Patagonia and Altiplano Expedition | #34 – Puerto Río Tranquilo

From Cochrane, we continued the Carretera Austral north. Our next destination was Puerto Río Tranquilo, a famous tourist hot spot at the Lago General Carrera.

(Editor’s note: we currently have several months of delay between real life and our blog posts. We were in Puerto Río Tranquilo in February)

Río Baker and Lago General Carrera

We first followed the beautiful Río Baker until we reached the Lago Bertrandt (the source of the Río Baker).

Along the road, we found a Striped Woodpecker (all wildlife images in this post again shot by Linnéa).

The orange-colored Puente General Carrera is a well-known landmark at the Carretera Austral. Nearly everybody stops there and takes a few pictures of this bridge.

At this bridge, the Lago Bertrandt connects with the huge Lago General Carrera.

A few kilometers later we reached the mouth of the Río Léon.

The area where the brown color of the river and the turquoise color of the lake mix looks stunning, especially from the air using a drone.

On a sunny day, this place looks far more like somewhere in the Caribbean than in Patagonia.

Finally, we reached the village of Puerto Río Tranquilo. This is mainly a tourist hub with comparatively good infrastructure, a gas station, a couple of hotels and campgrounds, and a few restaurants. But it’s also very crowded and accommodation is very expensive.

Therefore, we decided to stay in nearby Puerto Murta instead in a nice and cheap cabin … and quickly regretted this decision. The road from Puerto Río Tranquilo to Puerto Murta is only 30 km but it’s in extremely bad condition with some of the worst corrugations of the whole Carretera Austral. It takes forever to drive the 30 km. And if you plan to use Puerto Murta as a base camp to explore the area, like we did, you have to travel across this section of the Carretera Austral very often. Next time, I would probably choose accommodation in Puerto Río Tranquilo and just pay more. Or if I need to save some money stay on one of the campgrounds in Puerto Río Tranquilo.

Capilla de Mármol and Catedral de Mármol

Most famous in Puerto Río Tranquilo are the marble caves, known as Capilla de Mármol and Catedral de Mármol.

There are dozens of small tour boats leaving every day (except on very windy days) from Puerto Río Tranquilo to the caves. The problem is that the caves are about 10 km away from the village. Therefore, if you start in Puerto Rio Tranquilo you will spend nearly the same amount of time for the transfer with the boat to the caves and back as at the caves. The whole tour takes between 1.5 and 2 hours. If it is windy, which happens very often in Patagonia, the transfer across the open lake to the caves can be quite rough and wet.

But there is an alternative: If you start the boat tour from Bahia Mansa instead of Puerto Rio Tranquilo the transfer time is much shorter (less than 5 minutes). Bahia Mansa is located directly next to the Catedral de Mármol. The prices and the time at the caves are very similar you just avoid the transfer if you start from Bahia Mansa, which is located 6 km south of Puerto Río Tranquilo. But a 4×4 is recommended to get there. The last section of the road to Bahia Manisa is a bit steep (more about this later).

If you are interested in serious photography of the caves I would recommend booking a private boat tour. They are slightly more expensive (we paid around 100€ for a private tour compared to 60€ for the shared group tour). On the group tours, the boats are normally completely full and it’s impossible to move quickly from one side to the other. Often the view through your camera is obstructed by other tourists. This is much better on a private tour and well worth the additional money.

Both at Puerto Rio Tranquilo and Bahia Mansa a reservation of the boat tour is recommended. One day in advance is sufficient. Often you can just arrive without a reservation and will still find some space on one of the tours. But it’s not guaranteed, especially in high season.

The best time to visit the caves is late morning until noon (on a calm and sunny day). At this time you have the best light in the caves and the least wind. In the afternoon the winds are often much stronger making the tour less enjoyable. And if the wind is above a certain intensity they will even stop all tour activities.

The marble caves are stunningly beautiful and if you are in this area it’s one of the must-see places.

Cavernas de Mármol de Puerto Sanchez

The Capilla de Mármol near Bahia Mansia is not the only place at the Lago General Carrera where you can find marble caves. Near Puerto Sanchez, you can find the lesser-known but similar beautiful Cavernas de Mármol.

