Futaleufú

Jan. 12-16

Thanks to a dear friend, Aracelli, we had Futaleufú on our radars since the initial Chilean research stages. It wasn’t until we started stitching together our trip down the Carretera Austral that we officially made plans to branch off Route 7 and visit this special Andean town tucked deep in the mountains close to the Argentinian border. We learned that Futaleufú wasn’t officially connected to other parts of Chile via established roadways and bridges until the mid 1980’s, the same time the southern parts of the Carrestra Austral were being built. Arriving from Chaiten on a microbus (for $3.50), we drove up the valley along the Futaleufú river, quickly captivated by the stunning turquoise waters stacked with impressive rapids. While the Futa flows out of town, this world renowned whitewater is a top attraction bringing the flow of tourists & cash to Futa.

As with many of our other destinations, our planning focused on how we would get there, not what we would do once we got there. It was not difficult to find enough to fill our three days in Futa. In fact, upon reflection, we should have spent more time there. ¿siempre hay la proxima vez!!?

As mentioned in the Puerto Varas recap, it was quite difficult to leave Mapatagonia Hostel, fretting we wouldn’t find the same comfort the further south we ventured. Well, lo and behold in this small town of Futa, we discovered Hostal Las Natalias (view from our room pictured). The staff were incredibly friendly, social and helped make this hostel memorable; we have met several people since that similarly rave about Las Natalias.

Turismo Antuhuya ~ un auténtico día chileno

Aracelli spent two months living and working on a property that ran horseback riding tours just outside of Futa. She encouraged us to go visit Ervin at his house and possibly have a chance to go on a horse ride. I communicated with Ervin and we set plans to visit the next day.

His property was located about 30 minutes from Las Natalias, so we had to figure out how to get there…no Ubers. We met some fellow Americans during breakfast at Las Natalias, who were working at a climbing hostel back in Bariloche, and who had rented a car to visit some areas in Chile. As we were sharing our plans for the day, and our transportation obstacle, they quickly offered us a ride, despite being in the complete opposite direction of where they were heading. They were excited to help us out and check out a different part of Futa.

We arrived and were welcomed with open arms by Ervin and his 7 year old daughter, Greta. Ervin had badly sprained his ankle a few days prior so was stuck in a boot, and the house. Luckily, Greta happily gave us a tour of the incredible property, which Ervin has lived at his entire life. Greta lead us around sharing personal stories at each of her favorite places around the farrm. Just like any 7 year old, she just kept on talking and talking, despite us not saying much at all… maybe not realizing that we understood very little! We snacked on some cherries directly from the tree, and after a short conversation with Ervin, the three Americans took off to return to Bariloche.

Devin & I decided to hang around a while longer, so Ervin welcomed us inside to share some mate while we attempted broken conversations in Spanglish. To fill some of the awkward silence, we had a lovely slideshow with pictures of Aracelli in the background and Greta counting to 200 in Spanish. Jazmin, another one of Ervin’s daughters, returned from guiding a horse ride and began setting up a lunch of her homemade sushi for us to share; estaba delicioso.

We sat around for a while and helped clean around the house, Devin crushing some cans in the shed, me washing dishes with a most stunning view of the lake. During this time, we realized that Ervin and Jazmin were under the impression we were actually spending the night with them; talk about lost in translation. Not that we were opposed to spending more time, but we had not brought anything with us besides a water bottle. We began to wonder how we were going to get back to Futaleufú.

To wrap up an already wholesome day, Jazmin invited us to join her on a horseback ride with two other visitors. For me, this was the first time I had ever ridden a horse, as far as my memory serves me, due to fears of allergy attacks. I rode an amazing horse, named Cañela, that Jazmin joked was like an automatic car because as the rider, I didn’t have to do much. Devin’s horse, Piduco, needed more attention, but Dev was a naturual (would we expect anything less!?). I was so amazed by these animals’ ability to cruise up the steepest trails with what felt like ease; going down was a little scary, but all the same impressive and exhilirating. I might not become a horse girl, but I can’t wait until the next opportunity to go horseback riding. Geeze, if only we had horses in Montana!!!

The only regret of the day is my lack of pictures of Ervin, Jazmin, and Greta..but enjoy the beautiful caballos y vistas (horses and views).

La Teta y El Rio Futaleufú

I wish that this was a podcast because then I wouldn’t feel bad for writing/sharing so much. Our first day in Futaleufú has taken up so much space in this post, and as much as I go back to edit parts out, I find it impossible. So I will briefly sum up the other days in Futa, maybe a few pictures with some captions.

This picture to the left features La Teta, but was taken from the ridge. It would require mountaineering gear to actually reach the summit of La Teta. This hike was challenging due to serious elevation gain & getting lost more times than we would like to admit. We joke that one day we will have to remember whether these pictures are from Montana, Colorado, or Chile???

For our last full day in Futaleufú, we decided to go on a whitewater rafting tour. I found it that this was Devin’s first time. Wow! I don’t think, as a tourist, you could raft anything like this river back in the States. It was exhilirating and I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time. The pictures don’t do it justice, believe it or not.

Random

Here are some other pictures from Futa that make me smile.

We enjoyed a final breakfast of bread with y marmalade at Las Natalias. Gave big hugs to the staff, and Fernando, a worker who I never saw without a smile told me to remember “El que se apura en Patagonia, solo pierde tiempo” (One who rushes in Patagonia, only loses time). And off we went to catch a bus to Villa Santa Lucia, from where we would hitch hike down to our destination, which was quite a day! Next stop: La Junta/Puerto Raúl Marín.

~Rach <3