Godbye Beautiful Carretera - and a Fork in the Road

Wednesday 30th

We leave our gorgeous lakefront villa and debate about crossing the border further North and heading on to Chalten to see more of the Carretera, but decide on the turn off to Futaleufu. We get to see more of the National Parks on the Argentine side this way and the valley is supposed to be amazing - a decision that proves momentous in a couple of days.

We get yet another great day and the ride is easier than expected as the pass proves to be lower than expected. Some of the day is even downhill and we have time to dawdle and gawp at the river valley. Futaleufu is famous for it´s river rafting and the blue green water boils and whirls it´s serpentine course down a narrow wooded gorge. How I wish I had packed a kayak in the panniers!



This is the cow that took fright at Michael´s passing and nearly took him out when it bolted. He eyes me up as a second chance.



Alternate transport?



And alternate photography. I have so many great shots from this day, mostly of mountains and the river, and I never thought I would say it, but there are enough already from Carretera.



Finding free accommodation is an ongoing challenge and we find a locked military hut with lovely flat ground for this night after rejecting the doorway of an abandoned building. Risky, but after checking, we figure it hasn´t been used in a few days. We camp just beyond Futaleufu with the border a couple of kms away. Tomorrow Argentina!

Luxury Lake Front Property

Tuesday 29th

The border crossing at Futeleufu is 160kms of hilly ripio away and we reckon on making it in 2 days, but we need to ride. Fortunately Roger is back at work the next day dawns with clearing skies. Fully loaded with supplies we happily leave Puyuapi behind.



We slowly leave rain forrest terrain as the air dries and approach more lakes, rivers and mountains. It´s just a beautiful cycling day and the miles come easily. We reach beautiful Lago Verde (Green Lake) and just as we begin to look for a site to pitch the tents we find a palace by the lake.



This is a room with all mod cons - a wood stove and a ready supply of fuel, and talk about a room with a view! We take it....

Waterfalls and Leaves

Monday 28th

We leave our beautiful Rose Maria behind at the Hostel of Roses and cycle out into a grey rain forrest. The air is damp and cold but supports some impressive oversize vegetation.



Impressive waterfalls....





And the horseshoe curse hits Michael again as he investigates that squeak that´s been bothering us for 10km - only to find it´s one side of his rear pannier rack rubbing against his frame. Bad news, the bolts have sheared off.

We call an early end to a good days riding to kill 60kms of sticky ripio and make a damp camp outside Villa Santa Lucia, on a river. I get a fire going whilst Michael goes to catch the whopper for dinner. It´s obviously not his day, when he snaps his fishing line and loses weight and fly. He takes mine and returns with a huge curse, a huge tangle of line and no huge whopper.

We eat pasta instead... Again.

These Lucky Horseshoes Are Broken

Saturday 26th Sunday 27th

After an early start, considering the 3 course breakfast - omelete, porridge, peanut butter and banana sandwhich we cycle back to the main road and continue through the construction work for about 10km until Michael gets a puncture. His horseshoe is definitely proving to be unlucky and we stop to repair it (the bike not the horseshoe) outside a salmon fishing factory built by Jurgen Winter - a german settler. Mine is obviously working as I discover there are bathrooms; complete with shower. I figure removing the smell benefits other people more than me, so I can shower and shave with a clear concience while Michael sorts his bike.



We cycle on 3km to find the road closed for high explosive blasting - until 2pm. It´s only about 10am so we decide to kill time cycling back to the salmon farm and eating lunch. For 3 hours....

The road duly opens at 2 and we carry on through the remains of the road. And now Roger has also stopped working as the weather gets back to normal and the heavens open.



We only make about 40kms before it´s getting dark when we get to Puyuhuapi, a small town known for it´s five star spa resort. Sounds promising, except the 5 star resort is out of town and a boat ride away across the lake - the town is tiny and a dump. We settle for the cheapest accomodation we can find and hole up to get dry. Hospedaje de las Rosas (Hostel of the Roses) a misnomer if ever there was one, the owner Maria is definitely not one.



The 9 days of food we bought in Coyhaique is gone in 5 days - guess we tried a little too hard to save on weight by eating it. So we stay another night to resupply and wait out for better weather. Roger - why hast thou forsaken us?

