Route 9 In Patagonia

I’ve thought about this a bit and I am fairly confident when I say the drive to Punta Arenas was the most boring of the trip. Mythical Patagonia was boring I’m embarrassed to say. 

Ruta 9 from Puerto Natales is a cement slab highway and usually they are  ghastly as your heavy van bounces from seam to seam like an overweight pogo stick. In Chile they seem to have figured this system out and it was a smooth ride. They do build pretty bus stops along the route. One bus stop at the entrance to each ranch (“estancia “) along the otherwise empty road. We traveled bus stop to bus stop with not a soul in sight and just a few cars. 

There was some traffic when we drove it Sunday afternoon, but it was not always visible. Mostly we were alone.  

E stands for “estacionamento” which means parking. 

Chile is brilliant in that they build lots of roadside rest areas just like this, no facilities and not fancy but all you need to stop safely off the road, and around here stopping to let Rusty out breaks the monotony and gives you a chance to take your hands off the wheel.  I wanted a sailboat autopilot here. 

Most of Patagonia is treeless but there are some plantations and a few lonely cypress trees. The road signs look quite serious. This is the “end of the world road” and it’s not every day you find yourself driving to the end of the world.  

Vicuña are something to look out for. “I spy with my little eye something beginning with vee.”  

And of course on a Sunday you’re bound to come across some locals in spandex. Even out here they pedal along, ignoring the twenty mile per hour winds which rate as a calm day hereabouts. 

And then we started crossing paths with a whole bunch of RVs. They had big blue circles stuck on them in the back so I think they were a tour group. You can do that and tour South America in a matter of weeks with the details organized  for you and mechanics nearby if you have a problem. It will cost you though. 

We had spotty cell service most of the way but I still got to listen to the BBC radio app while Layne took forty winks on the bed. Donald Sutherland was selecting his eight favorite music tracks for a long running interview program. I used to listen to Desert Island Discs when I was a kid in boarding school half a century ago. The miracle of technology, channeling my childhood, my youth, my past into this barren wilderness. Patagonia I dream of thee.  

A sign said we were coming to the monument to the wind. In typical inscrutable South American style there were no explanations, no pull out or safe place to park. The monument was just there so we stopped on the shoulder. 

And that’s all I’ve got for you. The monument, no explanation at the site or online that I could find. And it’s not the monument to the wind located in Puerto Natales.  

And then we were in Punta Arenas (“sandy point”) the capital of Chile’s Magellanic region. It is a large city and quite spread out and not necessarily too touristy. 

It sits on a long curved waterfront overlooking the Straits of Magellan. Twenty miles across the straits is the island archipelago of Tierra Del Fuego (“land of fire”).

First stop was at Lider, the chain purchased by Walmart. There are no Jumbo stores, Layne’s favorite, this far south so this was where we came to stock the fridge. Rusty and I walked the block and when we got back to GANNET2 I noticed we were surrounded by hard core four wheel drives. Bet they haven’t gone as far as we have. Ha! 

We had this idea we might like to take a 36 hour ferry ride to Puerto Williams a Navy base and small town on an island south of Ushuaia.  The boat was leaving Sunday and we thought we might try and catch a ride. Boy were we wrong. We drove to the port and waited for the ferry service office to open. 

We met the guy in the photo above and started chatting. He’s been all over South America in his RV but his daughter has produced a grand child and his wife no longer wants to travel. He was really thrown for a loop and trying to figure out what to do and he admitted to considering leaving his sidecars taking to the road in a van like us. I felt for him and I had no clue what to say as I was reminded how lucky I am with Layne and Rusty waiting aboard GANNET2. Below we see a monument set up by the Navy to honor the early settlers who mostly came from Isla Chiloé to farm the inhospitable southern regions of Chile. 

To cut a long story short the ferry to Puerto Williams is not really set up for tourists. They want $2000 to transport GANNET2 and Rusty would have to ride in a cage. And it’s not clear when there would be room for our van as we had to get in touch with the scheduler by email to sort out dates. It seemed like they really didn’t want us and we got the hint. Our fall back plan is the possibility of a passenger ferry from Ushuaia across the Beagle Channel. 

We found our way north out of the city along the waterfront…

… which reminded me a bit of South Roosevelt Boulevard in Key West. Except it was 50 degrees and not too terribly tropical. 

And guess what we found: a big city park, a bit untidy but filled with pleasant spots to park for the night for free. 

Time to bundle up for another  40 degree night. Tomorrow we explore Punta Arenas.

Thank you all for the messages of encouragement and there is much more to come I hope. More ferries, penguins, and extraordinary views. And doubtless headaches and problems too. 

Lago Sarmiento, Torres Del Paine

Saturday we left Puerto Natales to drive fifty miles north to go wild camping. Thank you iOverlander.

  

And the wind built up to greet us, foaming the waters of the lake and shaking GANNET2 like a continuous small earthquake. But the view towards the back of Torres Del Paine:

We left the campground in Puerto Natales shortly after nine on Saturday morning.

We had no idea what to expect as we drove through town down to the waterfront on our way north. 

We passed a few campers who clearly had spent the night on the waterfront. We enjoyed hot showers and an electrical hookup to recharge our batteries after running them down on the ferry. We had had the fridge on as we traveled so the house batteries were low when we arrived here. 

And then we left the town behind and took Route 9 north. Our destination was fifty miles away on cement pavement for 41 miles and on gravel for nine. 

I’m not fond of driving on cement slab roads but these seams were very smooth and we rolled along at 45 mph. 

Our cell phone signal faded as we passed the airport and civilization fell away behind us. The signal came back for a few minutes when we passed a small village because the infrastructure in Chile is first rate and no one is left behind here. 

“End of the World Road,” the sign is labeled and it felt that way. 

This as you will see is not the only cyclist we met. There are refuges for bicycles along these highways, places to get out of the weather and set out a sleeping bag in a secure roadside shed. I find that quite civilized though I prefer my van. 

Then we turned off the main highway and got on Y-180 a gravel branch road which took us out into the true wilderness. 

These are vicuña, a camelid of the llama family known for their ability to run fast. They also stare rather unnervingly. 

This is Patagonia. 

They pulled over for us and passed us after we parked. 

There were two other vans in the spot marked in iOverlander but we contented ourselves pulling off the road in a flat spot of our own and walking the beach. 

The others left after a while, a few local cars swept through at high speed and the cyclists were long gone. We put up Starlink and our solar panels were cranking strongly in the austral sun. 

I took some precautions against the wind: 

The back doors we left open for a while as we were parked nose into the wind. 

An afternoon by the lake. Quite splendid.