So we finally managed to tear ourselves away from our Warmshower host Miguel and the mountains and set of once again just the two of us. A few pit stops on the way out of town had us a chance meeting with a guy who had met the Brazilians 4 days previously, he told us how much progress they had made and put any false hope of us catching them soundly to bed. They were most definitely in Chile by now and a long way ahead of us. It was nice to be riding as a twosome again but we did find ourselves wondering what the boys were up to on countless occasions, wondering where they had spent the night on this part of the trip and weather we would find any clues as to where they had ventured. Our route took us through the 7 lakes, a gem of Patagonia so it is described, and although is stunning it didn’t have the draw that the Carretera Austral had over us, maybe it was the perfectly smooth tarmac road that meant we were merely passing through the area rather than actively riding it as we had to do on the ripio. Still the riding was pleasant, almost easy, so much so that we reached our first nights camp spot without realising it. The joy of this stretch of roads was the camping, like the riding it was super easy to find great spots to pitch the tent for the night, and with the first days great progress Jess almost committed to a full swim, instead she opted to a more hopping type stroke that as a swim teacher I could not count as legitimate swimming, sorry Jess you still haven’t had a wild swim in South America! Our second night was at a couch surfer’s, this is like warm-showers but you don’t have to be a cyclist. Pedro was our host and he was gracious enough to give us a mattress in his amazing cabin in the woods. He even provided beer and a BBQ, perfect end to some great riding. The 7 lakes road wasn’t all easy going and it did throw some testy little climbs at us, couple this with the great weather we have been having and you have yourself two sweaty cyclists, luckily some road side streams made for a refreshing pit stop. From here it was into San Martin and after two days of gradually going uphill we were rewarded with a nice 17km downhill where I didn’t need to touch the pedals, I did touch the pedals of course because faster is always better, but, if I had felt like it I could have free wheeled the entirety of it. Tonight also saw us bare witness to the less glamorous side of cycle touring. Rather than struggling with which idyllic spot to pitch our tent for the best views of the mountains for sunset or which spot offers the best view over the lake; today saw us trying to find a spot that smelt least of urine. It’s not all fun and games this cycling malarkey. It was from here that our route came somewhat uncertain. Since dreaming up the trip I have always known roughly that I wanted to vaguely take the route we have, now though, now we are completely winging it. We heard that there was some pretty cool volcanoes in Chile so thought why not get another stamp in the passport and once again cross the Andes. We immediately regretted this decision after cycling for 75km into a head wind, the only silver lining being the impressive views we had of Volcan Lanin. The trouble with active volcanoes is their habit to erupt, now this volcano didn’t erupt while we were cycling but evidence that it is very much still alive and kicking is all over the road, infact the road was like cycling through a sandpit, only cooler because instead of sand it was volcanic ash, cooler yes, but no easier to ride in. Luckily the ash road was only a mere 12km and being British we found a queue to get in about a km from the end. After spending a good hour in this queue it turned out as cyclist we were exempt form having to stand in this queue with the other road users, nice of them to tell us once we made it to the end. We quickly checked out of Argentina and rolled into Chile on a near perfect ribbon of tarmac, best of all it was all downhill. The damned headwind was still there but was now barely a problem. We made it to Pucon today, the town famous for being able to climb the one of the many Volcanoes that are spread around the area. Upon further question we were unable to climb the volcano over the next few days for differing reasons, the most prevalent being that it was smoking more than usual so did not want to take tourists up, however they were confident that within a day or so it would be fine… I wasn’t convinced, no smoke without and fire and all that. We decided that rather than wait around at the foot of a volcano that was ‘smoking more than usual’ we would push on for the next town and check about hiking conditions when there, this would also fit in nicely with my Birthday, what cooler way to turn 28 than hiking on a volcano that could erupt. We left Pucon and cowboy camped by the lake, we thought this would be a safe place should molten magma come cascading down, our plan was to use our sleeping mats as lilos, to make our escape even more efficient we opted to sleep under the stars rather than pitch a tent! We awoke to no magma and made it to Villarrica where we hoped to enquire about the Volcano. This town didn’t have the same motivation it seems to make the most of the towering Volcano and it took some effort to find any tour companies, never mind ones that offered volcano trekking. The ones that did offer trekking refused to take us, with limited Spanish we are still not sure why but it did put an end to my idea of spending my 28th looking into the crater of a bubbling volcano. With the volcano trekking off we were once again at a loss of which way to go, knowing we need to start making some real headway through this continent it was