The big news is that the big stretch of pavement started about 70 kilometers earlier than shown on the map and it is excellent with big views. We made about fifty miles on gravel from La Junta which we felt was good for dirt roads or what the locals and international tourists call repeo. Repeo becomes exponentially more difficult as the grade increases because the gravel often becomes more loose and there is more of a washboard surface. The gravel here is often much worse than the US because they do not always use crushed or sorted gravel and it is often river cobbles the size of assorted potatoes. Hopefully the larger potatoes are off to the side of the road. That said the last 150 kilometers of gravel have not been to bad from Santa Lucia. There was a steep pass before dropping into the pavement near Puerto Cisnes. We did a hike there up to a huge glacier with a falls. I will post some more pictures later. The scenery never seems to stop being surprisingly good.
We are running into lots of interesting international cyclists mostly from Europe but we did just run into a couple from Colorado. Many of the cyclists are out for even longer trips than ours. One couple was in Uruguay headed south but they were seeing so many bad car accidents the took a bus further south. Another couple said that they were in Bolivia and the level of poverty was pretty shocking. Even so apparently some of the big agribusiness companies were pushing junk food and the Bolivians were throwing the wrappers wherever and the level of trash was hard to accept. Generally there is not a lot of trash in Chile thankfully. That same couple said they originally were using Internet cafes but they had a thumb drive that got infected and wiped out all their pictures so they ended up buying a netbook.
One American we ran into was down here looking to buy a large acreage for an organic farm. I can´t remember the name of he and his wife´s company but it was a big one. He was working closely with Doug Tompkins who is locally and internationally famous for buying huge chunks of land in Patagonia. Tompkins is promoting all things sustainable and is anti hydro power etc. Parkque Pumalin is the world largest privately owned national park. The Chileans are a bit pissed at him because he is not letting them punch through the Carratera Austral through the park. That would be hugely expensive but the ferries around it are a big bottle neck. Doug Thompson is a former owner of North Face. You can google that to find out more about it if you are interested. Adam the organic American was talking about this sustainable vision of local organic farms. Right wingers in the US would have no problem making the leap to call that communism like promoted by Chairman Mao.
One thing that is different is that there are very few police cars around. You hardly ever hear sirens. In the bigger towns they have armies of policemen on foot. Speaking of law and order the last bed and breakfast place we stayed at the proprietor made a big deal of whether or not we were married.
Stocking up on food is always an adventure. The "supermercados" are usually part of someone´s house and typically not much bigger than a 15 x 15 foot room. We end up typically just going in and buying whatever we can the looks reasonably healthy. The produce is typically unrefrigerated. Whole grain type cookies and crackers are less and less common away from the larger towns and tourist areas. We were seeing "integral" pan for awhile but now it is as white as white as can be. They do not sell bread here just pan which is sort of like a dense hamburger bun. It does pack well and holds up to the shaking and pounding of the repeo roads.
We are still struck by all the places where in the US there would be a lodge or a developed campground or a national park or something but there is nothing maybe some herders shack..
That is enough for now but feel free to email us with questions. My email is tponte.is @ gmail dot com and Laurie´s is laurie dot ponte at gmail dot com.
