Puerto Montt – 4/23/2013
Apr 25th, 2013 by rallyadmin
We’re up and out by 8:00. The plan is to drive to Santa Cruz for an overnight and hopefully the car will be ready. Breakfast. Load the car. Head south.
Right into crazed Monday morning traffic. There’s a serious car pileup on the Autopista near us and the traffic is diverted onto the local streets around us. A great start. We creep along the clogged one-way streets trying to get turned around so we can finally get to the south bound Ruta 5 to Patagonia.
We finally get going. It feels great. We’re finally going somewhere. We’re burning through time and getting nowhere. The bummer, though, is that it looks like we’re going to have to drop our plan to go to Patagonia and into southern Argentina. We’ve already lost almost a week and we don’t even know when we’re going to get the car. The trip to Ushuaia would have taken at least a week and it doesn’t look like that’s possible.
As we drive south, we change plans, let’s drop the plan to go to Santa Cruz and just drive to Puerto Montt. It’s about 1,000 km south but it maybe as close as we are going to get to Patagonia. Foot down and drive.
Rota 5 is an autopista, a divided highway with limited access and tolls. The road is excellent and we cruise along at the speed limit of 120 kph, about 75 mph. There’s not much traffic and the ride is pleasant.
The country side is pleasant but mostly flat. This is the plain between the Andes foothills to the east and the ocean to the west. The northern part of the road is dominated by factories and warehouses. Farther south, the surrounding area turns to agriculture, somme fruits and vegetables but mostly grapes vineyards for the burgeoning Chilean wine industry. Even farther south, the farms turn to cattle and sheep.
We’re left the smog of the Santiago area and the sky is a beautiful clear azure blue. It’s a beautiful day. We continue south and the area is mostly forest farms for the wood industry. The truck traffic is mostly trucks hauling logs from the plated forests along the road. There’s the uniform height stands of pine and occasional forests of eucalyptus. At times, it looks like we’re back in Australia.
It’s a long drive and late in the day we’re out of the forest farms and back to mostly ranches. The sky has grown overcast with high clouds blocking the sun. As we get towards Orsono we see the perfect cone of the Orsono volcano standing on the east horizon. A perfect cone of a dormant volcano.
While we were driving, John called the customs agent to find out what’s going on with the car. The news is not good. The ship isn’t even schedule to berth until Tuesday night at 10:30. they’ll email us when the car is going to be ready – a polite “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Damn. At least, we’re driving. If we had known that the car would have taken so long, we would have gone to Argentina in the rental car. Damn. Damn. Damn.
It’s starting to get dark so we decide to stop at Puerto Varas, 20 miles short of Puerto Montt. It’s a small resort town on a large lake in an area dotted with lakes, the top of the Chilean Lake District.
We find a hotel on the waterfront and go to a very small but good restaurant that the girl at the hotel recommended. It’s is good and we during the meal we meet an interesting Irishman who lives in San Diego. We chat and finish our wine.
Back to the hotel and call it a night. Look at my watch and the ship hasn’t even berthed yet.
Obi-wan