We pedalled out of the city, camped in the next village and then hit the road again, passing through our first road tunnel and remembering the good advice we were given to take our sunglasses off and turn on our bike lights for the dark of the tunnel. Only dangerous passes and the 100km of road in and out of the Regional capital were paved so on the second day out we hit gravel again. Not that I minded particularly, I guess on gravel you have to pick your line where as asphalt can get a bit boring as you´re just pedaling away.
I won´t try and describe the scenery as to be honest we´d seen so much that compared to the rest it was a bit un remarkable, I´m not saying that the view was anything approaching boring, just that we we´d seen so much we were on landscape overload.
Later that day we hit another section of asphalt and then camped near road bridge by a deep river. We´d been meaning to get some fishing in for some time and this looked like the perfect spot with lots of fish jumping. In the morning hunger woke me so I went fishing using a bamboo pole and caught 2 nice trout for breakfast. Paul was joking about having trout for breakfast so you can imagine how surprised he was to be handed the frying pan with a cooked fish when he got out of the tent.
Villa Amenguales and the road works
Next day we passed through Villa Amenguales, stopping at one of the small grocery mini mercados to pick up our usual exciting cuisine from their selection of non perishable food, Pasta and porridge being about the height of it. How the locals put up with it or dont die of scurvy I don´t know.
Shortly after the town the tarmac ended and the gravel began, worse still they were laying new gravel that was so soft our bike wheels were sinking, making the uphill progress tough going and we ended up having to walk uphill past the road crews in their rollers and graders. We got cycling again but after another 12km the newly laid gravel had been loosened by traffic and our forward progress ground to a halt. The gravel sucked at the bike tires making it heavy work and it felt like we were having to put in three times the work in the heat and dust. Very frustrating, I think Paul and his bike even had a bit of an argument, I ended up walking and both of us came off the bike or had to push start a few times on the long uphill stretch. Like most days of the Carretera we were rewarded later on in the morning with some downhill, though with the loose gravel it´s more like surfing as the bikes have little grip
Piedra Del Gata
Before 1pm we passed the famous Piedra del gata, a rocky ravine where a clear river roars over a rocky bed. The water there is so clear you can watch the salmon run from the road. A concrete bridge has been built over the river but like a scene from an action movie the river has washed away the start of the bridge. Keeping up with their usual safety standards the locals have just put some plastic tape and two bollards up to stop people driving into the river.
By now we´ve had to take siesta´s out of the heat of the midday sun so further on we take 2 hours by a river to eat, have a swim in some freezing water and relax before pushing on for the afternoon. Every day we end up cycling through the big clouds of dust when traffic passes, like cycling in fog so we usually try to take a deep breath when cars pass. The dust, suncream and sweat all mix together so by the end of most days we´re caked in a layer of gunge, so we´ve ended up taking a good wash at any opportunity.
In the afternoon we take a narrow rocky road up a mountain pass. Its so bad we´re reduced to pushing the bike up a steep, narrow road strewn with small rocks, with a couple of shiny new oil lorries coming downhill towards us. As we´d find out later they were supplying the roadworks on the opposite side of the mountain. All the way up the carretera we´d meet roadworks, more and more of the road was being paved and while it would mean an improvement in the quality of life for the local people it would mean an end to the adventure that was tackling the Carretera Austral. It would be more accessible to tourists, bringing the crowds and taking a bit from the unique remoteness of the area. Paul was quick to spot that the proposed power lines for the proposed Hydro scheme down south would run along here, all the more reason to put in a good road to transport the plyons. He´d also noticed that the spans of the new bridges they were building along the route were very over specced, hinting that the proposed hydro scheme might be more planned than proposed.
I guess the feeling we got cycling along was that we were privaleged to be seeing the area at the end of an era, with the new roads, increased traffic and ugly power lines it would never be the same in the future.
After we crested the pass it was getting late in the day and I was a bit wrecked tired. We had a bit of a debate about where to camp and decided that if somewhere suitable came up we´d call a halt to the days cycling. I was more wrecked than Paul and didn´t fancy spending the night up on a high pass. My luck was out though as once we descended the gravel hairpins on the other side of the pass the road was surrounded by thick undergrowth with little space to throw a tent up.
