On route 7 into the heart of Patagonia | DW Documentary

[Music] vast and variable the remote landscapes of southern chile are spellbinding it's one of the wildest places on the planet Chilean Patagonia the carretera austral is a 1240 kilometer stretch of road that serves as an artery into the very heart of this wilderness the terrain here was once deemed impassable carving a road through these expanses utopian little by little construction of the carretera austral are also known as the southern highway has advanced creating access to this natural paradise the road connects distant fjords with major cities and is an economic lifeline for Chile's salmon industry join us for a road trip full of surprises to explore the magical landscape and meet the people of Chilean Patagonia [Music] it's a 13,000 kilometer journey from Germany to Patagonia in southern Latin America Patagonia stretches across both Chile and Argentina Chile's canna Terra Australis center of the country with its southern tip but to date the road remains incomplete and getting south requires crossing into Argentina our journey begins in the Chilean port city of Puerto Montt this is the starting point of the carretera austral also known as ruta seven [Music] after some 60 kilometers Patagonia begins to show its wild side the road is soon interrupted by a feud it's one of the many especially along the northern section of the carretera austral ferries transport cars across but the Chilean government eventually wants to replace them with road captain's stanislav medina isn't worried about his job yet the project to replace the ferry connections with the road will take at least 30 years they'll have to build bridges and tunnels it's a long-term project I might be dead by the time it's done traveling the entire carretera austral involves several ferry connections this stretch across the kamau feud is more than 60 kilometers could a road really be built across such wild terrain critics are skeptical they say a modernized ferry system would be a more efficient solution but the government has given the road project a green light in this still very sparsely populated region only few people would actually make use of the road the first stop on our journey lies on the banks of the Kemal fjord German marine biologists work at this research station in the Bay of who and I it can only be reached by boat across the fjord it offers scientists a unique environment for research [Music] Freeney hi sermon is in charge of the station we meet up with her ahead of our trip at her home in puerto montt there kamal fiat that the kumar feud has the same ph value that the oceans are predicted to have in the year 2100 so it provides us with a glimpse into the future we can see how coral will live in the oceans a hundred years from now fastened at yonder invert researchers here specialize in cold water corals that only grow in these fjords they grow so close to the surface of the water that scientists can dive down and explore them Freni has discovered more than 50 new species she's officially named some after her children and husband but she's made troubling observations in recent years entire coral reefs have died out from one year to the next and in April 2015 she made another alarming discovery at a different field satoru up when lip - it felt apocalyptic we looked around and saw one dead whale after another we were so shocked we flew over the area in a small plane and using GPS tracked every whale we spotted we were just clicking the whole time and I thought I've seen a hundred now and then even three hundred the beach was just littered with dead whales it was terrible [Music] duh sister school it was the biggest whale stranding in history immediate when the research has countered 360 dead say whales during this observation flight Freni believes the total was substantially higher on Vice fun Calvin we know from the US northeastern Atlantic that only five to 10 percent of the gray whales that died in shallow water get washed up onto the beaches if those 360 whales constituted 5 to 10 percent of the number that died then we're looking at a frightening figure one that seriously jeopardizes the say whale population in the southern hemisphere mokou-san the cause of death was most likely a red tide the maharajah as it's called here the red tide gets its name from the color given to water by microscopic algae that release toxins these can be fatal to certain types of sea life when Vice al Kresta Marietta along with environmental pollution in general the Mafia Hoffa is increasing around the world we see changes that can be attributed to anthropogenic causes offensive these anthropogenic causes meaning caused by human activity could very well be increased economic activity in the region little has impacted as much as industrial salmon farming which was brought to Patagonia with the arrival of the carretera austral today it's the biggest employer in southern Chile a seasonal worker gives us an insider's look into the business it's the same like farming chickens or pigs it's an industry just like any other on his cell phone his recorded video of his job on one of the floating farms in one farm there are 10 enclosures each with 40 thousand fish this is the injection gun these are the hoses in the medicines and vaccines go through these this is how you use the gun you take it in this hand and inject the drugs into the fish just imagine the fish is subjected to this but it's not even sick it's like the fishes on drugs we use a blue paste called benzocaine it's like an anesthetic it keeps the fish calm when you hold it in your hands kappa kagerou see i see but i would Monica local la mano lady Ron the chuck in 120 kilograms of fish food a day those 120 the fish eat maybe 40 and the rest sinks to the seabed that's industrial pollution but no one's bothered you just come do the job novena yeah a salut given a Casanova