I guess what I´m writing now happened before Christmas but hopefully you´ll find it interesting and I´ll manage to condense 2/3 of the Carretera austral a bit better than my previous posts. So much to write about.
After the tough day on the gravel we stayed 2 days in the well laid out campsite in Cerro Castillo, one to rest up and one to see the Cuevo de los Manos. The cave was supposed to have ochre cave man paintings of their hands on the cliff face but was the biggest let down ever, we reckoned it was the cliffs of moher of Chile! Having taken the bad unpaved road through the mountains instead of the paved road with the idea of seeing the Cuevo we weren´t too dissappointed, the mountains were spectacular enought in their own right. Black basalt rock formations rising steeply to form pillars and buttresses giving the Cerro its Castle like look, definitely worth seeing.
Back at the campsite the owner and his family were very friendly, he and his brother ran horse trekking trips and were happy to chat to us about the area and his horses. On the morning we were hitting the road north again the lads passed us in their van, beeping the horn. Sound fellas I thought to myself, only a few hundred yards down the road they braked and the reversing lights of their small lorry/horsebox came on. Must have forgotten something back at the campsite I thought, only when we cycled up to them they were offering us a lift to the next crossroads. We´d started the day with the aim of making the 104km to Coyhaique, the capital of the region. Granted the road was apshalt but it still had a 1024m pass to cross so it was going to be a tough day. Rather than look a gift horse in the mouth we hoiked the bikes in the back of their small lorry and then hopped in, their english sheepdog dog happy of the company. We got a few strange looks passing farms with a dog and cyclist peering out of the horsebox for the 10km or so.
After saying goodbye to the lads we headed up the pass in our bottom gears, the pass was called the hill of the devil or Cuesto del Diablo, not sure if it was the steepness or the dark rock at the top that made it so foreboding to earn it that name. Generally though on the carretera austral they only put tarmac on sections where it´s absolutely necessary, usually any of the mountain sections that had asphalt had a fair few crosses at the roadside. We didn´t hang about much at the top of the pass as it got cold up there quickly.
We descended again, ending up in another valley following the course of a gushing river as the road snaked along a narrow valley of dark rock, it got pretty cold as we were still at 1000m or so. From the looks of the road I´d say it would be snow bound in the winter and given how cold it was on a summers day you´d be looking at snow chains in the winter. Another hour of pedalling uphill and we started to descend goodo, passing through some amazing valleys with rusty red rock formations and streaks of copper ore lying exposed on hillsides. Chile must have some amount of mineral deposits.
Lots of motorbikers passed us going the opposite way giving us a wave or the one legged motorbike salute. Great scenery, warm weather, everyone was enjoying it bar the poor cyclist that was cycling up the opposite direction to us. Later in the day we descended through some rolling alpine farmland, the temperature rising nicely as we dropped altitude and the bikes not needing too much encouragement to hit 45km per hour and more on some sections.
We hit Coyhaique late in the evening, pasing through cliff formations similar to those in Edinburgh on the way in, it was probably the most enjoyable days cycling we´d had so far. The route had everything, a tough pass, a section in the mountains where we weren´t quite sure where the dark valleys were going to end, some decent rain showers and then a warm descent through spectacular formations followed by lush alpine meadows. 104Km and smiles all round, time for some Lomo a lo Pobre! ( steak and chips).
As our hostel is a bit out of town and downhill we cycled in for a feed, the bikes feeling all funny without the luggage. We went on the tear till late, the first town in a month with anything resembling nightlife and though the beer was crap we eventually found a good pub where one of the barmen kept feeding us the tail end of what ever cocktail he was mixing. Some interesting cycling on the way home!
Our hostel was a really unique spot, tucked into a hilly grove of trees across a river valley outside town, made entirely of wood and with a really relaxed atmosphere. Better still it had a great breakfast of porridge with stewed fruit and cream. After so many weeks of just swallowing the porridge in the morning it´s hard to believe it could still taste good. Can´t say enough good things about porridge really- at this stage we´re even thinking of contacting Flahavans Porridge in Ireland to see if they´ll sponsor us! Even a set of the naff tracksuits they used to give out in the 80´s would do!
At the hostel we meet a really friendly Swiss Colombian Couple Philippe and Ana who are great to swap tales of the road and advice with. They even give us a list of houses where cyclists can stay for free because the owner has toured or just likes helping cyclists out. In one place they had stayed for a whole month! so it sounds like a great plan for when the money will be tight or to give us a place to rest up for a few days.
On the day we were due to leave we packed everything up only to find the bumpy gravel had got to Paul´s front carrier. The aluminium rack was broken and we were going nowhere till we got it fixed as his bag would have fallen off a mile out the road. Given that aluminium welders are hard to find back home we were surprised to find that the bike shop in town would weld it. Nice bit of good luck for it to break here as opposed to out in the sticks.
We decided to have a few steaks before we hit the road and had to eat pasta and sauce for lunch and dinner again and seeing as there was a barbequeue out the back of the hostel we thought we´d fire it up. The hostel owner told us to help ourselves and to gather pine cones to start it, only we couldn´t find any charcoal. Eventually he explains that using dry wood gathered from the ground we could make our charcoal from the fire. He warned us not to burn the place down and once we´d sparked up some tinder we could see what he meant, the dry wood we´d collected from the ground went up so fast that you could see why forest fires could take off so quickly.
The steaks tasted great, and out on the patio we had some good bottles of Chilean Castelliero Del Diablo with Ana and Philippe. That we only paid 4 euro for a wine that costs 13 euro back home adding to the taste!
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