Coihaique

Day 76 – Which way shall we go?  Which way shall we go?

The next morning after an unexpected breakfast of ham and cheese toast and coffee was made for us and well needed showers were complete, we hit the town to try and work out our next moves, namely how to get to the not so nearby island of Chiloe. 

We tried the ferry office first as we knew a cargo ship that took people too was headed that way tonight at 7pm.  We were told that the journey would take 36 hours, there were no cabins with beds on board, we couldn’t get off at the stops, but there were still seats available.  With such a long time stuck in a seat and with no view, we decided to see if there was another way to go using a bus/ferry combination and if there was any worthwhile places between here and Quellon (on the Southern tip of Chiloe) that we would be missing. 

The only place of any real interest was Chaiten, a town formerly of about 4,000 people that was supposed to be quite pretty being on the water and surrounded by volcanos.  Unfortunately, Volcan Chaiten erupted suddenly in 2008 and the resulting mudflows devastated the town.  The residents were evacuated, but apparently have received very little government assistance and are still not allowed to move back to their homes, or what’s left of them.  About 200 or so have moved back anyway, and tourists are allowed to visit, but there are very few services in, to and from there, so without a car you risk getting stuck!  Futaleufu seemed interesting too, for the opportunity to go white water rafting, but given the freezing weather, we decided to save the water sports for further north. 

After taking into account travel time, risk of missing connections and cost, we had to resign to the fact that the ferry was the cheapest, least risky option, so it was off to the supermarket to buy a couple of days worth of supplies.  I was also sick of sudokus and the books I had, so purchased some knitting needles to knit a scarf for my Baba (grandma) as there was lots of nice wool around!

We sent a couple of “we are alive” emails to our parents as we hadn’t been near internet for a while, Matt made a mad dash to the pharmacy for some sea sickness tablets and then it was off to catch a local bus to Puerto Chacabuco about an hour away to get on our boat the “Alejandrina”.  Once on board the ferry, it appeared that seat numbers on the ticket meant nothing and so we were lucky to get on in time to get some seats at the end of the aisle and muscle out a bit of space to use for sleeping later.

The Alejandrina

We chatted to an American girl Jamie and her Spanish travelling partner Rosa, mostly about their travels in Chile and the WWOOFing they had done and the first movie on offer was “Australia”, thankfully shown in English with Spanish subtitles, so the hours leading to bed time were eaten up quickly. 

At about midnight, just after one of the stops let off a few passengers, Matt and I both managed to snag four seats in a row each and so ended up with a decent nights sleep!

Day 77 – A day in a tin can

In the  morning we didn’t hurry to be confined back to one seat each, and only got up when the eight or so kids on board had formed a gang and taken to screaming and running around full pelt so we couldn’t sleep anymore.  Mid morning I took my mug in to visit the Antonio Banderas look-a-like chef to score myself some free hot water to make coffee and Matt set about updating the blog. 

Pulled in at Puerto Gala one of the stops along the way.  NB: no roads!

Cruising the inlets.

  
Inside the tin can.

The movies of the day were all in Spanish with no subtitles, so I was able to knit a whole scarf in one day and thankfully I was also able to get the guy in the kiosk to let us charge up the laptop, so we could watch some movies of our own later on.  The weather was terrible the entire time, not that we could see anything without going outside anyway and we had to secretly drink the wine and pisco sours we had bought on board as there was a big sign saying no alcohol! 

Passing through some very remote settlements.

At about 6pm a couple of unintelligible announcements came over the PA, which we ignored, until Jamie and Rosa came over and asked why we hadn’t claimed our free food.  It turns out the bad weather had caused us to be severely delayed and so the kitchen was providing free spag bol to all on board.  We were due to arrive in Quellon at 7am the next morning, but nobody knew exactly how delayed we were.  We figured, given the free meals, it was significantly.

We weren’t able to snag as many seats that night, but got a few hours napping in anyways, once the kids had stopped running around at midnight.

Day 78 – Another day in a tin can

At around 9am we managed to work out where we were through the fogged over window at the front and after doing the math, it became apparent we would be spending another whole day on the boat.  I again visited the chef for some hot water and Matt broke out the camp stove to make us some lunch out of our backpack pantry (on the deck up stairs!) as we were running out of snacks! 

Home, freezing home for a little while longer…

Just after lunch, we hit open water and with the weather the way it was, most on board had started to turn green, us included, and were on the top deck in the freezing cold watching the horizon, some christening the water below.  After a couple of sea sick tablets we were both passed out about an hour later, agreeing that the sea sick tablets were more like sleeping tablets, which was one way to deal with the severe nausea!  After we woke up, the worst of it was over and thankfully we were nearing our final destination.  The weather wasn’t too bad (only drizzle) as we pulled in to port at about 7pm, but we still took a room in the closest cheap hotel to the dock and headed out for dinner.

Pulling into the port at Melinka.

The pier at Quellon.  

After that whole ordeal, and the money we had saved doing it that way, we took ourselves out to the best restaurant in town for a seafood platter and took advantage of the fact that fresh seafood was going to be an option for the next few days : )

The restaurant, “"El Madero” was in an extension to the owners house.  It was a beautiful room with big windows, exposed beams and a huge fire place.  There were a few new things on the platter that we hadn’t tried before and the owner was really friendly and came and chatted to us at the end of our meal.