in the food fisherman Boris lives opposite the research station on Kemal fraud he was born and raised here but really I like it here how many people get the chance to live in a place like this many Bay's that Boris used to fish in are now occupied by salmon farms in their proximity he has caught some very unusual fish you can catch sea bass now that look like salmon they've been dumping chemicals and salmon food into the water for so long the bass now have the skin and color of salmon there are tons of them here Boris built his house in an isolated Bay on the edge of a huge nature reserve called poo Merlin Park [Music] the park was founded by the American philanthropist Douglas Tompkins he made his fortune with outdoor apparel brands in the 1990s he retired from the business world sold his shares for more than a hundred million dollars and together with his wife acquired wide swaths of land in Patagonia on the biggest portion of their property the Tompkins created Palmer Lynn Park more than 3000 square kilometers in size the park stretches from the Argentine border all the way to the chilean fjords its existence created another obstacle for the carretera austral the Tompkins rejected the prospect of a paved road intersecting the park locals were suspicious some accused Douglas Tompkins of staging a land grab because he'd bought such a huge area of land thousands of Hector's people said this gringo wants to set up his own state and let no one else in except himself it was only later that I started to understand it wasn't like that at all this was about protecting what you have making the most of your resources because a tree doesn't grow overnight it takes up to 500 years for trees like this to grow back it said that Tompkins was looking for the world's oldest tree before he decided on the side of his nature reserve [Music] Ranger Sergio has been working at pummel in park for more than ten years he knows a lot about its primeval flora you know path underwater we're crossing the money or forests these gigantic money owed trees are about 100 to 150 years old butin can hear the frogs and toads that live in the wetland here you know Mia this is one of the millennia old Alessa trees I think it's the biggest one we have in coumarine park [Laughter] it's about 3000 years old these enormous Alessa trees also known as Patagonian Cypress don't grow anywhere else in the world work here in the park and protect these fantastic trees more than anything they're a lung for the world without the protection of Puma lien Park the forest will be facing disaster before there was no respect for nature Douglas Tompkins died in a kayaking accident in 2015 but that didn't spell the end of his conservation project honey there he gave us a vision now we the young people and all the future generations need to care for and protect the park this isn't the end Puma lien Park will live on for a long time what you're in for in 2017 Tompkins Widow Christine McDivitt Tompkins handed over all of the land she and her husband acquired to the Chilean government it was the largest ever donation of private land to a government in South America but there was one condition that the state turn all of it international parks our journey takes us out of Puma Land Park and back onto the carretera austral we're heading south to our next stop chai ten [Music] the small harbour town on the Gulf of Corcovado is just a shadow of its former self struck by a natural disaster in 2008 residents were forced to flee less than half of return to rebuild their lives here Tritan volcano located inside poo melon park erupted without warning a cloud of smoke rose kilometers into the sky vast quantities of scree and larvae destroyed parts of chai ten town located just 10 kilometers from the volcano the volcano had not erupted for more than 9,000 years and was considered dormant but in seconds magma shot out of the depth of 5 kilometers cutting a swathe of destruction [Music] it will take a long time for the region to recover just a few kilometers on and the splendor of Patagonia's landscape unfolds again [Music] [Music] heading further south our next stop is via santa lucia and we meet one resident who devoted his working life to the carretera austral minimally mario my name is mario inner Strasse and i'm a retired Army soldier dido mario was a member of the military labor corps for 35 years and proudly shows us photos documenting his career the Corps was formed in 1976 when the building began it was pioneering work under the most adverse conditions Mario's company was there from the start but Gilliland why was the army involved because no private sector companies wanted to work there it wasn't profitable Mario is still proud of his units achievements clearing the first path into the wilderness using axes and shovels beyond misses there were times when we'd progress only 10 or 20 metres in a whole month it was so difficult firstly to divert the water and secondly to create a stable road it's a lot of fund officially that's it these sections here were very hard look how much construction machinery there is now we didn't have all that in our day it's wonderful to see all this machinery down here today in the early stages building the road was back-breaking work up to ten thousand men worked here all year round there were no weekends forty five workers lost their lives during construction prisoners could trade in two years of their sentence for a year working on the road Mario volunteered for 35 years like many others here he still refers to the road by its original name Kanna Terra Australis talked Pinochet jr. for Hogan the person who actually planned this and had the determination to make it happen was General Pinochet people who now want to change the name don't understand what really went into creating it my general left us with technology improvement and asphalt it's just fantastic Pablo Acosta