Sweet Carretera

Friday 25th

We wake - we leave our abandoned house (with a gift of new firewood ready in the wood stove) and see this.



The roads descends steeply into a deep valley. Roger is still working hard the day heats up and I cycle in shorts and t-shirt for the first time since Tierra del Fuego. We criss cross the river affording great views along the valley.

Then suddenly out of nowhere we climb 600m. The ripio is horrible and we both crash out on the steeply cambered bends cursing and walking sections, unable to remount on slippery sand. The gradient is as steep as anything so far and we crawl sweating in bottom gears for an hour and a half. All good cycle touring stuff....



Then the summit and a change in vegetation. Up until now it´s been the usual mix of lenga (beech) trees and dry grass that´s been the feature for the last 2000kms. Suddenly the vegetation grows dense and almost tropical rainforrest like. Huge ferns and giant leaves now support an army of insects and giant bees and wasps drone around our sweaty heads. Clearly there is water here and as we descend into the next valley we look to the crystal clear, condor filled blue skies in bewilderment.



We reach a stretch of roadworks and pick our way through strength sapping sticky mud to the entrance to National Park Quelat. We see a sign for camping - and a part built administration building. No contest really - it has a roof and we don´t have to pitch the tent for another night. The park ranger who arrives to close the barrier to the park is a little confused by our choice of accomodation, but seems to go away happy, so we settle in for another night under a roof.

The Power Of Prayer

Thursday 24th

Carretera Austral is wet - it rains all the time. It should be snowing - that´s what we keep getting told. Yeah it´s freezing cold and damp at night, but the days are getting warmer and the skies clearer and clearer.

Then we remember why. Roger the patron saint of travellers and his strange incantations drawing power back at the restaurant in Coyhaique. I think of the scene in Lord of the Rings where Saruman calls up a storm over the mountain pass to hinder the ring´s progress, and picture Roger doing the same in reverse to call good weather.

Another beautiful days ride past mountains draped in multicolour verdancy sugar coated with wispy cloud tops. Autumn has finally re-appeared!



Lakes, mountains.



Blue skies, clear roads.



Perfect cycling. We find some flat ground behind a fence where we can camp and there´s a building 100m away so we approach to ask permission. Another piece of luck - the house is unlocked and abandoned and demands we sleep once again under a roof. Roger´s work once more and the power of prayer? It´s clearly working.

Lucky Horseshoes - and the world´s dumbest horse

Wednesday 23rd

Wow - beautiful day....





And this is the world´s dumbest horse...



We met early afternoon when, unlike the 3 other horses he was standing with (and all other horses) who calmly walked past us, he took a fright and set off running down the road. This is the road - and horse in the distance.



So as you can imagine this is a high speed chase... sometimes up to 12km/h...

The horse had to stop and wait for us before taking fright and running some more. No matter how slow we went, he just kept running down the road. We stopped to let him past, we tried walking slowly past him, we showed him the fields to both left and right, we waited when he met other horses to see if he would stay, but no - he was just dumb. And clearly not happy judging by the bombs he kept dropping for us to avoid in the road.

We did our slow motion chase for 10kms and we felt bad for the horse, but this was just getting too funny at the same time. Then we hit tarmac and our speed increased and the chase pace picked up. He sprang a shoe and Michael got there first.



He turned to give us a steely glare



And we completed the set 500m further on when he lost number 2.



We stopped for 10 minutes to let him calm dowm with some other horses before we were able to walk past... taking our trophies with us. I hope he was alright...
Because, wow, he was dumb.

An hour later and we question the power of our "lucky" horseshoes when Michael breaks a spoke on a particularly nasty stretch of ripio and we stop early at an estancia to camp. Dumb horse´s revenge?

Hows this for a campsite photo...

What no Fish

Tuesday 22nd

We return to Roger´s to try and get his photo, but unfortunately the place is shut.

Leaving Coyhaique we hit a cruel climb that reminds us to eat food as quickly as possible to reduce weight....

Then we hit a cruel piece of road.... and push the food uphill.



We make a pathetic 33kms before using a perfect camp spot as an excuse to stop for the day. There´s a river sheltered by trees and we convince ourselves we are stopping to fish using lines and flies we got in Perito Merino from Julian (American crazy man walking from Ushuaia).

