As I arrived in the terminal I was given my first experience of the Chilean accent. Many people had told me that they had a very fast, lazy way of speaking, and I found it to be very true straight away. By this stage of my trip I'd become confident with both speaking, and understanding Spanish, but I was now well aware that I would have to start again from a few steps back, until I became accustomed to their accent. As I collected all my bags and made my way though the terminal I was immediately approached by hotel owners, insisting that they have the best deal in town. My main priority was to find a place in the terminal with WIFI so I could find out whether or not this guy would let me stay at his house, but I quickly realized that that there was nothing. After saying no to many eager hotel owners I finally agreed to an old lady that I would come and see her place, making it clear that I had no obligation to take it if I didn't want it.
When we arrived I noticed a distinct family feel to the place. In Chile, all my accommodation ended up being in “Hospedaje” style guest houses. They are simply family houses with extra rooms available, kinda like B&B's back at home. She had WIFI and said that I was welcome to use my laptop and check my emails before agreeing to stay there. To my surprise I had received a reply. He said that I was welcome to stay there, but he was out of town, and wouldn't be arriving until the next day. I agreed to stay just the one night before meeting up tomorrow with the Couchsurfing host.
His name was was Andres, a 31 year old doctor, born and breed in the city of Valdivia. After meeting in the plaza he took me for a drive around the city to some interesting places, showing me many places that I hadn't yet seen. To my surprise he spoke very nice Spanish, and I was able to easily communicate with him throughout the whole time without to much difficulty. He lived a few minutes out of the city, and after we arrived at his house he said that I was free to do what I wanted, then later that evening he would take me to the beach where I would get to sample some traditional Chilean food, and also that there would be some performances of traditional Chilean folkloric music. The true cultural experiences have always been the most enjoyable for me so far on this trip, so I was happy to once again have a local person show me the way of the culture.
On our way to the beach Andres told me that this was the busiest time of the year. Mid January was both the middle of summer, and also the time when many Chilean people take their vacations. I was excited about going to a beach again. It had been a simple pleasure that I'd really missed from home, and I hadn't seen any sort of beach since I was in Trujillo in Peru nearly seven months prior. Although it was nice to be there again, it was difficult to really enjoy it because of the amount of people that were there on their vacation. We only visited it briefly, then it was on to the next part of the experience, sampling the local food.
The “feria” as they called it, was only a short walk from the beach. It was late on a Sunday afternoon and Andres told me that this was always a very popular time for the locals, especially in the summer. It was an indoor area which had a big open space, surrounded with food stall of various types. After finally finding a couple of seats at a table, he told me to wait while he went and fetched various samples from around the place. The food was amazing, being a sea food fan myself, I was rite in my element. The first things I tried were seafood empanadas. Empanadas are pastry pockets filled with various flavors. They are common throughout South America and each country has their own slight variation. The Chilean variation was “empanadas de mariscos” (sea food empanadas.) Some of the other things I sampled included a hot dish with crab meat and a lot of melted cheese (also very good!,) and also a couple of traditional deserts, one of which also included crab meat! After eating amazing sea foods and drinking home brewed beers, we hung around to watch some of the local folk music that happened to be on display.
One of the things I noticed here was the very strong community feel. Up on stage there was a band playing the traditional music of Chile, along with traditionally dressed dancers following along. As of many places in South America, music here is very much an integrated part of the culture. All children are taught the traditional dances in school, and it isn't unusual for dancing to occur in typical social events. At the end of the dance all the dancers went out to the audience and found volunteers as their new dance partners. It was quite a site, with people up there ranging in ages from 5 to 75. It was amazing to see the joy that it brought people, and yet another example of how music unites people in this continent. When the night was up we made our way back. I had no idea four days ago that I'd get to experience such a thing when I arrived, but it was a nice change after spending all that time in the very touristy parts of Argentina.
The next day we were greeted by a brief visit from the parents of Andres. It was again nice to be experiencing a different dynamic on my travels. It was however very difficult for me to participate in the conversation. Whilst Andres spoke to me in a nice, slow, clear manner, his parents spoke to me as if I was supposedly brought up in Chile. I could follow on a basic level what they were talking about most of the time, but sometimes they would look at me while they were talking, as if I was deeply participating in the conversation. For a start I'd ask them to clarify things for me, but eventually I got a wee bit uncomfortable with asking to often, so I'd simply nood, smile, and say “oooh.. si.” My time with Andres was brief, but very memorable. It was yet another time where couchsurfing had given me a window into someones family, and the culture of a country that I wouldn't have otherwise received. I had intended on hitchhiking from here, but on my final night with Andres he took me out to a few bars, including a karaoke bar, and constantly ordered two for one pisco drinks throughout the whole night, leaving me in a studdering, stumbling mess when we got back to his house.
