Well we got all our to do list items done in
Coyhaique including purchasing a netbook.
It is a nice new pink one because that was the only one in town that had
not already had its operating system loaded in Spanish. Other than the quirky Spanish
keyboard it works great and we got all of Laurie’s books loaded on to my kindle
using a wireless connection and the netbook.
We
are in Villa Cerro Castillo after a very windy ride from Coyhaique, half with a
tail wind and the last half mostly uphill into the wind. The mountains got a dusting of snow yesterday
which made for good photo ops and helped with the motivation on the ride. The
first look into the Rio Ibanez drainage near the end was jaw dropping. We had
no idea. The steep descent into Villa
Cerro Castillo was a bit scary with the gusty winds blasting somewhat
unpredictably.
At the camp ground-refugio we elected to
stay at in Villa Cerro Castillo there were a couple of guys who had hiked
around the stunning Mount Castillo nearby
and said it was so windy up there that at times they were on their hands and
knees. Our camp mates here are from
South Africa, Germany, England and Switzerland. The German guy can speak
Spanish and English fluently. The four other campers have been bike touring in
the area and have lots of interesting things to share about things to see in
Patagonia and elsewhere around the world. The camp ground has hot showers,
electricity and a cooking \ gathering cabin (refugio) for $6 a person with a
front row view of the mountain.
The South African camper here had been bike touring but sent
his wife home with the bikes as his alloted time for the trip is about up. He is now traveling around with a back pack
on buses or hitch hiking which is fairly common. There are a lot of mostly young people here
traveling this way. They seem to get
rides fairly quickly which is a testament to the friendly generous spirit of
the Chilean people. The buses run
everywhere even in rural areas. One
thing that we are seeing are groups of motorcycles that appear to be rented
with a support truck that has at least one spare bike and tires etc. The motorcycles look high quality, go anywhere type bikes with extra sturdy metal
panniers. Unlike the US they have stock
mufflers so are quiet. Maybe at some
point the Chileans will get with the modern world like the Americans and chop
off the stock mufflers and make their bikes as loud as possible.
Speaking of noise on the road the Chileans
often will honk and wave to cheer you on like you were in some sort of event. The positive honking took a bit to get used to
but we are starting to get in the spirit of things. The Swiss girl said that
honking is illegal in Switzerland unless it is just for safety.
Conversation at the shelter last night
turned to how late the Chileans frequently stay up partying or not which is
often a problem for tired cyclists whether camping or staying at an Inn. Laurie speculated that the late night
schedule is part of the overall rhythm. You get up at ten, have a small
breakfast of pan and tea then go to work until one. Then at 2pm you eat a big
meal and take a nap for a couple of hours before returning to work until eight
or so. Then you eat a late dinner, socialize until the wee hours and repeat.
From here south for quite a ways it is back
to the ripio (REEpeeo) or gravel. There should be some inspiring scenery to keep
us motivated. The locals say this is
unusually cold and windy even for Patagonia. For point of reference the
latitude here is about 46 degrees or roughly the same as southern Washington
State.
Villa Cerro Castillo part two
We took off from Villa Cerro Castillo onto
the now gravel route 7 into a yet again fierce head wind. Hiking shoes we are finding better for gravel
roads in the event you have to walk up a hill or get blown off your bike by a
gust of wind. The weather is still quite
cold and further to the west near a big ice field the weather looks rainier. We saw a ranch with a camping sign and
decided to do a layover day in hopes that the weather will break. The ranch is
apparently the last opportunity for a 120 k for a shelter other than a
tent. The family here has a few options
including a nice room with a hot shower for $30. The room however has no heat and instead if
you need to warm up you go into the main house where like many houses in
Patagonia the cast iron wood cook stove is going 24 hours a day.
Laurie originally was keen on a home stay
situation to learn Spanish so we decided this would be a mini home stay opportunity
as opposed to battling the winds for the privilege of camping in the rain near
the ice fields to the west. They asked
if we wanted lunch and Laurie wanted to do that. It was lamb, potatoes, corn
soup, cucumber salad and cherries for dessert. This was a two in the afternoon
meal and the woman of the house’s sister and husband were here from Villa Cerro
Castillo. Pretty much everything besides the corn in the soup was grown or
raised on the farm or ranch. I am not
exactly sure what to call it. Probably livestock puts meat on the table so to
speak. They have a greenhouse garden made from plastic sheeting and bamboo
which grows wild in the area. This type
of greenhouse is very common and probably why the local “supermarkados” do not
have a lot of produce. I guess the rural
Chileans are way ahead of the Americans when it comes to eating local and
organic. There are lots of chickens running all around the yard.
Speaking of food the reason for the can
opener is we have discovered that most of the little markets have small cans of
Cholgas which are a large shellfish of some kind. They come from the sea near here and are
delicious. I am sure there is some
reason why we should not be enjoying them like they are full of mercury or are
farmed or something but we are not going to ask questions about that. They make a great snack with crackers or go
good with the peppers in the market boiled with trigo de mote which is a very quick cooking grain a bit smaller
than a kernel of barley. It also is easy to clean up a meal made with boiled
grains which is a pretty big plus for camping. Laurie asked a couple of locals
how they use it and it appears that it is primarily used in a desert like
recipe with dried peaches which are also pretty common in the little markets. We tried to eat the dried peaches without
boiling them like prunes but quickly came to the conclusion that they were not
intended to be eaten that way.
The house has no TV and electricity only
at night unless otherwise needed. The
lack of TV is great as I am about equally unfond of TV here as I am of TV in
the US. We are particularly glad not to
be exposed to all the election year posturing and news coverage especially the
absurdly conservative republicans in their effort to appease the extreme right
wing elements of their “base”.
