Chile, Argentina
Chile and Argentina were on the top of my travel wish list for long. A lot of landscape but even more paddling possibilities.
Over Madrid and Buenos Aires I flew to Bariloche. The approach was quiet rough and landing was on a knife´s edge. Finally everything went well and Chris was already waiting for me at the airport. Immediately we started heading for Chile – Pucon where we had kayaks reserved. This timeout was great except for two things. On the second day our car was broken open but nothing of value was stolen. It cost us one sacred paddling day to get a new car window – how annoying! Second on our way back the plane from Madrid to Vienna was overbooked and so we had to spend one night in Spain’s capital on Iberia’s expense. Perfect weather and good water levels compensated that more than easily.
Driving from one river to the other is a feast for the eyes. We passed snow covered volcanoes and beautiful, deep blue lakes. A highlight was New Year’s Eve in the Futaleufu valley. Together with some Germans, Spaniards and Austrians we celebrated New Year in a very hot “Hot Tub”. To mark the occasion we paddled “Inferno Canyon” on the Futa on New Year’s Day.
We paddled on the following rivers: Rio Palquin, Futaleufu, Trancura, Rio Fuy, Puescot and Manso.
