Today officially kicked off the second phase of the trip and the first leg of the Carretera Austral (Southern Highway). This part of the journey can’t be completed over land in Chile and is the one that I was most worried about logistically. Options include one long ferry, a combination of driving and shorter ferries, or going the long way around on Ruta 40 in Argentina. We opted for the single ferry ride from Pto. Montt to Chaiten, but that meant getting up for an early ride to the airport, picking up the rental car at 8am, and making sure we got to the port to update our ticket with the rental’s information before we were supposed to be lined up at 10am for the noon departure.
The pickup went fairly smoothly despite the language barrier, and it only took about 30 minutes to get all the paperwork done for the rental itself plus the authorization for driving through Argentina on the last legs of the drive. We even got the midsize SUV we’d requested complete with Android Auto and a full-sized spare wheel. The only drama we really had was a glitchy exit gate at the airport which wouldn’t let us leave until we’d inconvenienced a half dozen other drivers trying to get out.
Either way we were first in line for the ferry at 9am and had no issue getting out ticket updated with the rental’s license plate number (or, more accurately, no one at the port cared that our ticket still said “por confirmar”). We settled in for a long wait and, other than a brief distraction of having the car and luggage inspected by a customs dog, mostly just chilled in the car until we boarded around noon.
The ferry itself was spacious and comfortable, especially compared to a plane ride. We entertained ourselves with some walks on the observation decks, read our books, and took the chance to relax and enjoy the ~9 hour voyage. The ferry was only about half full, so other than a few crying babies here and there it was a pretty chill environment. The cafe had some solid empanadas and sandwiches, so we were able to eat on the boat and getting settled into our Chaiten AirBnB shortly after disembarking around 9pm.
It was a long travel day despite only driving about 30 minutes total. From here we have about a week of driving the Carretera Austral to get to Pto. Natales, but other than about 130km before we cross into Argentina it should be paved and relatively smooth sailing.
