Hitchhiking the World: Chap 12 (Chile, Argentina & Uruguay)

---June 9th 2016---

I may have reached the end of the road, and may have been on my way back, but I decided to delay my hitching by a day. My goal was mostly to Skype with my parents, but I never got a hold of them. On the other hand, I proposed to Sandra and Mauricio to do the cooking for the night. For them it was a day off, but for me, it was a way to eat a typical Canadian meal: a Pâté Chinois. I’ve never been good at cooking, but I must say that it was pretty good.

The next day, Sandra and Mauricio gave me a lift to the end of town. As expected, I barely had to wait before getting a ride. My ride was going all the way to El Chalten, passing by the Glacier of Moreno and the Torres del Paines, but was first stopping in Punta Arenas for 2-3 days. With my low budget, waiting in a city for this amount of town wasn’t an option, so, after a night in the local football stadium, I got back on the road and hitched toward Puerto Natales. To my surprise, the hitchhiking turned out much easier than my previous days in Patagonia, and by night, I was in town.

I got myself a meal, and started looking for places to stay. There were abandoned houses everywhere, but none were easy to sneak in, forcing me to camp outside for the night. Normally, this isn’t too big of a deal, but I was in Patagonia, well known for their high winds. I finally found a place with shrubs blocking the wind and put up my tent, but as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I saw a big nasty cloud coming my way, and the wind started to pick up. This wasn’t an option anymore, especially with only half on my tent structure. I packed everything and got back in town. I knew there one abandoned house easy to sneak in, but it was on the Carabineros (Chilean police) property. I thought the best thing to do was to enter the property and simply ask, but once on the property, I found no sight of them, so I just sneaked in and hoped for no midnight surprise. Just the braking in a police property made the night somewhat stressful, but mixed with the creepy abandoned horse stall full of spider web, and the hard wind menacing of getting away with the roof didn’t help.

I woke up at sunrise, before anyone could see me, and left for the Torres del Paines. I didn’t have to break the 5min wait before I saw an RV written “Ushuaia – Alaska” on it. I knew this meant a good ride; and it stopped. With Sergio and Valeria, I road all day toward too much anticipated park, but not without a few hours stop at the Cueva del Milodon.

Unfortunately, the low clouds were stuck on the mountains. The sight was majestic as every once in a while the shadow of a huge monolith would pierce through the pinkish clouds. We headed for one of the free campground and stopped there for the night. Obviously forced to camp, I found a space in the forest for protection, and used the pick nick tables as extra wind blocker, but in the end of the day, the massif mountain in front of us blocked most of the wind, leaving me with a very comfortable night.

Through the sunset clouds, we could distinct the Torre del Paines

As usual, the morning light woke me up, letting me know it was time to go outside. Waiting for Sergio and Valeria to wake up, I went for a small walk. As the cloud had lifted, we could now see the glacier covered mountains, but even better, the towers of rock just north of the mountain. I got my camera out, and as I was talking a few picture of the huge granite monoliths, the early Sun found a way through the clouds to paint them in a deep orange. This amazing sight only lasted a few minutes as the clouds rapidly covered the Sun, and this time, for the rest of the day.

After breakfast, we decided to backtrack a little and head back toward the main viewpoints from the day before. The clouds were still very present, but they high enough to leave the mountains alone. The unique features of these mountains are the center ones composed of three layers of different rocks. The top layer, a darker one, protects the middle one, much lighter, from erosion, but when the glacier carved these mountains, they bloke the top part leaving the soft material at the mercy of the weather. This weather as now sculpted these mountains in a colossal way, making them most certainly one of the most beautiful in the world, and definitely the prettiest I’ve got to see from my own eyes.

Another look at these mountain, without the clouds this time

At around 2pm, we started our drive back to Puerto Natales, but not without stopping for a viewpoint of the three granite towers. Yet another amazing view, but this time, of the entire mountains range.

Back in the city at dawn meant my day was over. Well, not quite. At the park, I saw the forecast for the next few days, and it talked about 64km/h wind, with a possibility of rain. I didn’t want to camp, but thanks to my previous night in town; I knew a place where I could stay. That being said, braking in the carabineros for a second time wasn’t something to be excited about. I walked around town, hoping to find something else, and eventually I walked in front of the main church which had just finished the ceremony. I asked the priest if he could help me out for the night, and after talking with a few coworkers, he found me a bed in one of the hostel. This definitely turned out nice as it rained all night long.