Michael fishes for 5 minutes before getting bored and going to light a fire. I manage 10 minutes and still haven´t caught the whopper. Fishing is dull and the sunset is just too distracting...

Saint Roger - patron saint of travellers

Monday 21st

We stock up. 9 days of cyclist food weighs about the same as a small horse and we debate about hiring one to carry it. We decide we need food to gain energy to carry the food. I see a rather problematic viscious circle developing here....

So to Roger´s place. Express Restaurant on the main street.



Michael and I have already eaten today (several times), but maybe a last snack for the evening.... The burgers are 4000 pesos (about #4.50), but Roger wants to talk and learn some English and he´s a really nice guy. So after a while we haggle a takeout price of 1000 pesos. A bargain and we order 2 and a beer while we wait.

Roger still wants to talk and next thing - like a magician he produces 2 steak dinner plates from under the bar and invites us to sit. Somewhat confused we agree and eat what I think was probably his and the waitresses dinner.... I feel guilty.
Well almost - it´s delicious.

Roger is a catholic missionary and uses a sea plane to reach people in remote areas around Brazil. He´s in Coyhaique at his father´s restaurant trying to get another sea plane to reach remote islands off the Chilean coast.

After food he insists on praying over our travels and we huddle in the middle of the restaurant while he invokes strange powers. It´s quite a scene....

And he won´t take money for the food. God it seems does indeed move in strange ways....

We leave full, happy, and blessed (with 2 burgers). To celebrate we spend the money on a litre of ice cream each.

I put this down as a good day and many thanks go to Roger.

Crikey - we made it to Coyhaique

Sunday 20th

The day starts badly as we come across the remains of the last cyclist to stay at the estancia...



But rapidly improves as we see the storm has cleared up, the wind has dropped and it´s perfect blue skies AND tarmac roads. Hilly, but oh how the scenery is improving and we can´t wait to get to them there mountains in the distance.



For the first day of the trip we make some easy ground as it´s just perfect conditions and we ride in to Coyhaique - the last biggish town before we get out on to the Real Carretera Austral route. We kill 65kms in 3 and a half hours - that kind of distance would have taken 8 hours further south.

We need to stock up and reckon on carrying 9 days of food out of here. The town´s closed - it´s Sunday. So I guess we are staying here another day.

Now if only someone would invent something to keep track of the days down here.... maybe call it a calendar or something. I knew that missing day would haunt me...

Carretera Austral

Friday 18th

Today we climb. From about 150m at the lake, up a windy pass to 1120m against some fierce winds (for a change). It´s tough going (for a change) - 4kms of switch backs in our bottom gears at one point, but the scenery is amazing and worlds away from the dull dull pampas of the last month. It´s quite sudden how it has changed. And the weather changes as well. It´s sunny, grey, raining, windy and calm all at the same time...



As we crest the pass, the road meanders over rolling hills beside a river and the scenery becomes reminiscent of Alpine Europe.




At 65kms we both crash off the bikes in sweet synchronicity. One second we are going forward, the next the wind grabs the front of the bike and we pirouette in perfect unison to face back the way we came, hard on the brakes to prevent losing precious ground. The winds here are not as strong as Tierra del Fuego, but the gusts are just unbelievable. We ride on and again crash off to the other side of the road, one bike a mimic of the other... It´s almost funny.
Almost!

As if by magic there´s a sign for a campsite and we decide maybe a stop is in order, until the forest ranger lets us know it´s closed, no services, but he´ll still let us camp.... for 12 US dollars. 12 dollars in his back pocket for nothing - rip off. So we cycle on another 5kms doing our bizarre stuttering comedy fall off routine. At one point I´m laughing hard at Michael as he drops the bike and runs down the slope at the side of the road to keep his footing. Next minute I hit the deck. I wasn´t even moving, but the wind was strong enough to just knock me over.

We see an Estancia (ranch) and again talk our way into some sweet indoor accommodation, complete with a wood stove and mattresses. The storm outside is ridiculous, I can feel the walls of the building bowing inward with the ferocity - seriously. The power goes out, and the rain falls from all direction and physically stings in a swirling wind. It rains all night.... 12 dollars for a camp site - Ha ha ha ha. I love my mattress and wood stove - and walls not made of canvas!!