becoming apparent that at some point we were going have to stop our aimless wandering and start putting some good KM in a straight line. My birthday was not to be that day though and I was adamant that we were not going to sit on a main highway so the back roads it was. Although more scenic and quieter than the main roads these back roads offered some of the toughest climbing to date. Long, steep and of horrendous quality we found our progress to be demoralising and slow. The next few days we did our upmost to make these roads work but slowly we were starting to realise that even with average days of 75km we were not making enough progress and the riding was brutal, we were running ourselves into the ground, something had to change and with this realisation we hopped on route 5, in the UK this would be called a motorway! Out here bicycles are allowed on these roads and the huge shoulder on the side in some ways makes it safer than the smaller roads we were negotiating earlier in the trip. For the next few dull days we sat and churned out some big miles in order to take us back to Argentina and onwards to Brazil, the highlight of our days being the service stations and the occasional piece of road kill we had to avoid! We finally got off route 5 but the road still was not offering me any form of stimulation and I began asking myself what it was we were doing, we were cycling for cycling’s sake, the views are dull and the roads are full of lorries and busses. We have a big choice ahead of us regarding getting to Brazil, do we carry on, on these dull busy roads or do we try an alternative, hitch maybe, so that we can spend more time on scenic roads… The visual stimulation I was after has been met. We left our nights accommodation and set out for the border crossing, our route took us through a national park and my god did it deliver on a non boring, challenging route. For the past few days I have been riding my bike on the moon. Ok so it wasn’t the moon but it damned sure looked like the pictures I’ve seen of the moon, all accept the giant lake we were riding around and the snow capped volcano that towered over our every pedal stroke, other than that I could have been on the moon. The road started with a challenging climb on deteriorating roads that on more than one occasion had my bike bucking me sideways as it lost traction on off camber washboard corners. We finally arrived at an out of season ski town at the foot of Volcano Antuco. The road, if you can call it that, followed a lake from this point, chance to get some good distance in before we set up camp. We were wrong, so very, very wrong. The road deteriated into nothing more than car tracks through ankle deep volcanic ash, for the next 30km we fought for every meter, we would ride for maybe 50m before being engulfed in soft deep ash where we would push until firmer ground to repeat the ritual. As the day wore on the hills seemed to get steeper and the road softer, in section it took both of us to push one bike up a hill. By the time we could see border control we were finished, taking refuge from the wind in a forest by an army barracks, there we gave in for the night. The next day the road seemed ridable, maybe tired legs had increased the overall difficulty towards the end of the yesterdays efforts. We managed to make it a whole KM with barely any steps, we had also finally been gifted the fabled tail wind. Four months we have been waiting for this and today we had it. We checked out of Chile and zipped along the next 15km of ups and downs, the wind making it a pleasure to ride. All to soon though our run of fortune with the wind was coming to an end, the road began a slow bend and before we knew it the wind was now pushing us into the soft verges that enjoyed eating bike tires for breakfast. From this point we also saw our challenge for the day. We knew at some point we had a climb, we knew the pass was 2000m and we knew we were nowhere near that. What we didn’t know was just how tough the climb would be. Loose rocks, volcanic ash and wind made for undesirable riding conditions to say the least, for over 4 hours we pushed, dragged, kicked, screamed and at times laughed our way to the top. We did it though, and although 2000m may not sound a lot for 4 hours it was our Everest, it consumed us and that was all that mattered, but we made it and we now had the decent to enjoy. And enjoy it we did, not without a few squeaky bum moments though when the soft sand, that had plagued our accent, snook up on our high speed decent causing the wheels to take on a somewhat sideways manoeuvre. Still we made it down in one piece with smiles on our faces. It was at the bottom of this 10km decent that we came across a German cycle tourist napping on a bridge, our look of glee was enough to tell him what he had ahead, what we didn’t realise was how much climbing he had already done, no wonder he was napping, I would have pitched the tent and called it a day if it was me! Our road continued downwards where thoroughly exhausted we camped by the river we were now following. The next day and we were ready for a rest day, the pass had taken more out of us than we had realised and we were dreaming of a supermarket and a day of nothing. We more crawled into El Cholar than rode, every hill hurt us and the ripio road slowed us to barely faster than walking pace. I wouldn’t say El Cholar should appear on everyone’s must visit places of South America, there is nothing here, not even a La Anonima that we love so much, but it does have an overpriced hostal and a distinctly average shower so for the next day we are going to do nothing but watch films and get some energy back into our legs.
