Patagonia Cupcake Shop!

If you ever find yourself in Coyhaique, Chile make sure you check out The Cupcake Shop Patagonia! I made a new friend, Ignacio, who is just about to open his first shop. He makes his own breads, and delicious cookies and cupcakes! He was incredibly nice and helpful with my project, and I can't wait to come back some day and see the shop in action!  

Cochrane Air Pollution

July 1, 2014 

The first two questions you ask when you're looking for a hostel are: 

"Do you have a bed for us?" and "Do you have heat?" and if you're really feeling lucky..."Do you have hot water? Do you have WiFi?" 

Energy is really expensive in Chile which is one of the reasons why a large percentage of the popuation was in favor of the hydroelectric megaproject, HidroAysen, that I am here to learn about.  Currently most people heat their houses with wood and cook with wood burning stoves, and recently importing wood has become very expensive. People burn wet or green wood or even resort to burning their trash to keep their houses warm and thier stoves burning.

When we arrived at hostels the rooms were un-heated, but would warm up quickly once they got a fire started.

...but occasionally the fire goes out in the middle of the night and you wake up like this: 

Even the Abominable Snowman wished there was more heat!

With all the wood burning around the clock Cochrane is extremely polluted. 

The cold nights and lack of wind keeps the smoke trapped around the town. 

Once you drive out of town you can get a great view of how Cochrane is completeley surrounded in smoke sitting in the valley. 

I took this picture of Coyhaique from a plane on my way back north and you can see how much smoke  surrounds Coyhaique too. 

In an interview with Peter Hartmann, the director of CODEFF (The Committee for the Defense of Flora and Fauna) in Aysen, I learned that in Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas the government has subsidized the price of gas to reduce the pollution from burning wood and trash. He said there is a plan to reduce pollution in Coyhaique and Cochrane too, but the government isn't starting until next year. Unfortunately the plan focuses on burning dry wood and switching to different stoves. It's already destined to be a disapointing attempt at solving the problem according to Peter. 

Just checking in from the end of the world!

10 days ago I set out to try to continue traveling south in Patagonia. This time of year (winter/off-season) traveling around Patagonia is never easy, but with a lot of luck and things going my way I made it!  I apologize for the lack of blog posts, but I'm about to do some major catching up. It was difficult enough to find a hostel with heat let alone wifi the past 10 days. Here is a map to give you an idea of where I am and where I've been: 

Recap: My adventures in Patagonia started in San Carlos de Barlioche, Argentina. From there I crossed over the Andes into Chile and spent some time in a small town (Puerto Varas) north of Puerto Montt. I took a 10 hour ferry from Puerto Montt to a tiny town not on this map called Chaiten, and a 12 hour bus ride on dirt roads from Chaiten to Coyhaique. At that point I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it any further south. There aren't busses running this time of year, and even when there are busses there aren't roads in Chile that connect Coyhaique to Punta Arenas because there are two very large glaciers. 

But...if you look closely, there's a little blue dot in Punta Arenas. That's me!! I'm writing to you from way down at the end of the world and it's going to take many more blog posts to explain how I got here! 

The one with Carretera Austral

Carretera Austral is the name given to Chile's Route 7. The road connects Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins, about 770 miles of mostly unpaved road, and three ferry crossings where the roads don't connect. 

Despite its length the road provides access to about 100,000 people, and the largest city along the way is Coyhaique, population about 45,000. 

The Carretera Austral is both a tourist attraction with incredibly beautiful views throughout, and a very important connection for the people of Patagonia between towns. There are plenty of hostels in every town along the way, and it's a popular route for bike touring (anyone interested in biking it with me let me know!)

It's winter right now in the Southern Hemisphere so there are very few tourists (as in me and one other person...we're friends now naturally), but with a very flexible schedule it is possible to do most of the route. I decided to take a boat for the first part from Puerto Montt to Chaiten. The boat, run by Navier Austral, takes 10 hours and usually runs twice a week. From Chaiten I took a 12 hour bus ride to Coyhaique. With the exception of when we stopped at a random house along the way for coffee and I had the special opportunity of watching just stoppage time of the USA vs. Portugal match, it was the best 12 hours on a dirt road I could ever have imagined!

I think going any further south from here is going to require renting a four-wheel drive car so there will definitely be more stories to come.