Pinochet came to power in 1973 in a military coup his four member government was made up of the commanders of the Army Navy and military police Rodolfo SH Tonga is one of the last surviving members of the hunter stronger joined the hunter in 1985 as head of the national police force the Carabineros he remained in government until the fall of Pinochet's regime in 1990 now 93 Stanga is of German descent thus build this picture here it's a photo isn't it no no no it's a painting it hangs in the museum in Santiago along with all the generals this is a picture of me this is Pinochet a pope General Fernando Matteo a head of the Air Force and me the two of us were called the German the other members of the hunter sometimes made fun of us because we spoke in German to each other when we needed to change our opinion okay okay come be our opinion the laws were made by just for men Stanger still believes that government model offered advantages my goodness he won we didn't have many laws but the ones we did were good ones today many laws are passed but they're not all good you know tumblr with so why was the construction of the carretera austral so important to the men of the hunter after all there was already a well-developed road to the south of chile via argentina you need to have your own road it's the same with anything you can't live half in your own house and half in your neighbor's house you live in your own house so it was necessary essential even that we create a route on the Chilean side no matter the cost stronger doesn't accept responsibility for everything that happened under the hunter does it sighs I'm not saying it was good no unfortunately I didn't have anything to do with the deaths so hobby I'm not guilty of anything under the repression of the military dictatorship more than 3,000 people were killed some 27,000 survived torture and political imprisonment these are the officially recognized figures documented by Chile's Truth and Reconciliation Commission the exact numbers will never be known Bank Pinochet is still revered by many today especially along the carretera austral the atrocities of his regime and dismissed as a necessary evil for the progress of the country as a whole our journey leads us to discover a small slice of German history in the village of poo happy who you happy was founded by German settlers in 1935 traditions are still kept alive here to this day hello good morning I'm freedom and Gaddis and I've been living in Pojoaque for three years here in put you happy houses like this a relics of the original German settlement but they're falling into disrepair just outside the village it's a different picture I live and pull you happy and this is where I work I've lived around here all my life yeah Helmut set up his own successful business his most important resource is water from the nearby glacier what's the meat [Applause] helmut used to breed salmon too but now he's concentrating on trout because salmon industry has gone down the drain Helmut believes quality is the key he only uses organic feed I just need a beer then it'd be perfect and he knows a thing or two about beer this is the best job you need to test the bottles every day to see how they're doing when the bottles are full they need to be stored for 20 days under a bit of heat and then the process is complete every bottle tells a story one of them is called the golden years my uncle Volta always used to say the best years of his life were spent here it was a long road to these golden years the founders of puyo hoppy fled poverty in Germany when they emigrated in the 1930s amid the isolation and harsh climate it took all their strength to carve a living from their land they lived mostly from cattle breeding forestry and fishing in 1945 they set up a carpet factory that found national acclaim to assist them in their arduous work they enlisted workers from the nearby island of chiloé descendants of the chill otter people today make up the majority of the population here but the entrepreneurial spirit of the founders still lives on today our next stop is a 600 kilometer ride away through the breathtaking landscapes of Patagonia [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the further south one travels along the carretera austral the more one often encounters men like this in Chile they're known as wasis the horse and the poncho are part of their centuries-old way of life Juan Flores tends the land of a cattle breeder [Music] he was born and raised here in the Rio Vargas region and he remembers life before the arrival of roads and other modes of access to civilization our lives changed when the road arrived here it made it easier in every way the next biggest town for Juan used to be a month's horse ride away today it takes a few hours by car there were parties in every yard here when the road came the neighbors brought a calf and we celebrated and another major connection to civilization arrived here just a few days ago we've had an internet connection here for four days now these are still baby steps but we're a modern farmers soon we'll have to buy every cow a computer they can finally communicate with us I use all the services on offer Facebook whatsapp email I use them all correo electrónico porn find has also tames Patagonian wild horses in the evening he prepares a Cordero a traditional local barbecue this is the meat from a cab get the smoke makes it really tasty just that a bit of salt and that's it no garlic or anything although Quan is in favor of the road it has changed life as he knows it the doors here are always open and anyone can come and stay the night if I came to your house I'd just leave a note saying I'm so-and-so and I was in your house so the person knows I stayed there and I didn't take anything we don't want to lose that it's already learned to love the Internet though because it means he can keep in regular contact with his