
Excursion: From El Chaltén to Villa O’Higgins
You can do this trek, if you don’t have your own car. It’s doable by bike or by foot. You can either walk the entire part until Candelario Mancilla or you can take a bus and a boat for the first 40 km.
The track is as follows: First you take the bus to the Lago del Desierto and will cross it. At the other end of the lake you go to the Argentine border control to get the stamp. Then you have a nice hike up hill for about 1km and 5km up and down or straight. Finally you reach the geographical border with two signs “Bienvenidos a Chile” or “Bienvenidos a Argentina” depending of the direction. You have the possibility to organize a car for 16$ which drives you the last 16km to the Chilean border control. Or you can just walk it by following the road. This part is way easier with the bike, whereas the first 6km are a torture (you have to cross water about 7 times and the path can be muddy). At the Chilean border control they check your luggage for food (as it is not allowed to bring plants and parts of it to Chile), then you fill out some papers and get a stamp. They officially welcome you. After another kilometer you reach the campsite or refugio. Here you will have to wait for some days until the boat from Villa O’Higgins comes. The big boat is broken, therefore the small one is cruising. This one is dependent from weather (windy) and can only transport 16 passengers. You can pay the boat and the following bus directly in the boat by credit card. You know, it’s Chile now.
To organize the tickets in el Chaltén, go to the red building at the Lago Desierto between Av Güemes and the San Martín. Unfortunately I forgot the name of the agency, it might be Chaltén Travel. They sell you a ticket for the bus for 28$ and a ticket for the boat for 40$. They also want to sell you the boat on the Chilean side, but I recommend you not to buy it, even if they offer a discount. They can also give you the mail of Ricardo, the owner of the campsite and refugio to organize the car or the refugio. Sometimes he is even present.
Organize your food. In the refugio they mainly live from eggs and homemade bread. If you are staying in the refugio (16$ per night, the campsite is 8$ per night) you can eat there (breakfast or once is 6$ dinner is 13$), but breakfast and once are not vegan (bread contains butter or lard) and dinner includes a soup, meat and side, and a dessert (I don’t think that it is vegan). As you cannot bring fresh food to Chile you have to take care, what to bring. I managed to bring the rest of my soy meat (I bought it in Puerto Natales), Couscous. All processed food is okay, as well as officially packed stuff. So you can bring cereals, if you don’t open the package… Maybe the police is a bit nicer here, because they know the situation, but I would not count on that.
You will have to wait between 2 to 5 days, or even longer (there are always some people giving up). All depends on the weather and the amount of people waiting for the boat. It goes by order of arriving at the Chilean border control. It’s a funny event, when the boat comes, all wait at the port and finally the police starts to call the names by the list and 16 chosen can bord.
And finally you sit in the boat and leave the island, that is no island and come back to civilisation. For the Chilean part of the trip you pay 59$.
As waiting in Villa O’Higgins is much more comfortable and with more fresh food, I would do this trip the other way around, if I ever do it again. You can also organize a plane from Villa O’Higgins to Candelario Mancilla, but I don’t know how and the costs…
If you come from the north you probably have to organize the trip with Robinson Crusoe.
Why should I do this exhausting trek?
You can walk twenty kilometers with no sign of human beings. You can enjoy the beauty of the landscape, the wilderness. You see the Fitz Roy from another perspective. You get bitten by flies. You can drink fresh water from the river. You can relax for some days without wifi and telephone. Yes, it’s again end of the world feeling. You can start the Carretera Austral at its beginning or end. The first or last 200km are the best. You meet people that do the same, and you meet them over and over again, as they are traveling in the same direction.

