The carretera austral

And when I last left you I was arriving to Puerto Montt. With a broken tent and a shredded wrist. Oh boy do I have stories for you. I stayed at puerto Montt for a few days and finally managed to find myself a spare tent pole part (although not without scourging half the city, mind you). While I was at it I also bought some waterproof gloves and in no time I felt ready to go down the famous Carretera Austral.

This road starts from Puerto Montt and leads you South through magnificent natural parks, mountains, volcanoes, oceans, glaciers and other nice sceneries a girl might enjoy. This region is also most renowned for its consistent shitty weather. It basically means that they get rain all year round. The winds and clouds from the Pacific Ocean come crashing on the Andes and as they stay there spray us with wet drops of water. Fortunately, and by which sorcery I know not I was spared during most of my ride along the Carretera from rain. I even got sun most of the time, which I enjoyed as any rare treat!

Quickly, the road leads you to a first port where you get on a boat for a quick crossing of the few kilometres separating you from the other side of a river. And then, you find yourself not two days after that with an even larger crossing of more than 4h30 down the coast of the Pacific. Although I cannot treat you with the occasional sea-lions I saw, I can still provide with some early morning pictures from the city and the view given by the surroundings.

Oh look, my steed at sea! And she’s found herself a companion!

And yes, as some of you may have noticed, my bicycle found herself a friend. And I soon followed. Another cyclist was there, and since we were on the same boat we decided to ride along together. Until I decided to stop at least. See, there was a perfect spot on the grass and the call of my pastas was louder than the need to sweat my way through a hilly gravel road.

My perfect grass spot with a great view. I’m sure you agree with me, that plus pastas is better than sweat? Right?

Oh, yes did I not tell you already? My bike decided that she didn’t want to go to the highest gear anymore (the one you use when the climb gets steeper). This means that whenever I want to climb anything a tidbit steep I had to force more than I would’ve cared for, really.

I even met a sweet Polish couple living in Canada who helped me a bit with the bicycle. Unfortunately and despite their best efforts I had to continue the hard way.

The number of cyclist over there is simply astounding. While I barely met 3 travelers in more than 3 months of travel I was meeting more than 10 per day in this road. It certainly is famous! And so unavoidably I paired up with an Argentino guy. Damn I missed the accent. Chileans are great and all but they can’t speak proper Argentinian to save their life really. Santiago (the Argentinian guy) and I thus went on our day together, including the climb of 700m of altitude over 5km. With my deficient bicycle let me tell you that this was NOT fun. And when finally we went over the other side of the mountain we got greeted by… pouring rain.

As you can see that did not keep us from smiling! Oh, and remember my waterproof gloves I bought and Puerto Montt? Well they’re not! Next time I’ll get the gloves you use to wash dishes. At least those are waterproof. In the end, I left Santiago when he went for a camping/hostal and continued a bit on. The rain was finally slowly coming to a stop and I soon arrive at the next village, dripping wet but ready for some donuts and a rainbow!

And yes I did find a treasure there! THREE DONUTS!!!

And soon, after some other splendid views I found myself in Coyhaique.

In Coyhaique I stayed for a few days, weary of my almost two weeks of wild camping and stinking from my more than a week shower-less (unless you count the rain. Let’s count the rain, shall we?). I also got my bike fixed. Well, as fixed as can be. Apparently half of the things should be replaced because they’re so worn.

From there, I wanted to arrive to Puerto Ibañez to cross the lago Buenos Aires. 80km uphill, then 36km downhill and they tell me there’s no boat crossing on Wednesday. Right. And I was leaving Coyhaique on Monday. That all meant that I had to do those 116km in a day if I didn’t want to spend an extra day at the port. And I did! The raging wind blowing at more than 70km/h was, luckily, from the rear. And with such a tailwind I flew across the land like never before! The day trip culminated at about 1100m.a.s.l. and for 10km I had to fight this now accursed wind up front as I was reaching the snow level (the air was about 3 degrees). But soon I found myself on top of the world again and gazed at the way down.

And by many efforts I pushed myself and arrived at night at Puerto ibañez… only for them to let me know that it is not the Wednesday, but the Tuesday boats aren’t going. I just had to find myself to a hospedaje (kind of hostel) with a warm bed to write down the story and wait for the boat!

Until next time,

Chloé