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As is now the norm we left Futaleufu well after 11, some last minute jobs and miserable weather meant we were less than motivated to get going. We did eventually get moving and 8km later we were at the border control, a little confusion with us parking our bikes in the wrong place; you’re not allowed to lean them on the fence it turns out… Yet more confusion arose when they stamped us as leaving Argentina rather than entering, a quick cross-out and an assurance of we will be fine when we actually come to leaving Argentina and we were in. The rest of the day was spent running away from the ominous rain clouds that threatened to soak us. This game of chase that we are now become seasoned pro’s at led to us pushing further than we expected and making it to Trevelin. This is a crazy town that has a strong affiliation with the Welsh and for the first time since leaving Uni I found myself seeing all the signs in two languages, only this time I couldn’t read either as one was Spanish and the other was Welsh. I had wanted to make it to Trevelin since hearing about the Welsh influence and I found it funny how just seeing Welsh flags everywhere gave me the sensation of home when I am so far away, with every person I expected to hear ‘Bore Da’ and a thick welsh accent, it was not to be unfortunately, the tourist information woman didn’t have a clue what I was on about when I tried my best Welsh on her!!! Being back in Argentina brought about the excitement of La Anonima; Argentina’s version of Tesco if you will, and as luck will have it, the Brazilians shared our love of supermarkets; maybe it’s a cycle tourist thing?? With great excitement we entered to stock up on food for cheap prices. From here we went in search of cheap/free accommodation, I think this is the longest cheap hotel game we have ever played, the Brazilians are even more frugal than ourselves and were happy to wait an hour in a cold wet, windy park for the off chance of a man meeting us with news of a friends place we could stay at. After an hour Jess and I had given up and explained that we were off to find a campsite. The irony of this being the campsite was abandoned so we ended up staying for free after all. To top it off we opted to sleep inside the old bathrooms rather than trying to pitch our tent. I found myself for the first time since Uni sleeping on the floor of a bathroom; at least at Uni I had the excuse of being very drunk rather than just being a tight arse who didn’t want to pay for anything. The next day saw us venture in to Los Alerces National park, again being ahead of the season meant we got in for free, it also meant that everything was closed, including the information office. Luckily there is only one road and very little traffic through the national park so getting lost wasn’t too much of a problem, the hardest part was deciding which free camp we wanted to stay at there are about 6 within 5km of each other. Rain clouds over the lake had the Brazilians running scared meant we retired early with the rain hitting us late into the night, still it made for an atmospheric back drop watching the storm edge closer. We spent two days in the park enjoying the quiet roads and the views, not to mention the climbs, they seemed to be longer than what we had become accustomed to on the Carretera Austral and with me now suffering from a worn out middle chain ring they proved to be somewhat of a challenge. We also met the craziest cyclist to date, a Spanish man who didn’t seem to grasp the idea that we didn’t speak much of his language, the Brazilians did their best at translating but after 30minutes of him talking at us we were all pretty worn out. Our last camp was at he entrance/exit, depending which way you’re coming, of the park. Upon leaving the national park our old friend Mr Wind rejoined us, for 40km we battled hard, the only bonus being that we were now back on tarmac. It seems that the ripio has trained our legs well, even with the headwind we were able to maintain a good pace; turns out the bad roads are good for something! Onwards to El Bolson, which was another big city with the promise of more supermarkets and hopefully somewhere to fix my middle chain ring. I find myself in two minds about the problems with my bike, when on the horrific roads I wonder how we haven’t had more problems, the bike constantly being shaken an rattled as they carry ourselves and our lives for the next year or so, then with almost full reversal I am in disbelief that I splashed out on an expensive bike for the sole purpose of being able to handle touring over tough terrain yet I find myself visiting a bike shop after less than 4000km…I suppose the silver lining is that nothing major has gone wrong and that I am still able to ride and keep the adventure alive! In El Bolson we were chased down by a man in a high-vis jacket with a bunch of kids. In a hasty conversation we were offered a place to pitch our tents in his garden, we had to meet him in the square at 5.30 after he had finished work, with that he was back to the kids and they all rode off. Not fully sure what had just