I took my time in the morning as the rain kept on falling, eventually, I had to get back on the road and leave Chile, to enter for the last time in Argentina. Getting out of town wasn’t that easy, but once out, I got an instant ride to the border, and across it.

The day was a bit depressing as the grey cloud covered the sky and the Patagonian winds brought me nothing but chills, but without backing down, I pushed my luck all the way to Calafate, and managed to find an abandoned house before sunset. As usual, the winter condition made night quite horrible, but not just because of the freezing weather, but this time due to its impossibly long and boring nights. Having no Sun from 18 o’clock to 10 o’clock, I have no choice but sleep for 14h. I may be tired, but that tired.

Eventually, after countless waking up in the middle of the night, I finally noticed a pink cloud in the dark of the night; this meant sunrise was coming, and an opportunity to finally put an end to this endless night. I packed my bag and left my shelter to hitch toward the Glacier de Moreno. I thought it would be easy, but I surely was wrong, as minutes turned into an hour, and a little more. Eventually, a guy stopped telling me he wasn’t going very far, and in the middle of nowhere, but was fine with giving me a ride. Knowing he would eventually come back in town, I hoped in the car and left for the middle of the fields. From there, patiently waited along the deserted road, and in time got another ride. This one could bring me to the glacier, but I was making progress, which was nice. Finally, it took me another two cars to reach my destination. Overall, over four hours and four cars were needed to reach the park which was much unexpected as the glacier is the only thing west of Calafate which lives sorely through tourism brought by this glacier.

Now I thought the glacier would be just one of those picturesque landscapes that doesn’t bring much more than a few nice pictures, but I was totally wrong, as the pictures will never truly catch all the detail of this location. Of course, I can say this of nearly every landscape, but it is especially true at the Moreno Glacier. As you enjoy the splendid view of the floating wall of ice, huge cracking noise gets heard. Finishing its travel on water, the glacier is more active than any other I’ve seen before. The crackings are deep and loud. You can hear them from far and hear the wave flow through the glacier anxiously trying to find a way out, but never reaching the end. It is without saying that these crackings also leaves us on our tows hoping to see part of the icy wall collapsing down, and sure enough, eventually, one of the crackings came from the front wall, and resulted into a huge water explosion-like wave. Yet another dream comes true.

I sure was hoping to see this, but never thought I actually would

Unfortunately, every good thing comes to an end as the night was slowing installing itself pushing us to leave the magical sight, and head back in town. Back in town also meant find a place for the night. I may have known one, but it was in the wrong end of town, pushing me to find a new one. Not able to find anything, I finally put my tent in a small park, behind the bathrooms. It sounded great, but eventually, the rain forced me to find another spot in the middle of the night. The bathrooms were closed, but its porch had a small roof which I could use for shelter. Now being in front of the bathroom, I could hide my tent, and to reduce as much of the attention, I just threw my sleeping bag on the ground and slept “homeless-style”, wrapped around my bag. To have had problem falling asleep, and having time to see the reaction the locals who would see me, I can definitely say Calafate do not know what a homeless is. Seeing the reaction of the locals was priceless indeed.

All throughout the night, the rain fell, splashing me a little bit, but nothing unbearable, and in the morning, the clouds cleared up and showed me the blue of the sky. Not wasting a minute, I got to the gas station and start asking around for a ride toward El Chalton. “Hi there, how are you? Would it possible to know where you are going?” I kept on asking, and eventually got the respond I was looking for “Bariloche”. “Perfect, I’m heading toward El Chalten, and would like to know if it would be possible to hitch a ride to the intersection?” But this time, the answer didn’t sound too great into my ears, “I don’t know, it depends on the GPS.” Not being overly fan of GPSs, I took my map out before he could reach for his GPS and showed him the road heading to Bariloche. Seeing he was passing in front of the intersection to El Chalten, he accepted on board. I had my ride, are so I thought, since just a few kilometers out of town, he stopped at an intersection telling me his GPS was showing him another route, leaving me in the middle of nowhere. Disappointed, got out, and tried hitchhiking without too much success, but then, after half-an-hour, I noticed the car heading back my way. It stopped by my side, and the driver greeted me saying with a bit of embarrassment “Sorry, it turns out we had programmed the GPS for Buenos Aires.” The paper map may be old school, but it doesn’t get you lost; paper map 1, GPS 0!

