The shed men of Patagonia

Next leg of the trip was the 250 km stretch north from Rio Grande, across the border at San Sebastian into Chilean Patagonia and then west to Porvenir for the ferry across the straits of Magellan into Punta Arenas. We knew the prevailing wind was from the north west so we´d have a few tough days ahead.

The morning we woke up to leave Rio Grande the wind was howling through the town. Once we left the shelter of the town on the road north to san sebastian we were battling a strong headwind. We´d gotten out of bed early to avoid the strongest wind at mid day but for no gain. We were working hard to get 12 km per hour against the wind and Id missed 2.5 hours of time in my warm bed. Mighty

It was a slow and steady day; fighting the cross wind by leaning the bikes into the wind coming from the west to the left. Some times the wind would gust and lean the bike over and you had no option but to go with it and end up in the gravel hard shoulder. As your front wheel had no grip on the gravel to steer you back on the road we would end up stopping and walking the bike back onto the tarmac. Trucks on the road made it even more difficult as a truck from the opposite direction would blast you with even more cross wind sending you towards the ditch, where as a truck going our direction would block the cross wind for a second or two, sounds good I know only this meant the wind you were leaning the bike against was gone and you ended up headed for the white line in the middle.

By lunch we´d made 65 kms and stopped over at the back of an estancia on a lawn among the old horse drawn carts. We slept for an hour in the tent and then pushed on for the last 22km round 6, the last 22km took an hour and a half but felt like 3. It was cold and wet and after a long day neither of us were feeling like sprinting the last few kms to the border. We slept the night in the argentine border crossing waiting room, which might sound a bit crap but we had hot showers, a gas hob to cook on and a tiled floor to sleep on for free. The floor was the first bed I´ve fitted in since I arrived here!

Next morning we loaded up and the wind was howling. The border crossing had an awning like a petrol station and as I went to push off west towards the chilean border crossing the wind was too strong to take off. Had to walk the bike a few steps thinking it must be the building creating a wind funnel. 100 metres down the road and the wind hadn´t let up, we were cycling in our lowest gears and still only making 8 km per hour progress. The 14 kms of flat gravel road to the Chilean frontier took us 2.5 hours with some of that being us walking the bikes. We even tried tucking into the slipstream of one or two of the lorries who were crossing the border to avoid the headwind only they were wise to us and sped up.

The wind was unbelievable, at one stage I felt gravel hitting my face and looked up to see a lorry rounding a corner a good 500m ahead, in the field a river was being churned up over it´s bank and the birds were even finding it hard to make progress. Later we found it was 140kms per hour, no day for cycling so we camped for the day and slept at the chilean frontier, hoping the wind would die down in the evening so we wouldn´t have to bus it to Porvenir. There was a 9 o clock bus what went to Punta Areas the long way round tomorrow that would pick us up at the frontier worst case.

By 8pm the wind had died so we decided to make a run for it to Porvenir. There would be little or no traffic on the porvenir route at night so we put on our head torches and hit the road west. It might have been dark but we were making 22 kms per hour on the bikes easily and it wasn´t all that cold. All was going well till about 11 at night when the wind started to pick up again. There was no getting away from it so after doing 37kms in the dark on the gravel road I spotted a small galvanised shed by the side of the road where we slept for the night. Hardly the ritz but even if one of the sheets of metal on the roof was missing it kept the wind off us and we had a good nights sleep.

Next morning the wind was strong as ever and we were a bit wrecked. There was no point in heading off west against the wind as we were 110 kms from Porvenir and with that wind it would take us the guts of 3 days to get there. We only had a little less than 2 days food as there were no shops in the border towns like the map suggests. We learnt the hard way that a dot on the map might mean anything from a town with a bakery to 3 houses and a police station with no shop. The border between Argentina and Chile is very disputed so I guess both sides are keen to call places towns to stake their claims, without a thought for hungry cyclists looking for food.

Our options at this stage were either turn back and get a 9 bus tomorrow at the border 37kms back; easily done in an hour and a half as with the wind behind us we´d not even need to pedal, or we could try get a lift from passing traffic so we had a go at hitching.

