April 17th, 2006

Boring, expensive, but quite tranquil Coyhayque is the biggest city on the Carretera Austral we’ve hit so far. Given, of course, we started only a few days ago, but according to the map, it will also remain such until we reach Puerto Montt. Or may be I should say if we do, as our plans change on the fly all the time.

If not for Maira and Javier, the Chilean doctors who gave us a ride here, the stopover would be like any other. Check e-mail, update our location, make sure we are not missing anything important, and find the cheapest way out. This time though, we didn’t get off that easy. The guys invited us to a little barbeque at their house, and we hang out with them and their friends (who don’t speak a word of English) till the fire was no longer able to keep us outside.

The next day we decided it was the Carretera time again. We were paying 10,000 Chileanos (US$20) to spend the night, so that alone was a good reason to get out. There was only a little question of how, though. As we quickly found out, the only bus going north has already left earlier in the morning, so we were left with no other choice but to travel by finger. To better our chances of catching a ride, we walked to the end of town and stood right where the cars leaving town would pass. For a while there, I wasn’t sure if we would get a ride at all. Unlike the previous couple of days, the clouds were gathering in the sky with an angry look on their faces, and traffic was slow to non-existent. We stood at a semi covered bus stop, and I was giving the passing by cars my biggest smile and stretching out my finger when Shurik had an idea. “Let’s make a sign,” he said, like a kid that just came up with a good way to get his favorite ball from the mean dog behind the force. When he says stuff this way, it makes me feel like everything is just a game we play and nothing can wrong. We ripped a few pages from my sketchbook and wrote “Viviana Intersection or further North” on one side and Shurik drew a big smiley with the word “Please” on the other. I kept on the “stretch’n’smile” routine and Shurik worked the sign, turning it over for passers by, and guess what? It worked! A car stopped by and a very nice prosecuting attorney has agreed to take us to Viviana intersection where we would try to catch our next ride.

“What were we thinking!” is the thought passing through my mod frighteningly too often these days. What made us think we had the cohunes for this? Yes, we are saving about $60 right here, but we are also freezing our butts and thumbs off out here. We waited for a ride for about three hours. At the crossroads, we were in the company of three locals and we were the last in line; so when 1 o’clock minibus turned the corner we followed the example of the locals and climbed into it to try our luck in the next town.

Unfortunately, our luck didn’t change for some time. We reached the end of a small village and, after having a very pricy lunch in a local hostel, continued to try and hitch a ride. Nothing worked, the sign, the smile, the thumbs. The passersby kept passingby even if they had space. Few locals had stopped for us though, but they were going only as far as three to eight kilometers up the road and that would have helped us only with getting stranded in the middle of nowhere without a place to sleep. What did get me angry though were these obviously non-local drivers who drove by with completely empty and cozy looking backseats who curiously peeked out of their warm cars at the wet and cold backpackers. Are they afraid of us, I wondered? In my little red coat I looked like the freaking Red Riding Hood. And Shurik? Was his “Jungle Shurik”, bandana wearing, unshaved look scaring them away? Maybe we were both doing something wrong not even knowing about it?

Hours passed and we were starting to get desperate. We were still on the good paved road part of the Carretera, and if the traffic situation was this bad here, how should I expect it to be further on? The safest and most boring choice was to spend the night here, in this little village, and catch the very expensive twelve hour bus coming out of Coyhayque going to Chaiten and give up on hour little hitchhiking adventure. We were evaluating our possibilities, when a local man passing by told us that we might want to retreat a bit back into the centre of the village and try our luck at “Lucimarc”, a café were minibus drivers stop to eat and use the bathroom. Running out of options, we did just that, and, as we arrived at the café, a minibus was standing there letting its passengers stretch their legs. The bus was going to Puerto Cisnes, a city further north but 30km off the Carretera, so since we wanted to stay on the Carretera we could only take it to the next village. We found the driver, and Shurik asked him if he had space in the van for us, but there was none. The driver did say, though, that his brother is going the same way on a jeep and would be at the café in ten minutes, but it was going to cost us the same as the bus. Well, not many options were available to us and while pretty much waiting for the jeep I went back down to the road by the café and stuck my thumb out almost out of habit. And, what do you know, a huge truck stopped right in front of me! I opened the cabin, but was still shocked it actually stopped, I forgot where we wanted to go. “Villa Amengual?” Shurik quickly came to my rescue. “Si, pase,” and just like that we were on our way, enjoying the warm cozy cab and the view of surrounding mountains through the huge windshield. The truck driver turned out to be a nice old man, and we spoke up until the paved portion of the road has ended. After that, the road noise became too loud to talk, and, as it was also very dark now, we didn’t want to distract him from the road. Nevertheless, in the short time we did get to converse, the man told us that he was going to Puerto Cisnes where he would be taking a twenty four hour ferry all the way to the island of Chiloe, exactly where we were eventually heading. We did do our research, but never heard of this option. Considering the weather, the sparse traffic, and the horrible dirt and gravel road, it took us about two seconds to decide on skipping the rest of the Carretera and taking the direct boat for Chiloe.

Tags: hitchhiking
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