Futaleufu was a pretty town, despite the obvious paucity of incomes and the thick blanket of volcanic ash that brought the town to a standstill in 2008 and triggered the re-location of the regional capital from Chaiten. Even the sound of it was pretty and the citizens seemed to have some semblance of civic pride with a gleaming new plaza, well maintained sidewalks, rose gardens in almost every yard. And the houses were different here too; all wooden, clad in shingles and painted in pretty pastel shades of blue, yellow, green and pink. Young children played on the streets and there was virtually no thru traffic. It was Saturday night and everything was calm and relaxed in this tiny border hamlet.
After interrogating the poor frightened young local girl who worked the information desk we walked to the bus ticket office (just a shack) and rattled the windows until an old woman from the house next door shooed us away, saying that we should "come back on Wednesday" ...
Not to be discouraged - and to satisfy Adam's intense interest in the young Lady - we returned and tried to explain our predicament. We eventually established that a small mini bus only for locals was making an early morning run to Santa Lucia (on the "highway" south and in theory a place where we could hitch a ride).

Feeling somewhat more positive than when we had arrived we wandered across the wintery plaza, complete with a fading and windblown nativity scene, now just a jumble of disorganised props.
We found a cozy homestay with a friendly family, although we all agreed with Adam that the mama did bear a disturbing likeness to Billy Crystal.
We were up before dawn and cold and sodden even before we had covered the two short blocks to the bus station and without tickets we were on a wing and a prayer. We huddled under the eaves of the bus station - in reality just a simple wooden cottage with long overgrown grass and weeds and a toothless old dog - and waited, looking forlornly into the darkness.
A pair of weak headlights attempted to cut through the rain that fell in sheets now, signalling the arrival of the minibus. Locals sprung out of the darkness and sprinted for the bus, quickly filling up the limited number of seats and quickly dashing our hopes of an exit...I asked the driver about us joining the passengers, but he insisted that it was "complete-O" - meaning full. But I hovered like an ugly tourist counting off the empty seats until there were just five remaining...I checked my watch: 5:55am - just five more minutes and we would be fine...then three more people scurried across the paddock and lined up. "Tickets?" Asked the driver, to which two said "Ci" and the other just shrugged his shoulders; he like us was on standby. I stood on my tip toes and looked as determined as I could...at least I could claim the moral high ground by being here first. I couldn't tell whether he was a local or not, but he scurried away leaving us to battle it out, but the driver was insistent, no tickets, no travel...to which I responded with my latest count of open seats...finally at 5.59, he relented, and threw our bags in the trunk. I shoved Adam and Felix thru the door and ordered them to SIT! then realised that somehow I had mis-counted for there were now only two seats remaining (for Adam and Felix) and nothing for me. Quickly, before the driver boarded, I planted my backside on the floor of the bus and refused to move, wedged in tightly between two fat women, and there I stayed, rigid, for the next two hours as we climbed and zig-zagged our way across the Andes on a rough, pot-holed gravel track...
Santa Lucia was barely a town, just one street with some tin sheds, one of which we found ourselves in now as we waited for the southbound service from Chaiten, another roll of the dice in our travel plans. The rain had not relented and as we entered the bus shelter, it felt more like we had burst into someone's living room; then I realised that we actually had entered someone's living room. There was a long wooden dining table, a settee covered in woollen rugs and a jumble of arm chairs. There were icons on the wall, calendars, a vase of plastic flowers, a family portrait and a huge poster of Jesus. A young mother cradled a baby and two men warmed themselves around a cast iron wood burner. The bus was "hours away" so we settled in for the duration, being as polite and discrete as possible. A TV churned out American cable shows in one corner and a mama hovered like an anxious tuck-shop lady. We drank tea, coffee, bread and coca cola and eventually ordered six baloney and cheese sandwiches - mmmmm.
Finally at noon the bus arrived and thankfully there were seats a plenty and I spread out over the entire back row. We were now on the Careterra Austral, the highway that runs for more than 1,200 kilometres from Puerto Montt in the north to Villa O'Higgins, through rural Patagonia, connecting about 100,000 people in remote communities with the rest of the country. Most closely linked to the Pinochet regime (he gets most of the credit) it was actually built mostly by civilian contractors across various administrations from the late 1960s onwards. A highway it might be, but paved it wasn't and today we rattled along in the wet, zooming past rustic farms, through forests of conifer and beech, lichen covered rock falls and later in the afternoon, the first of the majestic Pacific fjords where our little bus hung on tightly as our driver negotiated the tight single lane track blasted from the rock wall. We ended the day with some serious mountain climbing (eyes focussed on the road ahead please) as we headed inland, back into the Andes and up onto the rich valley-plateau of Coyhaique.
It was bleak outside, with our breathing misty and a damp cold closing in the long twilight.
After riding full circle with an exasperated taxi driver and exhausting all of the guide book options, we eventually settled on an expensive lodge where I enjoyed a delicious beef steak in mushroom sauce with the creamiest mashed potatoes whilst the boys watched cable TV till late.
In the morning we awoke to find a light dusting of snow on the surrounding mountains, like icing sugar on fudge. Without any confirmed bus schedules and an appointment with the Ferry Man in 2 days time some 500kms south of here were played our wildcard and hired a 4wd and driver Guillermo for onward travel - from rags to riches overnight...
Our pace (and heart rates) quickened as our experienced driver sped out of town and hurtled along the short stretch of pavement here. Unfortunately the weather had set in and clouds and mist shrouded the mountains and an incessant rain storm seemed to track our cat. As we climbed higher the temperature fell and then sleet came. We stopped to watch a deer standing silently in the woods near the road before continuing on through rolling pasture land before diving deep into a series of remote forests enclosing pristine lakes the most fantastic shades of turquoise blue - we could have been looking out over the Mediterranean as we skidded past rocky islets and empty beaches.
We continued on and the rhythm of our travel and the flow of the gravel track underneath us put me in the zone for some deep contemplation...school days, old friends, fears and failures, love and family all flowed in a stream of consciousness, interrupted only very occasionally as our driver methodically called out the names of the rivers and lakes we came to.
I didn't resolve anything (I didn't really need to) but the therapy was useful.
Cochrane felt like a Welsh coal mining town on a winters' evening...stray dogs roamed the streets, soft drizzle fell on woodpiles and there was a real feeling of solidarity in opposition to the proposed hydro-electric dams on nearby rivers. We soon found ourselves holed up in the corner coffee shop sipping super hot super thick hot chocolates looking out over the plaza watching the passing parade.
We finally convinced Adam that he did actually need a change of shirt so spent the last few minutes of shopping hours in the town's best boutique trying on and finally settling on a fine imported Italian cotton shirt - a steal at 9,000 pesos (about 18 dollars).

We were away by 7am the next morning and made the early ferry at Puerto Yungay and our driver (we had nicknamed him The Stig by now) simply annihilated the last 100kms of gravel track, getting us into Villa O'Higgins - literally the end of the road - by noon.

Villa O'Higgins is a real frontier town on the edge of civilisation...the bus comes once or twice a week and there is a weekly light aircraft drop - weather permitting. The town of ~450 people is laid out in a small grid of streets, three by three with ramshackle wooden huts dominating, although there are signs of development with a new gymnasium, some incomplete street paving and a plaza (of course) undergoing a complete overhaul.
We took our lunch in a stand up bar in the front room of someone's house before circling the town and climbing to a lookout post high above the township; our sightseeing was over.

Tomorrow we catch the ferry to Argentina.