Since the marble caves are best visited on a sunny day (on a cloudy day you won’t see the beautiful colors and it’s too dark in the caves for photography) and the forecast for the next days was not very promising we decided to visit the marble caves at Puerto Sanchez on the same day as we did the tour from Bahia Manisia.

Puerto Sánchez is about 50 km away from Puerto Rio Tranquilo and 25 km from Puerto Murta. You have to drive on a narrow winding road and across a small mountain pass to get there. The views from this road are just stunning.

In Puerto Sanchez there are two types of tours: There are half-day tours with slightly larger boots which visit both caves and in addition stop at one of the caves for a short walk. We haven’t done this tour so I can’t say anything about whether they can be recommended or not. I was afraid that the larger boats would not be able to get really deep into the caves and would therefore be less good for photography. Some of my best images were shot really deep in the caves.

Therefore we decided to book another private tour with a small boat. This time we paid about 90€ for a bit more than one hour. The time was enough since the caves are very close to the port.

For the tour in Puerto Sanchez, we didn’t have a reservation. We just arrived at the harbor, talked to some people near the boats, and started the tour just 2 minutes later. Only very few tourists come to Puerto Sanchez, 99% of them just stay in Puerto Rio Tranquilo.

The caves at Puerto Sanchez are at least as beautiful as the ones at Bahia Mansa. For photography inside of the caves, I even prefer the ones at Puerto Sanchez. They often have better light, better colors, and more interesting rock formations and structures.

If you have the time, it’s definitely worth visiting both marble cave sites. If you can do only one just decide on the pictures above. There is no wrong decision. Both are great.

Valle Exploradores

Another highlight near Puerto Rio Tranquilo is the Valle Exploradores. I have already been there in 2012 and 2019 and love this place. In 2012 there was absolutely no infrastructure along this valley and only three farms existed. And we saw no other tourists during our two days there. This has changed a lot over time. The Valle Exploradores still feels very wild and remote but you won’t be alone there anymore.

To get there you have to take the X-728 from Puerto Rio Tranquilo. It’s an 86 km long gravel road in good condition that follows the Rio Exploradores most of the time.

It leads through an absolutely stunning and wild landscape with high mountains, beautiful forests, swamps, and lakes.

24 km after the start in Puerto Rio Tranquilo we reached the spectacular waterfall Cascada La Nutria.

20 km later we arrived at the Hostal Campo Alacaluf, owned by a German couple (Thomas and his wife). I spent a night there in 2012 together with my friend Philippe. You can either stay there overnight or just stop for a coffee and cake break. The coffee and cake weren’t great but the stories from Thomas of how they got there are extremely fascinating and alone well worth the stop. After traveling around the world for some time they had the wish to settle down somewhere and found this place and immediately fell in love with the Valle Exploradores. They bought the land nearly 25 years ago, at a time when there was literally nothing in this valley, not even electricity. Despite this, they decided to settle down there and build a house, all on their own. For electricity, they installed (after some time without electricity) a water turbine.

They were hoping that at some point in the future people would become aware of the beauty of this valley and tourists would start visiting it. And they were right. It’s for sure still not a place to get rich, but at least there are now enough tourists to provide them a sustainable income.

Another 10 km later, we reached the entrance point for the hiking trail to the Glaciar Exploradores. These tours to the icefield are also extremely popular with hundreds of visitors each day. We hadn’t planned to hike to the icefield this time but in 2012 I hiked up to the Mirador Glaciar Exploradores. This glacier is part of the Parque Nacional Laguna San Rafael and belongs to the North Patagonian Icefield. Not far behind the glacier is Monte San Valentín, the highest mountain in Patagonia (around 4000m, the exact height is still under discussion). If you are lucky and managed to be there on one of the extremely rare clear days you can see the Monte San Valentín from the viewpoint. This time we had no luck, but for landscape photography, I love the dark clouds and moody atmosphere.

It was also the first time that I used a drone in the Valle Exploradores. It makes some new and interesting perspectives of this spectacular landscape possible.

