drew|merryman

‘¿hables ingles?’

it was odd hearing somebody ask me for once.

in front of me stood this guy, claiming he was from denmark with an accent of a new yorker. the first thing i noticed was the configuration of his backpack. it seemed that half of his belongings were hanging from the exterior straps of a day pack; the most notable possession, a tripod.

we met at a bus stop in coihaique. turns out we both arrived the previous night and mutually felt its city-like characteristics pushing us away. we were both looking to simply head south.

in between asking passing bus drivers directions and prices, leaning against an iron fence among passing locals, we shared some experiences of our trip to date and found we had much in common. perhaps it was this realization of parallel paths that the topic came up, ‘should we just start walking and hold our thumbs out?’

without a hiccup in the developing conversation, our feet began striding side by side in a southern direction away from the hum of diesels driving the city streets. at a casual pace, we followed along the gravel roadside occasionally holding out thumbs at any truck that passed.

the vehicles that did pass were driven by very apologetic drivers, many of which gave excuses with hand gestures as if to say, ‘i’m turning just up the road’ or ‘i’m full’. most of them were. along this section of the highway, our feet were gaining more experience than our thumbs.

patagonia is very temperamental. at one point, under the clouds, the slightest gust of wind will chill you to the bone, forcing you to drop your pack and pull out a mid layer, whereas other moments you’ll find yourself drawing sweat under the strong and brief rays from the sun, forcing you to drop your pack again just to put that mid layer back in its place.

who knows how many kilometres it was, we stopped selectively throwing our thumbs out at only the trucks and began smiling at the two door kias revving past us. eventually my focus was drawn to the immediate gravel in front of my feet and i heard a prolonged ‘yes’ as a compact suv pulled over.

he was heading to valle simpson, shortly south of coihaique. nonetheless, our feet were happy and we had an opportunity to chat with a very friendly local. as he dropped us off at the bus stop at the fork in the road towards valle simpson, i didn’t even have a chance to throw my pack on; a truck pulled up and our packs were thrown in the back.

‘¿aca?’ as we pointed to the truck bed.

‘no, aqui’ as he pushed some things aside on the back seats.

both drivers were interested in knowing where we were from, what brought us here and where we were heading. they seemed proud of their surroundings, pointing out features of importance and giving brief explanations as they ignored the paintlines and the longevity of their tires.

we were dropped off at another bus stop at a fork in the road. this driver was heading to balmaceda, where a local airport resides. as we snacked on some fruit, we made the mistake of discussing our favourite dishes and cervezas we’d experienced in chile, only intensifying our thirst and hunger.

before any impatience reached us, a van turned the bend and slowed down at the appearance of two gringos sitting at the side of the highway. he was heading to villa cerro castillo, exactly where we wanted to go. in the back were others; locals with their belongings, heading south. we crammed our packs in the back and wedged our legs in any available space. we were to be driven to the end of the pavement, where the true carretera austral commences.

as we climbed the highway running through reserva nacional cerro castillo, our heads craned downwards attempting to witness the mountain tops surrounding us. the highway followed along a number of rivers complete with pristine patches of grass naturally intended for camping. tempted to ask the driver to stop in such an in-between destination, we held our breathes, anticipating the views from the town of villa cerro castillo.

as we cruised out of the valley and switchbacked down the mountain side, the landscape in front of us opened up in relatively clear weather. we were surrounded by peaks.

the van hugged a curb outside of a local restaurant that also had a small store. technically, this was our stop, but the others weren’t hopping out of the van as well.

‘should we ask where the final destination is?’

‘bahia murta.’

not knowing where it was, but knowing that it could only be south from here, we quickly ordered our plate sized sandwiches filled with beef, cheese, onions and fried eggs. wrapped in tin foil and armed with a stack of napkins, we hopped back into our cramped positions and inhaled the comida rapida.

as the pavement faded and the gravel thundered beneath us, the landscape in front of us continued to open up and everyone in the van grew silent. the ruta seven mountains were commanding everyone’s attention.

in silence, we turned off of the highway and headed down a straight road with ranches on either side. this must be bahia murta. we were driven from the highway over a river and into a small town lacking traditional stores. there was a street called ‘canada’ though.

‘if i were paying attention, i would have told the driver to stop at the turn off. it’s probably a better idea to camp near the river along the highway’.

in agreement, ‘it’s only two to four kilometres’. our feet had their chance to relax.

seven hours, two hundred or so kilometres later, ‘by the way, i never caught your name’.

