ferry across the lake so we could continue on the CA without backtracking the three hours back down the lake.

From here we will head North and continue up the Carretera Austral before crossing back into Argentina at Futaleufu.