The two rides turned out to be excruciatingly cold as the only room for me was in the back of the pickup. And at 0°C with 100km/h wind (the wind from the car that is), the thermal sensation was unbearable, but I knew reaching El Chalten wasn’t to be easy, and I couldn’t be selective with my rides; just tough it out.

When I finally got at location, I could see Mount Fitz-Roy (or El Chalten), but the Cerro Torre were covered by clouds. Not wanting to reach the mountain, take a photo, and leave, I decided to take the day off and go trek. Stuck with my 40lbs (20kg), I walked up and above a first row of mountains to reach a gorgeous lake with an amazing view of the sharp towers of El Chalten. I walked back in town, and up another mountain hoping the sky had cleared enough to see the Cerro Torre, but nothing. I may not be able to see these pointy mountain peaks, but the overlook was perfect for sunset. The sunset turned out not that great, but still managed to enjoy it as it showed me some of the unique weathering of the Patagonia. All throughout sunset, the cloud were blocked west of El Chalten, and pushed north, but at the moment (and I really mean at the moment) the Sun got behind the clouds, the clouds changed direction and within 5 minutes, the entire mountain had being devoured. Now I’m not a meteorologist, and sorry for the nerdiness, but what I think caused such a quick change in weather is the dryness of the Patagonia. Dry air changes temperature much faster than humid air, so as long as the Sun was out, the ambient air of the valley (east of the mountain) stayed warm, whereas the air from the icecap (west of the mountain) stayed cold, due to the permanent ice. This difference in temperature caused a difference in pressure keeping the cold air (and the clouds) from entering the valley. But as the Sun disappeared, valley cooled down, balancing the atmospheric pressure letting the western wind to push the clouds in without any resistance. Obviously, it is a lot more interesting when you see it happen before your eyes, but I still think it is interesting.

The Sun may have being set, but the light was going to be out for another while, so I killed time, by walking through town hoping for the night to set, and sneak in one of the abandoned house I had spotted a bit before. And once the light fully out, I sneaked in, through my sleeping on the ground and to sleep, but not without setting my alarm for way early in the morning. Fitz-Roy was indeed amazing looking, but what I truly wanted to see was the sunrise painting the huge monoliths in bright orange while leaving the foothills in darker shade. So, once woken up by my alarm, I packed my stuff in the dark of the night, and walked to the trailhead, and up one of the smaller mountains to reach the summit before the break of dawn. I could of used my flashlight to light the path, but I decided to hike the mountain in pitch darkness as my eyes would stay adapted to the dark not helping me see what in just up front, but be able to see the full mountain.

Now at the top, all I had to do was wait… easier said than done when its 0°C and you stand still. I froze half-to-death, but eventually started seeing the Fitz-Roy, and this time with the Cerro Torre. The sky slowly lite up and eventually the two mountains started painting themselves in bright orange. What a sight it was!

Definitely the most beautiful sunrise I've seen

I stayed for a little while, and eventually got back down and back on the road side… for 5h20min. Thankfully, not just all the good things comes to an end, but the bad one also, and eventually, got a car to pull over.

I ended up in Calafate once more, and threw my tent behind the bathroom once more, this time I slept the full night without interruption. Having visited El Chalten, I was now free to go in every direction. My next destination was Palace Cave, in Uruguay, roughly 3200km from my location. I knew I had three options: hitchhike to Poreto Moreno before cutting across to highway 3, cut across to Piedra Buena using highway 9 and 3, or detour toward Rio Gallegos to catch all the Ushuaia-Buenos Aires traffic. My favorite option was the Rio Gallegos, but I decided to ask around the gas station and take the first car heading in either of those directions. Rio Gallegos it was. As I got close to town, I called Gabriela to see if I could stop for the night, but unfortunately, she wasn’t home. So, rather than entering town, I stayed on the north end, and used the road control to my advantage. The police officer offered me to help me, telling me they would stop a truck for me, but after almost 2h of waiting and three trucks that flew by without any officer doing much, I asked again if they were helping me out, and they replied they weren’t. Thanks for wasting two precious hour of hitchhiking. Taking matter into my own hands, I walked out of the control and hitchhiked for another half-hour.

The car who stopped wasn’t heading to Buenos Aires like I hoped, but it was going to Piedra Buena, and the driver offered me a place for the night. I guess the wasted 2h turned out nice, since I may have ended up camping if I had another ride.

