A beauty and a beast of a road refers to the Carretera Austral. The longest road in the longest country in the world, Chile.
Travelling south into Patagonia is not easy and staying in Chile will require following the Carretera Austral.
The Carretera Austral meanders 1,250 km through rugged and remote terrain. It stretches from Puerto Montt in the north down to Lago O’Higgins in the south.
Paula and I completed this road, late in 2017. It was a beauty and a beast of a road.
Beautiful because of the stunning scenery
and a beast of a road because of its poor state of repair in places.
This blog (Part 1) and its photographs highlight the beauty of travelling the Carretera Austral, one of the world’s great driving experiences.
To give a balanced perspective about the Carretera Austral there will be another blog. Part 2 will highlight some of the disadvantages we encountered.
We started off by taking a Navimag ferry, booked in advance in Puerto Montt. It’s well worth using a ferry, there are lots of them. It breaks up the monotony of continuous driving and enabled us to experience aspects of the landscape we wouldn’t have otherwise seen.
Our boat left Puerto Montt and sailed overnight to Puerto Aisen. We were lucky, the weather was good so the sea stayed calm, enabling us to see albatrosses, gulls and petrels.
Black-browed Albatross
The ship travels through wide fjord like channels. The passage between the mainland and Chiloe island protects the ship from the roughness of the Pacific sea. The land either side being swathed in dense temperate rain forest, a memorable voyage.
There are a few places to stay in pretty Puerto Aisen or you can drive to the much larger Coihaique. We preferred Puerto Aisen!
Further south lies Puerto Tranquilo, a quaint village bustling with tourists. We found it a great place for accommodation, food and things to do. More importantly, it’s one of the few places on the route to get punctures repaired.
After Puerto Tranquilo the scenery becomes spectacular. The road skirts the azure coloured , glaciar fed Lake Tranquilo , overlooked by the distant snow capped Andes.
Most of the Carretera Austral is stone and gravel (ripio). However every year sees more and more improvements.
When the ripio is in good repair it’s fine, but it did cut down our speed. Not a problem to us as we are bird watching as we go and the surrounding countryside is full of colour and interest.
We drive our own vehicle and camp wherever we can. New stretches of road often leave older sections in disuse where it is easy to camp.
