La Junta to the ghost town - Chaiten

Next day we woke with the sun blasting our tent from the other side of the valley, I had to get out of the tent but Paul managed another hour of sleep by poking his head out the tent door. Hats off to his ability to sleep as for the last two weeks his inflatable camping mat was leaking, causing him to sink to the hard ground in the middle of the night or end up sleeping on his side. He´d either have to re inflate it two or three times a night or just sleep on the hard ground.

After the mandatory Porridge and a blast of mate to wake us up we were sitting our enjoying the view when we saw a camper van approaching from the distance. The german driver and his wife stopped for a chat, nice people, and I´d have to say the german people are great adventurer´s we´d meet them in all places having brought their campers, jeeps bicycles or plain hiking boots from home, but to get to this end of the carretera with a big camper van topped it all.

Over the next two days we passed Villa st Lucia which was basically a crossroads with a supermarket, then after a long days pedalling over another high pass in the heat we reached the small lakeside village of Puerto Cardenas.

All day we´d been thinking of cold beer or worst case a cold drink or an icecream so we were fairly dissappointed when we rolled into the village only to find no shop. Our luck was in though as there was a travelling van selling fruit so we bought 3 kilos of fruit for a bout 3 euro, a mixed bag of apples, cherries, peaches and oranges , all of them perfectly ripe and fresh. Sitting by the side of the lake eating the fruit later it was hard to believe that this was the first time we´d had fresh fruit since Buenos Aires, two months earlier!

The lads in the van told us there was a house up the road that had a shop out back and stocked beer, the norm for small towns in those parts so we went to investigate. Two old dears who looked like they´d never drank in their lives told us they didn´t sell anything, not to mind beer so we had to cycle back to the lake, the lads in the van having a right good laugh as us.
We were used to the odd hick local having a go at us or trying to make fun of the tourists but it was bad form tricking two dusty, sweaty cyclists after a hot day when they knew we´d had to cross the mountain pass earlier on the road.
We didn´t care too much though, we were in too good a mood as we were only 50km away from completing the Carretera Austral and reaching the port town of Chaiten where we´d get the ferry north from.
A volcano had erupted in Chaiten in May 2008, Click here for some background and a map of the town´s position. We knew the town was offically still evacuated, I´d read reports on the internet that a flood had swept away some houses in the town in october so we weren´t quite sure what to expect. Other travellers had painted vastly different stories ranging from all is well in the town to one guy saying it wasn´t possible to go there. All we knew for sure was that the boat was still running and that one shop in the town was open. Worst case we´d buy some supplies and camp by the port.

We hit the road early that morning, glad of the cool of the morning and making good speed. At this stage we were both fit and strong from the gravel roads and once we hit the asphalt 28km from town we were hitting 24km per hour, a fast pace for a loaded touring bike, both of us eager to see the volcano and what state the town was in. 10 km from town the road started to have fine dust on the hard shoulder so we reckoned we´d see the volcano at any minute but we had to wait till we were right in the town before the bolw of mountains round the town let us see what looked like one of the smaller volcanoes.

For a small volcano it had wreaked some destruction on what was obviously a beautiful setting before; A small town with the fjiord on one side and a ring of peaks in the background was now reduced to a demolition zone.

As we rolled into town all we could see was a layer of ash and the crumpled wooden houses that the lahar had swept along in it´s path. Rather then lava it was the volcanic ash that had done most of the damage, coating the town in a thick layer first but then clogging the river before the buildup rushed into town, ploughing through the wooden houses, wrecking all but one bridge and cutting a new path through the settlement. Like junior cert geography houses on the outside were eroded away; one of them now sits out in the bay like a tombstone among the grey sea of ash, the houses on the inside had 1 to 3 metres of ash dumped on their streets, back yards and living rooms. Have a look at Pauls photos of the destruction

Round the corner we were interviewed and had our details taken by a Carabinero. I guess the town is under police control to avoid anyone looting, we´d heard of backpackers staying in abandoned houses so the Carabinero´s wanted to know how long we were staying and where.
We had a beer outside the one supermarket that was open and then went to find the one lodging that was open. Cycling round we could see the chilean flag flying on houses that people had returned to, a lot of the houses were unoccupied. We stayed the night in a self catering cabin that still had a musty smell and the damp traces of flooding.
Next morning we went to the port to get the ferry to Puerto Montt, it was a sad scene at the port as there were lots of locals there with the salvagable contents of their houses on the backs of jeeps and lorries. For many this was goodbye to Chaiten, I think that given the level of volcanic activity the Chilean Government are controversially not going to rebuil the town. Certainly the work that the few bulldozers and diggers were doing was more to build a levee to prevent the river flooding again and to keep the mouth of the river free so the ash could escape downstream.
As we left on the boat we were glad to have finished this leg and be on our way to some more adventures but sad to see what was a really beautiful place destroyed.

The photo album of this leg are here