daughter who lives far away the next morning Quan is getting ready for a trip [Music] he needs to tend to the cattle up in the mountains but there's no road the journey on horseback takes nearly two days [Music] [Music] our last stop on the carretera austral is fast approaching [Music] the road is blocked once again by a Ford and we need a ferry to get us to the other side [Music] after 1240 kilometers through Chilean Patagonia the carretera austral comes to what's currently its end at a former outpost of the chilean army via o'higgins this last stretch wasn't completed until 1997 because of its remote location the airfield has always been essential for the town's survival today the mayor Ricardo rockabye is inaugurating a new terminal this region has always been isolated because the country lacks geopolitical vision it's virtually unknown there are hopes that the new terminal will increase air traffic u.s. pilot Vince Beasley has stationed his chest 'no 206 here for several years he's been flying charter flights from via O'Higgins to the remotest corners of patagonia only very few pilots dare to venture out into this dangerous terrain when it comes to maintenance there's no one he trusts more than himself he doesn't mind the solitude in via o'higgins I grew up remote far away I don't like living in a city or even the village I like to live out and so this gives me a great feeling of I'm the only guy here and I like it Vince often gets special assignments he does survey flights for NASA and in 2015 he was piloting the plane with the team of scientists who discovered the beached whales in Kemal fjord we flew out here to this area and explored here and we saw a number of dead whales a few along here not so many and then all of a sudden when we came in this area there were maybe thirty five whales here 40 there scattered along some in this channel alone there were 100 whales Vince goes through the checklist a second time before he takes off traffic ovo he gets alpha tango whiskey pagando pista tres cuatro vo he get via o'higgins lies at the gateway to the southern Patagonian ice field the Campo de hielo saw its the barrier that stopped the further expansion of the carretera austral for pilots these are tricky skies to navigate if you have to visualize what the winds are doing around each mountain either going around it or going over it coming down a valley and it's just like water over a rock and the river so I'm just a kayaker now a flight kayaker [Music] I like the raw beauty it's much bigger than you are and you have to respect it vince has had very close encounters with the forces of nature in the Patagonian wild it was a perfect day with no wind very very nice visibility and all of a sudden I saw one of the mountains in front of me growing and it didn't take me long to realize that it was a volcano an eruption and there I got some very good footage filming with my my a cell phone happened to be flying near the calbuco volcano when it erupted suddenly in 2015 I came within one kilometer of the crater and they column of ash erupting [Music] I'm gonna concentrate on flying now [Music] the face of it that's reaching the water meters high the dimensions are overwhelming the Campo de hielo stretches for 350 kilometres along the Patagonian Andes it's a huge obstacle for the carretera austral project to the east it borders Argentina and to the west lies a jagged fuelled landscape sorry we can't see more but this is about as far as I want to go inside weather conditions for civ in store-bought the flight the winds below the cloud cover are too strong and there's a danger the plane could be swept towards the rocks vo Higgins vo Higgins alpha tango whiskey Vince bought his chestnut - oh six in Alaska and fluid with his wife - via o'higgins in several stages over the course of months back on the ground mayor Roberto acaba is waiting for us before his career in politics he worked as a truck driver he transported building materials for the road and witness firsthand the enormous changes that came with the road road has brought great progress but it will also bring poverty to the people of o'higgins first it brought electricity and then television my friends in the countryside want to get cars soon but they don't realize they don't have the money to live such lifestyles because people are poor here in the countryside Monterey is a remote area this is where the road ends just a little bit further over there as Argentina so there's no chance of building the road further here you know anything I mean devised by a dictator construction of the carretera austral has pushed farther and farther south for two decades this remote spot is the end of the road but the dream to create a continuous road to the southern tip of Chilean Patagonia lives on regardless of the wilderness to be conquered in its path [Music] [Music] you

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 2,075,704

Rating: 4.8731256 out of 5

Keywords: Documentary, DW Documentary, Patagonia, Chile, Carretera Austral, Augusto Pinochet, German settlers, National Route 7, deutsche welle, documentary 2019, carretera austral chile, carretera austral motorcycle, adventure, national cycle route 7, national highway 7 route, german settlers in chile, Patagonia documentary, full documentary, Chile documentary, chile documentary english, travel, dw documentary, documentary, documentaries, route 7, patagonia, patagonia documentary

Id: wMPf231zDdw

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/mdr-fqr87]

I've went very close to O'Higgins (end of the Carretera Austral) and believe it or not, the shots they showed weren't "highlights". That is literally how it is the entire way.

It was the single greatest thing I've done and you can drive for 3 hours+ without crossing anyone, and then go backwarads 1hour and still not cross paths with anyone.

If you ever visit - RENT A VEHICLE and explore.