Ephemerica

With a little help from the local authorities in Cochrane, we were able to get connected with a truck driver named Miguel who makes weekly runs delivering goods and livestock between Coyhaique, Cochrane, and Villa O’Higgins. When we talked to him at the beginning of the week, he thought he would have space, and he was happy to take us and the bikes for free (even though we offered to pay…I think he enjoyed the company), but he wouldn’t be arriving in Villa O’Higgins until late Friday night. We were a little nervous about it since the ferry crossing to El Chalten, Argentina would begin at 8 AM the next day, but we didn’t have too many other options. We managed to make it to O’Higgins, purchase tickets, and catch the ferry, although we were almost the last persons to arrive at the dock (it was a 8 km ride from Villa O’Higgins). When we got there, we were happy to see several other bikers on board, including our friends Veronika and Roger again! We were also happy to get a few hours of rest on the boat before our trekking began.

The route between Lago O’Higgins in Chile, and the Lago del Desierto in Argentina was a 22 km hike. The only hitch was that you only had 4.5 hrs to do it if you wanted to catch the last boat of the day across Lago del Desierto. We thought that the time constraints wouldn’t be a problem for us on bikes, especially if we paid to have a horse carry our bags for us. Unfortunately, the trail was quite difficult in places (especially the last 6 km), and well, we just don’t have a lot of experience or skill at mountain biking. So we ended up walking the bikes quite a bit, which slowed us down. But we arrived at the dock just as the horses were arriving with the bags. We hurriedly went through Argentinian immigration, and took the boat to the south end of Lago del Desierto. We stayed the night at a campground near the lake, and then finished the short ride to El Chalten the next day.

El Chalten is known mostly as the launching point for hikes into the northern part of Los Glaciares National Park, where the famous peaks of Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy are. It should also be known as one of the most expensive places in Argentina where ATM and credit cards are largely useless. Due to poor planning on our part, we didn’t bring enough Argentinian currency with us to make it to the next town with an ATM (El Calafate). Luckily for us, we had some extra dollars stashed around that we could exchange, as well as having access to the Bank of Veronika and Roger, who are much better at planning ahead than we are The weather around El Chalten is quite changeable this time of year, but we lucked out and the next day in town was relatively clear. We hiked up to Laguna Torre, and the views of Fitz Roy and the glacier up there were impressive. The next day was a bit rainy in the morning, so we decided to postpone leaving for a day. But we knew that we could only stay in El Chalten for so long with our limited funds, so we planned to strike out the next day, rain or shine.

This was our first time really riding out in the flat pampas of Argentina, where the wind is incredibly fierce. Between El Chalten and El Calafate, we experienced everything: tailwinds pushing us so that we were cruising at over 30 km/h, sidewinds that threatened to push us into traffic, and headwinds that slowed us to around 10 km/h. It’s just something we’re going to have to get used to though…after reading the blog of our three biker gal friends from the US, we know that it’s only gonna get worse. Anyway, the most exciting part of the ride was that the sidewall of the rim on Cindy’s rear wheel cracked about 50 km outside of El Calafate. Ideally, we would have bailed and taken a bus at this point, but since there wasn’t much traffic on the road, we decided to push it and have her just ride without using her rear brake. As we were mostly heading into the wind at this point, we weren’t really going fast enough to warrant using it anyway…

Thus began our search for a replacement. There is only one bike mechanic in El Calafate, and they didn’t have any 32-hole rims (apparently 36 spokes is more common). We were willing to buy a whole wheel as replacement, but there wasn’t a really good option there. So we decided that we’d hop a bus to the nearest large town, Rio Gallegos (about 4.5 hrs away by bus). Thankfully, there are 3 bike stores here (although only 2 bike mechanics), and we were able to procure a replacement rim (Mavic, no less!) from one store, and have it installed at another store. The “new” wheel still looks and feels strong, and the guy we bought the rim from even insisted that the new rim was even better than the old one (but good luck finding info about discontinued models on the Mavic website). All we really care about is that it’s strong enough to last another 1000 km or so to Ushuaia.

To backtrack slightly, while we were waiting in El Calafate for a bus to Rio Gallegos, we visited the premier feature of the southern part of Los Glaciares National Park, the Perito Moreno glacier (pictured above). Rather than bus out to the glacier and do a DIY tour, we decide to go with an “alternative tour” package through the agency that works through the Hostel del Glaciar in El Calafate. The tour took a less traveled road that allowed some additional wildlife viewing opportunities, but was nothing particularly special. However, getting to see the constantly changing face of the glacier up close and personal was really amazing. The glacier (which advances 2 meters daily!) is now occluding the two lakes on either side of it; this means that it is only a matter of time before the water breaks back through the ice—it should be a spectacular sight for those who are lucky enough to be there to see it.

Back to the present—we are bussing back to El Calafate tomorrow (where the bikes and most of our bags are), and barring catastrophe, we should be back on the road again in a few days, with our next destination being the border (again?) and the Torres del Paine national park in Chile.

Posted by Matthew on March 25th, 2008 | Filed under: Argentina, Chile