Thumbing South.

Another car rushes past my outstretched thumb, I shove my hand back into my pocket and kick a stone, sending it skittering across the road and into the bushes on the otherside. I've been trying to hitch now for four hours and that was just the fourth car I've seen. Anxiety creeps in, will I ever leave this place? It was an unexpected visit to this beautiful village, Caleta Tortel, situated at the base of a fiord in Southern Patagonia. There are no roads within the town, rather the buildings are connected by a maze of wooden board walks. I think again about my decision to come to this tiny village, the people that live here seem to prefer boats to cars, it's little visited by tourists and not on the way to anywhere else. Not exactly the ideal place for hitch-hiking.

This is my third day hitching south from Coyhaique. I was sad to say adios to my new friends and the three senoras who had craed so well for us, but the excitement of pushing off by myself into the unknown softened the blow. Now I seem to have hit a road block. I want to make it to Villa O'higgins, the end of the Carratera Austral (or southern highway) which runs alongside the Patagonian Andes, from there I plan to walk across the border to El Chalten, Argentina.

I sit down on my pack and continue to watch the villagers emerge from their wooden wonderland, each carrying a length of rope. There's a sheep truck parked at the road end, full of plump unsuspecting little lambs. The locals arrive, poke and prod, hum and hah and then select their soon to be christmas roast. They then tie the rope around the hapless animals neck and lead it back, kicking and bleating, to their houses. I guess there's no such thing as Chrisco christmas hampers here. I strum a few comforting chords to ease my mind, and watch the cumulus accumulate over the mountains. As I watch, a rainbow slowly sprouts from the grey.

A van rumbles down the road headed towards the village. I see that it's the shuttle from Cochrane the town I stayed at the night before last. On the shuttle is an Israeli guy named Danny, we're headed in the same direction so we decide to go together. He's an IT guy in real life, 35 or so and most likely somebody I would have nothing to do with in normal circumstances. But here, a common goal forges a friendship instantly, bridging the gap beween small town New Zealander and Israeli office worker. We manage to catch the shuttle back to the main highway, and from there decide to walk along the road. We leave the Rio Baker to carry on it's sluggish way, heavy with sediment it slithers and swirls under drooping branches, following the path of least resistance to the Pacific Ocean.

The road we follow cuts into a steep cliff, to our right the earth shoots straight up piercing the clouds, rain dribbling down the craggy face like milk down an old mans chin; to our left the land falls away into an abyss of churning white water, rocks and fallen trees. The sound of countless litres of rushing water is so immense that we don't hear the ute approaching until it is upon us. It's a father and son headed for Villa O'higgins, with three slightly confused christmas lambs on the back. We heave our packs onto the tray and jump aboard with the sheep.

Danny spends the trip facing forward, crouching behind the cab and leaning into the ice cold wind, so he can see what's coming. I sit facing backwards, watching the mountains slide past my periphery to shrink into the distance. It seems to me that the road we travel is growing longer behind us, as if we lay it as we go. I hope I've left nothing important behind. So, I guess this is ciau Chile, onwards and hola to Argentina where I will continue south to welcome in a new decade in the southern-most city in the world - Ushuaia.