The End of the Road
A traveler’s account: Villa O’Higgins to El Chalten
Being drawn across the peaks of the Andes, the Argentina/Chile border is at no point straightforward. This becomes more so the further south you go, as the population thins out on both sides of the mountains. A trip down the Carretera Austral, Pinochet’s highway megaproject that connects the isolated region of Aysen to the rest of the country, is a great way to forget about the rest of the world for a while. Hitchhiking is wonderfully simple: there’s one road, everyone is going either north or south, and while there might be little traffic, people help you out. At some point though, you can’t go any further.
The Carretera Austral ends in a town of six or seven hundred people named Villa O’Higgins. The town dead ends into the lake, Lago O’Higgins, and that’s the end of the road – but not the journey. To get to Argentina, you’ll have to get a boat ticket across the lake, pass through a border control checkpoint to get your exit stamp, then walk into Argentina. From checkpoint to checkpoint it’s about 22km, so bring some good shoes. You can pay an exorbitant amount for a seat in a 4×4, driving you partway up the hill, but at some point the path is just a hiking trail and you’ll have to throw on your pack.
There’s a free campsite at the gendarmaria station on the Argentine side, on the shores of the Laguna del Desierto. Most people sleep there and finish the rest of the 12km hike along the lake the next day. You can also take a ferry (not cheap either) across the long, thin lake. Or… you could be like me, and make friends with some crazy Europeans in Villa O’Higgins, and decide to hike with them a total of 32km all in the same day, camp near the end of the lake, in order to escape the forecasted rain the next day. It was the longest hike I’ve ever done, and I had all my stuff on my back.
Needless to say, the trail is an extension of the Carretera Austral in terms of rugged, natural beauty. You’re hiking between big snow-covered peaks and checking out glaciers along the way. Plus, after the trail you’re basically in the hiking Mecca of El Chalten.
So yeah, get a tent before you go down there, and don’t try and rush anything. Patagonia runs on its own time. I was fortunate to arrive to Villa O’Higgins on the right day – had I been a day later, I would’ve had to wait in the town for 3-4 days before the next boat, due to poor forecast (yes, even in summer). Sometimes, people going the other way get stuck at the Chilean checkpoint waiting for good weather for the boat to come and get them. But they’ll feed you there, give you a place to camp, won’t send you back over the border. Go if you feel like having a little adventure.