‘ya, i had just realized that as well: adam’.

‘drew’.

for some reason, possibly the intensity of our adventure and our ever-continuing interest in what lay around the next corner, we had both completely skipped the introduction.

as we wandered from bahia murta back to the carretera austral, inspiration was found and our cameras were plucked from our packs. shortly after snapping photos of a straight road bisecting a green estancia populated with plump and content farm animals, a little blue nissan pulled up from behind us and we soon found ourselves sitting on top of building supplies feeling as content as those passing cattle.

we were dropped off at the end of the road with a warm goodbye. our hike south continued a number of kilometres where we stopped for a break and some water. sure enough that blue nissan that had previously helped us out, stopped once again; this time, without the building supplies in the back. with even bigger grins on our faces, we felt the comfort of the wheel wells underneath us. as we discussed how our current form of travel rewarded us with a complete experience of all the senses, the cameras came out once more to capture the blur of fence posts passing at our sides.

the truck was only travelling south a few kilometres, somewhere near el engano, if that’s even present on a map. the men who picked us up lived on a campo right alongside a river. with the light above us decreasing and the most welcoming gestures from the two men who drove us twice, we pitched our tents on the soft grass along the river and later joined the men in their house for deep fried bread and yerba mate.

adam and i agreed that the further we moved south, the friendlier and more welcoming the people were.

retiring the night with a fire between our tents, we soon woke up bright and early only to return to the house for more deep fried bread and yerba mate. the men were soon heading off to work and were kind enough to lend us their genius fishing gear and point us in the direction to fish.

after some wandering and no bites, we returned to our campsite to roll up our tents and compress our belongings. we were back on the gravel.

casually strolling along, not exactly knowing any distances or our destination for the night, we continued to hold out our thumbs at the crunching tires that rolled by. when a bus passed by us without stopping, we wondered if we should have waved instead. not a big deal. now when another bus passed by and we waved and the driver waved back, we began to question our gestures. we decided that a flat hand pushing downwards was exactly what the bus drivers wanted to see. whether they thought the thumbs wouldn’t pay or whether they had no available seats, it didn’t matter. what mattered was the minibus that stopped for us somewhere in between our campsite and rio tranquillo. it was only heading to rio tranquillo, but that seemed sufficient enough for us.

as we tucked into a small store in rio tranquillo for a sandwich, we were told that a bus heading to cochrane was stopping by in twenty minutes. perfecto. the sandwiches were inhaled and a chocolate bar that was saved for a moment of celebration was broken in half on the bus.

from what i gathered, cochrane was the last stop along the southern carretera austral for camping supplies and a relatively wide selection of food.

arriving in the pouring rain, the rain cover was stretched over the pack and the goretex slid on under an awning of a small market. we had a choice of either camping in this patagonian shower or in a dry hospedaje with outlets to charge our gadgets. a shower would also help get the smell of campfire out of the beard as well.

negotiating a price while denying some services, we were able to drop our packs and see what this local supermercado had to offer. food, fishing gear, dinnerware, outboard motors, clothing, sleeping bags and firearms. after carefully selecting our line, hooks and sinkers, we stocked up on pasta, tuna, oatmeal, raisins and of course, dark chocolate.

south of cochrane, we realized the decrease in traffic, especially in the low season. there was a little construction which drew a few trucks full of workers and there was the odd family stopping to fish off the beaches of lago esmeralda. we were lucky enough to grab a four or five kilometre hitch just outside of town south to a nearby turnoff towards an even smaller town.

from there, it was a solid hike. we found ourselves walking and walking and walking. the weather was clear and the sun was out. a slight breeze forced us to throw on a layer every once and a while, but the trek was rewarded when we reached a river that split into two and forced the road to bridge twice alongside a series of waterfalls. we were so amazed by the waterfalls that it took us a moment to lift our heads and see just what was in front of us.

i found it hard to comprehend what i saw. words such as vast and epic and grandeur had been redefined on the spot. new benchmarks had been witnessed. in the valley lying low in front of us flowed a twisting river. from the river, mountains grew up slightly on either side and layered behind those immediate mountains were the true and fathering andes. it was very clear to us that the glaciers weren’t far away.

we had both pulled out our digital cameras attempting to capture whatever it was that was dropping our jaws and silencing our tongues. i knew each time the camera made its noise, it wasn’t doing the landscape justice.