I may have stayed warm for a night, but morning was still rough. When I left the house, the ground was fully frozen, and the humid air had no trouble piercing through my cloths. I got on the side of the road and froze half to death for about 3h. I was bored, frigid and started wondering if I was going to find my way out, but finally found a willing person to stop by my side. The guy driving the car was going to Comodoro, a good 500km north; typical of Patagonia, extremely long wait, but for very good rides.

It all looked nice, but this ride forced me into a situation I always hate. I was in the center of the biggest city of Patagonia, and it was dark. I had no place to sleep, and there was no way I would find an abandoned house, so I went for plan B: asking people at the gas station for a ride out of town. It worked great! Within ten minutes, I found a ride to the last gas station in town, and from there, I got a ride 40km out of town with the first guy I asked. I was out of town and could go to sleep without anyone bothering all night, but my night was far from being the most pleasant. This ride brought me to the top of a hill, which meant the temperature were lower (around -3°C), and, not able to throw my tent in the fields, I was forced to throw it pretty much on the highway. It may sound stupid to throw your tent five feet from a truck infested highway, but at least, I managed to hide behind one of the road signs (usually people don’t hit them with their car, meaning it is somewhat safe). The rocky ground left me with a very sore back, the early night rain which turned into ice left me with a brutally painful tent folding the next morning, the cold kept me up all night, and the truck passing just a few feet from me didn’t help either, but eventually the Sun got up, I got up, and just about an hour later, I had found a truck bringing me to Trelew, and from there, another one to Puerto Madryn, and finally one to Choele Choel. Not having that much money in my pocket, and not too sure how long I was going to be in Argentina, I decided to safe my money all day to use it for the last meal of the day, but as I got in town, I quickly realised there was no place open; yet another starving night.

This time, not being in a big city, I just decided to camp on the gas station’s lawn for the night. The grass was comfortable and the warm air seemed promising, but the Patagonian winter really didn’t like me, and once more threw at me below freezing temperature freezing my tent once more. And sure enough, packing my tent resulted in frozen fingertip.

I passed walked to the other gas station, just on the other side of town to buy myself a small breakfast, but found nothing. So, I got back on the road and before I could even lift my finger, a truck flashed me. I ran toward it and got an instant ride, which actually lasted all day long. I managed to fly through more than 800km helping me reach the city of Rio Cuarto. These 800km also helped me get over the below freezing area of Argentina, but this didn’t mean it was summer. I had been through 2 very rough nights, and two very long days, and was dead tired. My tent was wet, and I really wanted a shelter for the night. To do so, I walked through town and eventually found a house that looked a bit abandoned. I started preparing my tent but rapidly got interrupted by a flashlight heading my way. Not enjoying sleeping illegally on other people’s property, I decided not to hide, and walk toward the guy. He was definitely surprised to see a Canadian trying to camp in his brother’s shop porch, but proved to be very receptive, and called his brother to let him know I would spend the night on the property. This time, I slept like a baby, and my tent managed to dry off.

The next day, when I woke up, I was greeted by the brother who was pretty thrilled with the idea of having a crazy gringo camping on his property. He invited me for the traditional maté and asked a whole bunch of question about my trip. After about an hour hanging out with the brother, I packed my stuff and got back on the road. As per usual, I waited over two hours before finding my ride just south of San Francisco. And two trucks later, I was on the edge of Santa Fe.

Not wanting to end up in town, I asked to be dropped at the intersection of two busy highways. The cloud were menacing, pushing me to look for shelter beneath the two bridges, but to my despise one was infested with ants, which I know are horrible to deal with, and the other with huge 2” wide spiders waiting to jump on me. In other word, I chose the rain. I found a few trees between the web of highway entrances and exits, and camp there for the night.

I was now one state from Uruguay, the end of Argentina, but first I wanted to call an old friend from Talampaya: Miguel, which had left me his phone number, inviting me to stop by on my way back. I hitched a truck, and as we drove toward Villaguay, I got a hold on him. The synchronicity was pretty amazing as he was coming from Parana, the city right next to Santa Fe. So he gave the truck driver his location and waited for me on the side of the road. It was kind a funny since usually the hitchhiker is the one waiting for a car to stop, but now, the car was the one waiting for the hitchhiker to pass by.

Miguel invited me for the traditional dish I had heard so much about: the asado. The asado comes from the ribs of the cow, and is BBQed for many hours (3-4h) with just a few wooden charcoals. It is important not to have any flame, and to feed the BBQ new charcoals every now and them. This technique gets the meat to fully cook, but without losing its juiciness. Needless to say I eat like a pig, and could barely walk after this feast, but despite being full, when came supper, I managed to find some room to a BBQed fish from the local river.