As I sifted through the pockets of my pants the following day I found the business card of a “franchise bank manager,” with an phone number and address handwritten on the card. As I looked at the card, fragments of memories from later in the night started to come together. I remembered speaking to a woman who was equally as drunk as I was, she was celebrating her promotion which she had received earlier in the day, and told me that she could “show me around the city” if I wanted. I remembered that my Spanish speaking ability had nearly become non existent by this stage, and I needed Andres to do some of the translating for me. He commended me in the morning, saying that she actually had a very high position in the bank, one of the highest in the city. I decided that I was best to leave well alone with the Pisco. (Pisco is one of the national drinks in Chile. Its very strong, sort of like a Vodka style spirit, which seems to catch up you and hit you when its to late!) My hang over in the morning was so bad that the last thing I felt like doing was standing on the side of the road and sticking out my thumb, so I changed my plan and took a bus.
Andres had recommended a route for me to take on my way south. He said that from here to not worry about Puerto Montt, and instead go to a smaller place called Puerto Varas. He said that it was a bit more chilled out, and a lot nicer than the bigger city of Puerto Montt. When I was in the bus terminal the Chilean spanish once again caught me out. I went to a company window and clearly said “do you have any buses that leave today to Puerto Varas?” she replied that she did, and informed me that there was one that left in half an hour. I figured that it was perfect timing for me, so I got the ticket, but then as I was sitting down waiting, I looked at my ticket and realized that she'd actually sold me a ticket to Puerto Montt. I decided not to change it, and I had to go there later on anyway, so I decided to just roll with it and give myself a couple of extra days on Chiloe.
Puerto Montt is a sizable port city towards the south of Chile. I found it to have an interesting buzz, but I didn't really grab me to justify spending any more than one day there. I also got ripped off on a shitty hospedaje, so I decided that I would just make my way to the island the following day. At this stage a really had no plans. Everything I did was completely unorganized, and I never knew what I was going to do the following day. As I looked over a map of the island, the city of Castro appeared to be the more attractive of the cities, with a national park near by. The bus from Puerto Montt took us all the way to Pargua, where we entered onto a barge, which took the whole entire bus over to the island. It was from this point on that my trip in Chile seemed to become cursed with bad whether.
As we finally made our way into Castro I once again had to decide where I was going to sleep. Thus far in my trip I'd lost faith in the lonely planet, “the bible” as they call it, and I always found it more fun to make my decisions as I went along, sometimes this worked out great, other times I was forced to learn a few lessons. I noticed a hospedaje close to the terminal which had wifi so I decided to settle on that. It was cheap and I also had my own room so it was perfect. As I passed a couple of days in the town I tried to make a plan of attack as to how exactly I was approach the south. I found a poster on the wall which outlined the route of the Carretera Austral, a route in the south famous for its unbelievable beauty. It gave me a great reference point and some good ideas to plot my trip, so the next day I took a bus to the southern edge of the island, to a town called Quellon. From here the plan was to take a ferry over to Chaiten, the starting point of the Carretera adventure.
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| The Cathedral from Castro |
As I woke up on the morning of my bus, I realized that I'd once again slept through my alarm. The bus was due to leave at 7am, and the time was 6.45. I jumped out of bed and threw everything in my pack as fast as I could, leaving a few scraps of food on the table as I tried to stuff breakfast into my mouth at the same time. I tried to assure myself that buses always left late here so I'd probably be fine. To make things worse, as I got to the door to leave I found that it was looked, so all I could do was stand there persistently ringing the bell, trying to wake the owner up, whilst looking at my watch every thirty seconds. Finally he came and let me out, giving me a brief apology as I told him my bus was leaving in two minutes. As I ran to the terminal I literally got there as they were about to take off, I think they could tell quickly from my red face and my sweaty armpits that I'd come for this bus, so they opened up the baggage compartment, then let me on the bus, literally in a nick of time.
