Into the Wild

Día 3: Salsa in the ears, quiche in the thighs, and a campsite to knock your block off (66km)

Chapter 1 Baptism of Gravel (3/6)

Komoot GPX Chile, Puerto Guadal to Puerto Río Tranquilo (66km)

My concern for morning walkers taking umbrage at our beach path wild camp was ultimately misguided. We have it to ourselves. Probably because it’s heading autumn way with a vengeance and a pebble beach fronting icy waters isn’t everyone’s go-to as the temperatures drop. We pack up and shift out, scouring the modest sized pueblo for signs of breakfast and snacks. The previous day’s hunger scars don’t heal easy.

In my experience, blaring salsa is good news. Whether it’s Peruvian restaurants courting hungry customers, Salvadorans jangling on bumpy mountain byways, or traditional tunes in sweltering Spanish plazas, salsa courses through the veins of the Hispanic world. This morning it bellows from an inauspicious cornershop. The promise of buying biscuits with added hip sways is too much to resist.

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We climb out of Guadal, hot quiche from the previous night firing our thighs. Sweeping round and down and onto one of the continents great roads, the Carretera Austral (Route 7). It was Pinochet’s dream to unite this long, thin country with one agile braid, threading each province like precious gemstones cut in cold emblems. A road for the world to admire and over which the General could gloat. It’s still yet to be tarmacked for hundreds of kilometers on the southern end, and this adds a hefty glaze of adventure to our gravelly pilgrimage.

In these southerly extremes we seem to have hit the seasonal sweet spot. The summit of summer now a distant memory. Gold trees shoot away from vibrant teal lakes. The sharp white peaks soften into browns and purples and, lower down, a phalnax of evergreen trees. The kind of arcoiris festival only autumn’s inevitable march can bring. The day is punctuated by deep breaths of life-affirming oxygen as drivers cheer, beep and punch the air with gestures of encouragement. The two fingered peace sign the most commonly employed hand signal. Dogs join the fray. Running alongside us into Puerto Tranquilo, wide grins on joyful jaws.

Later, out of town, an open gate begs a further look. A grassy field gives way to a panoramic lakeside landscape under a velvet pink blanket. The cold night air vaporizes any remaining clouds and the stars burn with the clarity of wise souls. The night air is bitingly crisp.

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