Tortel to OHiggins
This post was posted only shortly after the previous post as there was no reliable internet in Tortel so you may want to go back and read that first. The Inn here in O'Higgins has WiFi along with hot showers and a nice warm wood stove. They also have a suana and hot tub out back. Nowonder it is a well known hotel. There are a half a dozen touring cyclists staying here.
The ride out of Tortel was easier than the ride in even
though it was uphill was easier than the ride in as with the rain the road had
gotten packed out smooth and fast. Waiting for the rain to stop in Tortel proved
to be a good gamble. Although it was not totally clear at least it wasn’t
raining. After rejoining route 7 it was a bit of a climb up and over to the
ferry in Yungay but the road was good. We had to wait for the last ferry from Yungay to Rio Bravo at 6. There is a little restaurant
at Yongay and Laurie ordered a great salad with potatoes and a small portion of
meat. It was great but expensive. We
passed the rest of the day talking to the bike tourists from Kansas and Laurie
did some painting and drawing with the daughter of the restaurant owner. The ferry was free so there were no
communication issues about payment and reservations. On the other side it was raining a bit and it
was permissible to camp in the ferry shelter which was fairly new. We stayed there with the couple from Kansas
and a French cyclist. The French cyclist had interesting racks he created
himself after arriving from France. They literally were held together with
bailing twine and zip ties but he had made it the same distance we had on rough
roads so it is possible to bike tour down here on a shoe string.
The next morning we rode with the Kansas couple for about
thirty kilometres. They were both electrical engineers and it was interesting to
note how that influenced their riding. The guy, Greg had a log book where he tracked
how many kilometres they did and how long it took them all very neatly laid out
in a notebook with columns. They also were traveling with some elevation
profiles they had obtained from another cyclist. The Greg had done a fair amount
of racing and was pretty focused on keeping his numbers up. He would rather
ride fast then take a break than ride slow as that made the calculations on the
odometer look better in terms of kilometres per hour. The woman, Tiffany was also into
numbers and kept track of her distance travelled by looking at the frequent little
hand written highway survey markers. When she asked her husband how far they
had gone based on the odometer if he rounded up or down it would through her
off and affect her disposition if it seemed like she thought she had gone further
according to their calculations. Although we enjoyed talking to them campong and riding
with them when we got an idea how the numbers were affecting their riding we
decided we didn’t necessarily want to be riding on that bell curve. It is
really interesting to see all the different traveling styles of various
cyclists. Also as with the swiss couple they were not competitive in camp and the women liked to laugh. Laurie enjoyed hanging out with them a great deal especially Marilee the Swiss woman who liked to cook and talk about food.
The road to Villa O’Higgins after the first few big climbs
was easy with a huge tail wind plus there was almost no traffic due to the
ferry that carries only a half a dozen vehicles three times a day. We made
about 80 kilometers and bypassed the two free huts for camping. We found a nice
place to camp by Lake Cisnes about fifteen kilometres from O’Higgins. It
required hopping a fence. There must
have been a couple dozen waterfalls on the route and not just small ones
either. We could see the bottoms of some big glaciers which were possibly the
ice field. We also had the good fortune to see some condors one at close range
about fifty feet overhead.
Villa O’Higgins is the end of the road for autos. It is also the end of the Carretera Austral which is a big milestone for us. Cyclists and hikers can continue on by ferry
into Argentina although it requires about six kilometres of pushing a bike on a
horse trail on the other end of the ferry. There is a lot of talk about by cyclists about
securing horses on the other end to help carry panniers up the horse trail. Apparently
the wranglers are very unreliable. If they are not there it involves a couple of
trips back and forth with bikes and gear as the ruts are too deep for bikes
with panniers. Luckily the ferry was delayed today due to high winds and put
off until tomorrow which we were able to secure a place. We chose the one that
does a side trip to a big glacier that ends at the equally huge lake. It costs
more but almost all of the cyclists are opting for it so we thought we should
too. There are at least a dozen cycle
tourists here waiting to take the ferry across on one day or other to Argentina.
Once on the other side there will be pavement again from the town of El
Chalten. El Chalten is at the base of the famous Mount Fitz Roy so I am looking
forward to that. Treking up into the mountains here is not too appealing at
least with the weather we have been having plus most of the trails are in bad
shape and poorly engineered by American standards. They tend to go straight up
to their destinations. With bad weather
like mountains everywhere it is worse with more rain, wind and cold
temperatures. The owner of the inn we are staying at in O’Higgins
says it is unusually cold here for the time of year but was unusually warm here
earlier in the summer.