We plugged along, and after we reached the shored of the lake we knew we couldn´t be too far from the national park in the area. We asked a passing motorist how far up the road it was and were happy to find it was only 5km, it´d been a long day of hard cyclng so we were happy to see the famous hanging glacier on the side of a mountain as we crested a hill along the newly improved gravel road.
After camping the night in the Park we hiked up to the viewpoint were rewarded with some loud icefalls from the glacier, chunks of ice fell off the advancing edge of the glacier, hit rock son the way down and exploded like flour or castor sugar being sifted on the way down. With the sound taking time to reach us, the crack and boom of the ice falling only reached us after the ice was finished falling, giving us plenty to time to take in the picture, then the sound. Each time a lump fell of you´d find yourself trying to predict what the sound would be like. So far this was the most impressive natural feature we´d seen. I know I´m beginnning to sound like a bit of a tree hugger and don´t worry I´m not about to grow dreads and chain myself to anything but it was sad to see that the glacier is retreating, 10 years ago there were two steps to the hanging glacier like a penny pusher in a seaside arcade.
Getting back from the hike we stopped on the rope bridge over the glacial river, glad of the natural air-con afforded by the cool spray off the river before we packed up and cycled into Puyhuapi. On the way in we were stopped by the roadworks for a bout 5 minutes only to be let through to cycle pass a gang of roadworkers laying dynamite to blast the new road out of the rock. By now we´d been cycling along a Fjiord and when the road snaked along the Fjiord enough we reach the small town by the lake shore. 
The town was settled by german people in 1947 so it had unique german style houses and streets named after it´s founders; Walther Hopperdietzel and Otto Ubel. In fact the colonists were so industrous that they had built a road themselves to link the town with the next lake valley and lucky for the townspeople in modern times this influenced the people building the carretera austral to bring the highway through the town instead of another valley, keeping the town on the beaten path. The whole town was very dusty when we visited as there were roadworks to tarmac the road into and out of town but the locals all said it would be good for the town in the long run, of all the small towns we´d passed through they seemed to be the most progressive, even producing a tourist map of the sights of the town. That two of the sights were a fish farm and a gravel pit didn´t deter the tourist board. The sunset above shows you how beautiful the setting of the town was.
After our usual feed of Lomo a lo Pobre and chips we headed back to our campsite and to sink a few beers by the hobo stove in the campsite´s rain shelter. That morning we had something approaching our first disagreement, more of a sign of how tired we were than any big rift between the two of us so a few beers and a rest day are welcome.
When we reached la Junta I was eager to seek out a fishing guide who´s number I´d been given back in the regional capital. When we stopped in a small cafe for coffee we enquired and like most small towns in Ireland the lady running the place knew him, gave him a call and within 20 minutes we were sorted for a fishing trip the next day. Next morning, after we wild camped the night by the river, Javier, our guide met us near our pitch with his boat and we headed upriver for some fishing.
The river was both wide and flowy so the light aluminium launch had to fight the current to get upriver, the boat hopping along some of the rougher sections with Javier picking his way upstream. We could see the rocks below as the water was less than 1.5 metres deep in spots and crystal clear.
Paul fished using a wet fly up the front of the boat while I used a spinning rod out the back of the boat with Javier manning the oars in the middle. After 10 minutes fishing in a clear area I reckon Javier had decided these two could actually fish and weren´t going to lose all his hooks so we headed upstream again, Javier trying to find some deep pools or shaded areas where the trout would hide on the bright day. 10 minutes later I had my first fish in Patagonian waters, a good sized brown trout and after a bit of a fight we released him and started fishing again. Over the day my casting improved, Paul got the measure of the wet fly and we had some great fishing. Javier rowing the boat downstream past deep pools where the fish were and the two of s picking our spots to land the hooks with the rods. Often I´d be retrieving the spinner only to see two trout competeting for a bite of the hook, I´d slow down my reeling in to give them a chance and then hook them, great sport.
I caught about 8 fish on the spinner, Paul caught two on the more difficult wet fly and by the time we finished our half day´s fishing we were well hungry. The two trout we kept made a great lunch by the riverbank before we hit the road for the afternoon, covering 48km along a stunning valley before we camped by a section of the old road leading to a bridge that had been washed away. We washed in the river, glad that the streams had warmed from the the limb shattering cold of down south to allow us to wash without needing to defrost.
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