The city on Quellon really didn't have anything at all to offer for me. As I arrived there at about 9.30am, my main purpose was to find out how to get a ferry ticket, then get out of there as soon as possible. I was once again a bit foolish that I didn't look over the ferry timetable before arriving here, but luck was somewhat on my side that day once again. When I got to the ticket office they informed me that there was only one ferry crossing a week to Chaiten, and lucky for me it was on a Friday. The bad news was that it didn't leave until 9pm. The thought of spending nearly 12 hours in this town made me cringe, but at least I knew I was on my way out tonight.
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| The glim outlook of Quellon |
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| Getting on board the ferry to Chaiten |
After about half an hour of walking around the town it felt like I'd seen all there was to see. Lucky they let me leave my gear in the ferry office, which was one less thing to worry about. As I was sitting on the beach these two local guys asked me to join them. They didn't look to crazy, so I decided to get to know the local vibe. They were drinking beer and after I turned down their offer they persistently tried to make me change my mind, after persistently saying no I tried to have a conversation with them, but they mite as well have been speaking Arabic. Their accent was so strong, and they spoke in such a lazy way that I couldn't even have a basic conversation with them. After a while the guy started getting a we bit strange, he then switched to speaking English, but all he knew how to say was, “I'm crazy man, you know I'm fucking crazy?” I nodded my heading in acknowledgment and said “ahhh yeah I think I'd agree.” He then laughed to me as you do to a good mate when you're fooling around with him, but I wasn't convinced, so I told them that I was on my way. As I got up he explained something to me, this time speaking more neutral Spanish that I clearly understood. He explained that when gringos come on to this beach that out of respect they need to pay the locals because its their beach. I gave him a look as if to say “yeah you really are crazy,” then just walked off. The impression of this town didn't improve throughout the day, pretty soon after I was approached be another man trying to make me feel sorry for him and give him cash, then the rain just topped it off as a very long strange day. Eventually the time finally came around and it was time to get out of here and on to the next stage of the journey.
It was about 7am when we arrived in Chaiten. From inside the boat it was difficult to really know how good the weather was outside, but I got the impression that it wasn't good at all. Throughout the ride I'd met an American couple from New England, and they'd made an offer to me to join in on their plan if I wanted. I took them up on the offer, but as we walked out from the boat I realized that this was very heavy rain, and my pack wasn't really prepared for it at this stage. They said that they were planning on taking a bus to a nearby town, from which they'd make their way to a lakeside camping spot. Although I wasn't all for the idea of camping in the rain, I agreed because I had no other option.
Chaiten had a very airy ghost town feel to it. It was only a couple of years ago that the town was very badly damaged by a volcano eruption, and it seems they never finished the recovery process. The streets all had a film of ash on them, and the damage on the town itself was still very visible. Some of the houses were completely abandoned, one I noticed was literally half filled with ash, which was just pouring out all the windows and open doors. There was also a lot of evidence left behind in the half burned down trees, and washed up tree stumps in the river. It felt like it could have only happened yesterday.
After we started walking I quickly realized that we had no clue where the bus terminal was. I asked a local and he said that there was no terminal. He pointed up the road to a corner building where there was a few other backpackers waiting and told me that a bus would pass by that point, and we could catch it from there. When we arrived there we were greeted by a big group of about five Israelis whom had traveled the Carretera in the opposite direction that we were going, starting from the South. They had hitchhiked nearly the whole way and told me that the further south you to, the easier it gets to find rides. I asked them where the bus goes from here, and they said that it goes to the town of Futaleufu. I wasn't really concerned where I went from this point, if I had been able to find a hostel to dry my gear and prepare myself for the rain, it would have been perfect.
We had been waiting for a little over an hour when the first bus passed. We all waved our hands frantically, hoping this was our ticket out of this ghost town, but it just passed by as if we were ghosts ourselves. It was clearly full, so we sat in hope that another would make its way past. Sure enough another hour later another did pass, but the same thing happened. We were then informed that it was the last bus out of this town, and we wouldn't be finding anymore until the following day. One of the local guys had a van and offered us a deal to take us, but as he was asking for a ridiculous price, I decided to pass. The American couple decided that they would have a go at hitchhiking from here. I was now left with no other options so I bought some water and a few supplies, then took up their offer on joining their group.
