Day 49 - 23 Jan.2012 - Puyuguapi

Last night we had some encounters with the Alpha dog of the campsite when we went to brush our teeth and to have a shower. The owners went into town for a party and the dog thought it needs to take care of the campsite. Pretty scary affair but we are still alive.
Today we awoke by some funny “crrmpf” noise. The horses at the campsite came close to our tent to graze – really funny when you wake up and try to identify the noise still half asleep.
We drove back to the town of Puerto Aisén, a town living of fishing and the surrounding industries such as small shipyards etc.
Today, to our surprise, half of the Carretera Austral was paved and we made good progress. At the viewpoint for the “Pedra del Gato” we stopped for lunch. It was a really beautiful setting for the lunch break but we did not find that summit we were supposed to look at. All around us were mountains and all looked grand, none was sticking out to be extraordinary. Anyway, we grilled another chicken breast on our stove and feasted with that beautiful view onto the rocks.
We set off and immediately after the next corner the pavement stopped and gravel took over. The scenery got even more spectacular driving often on single-track roads trough thick forest. At times it looked like that nature is trying to regain what was taken form her and closed the road with these massive leafy bushes looking a bit like rhubarb. Looking at these dusty leaves gives an idea of how much dust the cars passing by create. As well as on the Ruta 3 in eastern Patagonia, here we saw a lot of cyclists as well. Every time we pass by one, we slow down to create as little dust as possible but even then the view in the back mirror is filled with shades of brown and grey. These guys must have dust lungs by the time they finish the Carretera Austral. We arrived in Puyuguapi which is a small town founded in 1935 by a few Germans who settled here and married to Chilean woman. The German influence is still visible in the style of houses and the German surnames. We had Cafe & Kuchen at Café Rossbach and the prices here are pretty much like in Germany too.
The village is as well famous for its hot springs coming from the nearby volcano. We were tempted to have a nice bath in a hot pool. The price for the bath per head was 15,000 P$ (£20). However, the pile of firewood stacked behind the house left us with a degree of doubt what this might be used for. Alternatively, we could have stayed overnight in the Spa hotel across the lake, which hot water facilities sounded a bit more genuine to us. However, over there the night would have been between £150 and £300 depending if we would like to have a room with seaview or not (hot baths included). We felt it was above our budget and decided for the campsite Eco Camping some 5km north of Puyuguapi. Marcelo, who is the friendly owner of the campsite, created it together with his girlfriend. The campsite has a gorgeous setting directly at the south end of the lake. This one goes as well onto our list of “Most Beautiful Campsites” – highly recommended.

Our final thought on the diesel shortages in South-Western Argentina: To us it looks like that the region we drove trough here in Chile is much more remote than the area around El Chaltén in Argentina. Furthermore, having read other blogs and listened to other stories from people who had similar problems there (some of them more than 10 years ago), we came to the conclusion that the fuel shortage is done on purpose so that if fuel is available, it can be sold at much higher prices, resulting in higher earnings. We could not come up with a better explanation as this problem is not new to the region and is consistent for more than 10 years – bizarre, really.