happened we decided to play the waiting game again, this didn’t turn out great for us in Trevelin but we decided to give the man the benefit of the doubt. Our trust paid off and at 5.30 he turned up in a van, loaded our bikes in the back and drove us 6km back the way we had cycled in from to his house. The evening was spent chatting and cooking with him. Turns out he was a PE teacher and the kids we saw him with where his class, I tried to imagine what would happen if I was out with a class and I suddenly tore away to chat to four strangers on the side of a busy road… With the sun shining and the hot shower we were ready to go, we had been warned of the big climb ahead so with determination we set off. The climb was long but the gradient was relaxed and after 15km we were at the top with smiles on our face, Bariloche was within touching distance, some nice descents and some more climbs and we were there, we had contacted a guy on warm showers and we were in luck, he was happy to take the four of us in. So here we are, sat in a separate little studio flat that is attached to his bicycle workshop, he fixed my middle ring for me for a fraction of the price I was going to have to pay, the Brazilains have also done some bike maintenance with Daniel changing his handle bars and José changing his forks. All in all a perfect place to spend a few days. With heavy hearts we bid farewell to our Brazilian brethren, being from Brazil they were more comfortable with seeing snow from the comfort of the road rather than joining us in trekking up to the white fluffy stuff. It has been a great few weeks riding with the boys and we will miss their antics and translator skills, mostly though, I will miss having someone to drink wine with!!! Jess and I shouldered our packs and waved goodbye as the boys rolled out, first challenge for us, catching a bus! Now this is a skill we haven’t had to master in South America, turns out it is a skill we are not very good at and not for the first time I found myself glad I am navigating this continent by bicycle rather than these 4 wheel monstrosities. We waited and after feeling confident we had missed the bus moved to the second stop where we commenced our wait, an hour passed and once gain we gave up hope thinking we had been mis-informed on what time the bus gets where, with nothing else to do we set about having lunch, cue Murphy’s law, just as we had got everything out the bus we needed turned up. After a frantic pack and grab we were finally on our way to the start of the trek. The bus took us up to the local ski resort, instantly I was having flash backs to my seasons in Canada and New Zealand and was getting pangs of desperation to find some skis and any patch of snow I could to race down. The only open establishment we could find rented bikes however and as I felt I had had my fix of cycling we began the trek. An easy-ish 10km and we were at the refugio, I say easy-ish, 5 days worth of food with a cycle tourists appetite meant the packs were crippling us all the way up and had us wondering once again why we had opted to do this as a break from cycling. Refucgio Frey was meant to be a one night stop that turned into 3 nights. This place was amazing, couple that with the great bunch of climbers we met there and we decided rather than lug our heavy packs on to another hut we would stick around and explore some of the surrounding peaks. 3 days was nowhere near enough, I could have spent a month in this place and still not climbed everything there was on offer, I only wish I had my climbing gear with me so that I could have dabbled on some of the steeper faces! After 3 days of lightweight day sacks and eating as much food as possible we begrudgingly shoulder our ungainly packs once more and made our leave over what was we knew was going to be a steep snowy ridge. What we didn’t know was that we would have a just as steep decent followed by another steep snowy ridge climb. The hike to Refugio Jakob was stunning, entertaining but equally tough, even with our now light-ish packs! Jakob was another beautiful spot but the melting snow had turned the surrounding area into somewhat of a mud pit and left finding a decent camping spot difficult, we did find a nice view spot though! Our final day was a gruelling 18km decent that turned into 21km when we couldn’t find a hitch at the end of the trail to take us back to town. Still we stumbled into Miguels house, our warm shower host, with giant smiles and great tans to boot. This last 5 days has been unbelievable for myself, I miss the high altitude climbing and Refugio Frey gave me the fix I needed even if I didn’t manage to scale any major peaks. Jess isn’t the biggest fan of this activity and I don’t think she fully realises how much I appreciate her spending the last 5 days in this environment pushing her comfort zone to the limits just so I can go just one ridge more or one false summit higher…
