Puerto Montt, Chile
March 2016


Norwegian Cruise Lines anchored of Puerto Montt.


The view of downtown Puerto Montt from the food court at the BIG mall.

At the end of February Clint and I left Karma securely anchored (we hoped) in Puerto Coñsuleo and headed back to Puerto Montt. When we left Puerto Montt the previous September we had left Putty in the care of our friends Hector and Tita. Hector and Tita own a small marina and recreational area in Huelmo. Huelmo is a rural area about 15 miles outside of Puerto Montt.




Road to Huelmo.

The plan was to take the Land Rover to Jamie, our mechanic, for some much needed TLC. Since purchasing it we had not thoroughly gone through the vehicle and we knew it was in need of some work. We found Jamie through the Land Rover Club of Chile and fortunately for us he is very knowledgeable when it comes to Land Rover’s, Defenders specifically. Jamie is Chilean. He lived many years in Canada and speaks perfect English. He acquired his training while working for Land Rover in the Falklands. There are not many Land Rover Defenders in Chile and we are very fortunate to have found him especially in Puerto Montt. We had met with Jamie before we left Puerto Montt and he was expecting us and a suitcase full of parts that I had brought back with me from my trip to the US.


Landy’s doctor outside his shop.

We detached the camper from the Land Rover and left it a nice sunny spot at Hector’s.


We had a great view of the marina.


This is a quincho. Hector has three on his property that he rents along with a couple small cabanas. The quinchos are eating halls with large fire pits for asados (Chile’s version of bbq).

With Landy left in the good hands of Jamie we set about getting Putty in good working order and set up for extended living. The owners before us lived on Putty for almost ten years but had done very little to make it “livable”. After living on a boat for 14 years we have become masters at making a small space more spacious.

We a lot of our time being social, something that is a bit lacking in the far south. Most of our first week was spent with Dwyer catching up before he took off for good back to the states. Our first weekend there, Hector and Tita hosted a Curanto in our honor. Curanto is a traditional dish from Chiloé, the island chain south of Puerto Montt. It is similar to a clambake but on steroids with numerous types of shellfish, meat, sausage, and vegetables. It was a big affair and was a real honor. It was the first, and only, one we have ever attended and we were not disappointed. In addition to the amazing food the entertainment was outstanding. Hector is a wonderful singer and he arranged for a friend to operate his very professional karaoke system. Everyone got in on the singing and dancing especially the Americans after many pisco sours.

A large part of our time was also spent with Raul. Raul, who I have mentioned in earlier blogs, is a dear friend. He was one of the first people we met when we arrived in Chile. He is an extremely kind hearted man that would do anything for anyone even to his own detriment. He is a Chilean who has travelled all of the world by land and sea. The stories of his experiences are unbelievable but once you know Raul you know they must be true. If it was not for Raul, we would not have gotten done everything that needed to be done. He is an amazing source for finding stuff and people to fix things and his endless patience for taxi-ing us around knows no bounds. Raul is The Man.


Dinner aboard Raul’s boat “Condor”.


How official looking are we?

We tried to take advantage of the beautiful warm weather and go for long walks along the shore and country roads. Just a short walk from Hector and Tita’s is a small organic farm run by a couple of Raul’s friends. The farm offers room and board in exchange for labor. It is a beautiful spot filled with interesting people and lots of animals. Most of the people working there are young kids from other parts of the globe who are travelling South America and are just passing through the area.


They surround the beds with glass wine bottles. The bottles are half filled with water which traps the heat from the day and maintains the temperature of the bed overnight.


I want to be the worker that had to empty all the bottles.

Not too far along the water in the other direction we stumbled upon a field with what looked like concrete sculptures. We were in the middle of nowhere and it looked like someone had cleared the field and erected modern stone pillars.



We were completely puzzled as to why anyone would go to all the trouble for the farm animals. It turns out that it was a historic site and the “artwork” were actually part of an archeological site. The indigenous people of the area used to tie their fishing nets to the posts, as the tide went out it would trap fish in the nets.


We did not catch and fish but we did capture a horse.

We ended up being in Puerto Montt for a month, originally we thought we would only be there for two weeks. Like everything it took twice as long. We were anxious to get back to Karma. The longest we had ever left the boat unattended was three days and then we were only a couple of hours away. Puerto Montt is three hours from Puerto Natales by plane!


From left to right: Hector, Tita, Ricardo, and Luz. They surprised us with a farewell toast.

Someone was very excited to have his Landrover back….




Total cheesecake!

The trip back to Puerto Natales from Puerto Montt by roadway is not easy. There are three ways to get from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales by vehicle. The first is by ferry. The ferry takes three to four days depending on weather and allows you to stay in Chile the whole time. The ferry is not an option for us with Duke. Even if it was an option it would not have been our preference. We had already travelled by water to Puerto Natales and we were interested in what the land route had to offer. The other two ways are by “roadway”. Either way takes you through Argentina. The Carretera Austral through Chile is the scenic route. It is a combination of ferry and unpaved roads. You need to allow a couple of weeks for this trip. It takes you through some rugged terrain and mostly unpopulated areas. You are completely on your own if somethings goes wrong. We are up to this challenge when we are on Karma but we do not yet have the confidence in Putty to venture this far off the beaten path. We selected the least aggressive option, travelling north from Puerto Montt to the border crossing at Paso Samoré. We travelled the whole way south through Argentina until crossing back into Chile just north of Puerto Natales. The trip took us five days at an average speed of 40 mph. We were slow going because Putty decided to stop cooperating on our second day. We were very grateful that we did not take the road less travelled. At first we thought we had gotten bad fuel but that was not the case. We drove most of the way on four of our five cylinders and sometimes only three. Fortunately most off the way was either on flat roadway or downhill.

When we first started having our engine problems we were just under halfway and we were not sure if we should turn back and head straight for Jamie or keep going and take our chances. The problem was intermittent. It would clear up and we would decide to head for Puerto Natales. As soon as we would commit to heading south the engine would start acting up again. We literally drove the same stretch of highway back and forth for three hours completely indecisive as to what to do. Ultimately we decided it was a safer bet to keep heading to flatter terrain towards Puerto Natales because we did not think we would make it over the high mountain pass back into Chile if we headed north.

The first two days of our trip south were spent driving through Argentina’s Lakes district. It is a beautiful area with
majestic mountains and a chain of alpine lakes. It was like driving through the Swiss Alps. This is the region where the famous ski area of Bariloche is located. (Interesting tidbit, we quickly passed through Bariloche the day before Obama showed up for a family ski vacation).







The lush lakes district quickly turns to the arid tundra of Argentina’s Patagonia. Even though there is a whole lot of nothing, it is beautiful in its own way.



We had lots of guanaco, a distant cousin of the camel, to keep us company.





Obviously we made it and just in the nick of time…. Petr and Tracy were due to arrive in less than a week!


We celebrated our arrival in Puerto Coñsuelo with a bottle of champagne Jamie had given us to wish us luck. You can just make out Karma in the background.