Caminamos a Chile de Argentina

Over two weeks ago we left El Chaltén, Argentina for Villa O'Higgins, Chile, not completely sure what we were getting into. This was our first trek where we had to carry everything, so we purged anything not of the essence. The first leg involved walking and hitchhiking to Lago del Desierto along a dirt road. We walked for a couple hours before we got our first ride from a friendly Australian couple named Brad and Heather, but soon we were walking again when they reached their hostería. We walked for three or four hours before we got our next ride which took us a couple hundred feet before leaving us because the road was blocked by several dozen trees that had been downed in the Patagonian winds that apparently have no name. We continued to walk for several hours until the road was cleared and a wonderful bus driver named Raúl took pity on us and brought us to the end of the road, refusing even a modest tip.





That evening we camped at the southern tip of Lago del Desierto and met a man from Buenos Aires named Miguel, mi tocayo (we have the same name), traveling with his son and some of his son's friends. He gave us great tips on places to visit in Argentina and shared a maté with us in the morning, inauguration day. We felt a little homesickness, wishing we could join Hilary's family and friends in Washington and be at the Kellys' for red beans and rice. The day was wonderful, however. The wind died and the sun shone on the lake and Mount Fitz Roy and we had the trail almost to ourselves. That evening we camped at the north end of the lake near the Argentinian border outpost with a great view aross the length of the lake to Fitz Roy. Despite the lack of roads, the border guards had satellite television and the one who stamped our passports said the inauguration had been very good, though he admitted to not having understood the speeches.





The following day we hiked another ten miles or so. After a few hours we came to the border. Though the trail was fairly easy to follow there were no signs, but at the border there were two large welcome signs more worthy of a major highway than a modest footpath. There was also a pleasant old fashioned marker and we were careful to consume the remainder of our cheese before passing it.


We also had a little moment of excitement when we reached a bridge that had been washed out. We took off our boots and forded it, but not before Hilary got pushed over by the strong current and I fished her bag out. Luckily neither of us were hurt and nothing got too wet. The kicker, however, was ten minutes later when we crossed the same river on a bridge and realized that our fording had been entirely unnecessary. We felt like the butt of a sight gag in a silent movie.



The final leg of the journey was a boat ride across the large and many fingered Lago O´Higgins. It started off a little choppy and then turned sunny and wonderful for half an hour or so as we sailed between steep hills with long waterfalls, talking politics with a South African named Christopher, and smiling at the toddlers playing on the deck. But suddenly when we turned a corner and started heading westward, the wind started blowing, the front of the boat started doing a rollercoaster imitation, and the toddlers had to be carried screaming off the deck by a heroic boatswain. Hilary went below, but due to the sickening diesel smell in the cabin, I stayed up on deck getting progressively wetter and greener with a couple of wool ensconced Chilean soldiers who whooped with joy everytime another sheet of water arced over us and continued to chuckle as they wrung out the sleeves of their uniforms. When I finally got too wet and cold to keep my eyes on the horizon I went down below where I met Fay (who will feature prominently in the next episode), feeling similarly. Finally we docked, jumped in a truck, and were driven to La Cascada, our friendly hospedaje run by Odina and Omar, in the primitive town of Villa O´Higgins.