Hitching with two bikes and a full set of bike luggage isn´t easy and while I can imagine two guys with a few days stubble standing by a shed in the middle of nowhere isn´t the most inviting place to pick someone up, nobody showed any sign of stopping. It was a good thing we had some food. Some sped up, buses drove on and ignored us and one lorry driver even gave us the finger. Some farm hands stopped and sparked up when I offered them a few dollars to get us to the next town but never came back. It looked like we were going nowhere. Nobody wanted to give the shed men a lift.

Late in the aftenoon I saw a white transit van coming over the road, taking it´s time and holding two buses up behind it. The buses were all over his tail, usually on a ripio gravel road everyone drives in the one lane, there´s space for two but one lane tends to wear better so the bus couldnt get past. Rembering when I had a landrover and it wouldn´t do any more than 55 without burning clouds of diesel and I used to hold up traffic I had a laugh to myself and though fair play to him, what´s the rush.

The white van stopped when I waved him down, the bus nearly crashing into him and Leo the street performer agreed to give us a lift. Turned out he had no mirrors on the van and hadn´t seen the buses. He was delivering statues to a town in the north, wasn´t going to Porvenir at all but my mention of 100 US dollars got him interested in the sights of Porvenir. We lumped the bikes in the back and with the three of us peering out through the cracked windscreen we hit the gravel road west. We were sorted.

On the way over we were glad we hadn´t tried to cycle for it. The two towns where we had thought we´d get food were deserted fishing villages so we´d have ran out of food. The wind would have been too much also as the sea on the straits of magellan was whipped into more white horses than I´ve ever seen and the old white milk van was struggling along at 60 kms per hour against the head wind and the hills. We didn´t mind the slow pace though and were delighted to get there 3 hours later. Better still we found out that the ferry which usually ran at 2 was delayed till 6 - we could make Punta Arenas tonight and be in civilisation for a few beers.

On the way over Leo was laughing at how much petrol his bosses van was using because of the weight and the wind. I´d smelt petrol inside but thought it might be from the stuff rolling round the back. Lucky the Van was dual fuel as when the petrol ran out 50kms from town he switched to gas. When we filled the van with petrol before heading for the port I saw petrol dripping down from underneath the van. We popped the bonnet and I saw that the fuel line was rubbing off the brake cylinder and dripping a decent amount of petrol down the side of the engine. Lucky someone had designed the exhaust on the opposite side to the fuel line in the factory!

Duct tape didn´t fix the Leak so while Leo went to buy some new fuel hose we chatted to two NZ motorbikers Steve and Rich we´d met at the border crossing the day before. They were surprised to see us given the wind but it turned out we´d camped just 10km back the road from them last night. Later, with Leo´s van getting better milage we said thanks and cycled to the port, our 20 minute head start on the motorbikes just getting us to the port before the bikers.

We cycled onto the ferry and after tieing our bikes down we got a good spot for leaving the port and watched the waves breaking over the bows of the roll on ferry. The crossing was rough and no doubt the sea water wasn´t the best thing for our bikes. Turns out it was worse for the motorbikes as one of them had fallen over and wouldn´t start when we arrived in Punta Arenas. We all pitched in and after two laps of the car park with 3 of us push starting the unloaded bike it wouldn´t start. I asked some welders refurbishing a ship nearby if they had jumpleads and next thing we had 5 of the lads and a jeep over chatting and helping out. After a lot of jumpstarting heating the sparkplug with the welders torch cured the problem and bike fired and we headed into town in convoy. Two bicycles and two motorbikes headed into town in convoy on halloween night at 10 pm must have been a sight as we got a few cheers from the locals trick or treating.

We had a few pints and food later with the lads who stayed at the same hostel in Punta Arenas before taking two well earned rest days in civilisation. The lads motored on, Rich first then Steve two days later after we had some more bike fixing to do before a battery charge and fuel filter change sorted it out.

A great adventure on this leg but hopefully we won´t end up stranded again!