As we made our way off into the middle of nowhere I wondered to myself how long I would be able to walk with all this bulky gear. I'd hitchhiked before, but I preferred the style of waiting in one spot and just relaxing and enjoying the experience, while these guys had the style of just walking all day until someone stops, and then just camping if no one stops. After walking for around an hour or so I found a great hitchhiking spot with a potential emergency camp area so I decided to split from their group and go solo. I figured that it would also greatly increase my chances of getting a ride.
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| The first hitchhiking point |
There is something about the adventure of hitchhiking that can be matched with anything else. I have never felt a greater sense of adventure in my life. The sensation of not having a clue where you are, not knowing when or if you'll get picked up, not knowing where you'll go next, all leads to a style of travel which is completely different to that of traveling on buses. This was my first experience hitchhiking alone, which added to the experience that much more. I stood there smiling with my thumb out for about two hours before I was finally picked up by a local guy. I ran up and asked where he was heading and he just opened up the back door of the van and said “vamos!” I noticed a pack was already in the back, so I figured that I'd probably be sharing the ride with another backpacker. The man and his wife were locals from Chaiten, and were both very warm, nice people. The other hitchhiker in the van was also a Chilean, from Santiago, but working down in the South. He asked me where I wanted to go and I just replied saying, “I don't really know, in the general direction of the south.” Most of the ride consisted of the wife venting her anger at the Chilean government for not assisting the people of Chaiten after the volcano eruption, leaving the town to perish over the years, whilst other towns, more touristy further south are flourishing, with ongoing government support.
We were eventually dropped off just outside of a town, although I would hardly classify it as a town, all it consisted of was a couple of houses. It did have a park with a camping area though, so I once again had a back up plan if I wasn't able to find a ride out. The consistent rain by this stage had turned into inconsistent periods of patchy rain. On the edge of town there was a bus shelter which made the perfect waiting place for our next ride. As I spoke to the Chilean he talked to me about a journey that he had made to New Zealand, it's very funny when you are in the most remote places in the world, and you meet people who are familiar with where you are from. He was stressing out slightly because now it was around 5pm he was still four hours away from where he lived further south, he had also missed the last bus, had to work first thing in the morning, and today was his girlfriends birthday. Just to top it off there was no cell phone reception, so he had no way of contacting anyone to inform them of his situation. I tried to chill him out, saying that we should find a ride, and that there was still plenty of time.
Sure enough, after a bit over an hour of waiting a truck finally stopped, and he had enough room for both of us with all our gear. I managed to just squeeze in the back, and after being informed that he was going all the way to Futaleufu, I decided that I would make that my destination for the day. It was a great relief to know that I wouldn't have to worry about rides anymore that day and allowed me to enjoy the rest of the ride. By now the rain had once again set in to a strong, steady flow. We had also gotten to the large section of the road which was shingle, which made things a wee bit slower. I was unable to see what the distant view looked like, but the bush close to the road reminded me a lot of the Lewis Pass, and certain parts of the West Coast. As we approached a small town on the way, the driver stopped next to a truck driver and suggested to the Chilean guy that he asked them whether they were passing through the town that he wanted to go to. To his luck they were, and his problem was solved. He was happy that he would at least be able to celebrate the last couple of hours of his girlfriends birthday.
At about ten kilometers ouside of Futaleufu, the driver stopped and informed me that this is where he lived. He said that I could hitch a ride from here, and if I wasn't able to find something in half an hour that he'd take me the remainder of the way. I wasn't to keen on hitchhiking again because it was still steady heave rain, but it was my only choice. As I was collecting my bags out of the back seat of the truck, another truck came around the corner. I tried my luck and put out my thumb at the same time I was struggling to get the pack on my back. To my surprise he stopped, and I literally was able to take my gear out of one truck, and put it straight into another.
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| Looking over the quiet town of Futaleufu |
Futaleufu was a charming little town, covered my spectacular mountain scenery, but it was hard to fully appreciate it because of all the clouds. My main purpose for being there was to stay in a hospedaje for the night and take a chance to prepare my gear for the rain. I had a couple of waterproof bags, but thus far in my trip I never really had to use them. After buying some food I was all set to hit the road again and carry on south. I decided that this place wouldn't be ideal to hitchhike from because it was a wee bit out of the way, so I decided that I'd take a bus back onto the main route, to a town called Puyuguapi. As I sat in the bus I was happy that I chose this option, as there was still a consistent rain fall outside.
