Equipo Williams

The Carretera Austral is the road we just finished. It goes from Villa O’Higgin all the way up to Puerto Montt. We were going to do it all, but our plans changed so we finished it yesterday. If you didn’t already know, the Carretera is the main overlanding north-south road in southern Chile (it’s also called route seven, but everyone, even Chileans, calls it the Carretera Austral). 

Which reminds me, yesterday, we crossed back into Argentina. It wasn’t a crazy border crossing, just the usual. We got out of the car, went to migraciones, then aduana, got back in the car, drove to the Argentinian post, migraciones, aduana, then done. It wasn’t too busy either and there were (luckily) no tour buses trying to come through. 

That was kind of all we did yesterday, so I’ll talk about our campsite. We are staying at one hundred percent the most fancy campground we’ve been to in all of South America. It’s on a fancy vineyard and you can buy their wine, but one bottle is like thirty bucks, so we decided it wasn’t worth it. We got a pint of Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream to share at their little handicrafts store (that sells ice cream). Their were a bunch of expensive handicrafts, spices, scarves, shirts (that were FIFTY dollars), and other things of that sort. We didn’t really know about camping here, but it’s only twenty five bucks for all four of us AND they have hot but not burning showers. They have a restaurant where you would probably pay a hundred and fifty dollars for a meal, so we thought that we were likely fine with pasta soup from a packet. 

The actual campground is also really nice. They have a playground, an entire building for bathrooms, and dish sinks that you actually feel comfortable washing your dishes in. The sites are set up kind of evenly, but also a bit like a maze. There is an only tents sections that you have to cross a bridge over a stream to get to, or, in our case, wade across the fast-flowing stream. The is a pond with at least three different species of ducks, including one with weird puffy red faces. There are lots of trees and places to hang up hammocks. It’s peaceful and really beautiful.