The other day in Coyhaique getting my
hair cut they had some show on like judge Judy. There seemed to be a repeated
scenario where an attractive young woman had a domestic dispute with an
absurdly dressed older woman in loud clothes and dorky glasses. Even though the girl who always led off with
a complaint looked to be making a reasonable and intelligent case for herself
the judge would then explain how the dorky looking older woman was actually
right for some reason. The camera man
would usually pan the young woman up and down from behind more than once
apparently this was to help the TV audience ascertain the reasonableness of her
arguments. The message seemed to be that
even if middle aged people are really embarrassinglyunfashionable they may
deserve a certain amount of respect.
Then of course there is the other common Spanish TV where everyone is
over the top emotional about something and talking real fast and loud to get
there point across. The women, like with American TV have important essential attributes
that do not necessarily have any correlation with acting ability. The only
thing is that in real life the Chileans are rather morose looking and seldom
smile or get upset or emotional about much of anything. It could be from the
lack of sleep.
Laurie spent a great deal of time
talking to the family in our mini home stay. I helped by asking questions for
her to try and translate. She is getting better and I am learning a bit as I go
but not with the diligence or effort of Laurie. In the evening they ran the
generator and we charged up a few things like the camera batteries. When we left in the morning we noticed that
in the tree right outside our room there was the skinned head of a sheep
complete with drying eye balls hung from a hook about our head level. We are
not sure if that is some sort of custom or what and we forgot to ask. I am sure
we will remember to ask about that with some local. Hopefully it is a good luck
charm and they were being perfect hosts.
Electing to quit early for the weather
to break turned out to be a good call. It did. The wind howled all night but by
morning was relatively calm and clear.
We got to see more snow-capped mountains and scenery than if we had
continued, not to mention having been wet and cold camping in the rain. You would think we would be getting tired of
the snow-capped peaks but no. Hopefully more pictures of that will not become
too boring either. The dirt roads south of Villa Cerro Castillo about thirty
kilometres were very good and not too hilly so we made good time. We are traveling
up and down these immense classic glaciated valleys complete with hanging
valley on the sides. We took some breaks including one to swim and lay in the
sun a bit with yet another snow-capped peak in the background.We met one
touring couple headed north from Ireland and the woman was Swiss. They had come
here after touring in Australia on the east coast. We then ran into another
touring couple headed south and they were from Kansas City of all places but
originally from Iowa. They talked about some group ride in Iowa that has
fifteen thousand people. Holy cow that is a big group ride.
The Swiss couple we kept running into
were carrying this little Carratera Austral bike tour log by a German guy. It
had kilometre by kilometre descriptions of what to expect. They were relying on
it heavily but the recommendations for camping were total BS. It said there was
no camping or water from Villa Cerro Castillo for 70 or 100 kilometers or
something. That must be bottled water
and camping with toilets as we saw dozens of great free primitive camp sites
with water and fantastic views in some cases. It is interesting in that that is
the way the locals refer to camping as well.
As far as we can tell that means with a toilet of some kind or maybe
agua caliente – a hot shower? Anyway
going by some mile by mile book with an odometer is not our idea of a way to
travel. The Swiss couple was fun to be around and they spoke English well. The
girl Marilli was very talkative. She also was a “professional” rower with a bit
of a competitive streak on the bike and we did not want to be racing them down
the Carratera Austral so the lay over afternoon gave them the lead. They were
half our age. I have a bit of a
competitive streak that I don’t want to encourage on a trip like this. We will probably run into them again and
exchange stories. One other bit of camping news is that the big horse flies
have packed it up for the season? There were no bugs of any kind at today’s
camp.
It started raining lightly in the middle
of the night and we took our time getting going hoping the rain would dissipate
after it warmed up a bit but no such luck. After a morning ride in nonstop rain
we made it to the first inn with restaurant in a 100 k or so in Puerto Murta
and had a hot meal with the couple from Kansas who were soaking wet. The food
was good but the owners were unfriendly from the get go. Apparently cold wet
cycling tourists were not the type of clientele they had in mind. It was still raining when we decided to press
on to Puerto Rio Tranquilo the main city of the region with a population of a
few hundred at the most. The rain
stopped shortly after we left the restaurant and there were some nice views of
the giant lake General Carrera which must be about a hundred miles long and the
color of the Caribbean in Bonaire from the glacial run off. There is no wi fi
in the town but a couple of places have Internet. There are a couple of other
guys here from BC cycling and they are in a bad mood about riding in the rain
as well. The sun is out now and the lake is beautiful. Apparently there is some
marble formation sticking out of the lake that is quite the tourist attraction.
You have to pay to be taken out to see it in a boat. That is a must do thing
for the couple from Kansas so I suppose we better check it out. The other thing
to do is to go up about forty k to the Campo De HieloNorte Ice field which is
one of the biggest in the world someone said.
That is it for now. I was hoping to post
some pictures but with the limited Internet situation that is probably not
going to happen.
By the way here is some bike touring trivia. The couple from Kansas has been having a heck of a time finding either 700 c tubes or 26 inch tubes with presta valves even in Bariloche they could not find those items. So besides 26 inch being a safer bet than 700 c even better is twenty six inch with schrader valves like on your car.
Here are some more pictures to look at be sure and double view the locations in the map Hopefully the link works. It is a little hard to trouble shot this stuff from an internet cafe set up in spanish,
Here are some more pictures to look at be sure and double view the locations in the map Hopefully the link works. It is a little hard to trouble shot this stuff from an internet cafe set up in spanish,
