6 day kayaking trek into the Pumalin wilderness
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2008
1
23
55
Trip End
Jun 01, 2009
Puerto Montt,
Chile
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Weather was kind to us - no big storms or gale-force winds so no eskimo rolls required! But we did have 2 days of rain - not unusual given the high annual rainfall here - although the great thing about rain is that it keeps the tabanos (those nasty massive prehistoric horseflies) away. These creatures are really something else. They appear out of nowhere, in the middle of the ocean and will buzz around, annoying the hell out of you, until their life ends suddenly with a sharp whack of the hand or in Andy´s case, decapitated by his knife
Car ferry down to Hornopiren
! We´ve got many theories on what attracts them in the first place - they seem to like black (especially the fleece material), bright yellow and red colours but don´t seem to be bothered with my green t-shirt or flowered sarong?! V annoying... Anyway, enough of these ugly creatures when we could be talking about the pods of dolphins that swam along with our kayaks; the sea lions that leapt out of the water every so often and the sea lion colony that you could smell and hear long before they came into sight; the mysterious early morning bird calls from the rainforest that comes down to the sea; the wild cat we saw strolling on the shore in the evening; the humming birds who thought my sarong was a bunch of flowers; the fish that Andy caught - bonito? - some kind of mackerel / tuna? and the thousands of mussel shells that littered the beaches where we camped...
Some interesting camping too. On the second night, due to difficulty finding a campsite and not familiar with the tide timetable, we had to move the tent to higher ground in pouring rain. Even then, Esther was awake most of the night worrying about being washed away. Then it was an early start on a couple of the days as we discovered that to avoid battling against the wind we had to get up at 4am and paddle during the windless calm of the morning
First day's campsite on deserted beach
. Definitely a few days to remember from our Patagonian adventures. And we´ve built some fine shoulder muscles too! We did find some thermal pools up one fiord (Cahuelmo) which were very relaxing - so much so that we stayed an extra day there. There were about 7 pools cut out of the volcanic rock, each pool supplied with hot water via a little channel which you could block up with moss or stone to control the temperature. We arrived cold and shivering late in the evening and found a small kayaking expedition already there but due to leave the next morning, so we had the pools all to ourselves - a little paradise. The expedition´s guide was surprised we were doing on our own and that we´d turned up in such a remote place - his corporate clients had obviously paid big money to do their wilderness trip with him. Next day, we did a short trek into the rainforest behind which was cut short after Esther found a leech hanging off her ankle - much to Andy´s amusement !!!
Most of the journey we were in totally inaccessible country - we had a 2 hr car ride on unpaved roads and ferry trip before we even set out. Most of where we kayaked was in the Pumalin national park which is privately owned and kept uninhabited and even un-trekked to preserve the original forests that remain in this area
High tide!
. The fiords did look a little like scenery out of Jurassic Park - steep mountains rising vertically from the water, covered in dense forest & lush vegetation; waterfalls cascading down walls of rock into the sea - no flying terradactyls though - only the tabanos! We did kayak past a few salmon and mussel farms - about the only sign of human activity we saw for days. Bit of a nightmare on return to Puerto Montt - Andy couldn´t find his backpack and fishing rod! - swore he´d put them in the jeep home, so thought he´d left them on the last beach. Turns out he did actually leave them in the kayak so had to go back the next day (another 30km) to pick them up!
FYI we hired our kayaks from a guy called Thomas, contactable at www.kayakaustral@hotmail.com.