We have left the Carretera Austral and have made it to Futaleufu. Our latest start of the trip was from Puyhapi with us making full use of the wi-fi and hot showers before we hit the road, by the time we did get into the saddle the sun was in full force. Today was also the record for number of cycle tourists seen; we all amalgamated in the forecourt of a small petrol station, much to the annoyance of a few cars who didn’t seem to like a bunch of pesky bicycles taking over their area. In total there must have been over 12 of us milling around trading stories about how bad the roads were where they had come from, it was almost a competition, ahh you have some horrible stuff to ride from here, pfft, they haven’t seen Cerro Castillo! After the lengthy chat with the cyclists and a short bimble to the local bridge our day was done; we opted for a camp spot by a river, and as our time in Chile was drawing to an end I needed to swim in a Chilean river. This camp had everything we needed, including the Chilean version of the golden gate bridge as a backdrop to our very brief dip. We woke to ominous signs that our run of good weather was coming to an end. With a new found haste camp was packed and breakfast eaten hoping that we would at least start off dry. All too soon the rain hit us and it seemed that we would be ending our time on the Carretera Astral in the same conditions we started it, cold and wet. I find these kind of days mentally tough, it is as if my body is fuelled by sun, take that away and it’s far too similar to the UK, and I didn’t fly half way round the world to ride something that reminds me of home! Still with four of us it’s easier to keep going and before we knew it we were taking shelter in a barn eating lunch, a long lunch where we discussed the joys of cycle touring and how much fun we were all having! We did eventually leave the safety of the barn with the hope of finding a café in Villa Vanguardia, or at least some bread. Villa Vanguardia has nothing, even the people seemed to be missing; everything was locked up and shut down. It was as if everyone had upped and left, the only sign of life was a dog with dreadlocks, we named him Dog Marley and laughed far too hard at the Rasta-dog and our own pathetic jokes, this rain really was beginning to affect us. With no other option we pushed on. The Brazilians, to distract them form the dismal conditions, had developed their own entertainment in a version of cycle touring Mario cart, instead of banana skins they jettisoned water bottles, luckily Jess is now a skilled rider and was able to skirt round the trap with ease; looks like the Brazilians will need to try a little harder to slow her down next time. As our minds turned to food and sleep we began scouting for a place to find some form of shelter for the night, we were rewarded with our determination to keep going when we stumbled cross an old abandoned house, the floors were dry, it came with a small table and bench but best of all, a log burning stove. In a cycle tourists world this really was 5 star accommodation. After a cold wet day our spirits were soaring, that was until we realised we had no wine! After a night in relative comfort we packed and prepared for another day of rain, at least this time we would be on tarmac and not the ever-worsening washboard roads we had been trying to negotiate. I was able to practice my latest Spanish phrase ‘can we buy some bread please’ on multiple occasions, not because they didn’t understand me, just because nowhere had any bread. It was here that we also left the Carretera Austral for good, we also left the tarmac for an even worse washboard road. We bumped along wondering how our bikes were still in one piece, uphill’s were tough as you could not get into a rhythm and downhill’s were tough as you had to go at a snails pace so as not to risk braking the bike or ourselves. After what felt like hours we decided to throw in the towel and entered what we thought was a campsite. The place was abandoned, the ruminants of old shelters and fire pits were dotted about in a form of organised chaos that gave a glimpse to what the place used to be, the real icing on the cake, however, was the Cabañas. The once luxury accommodation only available to individuals with far bigger wallets than ourselves were also left. Luckily for us the doors to the once expensive huts had not been locked so once again we were able to sleep in relative comfort out of the wind and rain for free, there was even a note from 2014 from some other passing tourists saying of how they had taken shelter here. José, who has been sleeping on nothing more than foam roll matt, even had a mattress for the night, we really were lucking out on the accommodation front! The weather seemed slightly better in the morning, José was keen to take a few days in the cabañas, more due to his mattress than actual fatigue I feel, but any satisfaction from the weather was short lived when we got back on to the washboards, even the cars were struggling on this road. I felt as if I was cycling over a chain of never ending speed bumps, it was relentless. We lunched in the sun for the first time in a few days and watched some white water rafting pass by. With a mere 30km between us and a rest day it was hard to motivate ourselves to get up and go, the washboards just killed any desire to get back in the saddle.
