CochraneCochrane

Published on October 21, 2019 ⋅ 3min read

A vivid, turquoise river snaked its way through the rugged, tree-covered hillside, sustained by the vast stretch of blue that was Lake Cochrane. Clouds' shadows left their mottled mark on the landscape, but when whisked away by the breeze they revealed a vibrant vista of swaying green and glittering blue...

We bumped into Yuon, a Korean guy we'd briefly met at the campsite in Coyhaique and again at the marble caves. He had just been to Cochrane and hiked through for four days through the Patagonia National Park. We were guttered to hear that, since we'd not previously heard about that track (apparently it's only been opened fairly recently and isn't well-known), but that could have been a good substitute in placement of Cerro Castillo! Yuon was also waiting for the bus to Cochrane, where he intended to do the Villa O'Higgins track.

The bus ride to Cochrane was another drive through spectacular scenery. Unfortunately, the dusty windows meant we were unable to take many photos. I spent most of the journey chatting with a couple of British girls who were doing a big 4 month South America trip. We exchanged stories of our travels and it was certainly a good way to pass 3 hours on the bus!

We arrived to a dead town. Nothing surprising there. Not even the bus station was open. We were dropped off outside it, on the "edge" of town, and had to walk just a few blocks to the centre. Fortunately, there were still one or two "supermarkets" open, so after pitching our tents we did a little shopping and treated ourselves to Bangers and Mash, since the campsite had a gas stove available to use. We could afford the long gas-time to cook the sausages, so there was no need for yet another pasta.

Our first excursion out of Cochrane was to a mirador in Tamango National Reserve. Yuon was dismayed to discover that the O'Higgins track was closed until November, so he decided to also take the ferry on Saturday to Puerto Natales. The only other option was to return to Chile Chico and cross the border into Argentina, taking a long bus ride south. And backtracking really didn't appeal to him. With nothing better to do, he joined us for the walk.

For most of the way, we walked up winding gravel roads, through farmer's fields and cabañas. We reached a massive wooden gate, blocking the way, and had to jump the fence in order to continue. We found ourselves amidst a herd of horses and a curious one came over to investigate us. At first, he appeared friendly, but after he tried to bite dad's hand a couple of times we decided to hurry along. The horse followed us for quite a while. Every time we thought we'd lost him, he'd come trotting up the road behind us. Eventually we must've reached the end of his territory, because he stopped to graze and we were left in peace with nothing but the tweeting of the birds.

A second fence jump brought us into the National Reserve. There was a sign that said "no entrada" but since none of us spoke Spanish, we decided we had plausible deniability.

Once we'd entered the park, it was just a short half hour to the viewpoint, where we stopped for lunch. It felt like we climbed more altitude in that half hour than the whole walk up to the park! It was steep!

We exited through the park entrance, deciding to walk back via a different route than risk a second encounter with the "friendly" horse. All up, we'd walked for a reasonable 6 hours and covered almost 18km. I was glad to take my boots off and lie down when we returned.

The next day, Dad and I went back to Tamango, this time opting for a route along the river to a viewpoint of a lake. We were stopped at the entrance and had to pay $8000 pesos, which was by far the most expensive park entry fee yet! We were glad we did a naughty and skipped having to pay it the day before. For the most expensive park, the track was the worst maintained. We found ourselves scrabbling over bare rock, up and down and up again. For what, on paper, had looked like an "easier" track, turned out to be much harder. Despite walking 450m gain the day before, I think we did more on the second day, even though we never broke 200m above sea level and started at 120m!

Saturday was our big travel day. We got up early to shower (the last opportunity for a few days), had some breakfast, and packed up our tents. By 9am we were at the bus stop ready to go to Caleta Tortel.