I was hoping that I'd be able to camp at this place to save a bit of money, and I had a glimmer of hope as I stood off the bus that the rain may clear. But soon enough another onslaught of gray clouds crept up and we were once again seeking out the shelter. While I was eating lunch outside the information office I met another group of Israeli guys who informed me of a cheap camping ground in the area which had covered camping spots. It seemed like the perfect option for me, so I grabbed my gear, walked in the direction of the beach, and sure enough found a house with a sign informing of a camp area. I was one of the first to arrive that day so I had the luxury of having many options.
As soon as I'd finished setting up my tent, I went into to kitchen, had a cup of tea and wondered what I was going to do with myself here. There was meant to be a very spectacular hanging glacier near by, but the weather made things very difficult, and didn't really help the motivation levels to much either. Eventually I found a clear path and went for a walk around the place to get some nice view of the town, and upon returning back found that the camp ground had been overrun with cyclists.
The Carretera is a very popular route for tourists, and there were three main ways that people did it. The first was the costly option of hiring a car. This seemed to be the popular option for families and retired couples. The second option was to cycle it. This was very popular and was often the choice of middle ages Europeans. I met many couples, and even a group of two British couples who had been cycling for nearly two years, starting from Central America, literally making their goal to end up in Ushuia. I fell under the third bracket, the tight budget backpackers option, hitchhiking. I swear that this trip must be highly recommended in the Israeli travel guide for South America, because throughout the trip I must have heard more Hebrew being spoken than Spanish. They all seemed to travel in huge groups, leaving me baffled as to how they were able to get rides, but they seemed to do it somehow.
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| Puyuguapi |
I spent a couple of days in this small town, and at one stage thought that my rain jacket had been stolen, only to find later that I'd left it in the local hall, returning the following night I was very lucky and great full to find that it was still there, it would have been the worst possible thing to loose at that time, given what the weather was like. As it came to the time of departure I once again chose the bus option over hitchhiking. Standing in the rain on a Sunday when there was barely any traffic didn't really seem like an attractive option. The only two bus times were at 7am, and 12.30pm. I decided that the early start would be better, but I made the mistake of thinking that it left at 7.30. Luckily the lady was nice enough to let me change the ticket free of charge, but it once again meant that I had a whole lot of time to kill, and nothing much really to do.
The next destination was Coyhaique, one of the few cities of the region. My plan was to spend a brief night there before resuming with the hitchhiking the following day. It was the first place of a decent size that I'd come across since Puerto Montt, and it was the first time that I really felt the consistent cold of Patagonia. My only reason for staying here was to get out some cash, and to once again top up my food supplies. By this stage I was also really starting to get fed up with the rain, to the point where I was even considering crossing back over to Argentina. After inquiring in the tourist information office I realized that there was no bus that crossed over from here, and I'd missed the only bus heading south, so my only option was to hitchhike. I'd had success further north, so figured it couldn't be any more difficult here. I decided to be optimistic and make my next target destination a tiny place two and a half hours south called “Villa Cerro Castillo.”
As I approached the edged of the city, I was presented with the site of about six other hitchhikers, all lined up along the road, trying their best to thumb down a vehicle. I realized that I may never get out of here with this amount of competition, but being my only option I had a go anyway. I thought I better be polite, so I walked passed everyone and took my position and the end of the line, but I decided to walk away from the people a wee bit further, going an extra two hundred meters or so outside of town. The interesting thing was that all of the other hitchhikers were locals. I realized that this is a very normal way of transport for the local people. Many looked as if they'd come in to grab a few things, and now they were on the way out again. I think the fact that I was this interesting looking gringo played to my advantage, it appeared to spur on a sense of curiosity in people. The idea to move further away from everyone proved to be successful. After no more than half an hour or so, a man pulled up and with a friendly smile asked me where I wanted to go. After showing him my map and explaining my route he said that he could take me a good part of the distance.
He looked like he was in his late 50's, and he worked in the Chilean military. At this moment he was off duty, on the way to the airport to pick up a relative. I had a great conversation with him and explained many similarities and differences between the south of Chile, and the south of New Zealand. After a while longer than an hour, he pulled over at this intersection and said “OK, well I'm going straight from here, but if you take that road up you'll get to where you want to go. I gave him a quick hand shake, thanked him for the ride, then once again I was on the road, not knowing how I would take my next step. The place where I was waiting had a nice bus shelter, giving relief to any rain. Now that I'd moved a lot further south the rain had eased off a lot, and I was beginning to hope that I mite even get some consistent sun, but I'd learned better than to get my hopes up in this Patagonian weather.