The next morning was spent in town as Miguel had to work in the morning, but as he wanted to go shopping in Uruguay, he offered me to wait a little bit and get a ride through the border. Before we left, he invited me for one last Argentinean meal: the cow’s liver and stomach. We crossed the border at around 15 o’clock, and got all the way to Young. The sky was grey and rainy, but I knew I had no choice but to keep on going, so when we got in town, without hesitation, I grabbed my bag and started hitching my 17th country, and first for my climb back north.

As I waited for my first ride in this new country, the weather started to clear out, which gave me a slight hopes for the next day. This clearing felt nice, but the sky wasn’t bright blue as the day was getting late. Just before my watch showed 18 o’clock, I finally saw a car pull over. The guy lived on the edge of Montevideo, meaning I had a ride to where I wanted. But, the night forced me to stop a few kilometers before. Not having any place for the night, the driver told me I might find free camping in Bartolomé Natl Park. Once at the park’s office, we asked if there was any camping spot with protection from the rain. There was none, but the park ranger wasn’t going to leave me in the rain, and offered me to spend the night in the ranger’s headquarter.

When I got out of my shelter in the morning, the grass was pretty wet; it had rained all night. But, the clouds were high enough for me to hit the road without too much worries; at least for now. I quickly got a first ride to town, and another to the intersection leading to the park. Knowing there was very little car heading toward the Palace Cave, I decided to walk the last 12km. It took me about 2h15, but eventually, I had reached it. To visit the caverns, I needed to join a guided tour. After a few minutes of waiting, we finally got outside, and starting walking toward the cavern, but the clouds had lowered and soaked us all. As we were walking back toward the visitor center, the guide started asking about my voyage, and when she asked me about my sleeping whereabouts, she quickly offered me to stay for the day at the park up until she would leave work, and have not only a ride to Trinidad, but a place to stay. A few phone calls later, and I indeed had a bed setup in the locker-room of the local stadium. Having the opportunity to stay all day at the park, I managed to re-visit the caves without the rain. I know usually caves are waterproof, but these caves aren’t, as the roof is only 30cm thick, and full of cracks.

Once more, inozition made a unique natural feature

The night at the stadium was a bit hot, but at least, once more I had defeated Mother Nature and her endless rain. As for the morning, I had to wake up at around 5am to catch a ride to San José with one of the tour guides from the day before. The waking might have been a little rough, but the early start gave a pretty good head start for the day. Thanks to my early ride, I also manage to have enough time to reach Minas by noon, which was perfectly synchronised with a group of guy coming back from buy a few snack for a delicious asado. Also being a hitchhiker, the driver offered me to tag along for the feast and if I wanted, also hangout with them for the night. I had a place to sleep, food, shower, and beer, what more could I ask? Plus, it turned out quite nice since I hadn’t hung out in way too long.

LEt's get the party started

As you can imagine, I woke up in the morning with a bit of a hangover, but after eating a small breakfast, I had to head back on the road. The sky was grey, and so was my moral. Plus, my previous luck had just run out. It took me almost two hours to get my first ride, plus another two hours for my second, and finally, after another two hours’ worth of waiting, I had to call it a day and find shelter for the night. The sky wasn’t too mean, but I knew night was capable of great changes, so I didn’t risk anything and looked for one of the house in construction I had seen when I crossed town. I laid my sleeping bag down, and instantly fell asleep. I sleep quite nice that night, and the sound of the heavy down poor hitting the steel roof made my sleep even nicer as I knew what I had just dodged.

When the morning light hit my eyes, I saw a thick fog covering town. I knew I had to get up and couldn’t snooze in, so as usual, I dragged myself out of my comfort bag, and got back on the side of the road.

Waiting, and waiting; nothing seemed to be heading my way. Just like in Argentina, everyone was only heading to the next intersection. Finally, one of those cars stopped to tell me he wasn’t heading too far, but desperate, I still jumped in. It took me another two cars, with countless hours on the side of the road to get to Melo and finally to Rio Branco, but finally, I had reached it: Brazil.

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Country's Statistics

Chile

Number of nights : 21

Numbers of days on the road: 9

Percentage of invitation at night : 14%

Overall waiting time : 18h

Average wait : 48min

Longest wait : 5h

Male vs female : 74% male – 4% female – 22% mixed

Total amount of rides : 23

Average spending per day : -3,17$/day