If you want to drive the X-728 plan the whole day for it and stop frequently to explore the beautiful vegetation and wildlife next to the road.

77 km after the start we reached a very narrow bridge with a height limit of 2.5m. Many overlanding vehicles have to turn around here.

But our pickup truck could just pass the bridge.

After the bridge, the road gets a lot rougher and continues for another 9 km along the Rio Exploradores.

Finally, we reached the end of the road at Bahia Exploradores. From here the long boat trips to the famous Laguna San Rafael start.

I had done this trip in 2019 (see here) and it can be highly recommended. But the tour is very expensive and should preferably be done on a calm and rain-free day. Since the weather forecast wasn’t very good for the next few days we decided to skip the boat trip this time.

Meeting Arkady Fiedler

Another highlight for me was the spontaneous meeting with Arkady Fiedler in Puerto Rio Tranquilo.

I assume that not everybody knows who Arkady Fiedler is and why I was so happy to meet him. To explain this I have to dig a little further.

Those who follow this blog for a longer time know that I’m fascinated by the idea of using an electric vehicle for international overlanding. Sadly on this trip, it wasn’t possible for different reasons. But in the past, I had already explored the remote highlands of Iceland and most of Scandinavia with an electric vehicle. I even started a second website and blog just for overlanding trips with EVs. You can find it here.

And now you need to know, that Arkady is not only a very experienced overlander from Poland, he is also the very first person who ever drove across the whole of Africa with an electric vehicle, a Nissan Leaf. Driving successfully from Capetown to Poland with that car (non-4×4, very small battery) was quite an accomplishment.

Therefore I was very keen to meet him and hear some stories from him about this trip. Since I’m following him on Instagram I know that he was also on a long road trip in Patagonia and driving a very similar route as we but in the opposite direction. Therefore it was very clear that our paths would cross at one point on the Carretera Austral. After a chat on IG, we found out that this would be Puerto Rio Tranquilo and arranged a short meeting there at a restaurant.

Arkady, similar to myself, is not an EV-only advocate. He loves the idea of using an EV for overlanding but he also likes other interesting vehicles. One of his favorite cars is his beloved Fiat 126, called Maluch (meaning ‘little one’ in English), which he has already driven across half of the world. Now he wanted to explore South America with Maluch.

Arkady is an extremely nice guy. He seemed a bit reluctant at first but when he started talking about his overlanding trips he is suddenly bursting with energy and extremely enthusiastic.

His stories about crossing Africa with the Nissan Leaf were absolutely fascinating and I learned a couple of new things.

I also learned that his grandfather was a very famous explorer and writer in the early 20th century. Between 1927 and 1981 he went on several ethnographical and zoological expeditions in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and North America. He has also published 32 books, mostly travelogues and Adventure novels. There is even an Arkady Fiedler museum about his grandfather (who had the same name) in Poland.

Interestingly, there are a lot of parallels between Arkady Fielder and Eva zu Beck, one of the most successful (and in my opinion best!) travel vloggers of our time with more than 1.7 million followers on YouTube. Both are from Poland, both have famous grandfathers who explored very remote parts of the world at a time when this was extremely rare and difficult, both worked for a couple of years in a marketing and business job in London and then quit the job to do expeditions around the world, and both are now doing very similar things as their grandfathers and publish YouTube videos about their experiences.

If you want to learn more about Arkady’s expeditions take a look at his YouTube channel or his Instagram account.

After a very nice evening with Arkady at the restaurant in Puerto Rio Tranquilo, we went back to our apartment in Puerto Murta. The next morning, I got an unexpected call from Arkady. He had driven to Bahia Mansa to do the marble caves trip (which was sadly canceled on that day due to too much wind) but when he tried to climb up the steep hill back to the Carretera Austral with Maluch he got stuck. Of course, I quickly jumped in our truck and came to the rescue. It’s funny how our relatively small midsize truck looked like a huge monster truck next to Maluch. Of course, for my Ford, it was absolutely no problem to pull the light Maluch up the steep hill and back to the Carretera.

I’m very much looking forward to meeting Arkady again in the future, either in Europe or in some other places in the world.