So hitching north from El Chaltén didn´t work out on account of there not being much traffic through that part of Patagonia at this time of year. I ended up having to bus way back down to Río Gallegos which is just across the bay from Tierra del Fuego, meaning about 10 hours of backtracking just to be able to start heading north again. From Río Gallegos it was 12 hours up the Atlantic coast to Comodoro, after which I lurked in the bus station there for 9 hours to avoid paying for a place to sleep until the bus for Coyhaique left. It´d been a while since I´d felt that delirious, damn near every time I´d rest my head on my bag I´d open my eyes to find I´d fallen asleep for about 10 or 15 minutes which wasn´t exactly what I wanted since the bus station was kinda sketchy. So my bus left for Coyhaique, Chile from Comodoro, Argentina yesterday morning at 9 am and I got into town here yesterday around 5.
Man oh man it´s so nice to be back in Chile. Coyhaique is the capital of Aysén, the 11th region of Chile (Region in Chile is the same as state in the US, there are 12 here going north to south). It´s really green, tons of trees and still pretty cold though not as freezing as Ushuaia was last week. I asked directions to a campsite from some older couple and had a hard time understanding them; 3 weeks in Argentina dulled my capacity to comprehend the Chilean mumble. Anyway, the campsite/hostel is closed for a month so instead I´m currently camped out in this charming history professor´s back yard with kitchen priviliges and everything. When I woke up this morning the housecat was peeking in under the raincover to see what was up inside my tent. It makes me miss Puma, the black tomcat that we adopted at my house back in Santiago, but I´ll be back there in a couple weeks so it´s alright.
So today I was planning on packing my backpack for a few days of trekking at Cerro Castillo but after two days of solid bus travel I´d completely lost track of the date and forgot that it´s Sunday. Sunday down here in this continent means damn near everything closes, including the oh so necesary camping supply shops that sell my stove fuel. It´s fine though, this town is really beautiful so I don´t really mind kicking it for an extra day and starting the hike a day later.
Nestor Kirshner, the new Argentine president, might end up alright after all. On his second day in office earlier this week he fired a few dozen crooked politicians from the previous administration which surpised the hell out of me since the president of the previous administration hand picked Kirchner to run against Menem. It´s a really good sign that he´s starting out strong and not giving the right any time to figure out their new plan now that Menem didn´t win the presidency. Argentina´s so strange: They have everything a country could ever need to become developed and stable but things like dictatorships and corruption always seem to get in the way. Corruption´s most to blame, definitely. Apparently Menem has millions of dollars in embezzeled money hiding out in Swiss banks, money that came directly from IMF loans. The people end up completely fucked since not only do they not see any of that loaned money but they have to pay it back without any of the help that it was designed to provide in the first place. Right now Argentina has about 30 billion dollars of debt and the IMF is already pushing Kirshner to adopt their new "We take all your export profits for the next 20 years, suckers" plan while he´s hopefully smart enough to know that they´re only gonna pay it off on a slower rate with more stabilized and internal growth. At his inauguration last week, a bunch of other presidents showed up including Lula from Brazil and Lagos from here in Chile, and Fidel Castro even came down and made a speech. That Lagos and Lula, both hovering around the left and center-left, came shows new strength against the neoliberal economics pushed by the IMF that have left virtually all of Latin America in the economic shitter during the past 50 years. Bush invited Kirschner to the White House, if that happens it´ll be interesting to see how Bush tries to push him back to the IMF plan.
Okay, enough of that. After I´m done here in Coyhaique in a few days I´m hitching north to Chaiten and crossing the ferry from there to Chiloé Island, the place I´ve been anticipating more than anywhere else during this trip. From there it´s back across the border into Argentina one last time to go to Bariloche and maybe El Bolsón, then back home to my beloved Santiago. Of course, since my trip plans seem to change almost daily, don´t count on this happening but right now it seems pretty stable. Damn, so fucking nice to be back in Chile.