The traffic from this point wasn't nearly as frequent, and once again I was keeping my eyes out for potential camping spots if I needed them later on. The wait was a little longer here, maybe an hour and a half or so, then a truck pulled up, once again offering a seat. After I showed him the map he also said that he wouldn't be going all the way there, but he would be stopping very close. It sounded good to me, so I threw my gear in the back seat and jumped in. This guy was a lot harder to understand. He spoke in true Chilean fashion, very fast, dropping the end off most words, and using a lot of slang. I was able to understand somewhat that he was a road worker, and for some reason he was on his way to do some work on something, and he was able to take me as far as his work site. A while later, out of the blue, he pulled the truck over at the top of this bit windy mountain pass and said, “OK, I'm working here, you can hitchhike from here if you want. I couldn't believe that he actually thought this place was a good idea as a hitchhiking spot. The first thing I wondered was whether many cars would actually pass over here, the second was if they would have enough time to safely stop.
It turned out that this guy was actually collecting a bunch of road signs from the site, and he was off again before I knew it, leaving me standing in the mountains, trying to think of what I was going to do. There were no areas where I could set up my tent, and the road was far to dangerous to walk down, so my only option was to stay. As a few cars passed I realized that traffic volume wouldn't be the problem, and that it was more likely to be whether or not they'd stop. As I waited and the cars kept passing, I decided to try a different technique, “the desperate prayer technique.” The way it worked was at first I stuck out my thumb as usual, then as they get slightly closer, I put my hands together like a prayer position, then, helplessly, desperately look at the driver, hoping to put some sort of guilt into their mind for not stopping. This worked like a charm, and sure enough the first car I tried it on pulled over for me. They were two engineers who were working on bringing WIFI down to the area. He was happy at the opportunity to practice his English with me, so we both ended up getting something out of it.
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| Third hitchhiking spot view to the left |
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| Third hitchhiking spot view to the right |
When they dropped me off I found that there really wasn't anything to the town at all. On the road that passed through there were about fifteen people, all Israelis, trying to hitch rides out of town. I spoke to some and they said that they'd been waiting here all day, some people had even been stranded here longer. By the following morning I came to the conclusion that rather than wasting time here trying to find a ride, I mite as well take a bus through to the next town, in hopes that from there there wouldn't be so much competition for the very limited traffic coming through.
The bus passed by the next day as scheduled, but I then found that it was horribly overpriced (one of the few downsides to Patagonia.) I figured it had to be done, so I paid the money and got the bus to the next place, “Puerto Rio Tranquilo.” This was another tiny town, and the weather had also turned to shit again by this stage, so once again I wasn't able to fully take advantage it. My plan was to straight away begin hitchhiking and try and get a bit further South, so nearly straight after getting off the bus, I made my way to the edge of town in hopes of getting a ride out. The problem with this spot was that there was almost no traffic passing through, and the vehicles that did, seemed very reluctant to stop. I tried everything, even the desperate prayer technique, but nothing worked. After a couple of hours I got frustrated and made my way back to buy a coffee and dry myself off a wee bit. As I was sitting outside a bus pulled over and a whole lot of people got out. It was here that I met a couple, a guy from USA and the girl from Puerto Rico. As usual on this trip, I got to know them well in a very short space of time, and before we knew it we decided to camp out on the back yard of a friendly local and make the next move the following day.
The plan for the next day was to get up early, have another go at hitchhiking, and if I didn't have any success, to take the bus to my next destination. Just after I finished packing up my tent the rain settled in again and the prospect of waiting for a ride didn't seem worth the hassle. I gave it a go for a wee while, but given the fact that there were no cars passing by, and my gear had already gotten wet, I decided that it was easier just to go and buy a coffee and wait for the bus to come by in a couple of hours. As the bus turned up it appeared to be full. By the time it had arrived there were many other backpackers waiting for the bus, all desperate to get a seat, as it was the only bus that passed during the day. In the end we all managed to get a seat, and once again it was way overpriced, but once again my only option. I'd looked on my map and decided that the next place I'd go to would be a place called “El Maiten. It was a junction point on the main road where I was going to veer off to the final destination of my Chilean adventure, a town called Chile Chico, close to the border of Argentina.
