hitching, drinking, and dancing

I´ve reached the end of the Carretera Austral, arriving in Chaiten last night to an amazing sunset. Let me give a quick recap of some of my escapades during the past week.

I´ll begin back in Cochrane, where during my last night at the fruit tree filled campground, a well equiped Land Rover pulled in and parked itself only about 30 feet from my tent. The European plates were the first clue that this truck was a long ways from home. The driver was named Guy, a 65 year old retired Physics professor from Lyon, France. His English was passable but he preferred speaking in Spanish, which he had picked up while living for ten years in Spain. I approached him the next morning about a possible ride north and he said sure as long as I could find a spot to stuff my pack in his ¨Flor de Cactus¨ as he had named his vehicle. We spent the next seven hours making our way north, along a particularly scenic stretch of the gravel highway. We stopped frequently for photos, something I would surely have not been able to do had I been on a bus. His vehicle was really tricked out, full of computers, coolers, and just about everything else you would expect a retired physics professor to have ourfitted his Land Rover with. We chatted in Spanish and he made me crack up when his GPS would lose its signal and he would quip: ¨hah!, the US Gov´t does not know where we are!¨ We spent the night in a tiny village 60 miles south of Coyhaique and the next morning we parted ways upon arrival in the big city. You can see some photos of his vehicle (which he also called ¨mi barco de tierra¨) on his photo heavy blog: http://www.espacioblog.com/flor-de-cactus

Upon leaving Coyhaique I was jolted back to reality: hitching is usually not so easy and painless! The day started well enough, two rides each requiring no more than 30 minutes of waiting brought me to Villa Manihuales, 50 miles north by 11 AM. This is where my good karma ran out. I waited for 45 minutes alone before being joined by two Israeli guys also looking for a ride north. Making a long and boring story short, after six and a half hours of waiting I had had enough and the three of us shared a room in the only hospedaje in town, run by a particularly cantankerous old woman. By now we were all feeling pretty fed up with this village and we were fearful there would be no restaurant avaliable as well. This is when the town decided to redeem iteself. We happened upon a hole in the wall, locals only type place, that was more a bar than a restaurant. The music was bumping and smoke clouded the small room. We asked for food and were fed the only thing avaliable, a very Chilean plate of steak topped with two fried eggs and a side of mixed salad. Dinner was followed by several liters of beer which than transformed themselves into dancing with the three local ladies in attendance. Wow could they move those hips!!! It turned out to be a truly amazing cultural experience, an evening I will not soon forget. And oh yes, the next morning we caught the first bus north.