Semi Circumnavigation

A detour on our journey to El Bolson broke up what would have been a 24 hour bus ride, and allowed us to visit a special place highly recommended by a friend: the marble caves. Getting to the marble caves was trickier than expected, and resulted in nearly circumnavigating a lake with two names: Lago General Carrera or Lago Buenos Aires as named by Chile and Argentina.

After walking across the border to Chile, we were unable to get a ride to Rio Tranquilo, our intended destination, so we took a bus to the tiny village of Guadal. Just about halfway along the gravel highway… Bang!! Clunk clunk clunk… The bus on the gravel road got a seriously flat tire, and we travelers filed off to lounge roadside. No one was bothered by the turn of events – we are all travelers, and this is part of the experience. After an hour we are presented with bad news: our rescue van has also broken down! And good news: another bus is coming for us. We spent the next hour playing liar’s dice on the road.

The next day, we hitched a ride to a seemingly random intersection and caught a passing bus. After a short ride on the famous “Carretera Austral,” we finally made it to Rio Tranquilo! We hired one of the many boats offering tours of the caves and casted off. The caves are real marble, and the perfectly turquoise glacial lake sparkles as our captain expertly navigates our boat through secret passages with gorgeous textured marble walls.

Continuing our journey, we arrived in Cerro Castillo, a town named for an epic neighboring castle-like mountain. Upon our first steps in town, we were tempted to just stop there and spend a month exploring and climbing. However, we agreed that this area deserved its own trip in the future. In lieu of a typical welcome sign, Cerro Castillo has a large map of local crags and camping areas, and the mountain itself was calling us to climb it. For anyone interested, Mammut is holding a sort of climbing festival there in March, who knew?!

A ride on an incredibly elusive yellow bus brought us to Puerto Ibáñez, where we camped on the beach, and awoke early to watch a stunning sunrise over the lake. The sun lit up the mountains with a warm pink glow as we packed our tent. We spent the morning exploring the coast accompanied by Archie, a town dog with whom Alan had a tenuous relationship. Now we are relaxing on a ferry crossing the lake, with plans to return to Argentina today.

2 Replies to “Semi Circumnavigation”

  1. When playing with Archie, Did you remember our town dog Oscar with a white paw in Punta Arenas? Have a great week! Thanks for sharing! Haha public transport works when staying calm! Los quiero mucho. Ma

  2. Time flies when you’re having fun… or playing dice! I love mel’s huge smile next to the flat tire. Those don’t normally go together 😀

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *