Ephemerica

Sorry to have been out of touch so long…we are getting into more and more remote areas of Patagonia, and thus internet access has been extremely limited. Anyway, on with the saga!

We arrived in El Bolson after a long day’s ride, found a hostel, and then we prepared ourselves for a rest day the following day on account of it was my birthday! We happened to be there for the bi-weekly artisan fair; the most interesting part of the fair for us wasn’t the crafts, but the giant waffles being served with heaps of fruit and cream. From El Bolson, we had the choice of continuing to the Chilean border through the Los Alerces National Park (beautiful, but unpaved road) or along Ruta 40 (not so beautiful, but paved). We figured we would have plenty of opportunity to ride on the ripio when we got into Chile, and the prospect of saving a day on the pavement sealed the deal for us. The most interesting thing that happened to us was that we were acosted by a guanaco (a deer-like critter related to llamas) who was uncharacteristically forward about wanting some food during one of our snack stops. About halfway between El Bolson and Esquel there was a police station on the highway, where the police were nice enough to let us camp underneath some trees with access to water. We’ve really been enjoying the fact that most of the water in the streams down here is safe to drink, although we still end up carrying quite a bit of water because I’m paranoid about running out.

After leaving the Chilean border town of Futaleufu, we headed east to connect with the Carretera Austral. Within a few hours of riding through the town of Santa Lucia, I had broken off the last remaining rack mount eyelet on the left side of my bike (which is the side that I tend to carry the most water on, naturally). We decided at this point to try to hitch a ride to the next town, La Junta, since the rack was more or less unusable. After a couple of hours trying to flag a ride, a bus full of Germans came past and stopped. Their tour guide, an Austrian hostel owner from Pucon, said that he couldn’t take us or the bikes, but he could take our bags and drop them off at the police station in town, which would allow us to ride the bikes unloaded. We decided that we should take him up on his offer and started riding. Within 20 min, we saw a pickup going past and decided to ask for a lift. The guy said yes, and soon the truck was again barreling down the highway with us and the bikes in back (getting heavily covered in dirt, I might add). We waved to the bus full of Germans as we passed them, and met them at the gas station at the entrance to La Junta, where we recovered our bags. After asking around, and assuring everyone that inquired that yes, my bike is made of steel and not aluminum, we found a welder who was able to weld the rack mount back on the bike. The next day, we were off again, and I was going a bit slower over the washboard roads now, since we really didn’t have any idea how long the weld repair was going to last.

Our plan after leaving La Junta was to make it to the Queulat National Park entrance south of Puyuhuapi, but the quick arrival of a rain storm caused us to pull up short and pitch our tent on the side of the road next to the office of a salmon farming company. The next day we rode the last 10 km to get us to the park, where there were supposed to be amazing views of a large glacier feeding a giant waterfall. As we pulled into our campsite, we saw that in the site next to us were three bikers that we later learned were three brothers who live in Santiago, but were biking down the Carretera Austral back to their parents’ home in Coyhaique. They were contemplating leaving that afternoon, but the continuing rain, road closures due to construction, and a big climb that lay ahead made them decide to leave early the next morning. We were glad they stayed; the five of us spent the rest of the day drinking mate, getting to know each other, and trying to keep dry and warm in our little camping shelters. The next morning we all planned to leave together at 8:30 AM to try to get out of the construction zone before the road was closed, but by morning the rain had gotten even worse. And in the back of our minds was the repair job on my rack mounts, and what would happen to us should the rack fail in the middle of a storm, on top of a mountain. We took the cautious route and decided we would wait until the roads opened in the afternoon, double back north 20 km to the town of Puyuhuapi, and then bus forward to Coyhaique, where we might be able to find a more permanent solution to my bike problem.

