Coihaique

It rained hard and the wind howled all night. The wet weather persisted into the morning so after breakfast, Diego, Connie, Brooke and I decided to drive into the city of Coihaique for some shopping and sightseeing. The drive to the city was on the old back road, mostly hard packed gravel and dirt. We passed green mountains and Rocky Mountains, including Cerre Rosada (the big pink hill) and fields of either grass or lupine.

The lupine is beautiful (blue, pink and white tubular flowers) but its roots (rhizomes) tend to out compete the planted grass and ranchers are not so enamored with the beauty. Cattle do not eat lupine and it is difficult to clear it from the fields. Along the way we saw the small wooden church where Diego’s parents were married and he pointed out the small house up in the hills where he was born. We stopped at an overlook and took photos of El Plano de Coihaique down below us. It was a scenic drive and the rain quickly turned into bursts of sprinkles.

Coihaique is a small city; there are three in Chilean Patagonia–Puerto Montt to the north, Punta Arenas to the south and Coihaique in the center. The small city looked to us like a small town in Colorado with a small Central Park and very walkable streets. The flower gardens were gorgeous–huge roses in pinks, reds and white; orange and yellow zinnias; and many we couldn’t name. The long daylight hours and the climate encourage the flower proliferation. We ate lunch at Mamma Gaucha’s pizzeria and ate gourmet pizza (one was half caprese with huge fresh basil leaves and half mushrooms, pancetta and cream cheese; the other was half pepperoni and half 4-local cheese). Diego knew the owner of the restaurant, most of the waitresses and many of the patrons and other townspeople. Shopping never turned into buying, but there were beautiful handmade items including opulently soft rugs.

After lunch we took the more traveled and most scenic road home. This highway is one of the most scenic in Chile and has been marketed as such. It has attracted many tourists traveling both by car and by bicycle. We saw both. It is definitely scenic–we traveled along beautiful rushing rivers and more green and rocky mountains counting the small waterfalls as we drove. Connie commented that the mountains looked like they were leaking–water oozing from the shear faces making them shine. We stopped for photographs at Cascada de Virgen (waterfall of the Virgin), a majestic roaring waterfall. For the remainder of the drive we oohed and aahed at the beauty everywhere.

John, Clay and Allan spent the morning resting and reorganizing their gear before fishing after lunch.

Following a tasty dinner complete with lively conversation we had our chamomile tea and turned in. Another good day in Patagonian paradise.