Long Road

I try to take every change i get to get out of the city, be it the holidays or a long weekend, whenever i get the chance, i use that extra time to go on camping or climbing trips. My latest trip was a week long stay in a little costal town called Totoralillo, close to Coquimbo, 5 hours away from Santiago. Before that though, in the summer of this year, me and my partner went hitchhiking in the Patagonia, starting from Santiago, we went to Puerto Montt in a 12 hour long bus, then to Chiloe, and from Castro we took a Ferry to Chaiten. Our only clear objective was to go to Villa Cerro Castillo.

 But to get there from Chaiten we had to take multiple rides with kind strangers that offered to take us in their cars. The best thing about Hitchhiking is the people you meet, you often get a better picture of what living in the region entails for the inhabitants, you get different walks of life in very close succession. To give an example, in the day it took us to get to Coyhaique from Chaiten, at least 5 people took us in their cars. First, it was some municipality workers that were going to a neighboring town to fix something, then, a nurse fom Futaleufu that was originally from Santiago, after him, in La Junta, a small beaten up old car stopped for us, out stepped a very energetic mother, with her daugther and son, (The daugher had just gotten back from her studies in Concepcion, and they had come to pick her up). They left us in Puyuhuapi (beautiful town) and from there "Cristobal" picked us up, a tired young man that worked as a civil engenieer. He had worked on the maintanace of the Carretera Austral, and had a sidejob buying and reselling cars. (He also drove like a madman!). Lastly, "Don German" picked us up and left us in Coyhaique, he worked breeding and moving horses for the "Rodeos" in the region, originally from Rancagua he was a very funny man.

After all that we were in Coyhaique, a trip that usually takes 5 hours took us the whole day, and we still had 150 kilometers left to get to Cerro Castillo! We decided to stay the night in the city, enjoy possibly our last hot shower of weeks to come, and continue hitching rides in the morning. After some hours and a lot of waiting we were there al last!

Cerro Castillo!