I’d been expecting to start this blog post with something like ‘Torres del Paine is justifiably known as the jewel in the crown of Chilean National Parks, and I’d have liked to have spent more time here’. Not so. Whilst it is truly spectacular and I’m definitely glad I made the excursion to see it,…

I’m quite impressed by Puerto Natales. I only had half a day to look around, between getting off the boat and going to Torres del Paine National Park tomorrow, but it’s not a bad place for somewhere so far from anywhere else (Punta Arenas, where I’ll be heading on Wednesday, is about the nearest town,…

By the nature of this update, this blog post was written as a log while we were underway. As a result, it’s a bit long… Friday, 7pm: In port near Puerto Montt, 41.5°S, 73.0°W We’re on board the Edén, after a lot of waiting around. It turns out the boat was actually moored just down…

Puerto Montt is a large city at the northern fringe of Patagonia and at the start of the Carretera Austral. I’d come here primarily not for tourism but to do the mundane parts of long-duration travel (going to the bank, finding a laundrette and giving back my hire car), as well as it being the…

The island of Chiloé is a large island, just off the coast at Puerto Montt. Currently, it is accessible only by car ferry (a one-way crossing with car was about £11) but a bridge is under construction and due to be completed in 2020. Judging by the graffiti and posters I saw, it appears that…

I hadn’t planned to come to Frutillar in my itinerary, but the problems at the campsite in Entre Lagos meant that I came here in the hope of finding a better option. I’m very glad I stopped: not only was the weather better, but the town is beautiful. Frutillar, located on the banks of the…

After the chaos of Osorno, I was looking forward to a nice quiet campsite for the next few days. I certainly found quiet – so quiet, in fact, that despite being ‘open’, the campsite didn’t even have any water in the toilet cisterns and the showers were still in a state of having woodwork done…

Getting there The drive from Valdivia was easy. Again, traffic on Ruta 5 was surprisingly light. There were two tolls, one just south of Valdivia (2200CLP, about £2.20) and another at the exit to Osorno (600CLP). There were none of the problems with roadworks that affected me yesterday. The only issue was finding the hotel.…

Getting here I’d been warned by Carlos back in Temuco that Valdivia isn’t an easy place to drive. So it turned out. This is a city of complex one-way systems, multiple lanes and taxis that aren’t afraid to undertake you if you don’t know where you’re going. But that wasn’t the biggest problem. The main…