We did eventually make it to Futaleufu and find a cheap guesthouse, it’s now time to rest, drink wine and say our goodbyes to Chile. The Brazilians are still with us and hopefully we will remain together as a four until Bariloche, from there who knows where we are going! We upped and packed with the first day of school nerves. This would be the first time we had cycled with anyone else. Not sure of the etiquette both ourselves and the Brazilians seemed apprehensive. For us the worry was that we would slow them down, they would race out of the gates and leave us eating their dust. This was not the case, we chatted about distances and how fast we each ride and although they average slightly more km than us a day they also ride for longer. Our paces were surprisingly similar and as the day wore on we relaxed into each other’s company. The road was paved for the start section however we soon found ourselves onto the trusty ripio with the views materialising all around. It was nice to have others to chat to on the road and share our experiences from the last 2500km. The boys came over the ‘paso roballo’ the one we were going to take until we found the ‘paso mayer’. Our mutual aim for the day was a Casa De Ciclista that we had heard about in Villa Maniguales; and if all else failed there was a CONAF free campsite. Both these places no longer existed. Up step our travelling companions/translators. They asked some locals and got told the cheapest place to camp, add this with some Brazilian charm that Joseph unleashed and we had camping with dinner and full use of the facilities. Sometimes it helps to be able to speak the language! Both Jess and I have found our morning routine to be getting later and later, this is even more prevalent with the inclusion of the Brazilians. If we leave camp before 10.30am we are doing well, this is not a bad thing, it’s nice having a leisurely start and my stomach is now accustomed to having a later dinner and no longer growls at me once we pass 5pm! This did promote some jokes about English tea from the Brazilians. Our second day with the Brazilians and we and managed a mighty 10km before a crowd of cyclists came by in the opposite direction, 8 of us in total took over the road as we chatted and exchanged stories, within the pack were two English men in their 60’s, one all the way from Stockport! It was now our time to shine, we haven’t spoken to so may native English speakers since arriving in South America and it was obvious it was a little too much for the Brazilians who were struggling to keep up, it was nice to be able to translate for them for once! We continued in much the same way until we found a campsite next to a lake. A night of luxury was in order as we were able to get in to a shelter that had a working door and glass windows, ideal with the inevitable rain finally catching up with us. I blame Jess for the change in the weather, she bought new sun-cream while it was still sunny, and since that day the weather has been deteriorating! We also tried our hand at fishing for the first time this trip, Joseph carries a rod on his bike so we tried our luck to no avail, I somehow managed to end up with the real in the lake while I stood holding the rod, fortunately Joseph was too busy crying with laughter to be concerned over the condition of his fishing equipment. The days have passed much the same way, leisurely starts, long lunches and wine filled evenings in accommodation of varying quality. So far riding as a four seems to be working out for all of us, we will see at which point our routes differ and we have to separate, until then we will keep riding and laughing at the multiple humorous situations a slight language gap provides! |
AuthorDanny and Jessica living the nomadic dream. Archives
September 2017
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