Time to hit the road again. Bit of a drama as we left the village as the road had been closed. This was more alarming than it sounds as it is literally the only road around here. After some gesturing and mime we worked out that we had to reverse onto a small ferry which was shuttling motorists up and down the fjord-a bit like a free cruise as it is so beautiful.
We headed on to the Bosque Encantado, or enchanted forest. We were still feeling pretty rough from the mad hike up the mountain, so by the time we got there didn't have the time or energy to hike to the lake full of icebergs as this was up more buggy mountainside. The forest itself was gorgeous though. The tourist blurb described it as fairy-tale like and it was, full of twists and turns and little bridges and brightly coloured wild fuchsia.
We were conscious of the fact that we had a long drive and had to get moving again, and after all the road trip was the whole point of being here, so set off again on the Carretera Austral. Again it was amazing, really jungly vegetation - huge gunerra, wild fuschia, bamboo and huge ferns- with snow-capped mountains in the background. The ripio was replaced by tarmac as we left Quelet National Park, which felt blissful after the juddering, dust and pothole dodging.
We were worried by a development with Bobbit
though. The passenger door had become impossible to open from the outside about 2 days in. The driver's door was becoming increasingly hard to open, and we started to worry that this would go too. We'd parked up to have coffee and check out the 'waterfall of the holy virgin' but couldn't get back into the car. The only way in was through the boot, which provided a bit of entertainment for the Chilean tourists at the shrine. As it was Sunday and we had a long drive ahead on Monday we were short on time to get this fixed.
We arrived in Coyahaique early evening. It's the major town in the area and our best hope of finding a garage. One of the ideas we'd had about the car was that it may just be a build up of dust, as it was odd that the doors were both doing the same thing. While I went to check us in I asked the receptionist about finding a garage in the morning but this didn't look good. When we went out to get the cases Kerry was triumphantly brandishing the sun screen and opening and closing the doors of the car. While we didn't feel that fixing the car with cosmetics was breaking down any gender stereotypes, it was pretty resourceful!
Weather still very hot. I keep looking at things like the trapper hat in my luggage and wondering what on earth we were thinking when we packed.
Facts:
44668 km leaving Puyahuapi still shows full. Ripio ends for new tarmac at end of Quelat np.
Drove 235 km
Total 842 km