THE ROAD AFTER THE END OF THE ROAD
Founded by German migrants in the 1850s, the Chilean city of Puerto Montt is known for two things. The first is salmon aquaculture: after Norway, Chile is the biggest exporter of farmed salmon in the world and Puerto Montt is the industry’s epicentre.
The second thing it’s known for is the starting point of the Austral Highway, A.K.A. the road after the end of the road because it starts close to where the Pan-American Highway ends. Constructed in the 1970s by the military regime of General Augusto Pinochet over fears of an Argentinian invasion, the 1240km thoroughfare transverses Chile’s Patagonia region: a rugged, sparsely populated, nearly untouched rift of fjords, valleys, mountains, glaciers, ice fields, rainforests, marshlands and high coastal cliffs. The logistical challenges were such that the gravel version took a decade to build and attempts to pave it from end to end continue to this day. Yet one thing keeps on getting in the way: rain. Six bloody metres of it each year — a fair chunk of which seemed to fall during my first two days in Chile as I waited for the weather to clear so I could begin my north-to-south navigation of the Austral Highway. So, I waited ... and waited ... and waited until I could wait no more.
“Where you are going is the purest of the world, of life, (mother earth),” my tells me en route to MotoAventura, an accredited BMW Motorrad rental company in Osorno, just north of Puerto Montt, where I’m picking up a bike. “You will not regret
