How to cross Patagonia: buses, border crossings and cake

It’s been a while since the last entry, and we’ve been travelling hard. Actually we’ve been to Chile and back since then. But that gets less impressive every time we do it.

Bariloche was spent in fretful planning, going through at least three potential routes before finally landing back at the original one. (We did try to see some surrounding scenery, but were driven back by torrential rain. Which irritatingly stopped almost as soon as we stepped back on the bus. But I think I’d pretty much had it with the meteorological temperaments of the lake district by then.)

So we left for Patagonia, which as promised, was indeed sparsely populated and extremely windy. My prevailing memories of the town of Esquel are that it was surrounded by nothingness, horrendously windy, and, to our then high standards, unexciting (oh how naive we were, last week).

Spent the next day visiting Trevelin, a tiny town built by Welsh settlers 150 years ago, and now mostly only Welsh in its charming teashops. Charming, until our groaning table was loaded up with piles of homemade breads, scones, jams, and two slices each of five different varieties of cake (I’m not kidding). When all I’d asked for was a cup of tea. Goes without saying that we felt ill afterwards, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to face cake again.

Still full-bellied the next morning, we made for the border (pausing for our inevitable first-ever bus breakdown), breezed through a comparatively easy border crossing after the last time (my whole scale of fuss-free travel has been drastically overhauled), and mini-vanned it to the nearby village of Futaleufú.

Futaleufú is gorgeously situated amongst snowy mountains, but unfortunately mind-numbingly dull. The ever-present “open” sign in shop and restaurant windows was an ever-present lie. The plaza was deserted, traffic was scarce, and townsfolk stared out of their windows at us as we passed by. Which we did often, because we were bored out of our minds and pacing the blocks seemed the only way to pass the time (that, and pestering the old lady in the little shop that sells bus tickets for a way out of there).

Having no option but to make for the only road passing through those parts and await buses going down it, we decided to forgo the even smaller (wouldn’t have believed it was possible until we saw it) village of Santa Lucia, and spent a little more money going north to the slightly larger (but still creepily quiet and rather depressing) Chaitén, where we arrived the next day and yet again were lumbered with an afternoon to kill. Vastly relieved, we managed to get hold of a bus leaving the next morning, finally to Coyhaique along the Carretera Austral, the rugged and scenic road that was the whole point of our hefty Chilean detour.

It was a picturesque trip: dramatic peaks stretching into the distance, coated in endless thick green forest. Enjoyable viewing through a bus window; it was a long journey but it wouldn’t have seemed so. Except the bus’s main cargo was an elderly tour group, who liked to stop often for photos, food, a rest, the toilet, and at one point, a roadside spring, which provided what seemed like hours of amusement as everyone stood around peacefully filling up 5-litre bottles. Meanwhile, we and two other backpackers sat quietly at the back of the bus, steadily losing patience (though softening somewhat when offered sausages). Until finally, thirteen hours later, the bright lights of Coyhaique appeared out of the undulating darkness, to the triumphant cries of Bonnie Tyler.

In Coyhaique we found restful sleep, traffic, noise, and civilisation – all unexpectedly wonderful. And agonised decisions, as we discovered the ferry out was more erratic than we’d hoped. So we left in a hurry the next day already, for Puerto Ibañez and the late ferry across Lago General Carrera (second biggest lake in South America, woohoo – I wonder if we can get top 5?) to another Chilean border town of Chile Chico, where we spent a brief night’s sleep (so brief I have absolutely no idea what Chile Chico looks like…) before crossing the border back into Argentina, and the equally forgettable town of Los Antiguos.

From there (fortunately, I suppose, though it didn’t quite feel like it), a bus was heading south later that afternoon. So we hung around desperately trying to amuse ourselves in little Los Antiguos, then spent sixteen hours on a (well-heated! thank god!) bus to Rio Gallegos, on the Atlantic coast – stupidly, but as I’ve said, it is never logical to traverse Patagonia – before spending another five hours on a bus this morning heading back west.

Now we’re in El Calafate, gateway to the national park of glaciers, and we’ll be spending the next two days in the company of lots of huge chunks of floating ice. Which is exciting, and we’re looking forward to it. But I am knackered, I have taken a long-distance bus every day for over a week now, and I can’t remember the last time I took a shower. That’s just disgusting.