Corona stories: 03/29/20

Number 4: Argentina – Chile 2008

The jetty for the boat across Lago O'Higgins

While I was in Monte Leon (number 1), I read that it is possible to walk across the border of Argentina with Chile close to El Chaiten, the northern entry of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. After a night in El Chalten, I took a minibus to what Google calls Rio Cañadon de los Toros, but what is locally called Lago del Desierto. It is a roughly 20 km walk across the border anyway, so I took the boat to the northern end of the lake and did not walk along the lake. The Argentine border post is at the northern end of the lake. The border guards looked at me in disbelief. In their opinion, I would never be able to walk to Chile with such a lot of luggage. Indeed, since I did not intend to come back, I had to carry everything. And unfortunately, I encountered a couple of really good bookstores on my way and that in addition to the camping equipment and a camera bag with a SLR and a couple of lenses must have made a load of some 40 kg. The border guards recommended me to use a horse. However, I am not a horseman, and there was no guide. They said there might be a group of caballeros arriving from Chile in the afternoon, but I had no intention to wait for something, which might never happen. I thought, that if the route was too long and exhausting for a day, I could as well just camp somewhere in the nomean‘s land.

The ascent from the lake to the water shed at the border to Chile was a challenge. The summer 2007/2008 was unusally hot in Patagonia. Instead of the usual variation of sun, rain and snow storms, all in one day, the entire january 2008 greeted me with blue sky. But after the coolness of the morning, the heat made the walk especially exhausting. But the sweat was rewarded by the view back over the lake and the towering Cerro Fitz Roy.

I was quite tired when I reached the border, which was marked by two big signs in the nowhere. The bridle path on the argeninian side changed to a gravel road in Chile. Probably there had been a forest fire recently. This attracts the horseflies, here called tábano, irritant big, but innocent insects, which like to sip on your sweat. Big and noisy as they are, they try to get into your nose, ears and eyes to drink. Hitting them does not help. Mostly they just fly away unimpressed and if you manage to squash one, they leave a sticky mess. And there are too many of them anyway. So better carry on instead of camping in the wild and being surrounded by these suckers.

Eventually, in the late afternoon, the turquoise waters of Lago O‘Higgins were visisble at the horizon. The colour comes from the minute debris of rock, which is carried by the runoff of the glaciers surrounding the lake. The lake is named after the Chilean hero of the war of independence, Bernardo O‘Higgins. Half of the lake is in Argentina. There it is called lago San Martin, who, guess what, was the Argentine hero of the war of their war of independence.

At the lake is the chilean border station, and a kilometer further on, a farm. They have simple rooms, dinner and, most important, beer. I pitched my tent between the horses on the lawn. About every second day, a boat cruises around the shores of the chilean part of the lake to serve the couple of remote farms and the odd tourist. The boat originates from Villa O‘Higgins, the southern end of the carretera austral, the 1200 km rough road built by Pinochet to ensure the independence of the southern part of Chile from Argentina. Before the road was built, this part of the world was only reachable by boat, plane or via Argentina.

Travelling down this road was my next goal, but that is another story.