Distance: 40.71 miles
Time: 6:46
Elevation Gain: 4,055 feet
It had been a cold night, even more so as the campsite was on a plateau by a lake at 300 metres elevation. Thankfully, the campsite had a hot shower, and ample indoor space massively out of proportion with the number of guests, so I soon heated up.
Plan for the day, was an ambitious one, to reach Cochrane, 40 miles away, and with a significant amount of climbing alongside the Río Baker. Desiree had done incredibly well the day before, to back up kayaking in the morning with a hard hilly 35 mile ride in the sun, not bad going during her first week of cycle-touring.
We enjoyed a short flattish section alongside Lago Bertrand, before a significant climb took us away from the lake and, then swinging back down to its side once more at Puerto Bertrand, where we rolled steeply down to the shore, in search of somewhere for lunch.
Uninspired by the food trucks on offer, we continued out of town and climbed steeply back up the hill to a pizza restaurant, a short climb that was definitely worth the effort.
After lunch, we had a look at the mount for Desiree’s handlebar bag, which had evidently been installed wrongly by the bike hire shop and the bag was now bouncing up and down on the front wheel, over the rough roads.
Unfortunately, the cable was so badly damaged that we couldn’t fully rectify the situation, but we did find the perfect piece of wood to take up the slack.
The onwards route followed the Río Baker upriver, not content to stick by its side, the road climbed high above the gorge, through rocky and fertile terrain.
Sitting in the shade near the top of the climb, my lack of phone signal meant I missed the fact that Desiree had messaged to let me know she was having a ‘little demoralisation emergency that only chocolate could cure’, just around the corner.
Dropping down to cross the Río Chacabuco, the road switched back steeply up the other side, soon bringing us level with a large group of Guanacos, near the road. Guanacos being the wild near ancestor of the domesticated Llama.
A few more metres of elevation led to a mirador, looking out over the confluence of the rivers Baker and Chacabuco, after which the road seemed to continue eking out every extra metre of elevation gain out of the landscape, even within the last few kilometres before Cochrane, when the highly satisfying ‘Inicio Pavimento’ signalled the beginning of a dream-like concrete surface, the road climbed sharply before dropping down into the town.
Finding ourselves at the edge of the centre of town, we started looking for places to stay. Desiree, tried a Cabaña, I got the easier job of checking out the hostel. Desiree disappeared into a restaurant, I carried on down the street, trying to keep on brief, only to return to find that the restaurant had Cabins in behind and that Desiree had scoped out an ideal 2 bed cabin with bike parking down the side. Perfecto.
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