The Chilenos left the next morning as planned, and we tried to keep ourselves and our tent as dry as possible under our meager shelter until the roads reopened. Right before the roads opened, there was a brief respite in the rain, so we decided to go visit the visitor’s center at the park. There we ran into a US/Chilena couple visiting from California to do some scouting for future sea kayak trips. We noticed that they had rented a pickup, and sheepishly asked where they were going. They were heading south, and although not all the way to Coyhaique, they offered to at least get us past the monster hill that loomed ahead. We decided it was better to continue south for the time being, so we took the ride. When we got to the bottom of the hill and parted ways from our saviours, we found two of the Chileno brothers (one had decided to turn back and take a bus like we had originally planned) and three women cyclists from the US huddled together under a bus shelter trying to dry out a bit. After a small reunion and some introductions, the weather seemed to break a bit, so we continued on together to the next town, some 30 km away, where finally we would be back on paved roads for a few days.

Our cycling posse rode together for the next two days to Coyhaique, and we were quite the sight to behold, being such a large group touring together. I wasn’t the only one whose bike had suffered the effects of the ripio; one of the women (Jude, from Oregon) had her rear deraileur shaken apart, and had to ride the rest of the way in one gear! The boys had called ahead and gotten the OK from Mom & Dad to bring their new friends to their home a few kilometers south of town. When we arrived, Dad fired up the Mr. Beef gas grill and we were extremely well fed. The hospitality and generosity the family showed for us (including the third brother, who had returned by bus before us) was amazing. The next night, all the gringos offered to cook dinner for the family as a show of appreciation. Cindy and I contributed our chili and cornbread, which was rounded out by garlic bread, pear salad, peaches and cream for dessert, and of course, lots of beer and wine. It seemed to be a huge success, and we fulfilled another request for the cornbread recipe. We had originally planned on leaving the next day, but we felt so much at home that we couldn’t resist staying one more day (we had to help eat the leftover chili, of course!). Finally, the five North Americans rolled on down the road south. We rode with the girls for another day and a half before they took a turnoff to bus ahead to stay on their schedule for arriving in Ushuaia.

After riding through Villa Cerro Castillo, the pavement gave way to gravel again. This part of the Carretera Austral is also amazingly scenic (can’t wait to post pictures), but the hills are super steep (up to 15% grade and higher), so the cycling has been difficult for us. Our daily progress is really dependent on the quality of the roads, which has varied from smooth, nearly-paved surfaces to deep gravel where we can’t ride even the flat parts, let alone the hills. The ironic part is that the deep gravel appears where they have just done maintenance on the road to improve it for the cars! Within a few days of leaving Coyhaique, we ran into our friends Veronika and Roger again. We haven’t been riding together (they are much faster than us on the ripio), but we were more or less on the same schedule, so we had dinner together a few nights in a row. Finally we arrived in Cochrane (where we are now), where we had planned to spend a well deserved (we think) rest day. But moving forward is a bit problematic. We had planned to ride 3-4 more days to Villa O’Higgins and then take a boat over to El Chalten, Argentina. However, the boat only runs on Saturdays at this time of year (tourist season is waning), so timing is crucial. The steep hills took their toll on my knee, and we were hoping to take a bus to Villa O’Higgins to give it a rest. Unfortunately, the buses are usually too full to take our bikes. So unless we can find another ride to Villa O’Higgins, we’ll probably miss the next boat and give my knee some time to rest in Cochrane. At least we can catch up on some Internet time here

Oops, forgot to finish the story about the destroyed bicycles. I was able to find a bike shop that was able to weld on completely new rack mounts on both sides of my bike. The mechanic said it was “super fuerte” and wasn’t going to break. That solved my problem, but a few days later, one of the rack mounts on Cindy’s bike broke as well! We moved her rack to the second set of mounts and tried to get hers welded today as well, but the welder here in Cochrane says he can’t do it. Hopefully it will last until we get to a bigger town on the Argentine side. The moral of the story is: touring bikes need to have rack mounts that go through the frame, not these cheap little eyelets that break all the time! If I had only known…

Posted by Matthew on March 10th, 2008 | Filed under: Argentina, Chile