the point came where adam propped his tripod on a rock face and asked, ‘you haven’t seen my camera yet, have you?’ he wasn’t talking about his digital camera. he was talking about the couple kilos he was cradling in his arms throughout our entire journey south.

the linhof four by five was fastened to the confluence of the three balancing legs.

adam had explained his work to me the night previous at fireside. his criteria for a shot seemed very specific. i don’t think he was anticipating to use the camera along the carretera austral. nonetheless, i was excited to see it put to use. our digital cameras nonchalantly recorded dozens of perspectives in a matter of minutes. adam had spent nearly five simply setting the camera up and pointing it in the right direction. as i snapped photos of him at work with my g9, i completely missed the point where he had finalized his composition and decided to commit that one full sheet of film to the scene in front of him.

the beauty of the shot was that it was in a direction that neither of us were shooting with our digitals. i am truly excited to see what he saw. i can imagine it will be a rewarding highlight to compliment the memory of the trip.

satisfied with our break from the hike, we realized that if we were travelling on a bus or in a truck bed, the opportunity to grab that one single photo would have passed us by in the blink of an eye. i felt grateful for the turn of events that led us to this one precise moment with such a grand view.

we continued hiking along the gravel which led us down into the valley. ranches began to appear on either side of us and in the distance we saw a truck drive up to its gate. the driver stepped out to open the gate, pulled his truck forward, stepped out to close the gate and then hopped back into his hilux only to have it shoot forward into the ditch. in front of our eyes, we wondered if this man intended to hang up his toyota on some rocks, nudging its bumper against his fencepost.

as we stepped closer, he turned around and began walking away from us, presumably towards a neighbour. behind us, carabineros drove up in their toyota hilux.

with the one hilux strapped to the other and the help of a few hands pushing against the hood, the toyota made it out of the ditch with little damage. the man was incredibly lucky to have had two random people walk by and another truck with a strap show up within minutes of his little escapade; considering we had walked for hours along that road with few passing us by.

the road seemed to have a master plan for us all.

the road also intended us to be picked up shortly after we commenced from that man’s gate. a small kia kei truck almost didn’t stop. it was adam’s last second gesture to the driver that we were willing to sit in the back that prompted the driver to halt. in the matter of seconds, we were sharing a four by six foot truckbed with a generator, crate, propane tank and our packs.

the digitals began making their noises again while the sun began to set. we still had two hours to the next town, caleta tortel. as the direct sunlight faded and our radiating bodies calmed down from the trekking, the sixty to eighty kilometre wind began taking a toll on our bodies. at first, we were de-layered for the trekking with the weight on our backs and then all of a sudden we were sitting still attempting to retain any heat our bodies were generating, not to mention the metal we were sitting on was acting like a heatsink. too cramped to access our packs and re-layer, our gazes focused on the beautiful surroundings and we appreciated the fact that we were to reach caleta tortel by nightfall.

caleta tortel. arriving in a gravel parking lot, our legs fought for circulation and their balance and strength were tested when we grabbed our packs. we were in a port town with no roads. surrounding us were stilted houses connected with a network of boardwalks and stairs.

arriving to the first hospedaje, we rang the bell and negotiated a price for the night. the woman couldn’t understand how we didn’t want to pay for breakfast and how we could live off of oatmeal in our backpacks. waking up the next morning, the skies cleared and allowed for us to take photos from all the different piers and staircases.

the plan was to head south to villa o’higgins. from there, through a series of ferries and hikes and buses, it’s possible to cross over into argentina. problem was, there was no bank in caleta tortel, neither one in villa o’higgins and the atm at cochrane didn’t accept debit cards. i didn’t have enough money to continue forward. in fact, i had just enough money to get me back to coihaique.

our day was spent insuring we purchased bus tickets to get us out of town the next day and a short hike down the highway to the river where we would fish and camp for the night.

on a night like that night, we realized we were in the moment of an experience that others would die for, a night that would complete anybody’s trip, whether it be a week or three months; we were fishing along a river in patagonia with a fire between our tents and not a soul was in sight.

my memories of patagonia will always be of the mountains whose colours are controlled in the last hour of the days sun. the day could be bleak, could be grey, could be windy and certainly wet. but that last hour of sun in patagonia takes everything surrounding you and sets it alive as if rewarding you for enduring anything that it had thrown at you for the past twenty-three hours.