From Puerto Yungai to Villa O’Higgins

Not accustomed to write about emotions, the following is based on impetus from my travel-partner (telling me to write more emotional blogs), and it covers this key stretch of narrow gravel road (about 90 km) to the official start of the Carretera Austral (Route 7). And starting the drive really included some emotions……. But I am not sure if this emotional thing will work – after all I am a cold-blooded Norwegian and trained to be balanced and rational. Anyway, here we go….

We arrived by boat (from Puerto Natales to Puerto Yungai) at the ferry-port of Yungai just before light in the morning of January 20. It was a grey and slightly raining morning. And to make the ferry-arrival extra special the Toyota would not start. The battery was flat and as the other cars started driving off the ferry, I started looking around for someone who could borrow me some electricity. (It eventually turned out that I had left our smallest refrigerator on for the entire 3 days ferry ride).

I quickly found my jumping cables and fortunately quickly got help from the car behind me. It took some time since he had a much smaller car than me (the Toyota require a separate battery only for starting), but after a little while we had our engine up and running again. Well, now we have another unknown angel to add to our long list of people who has given us a hand during our expedition.

This, of course, is also a reminder to make sure that everything is properly turned off before leaving the vehicle (this of course is well known wisdom, but this time it simply slipped my mind to turn off the front fridge).

At the same ferry terminal (maybe a little farfetched to call it a “terminal” as it is just a small wooden house and a road ending in the fjord.

But at least we could get a cup of Nescafé and a piece of cake as people started to wake up and get going in the early morning.   At 09:00 came the mini-ferry (literally a very small boat carrying vehicles) which would bring us across the river Rio Bravo to the port of the same name on the other side.  A funny thing which we now are used to is that you have to reverse the vehicles when driving on the ferry apparently due to the simple fact that the ferry only opens in one end.

We arrived Rio Bravo after an about 20 minutes ferry ride during which the weather cleared, and it turned brightly sunny. As soon as we arrived, we drove off the ferry in direction of Villa O’Higgins – about 90 km. Villa O’Higgins formally represents the start or the end, depending on where you start, of the famous Carretera Austral (Route 7) which is 1240 km long.

And what a ride it was (note: this is emotional……), through a changing landscape of snowcapped mountains, forests, several rivers, and lakes – all on a single-lane dirt road. Though there was very little traffic, you really had to slow down and often come to a complete stop when meeting other cars, motorcycles, or bicyclists. The reason is that there are a lot of turns, ups and downs, bumps and heavy corrugations which make the vehicle, and everything inside shake – sometimes so much that it is difficult to keep control and impossible to maintain a conversation. But this is Carretera Austral – the beginning of it! Also, it complicates things that the side of the road is full of big-stone-deep gravel – hard enough for a heavy four-wheel Land Cruiser – but extremely challenging for motorcycles and bicyclists. We talked to a rider of GS1250 (for those you don’t know it, this a big and heavy motorcycle) who told us he had been stuck under the bike as he at one point in time tipped over on the loose gravel and could not get loose under the heavy bike. He rode with another fellow and soon got help – because here’s so little traffic that in the worst case you may get stuck for a long time……  

Show video from route.

What a ride – really one of the most scenic routes we ever have driven. Arriving Villa O’Higgins we visited the official start-point for Route 7 to take the official photo of us in front of the vehicle and get a diploma 😊 before heading north.

In Villa O’Higgins, which only has 300 inhabitants, we really felt in an end of the road outpost. Surrounded by mountains and rivers, with only 50-60 houses, a few campgrounds, some shops and a few restaurants/cafes.

During our stay in Villa O’Higgins, we took a hike up the mountain east of the village in a specular weather, sunny and – finally – warm.

And here, so far south, meeting only one person is quite as it should be if you ask me………!