Tag: Cochrane

Villa O’Higgins: At The End of The Road

I was almost at the end of the road. After Villa O’Higgins, the road continued for 7 kilometres more to Puerto Bahamondez, where the only option was to take a boat across Lago O’Higgins to Candelario Mancilla, 1 km from a Chilean border post and 20 km of no man’s land in a disputed area with Argentina.

Eventually, I’d reach the Argentinian border post, and then have to cross Lago Del Desierto on a small tourist boat, before pedalling out the 20 or so miles to the Argentinian mountain resort of El Chaltén, in a popular hiking area.

The next morning, I made for the Ruedas De La Patagonia office as soon as I got up, only to find that it wouldn’t be opening until 11 o’clock. After a wander around town and finding what was clearly the best stocked supermarket, I returned to check on the possibility of booking a place on the boat.

The ticket agent shook his head, ‘oh no no no no, Monday’, he said. Ok great, I said. That would be fine. He asked if I also wanted booked on the second boat, across Lago Del Desierto while I was at it. Yes, please, and thank you.

On the Friday night, on my last stretch into Villa O’Higgins, I’d finally had reception after a day and a half in the wilderness, and I received numerous messages from Desiree all at once. She was hoping I was doing ok in the bad weather, telling me that her accommodation at Giselle’s in Caleta Tortel was great, that she was feeling exhausted on her day off, that she’d got up for an early morning hike, and that she’d got back on the road, before taking a lift to the Puerto Yungay ferry, from Felipe, who was Chilean, was travelling in a campervan, and she had met before back down the road at El Blanco campsite.

From the ferry, she’d then pedalled to the Río Blanco María campsite, so she was now only around 50 miles from Villa O’Higgins. Her rental bike was to be returned in Villa O’Higgins on the Monday, and my ferry was now scheduled for the Monday too, it seemed possible now, that I might see her again, beforehand.

As it happened, she had a great day on the Saturday, in beautiful weather, making it 50 km to the glacier-clad mountain that I’d seen the day before, and leaving herself 30 km to do on the Sunday, to reach Villa O’Higgins.

The rest of my weekend was largely spent wandering backwards and forwards between the campsite and the town, a walk of under ten minutes. It was a picturesque little location, but an incredibly sleepy town. I did need to stock up on some supplies for my planned long day to El Chaltén, and of course I needed to keep stocking up for my extended stay in Villa O’Higgins as well.

Then late on the Sunday afternoon, just as Desiree was arriving in town, she messaged me asking if I wanted to cycle with her to the end of the road, as her bike would be getting returned the next day, and she wanted to make it to the end before she took it back.

We had a pleasant ride in warm sunshine, and soon covered the 7 km to the port, despite having to wait for a campervan to be rescued from a ditch, a short distance from the end.
It was a lovely moment and Desiree, was delighted to accomplish what had probably seemed like a – potentially – unrealistic goal, for someone with no previous experience of this type of trip.

We decided to celebrate by going out for dinner, and were almost ready to go when I received the bombshell news, that the boat crossing on the Monday was cancelled. I looked ahead at the forecast, the weather didn’t look any better on the Tuesday. Oh dear, I thought, before accepting that I could now have an extra couple of beers to accompany the excellent burger at La Travesia, restaurant. And, what would be the harm in a little Calafate Pisco Sour as well?

After an unintentional cake breakfast at Café Norwest 340 – due to it being all that they served – it was now Monday afternoon, and I still had not received an update about the boat, and wasn’t really sure about what to do next. The options were, wait for a boat, which was – very much – at the mercy of the weather, before taking 2 buses, totalling over 400 km: the first from El Chaltén to El Calafate, in Argentina, and the second from El Calafate to Puerto Natales, back into Chile, where I had a flight booked on the Thursday morning. The alternative was, it seemed, to get myself back along the Carretera Austral to Coyhaique, with my bike, hope to pick up a box there, and then make for Balmaceda airport – by Thursday evening – when a flight was available. A third, more costly, option was to keep waiting for a boat, and hope I could eventually make it for a 7 hour flight from El Calafate airport, to Santiago, via Buenos Aires.

Desiree, left me pondering the decision, to help Felipe set up a BBQ, at his campsite, that he’d invited us to that evening. Too tired to decide what best to do, I fell asleep, only to awake 45 minutes later to several messages from her to say that she’d heard from the boat company and there was a sailing on the Tuesday. The message she forwarded didn’t seem to state that, but it did say that the safe passage form I’d filled in to cross the border would still be valid for the next day, which only seemed relevant if there was to be a boat.

I rushed along to the office, and was delighted to find out that it was true, there was a boat scheduled for 5 AM on the Tuesday morning, and the man would WhatsApp me the details. In an instant, my trip was saved. I rushed along to the BBQ to tell the the others the good news, and then we had a very pleasant evening taking it in turns to jam on Felipe’s 3/4-sized travel guitar that he carried in the van.

Day 18: Camping El Risquero – Caleta Tortel

Distance: 32.21 miles

Time: 4:17

Elevation Gain: 1,270 feet

Unsurprisingly, given the bleak conditions the previous evening, there weren’t many other inhabitants at the campsite, just a Colombian couple who had been sheltering from the rain, and had been on the road for two years already, having pedalled from Colombia all the way across Brazil and then started south from there.

Whilst I was packing up my bike, I was taken aback to find that a weld had failed on my seemingly hard-wearing Brooks saddle and now the leather had lost all tension and was lying limply on the steel support rails. It did not look comfortable at all.

A weather window of warm sunshine rather took us aback, and we rushed to get going, before it started raining again before we’d even begun.

Along the roadside there were constant reminders that it had rained, a lot. Firstly, when we past a heavily gushing waterfall, and secondly when we saw the heavily swollen Río Vargas.

We were forced to consider just how full the river was when Desiree’s bike slipped from its resting place against the side of the bridge, causing her cycling gloves to fall off her bag and into the water below. Watching them swirling in a pool underneath the bridge was distressing for her as the gloves had been gifted to her by Felipe, the campsite owner of El Nortino, in Villa Cerro Castillo, a full week before. She tried to see if she could rescue them, but the bank was just too treacherous.

Just as we were readying to leave, the rain came on much more heavily, and it was accompanied by a biting wind, that chilled us to the core.

We had been following the Río Vargas for some time now, and soon it joined forces with the far more substantial Río Baker, which we’d last seen some time before Cochrane, and would now be following out towards the sea, at Caleta Tortel.

We turned off ruta 7, at the junction with the road for Puerto Yungay, and took the extra rough X-904 towards Tortel, steeply downhill at first, but with it flattening out as it went along, the pronounced pooling of the stones on the road made it difficult to keep traction, and we struggled to find good lines to keep upright.

The conditions didn’t help, and it was noticeable that Desiree was suffering a bit in the wet and the cold, so I suggested that she put on another layer, as I thought that would help her. I was feeling uncomfortably comfortable, in that I was wet, but I was warm enough, but I knew that being cold and wet was a dangerous place to be.

Stubbornly though, she persevered, and despite the significant drop in her core body temperature, and her discomfort, she still kicked into action as soon as we reached the town, and while she pressed the tourist information assistant for information, she was interrupted by one of the owners of some Cabañas nearby, and they really weren’t far away at all.

And while Desiree made full use of the cabin’s gas heater and shower, virtually turning the place into a sauna by the time I returned, I tried to find my way around Caleta Tortel’s labyrinthine boardwalk network to reach a shop, and pick up a few hard earned bottles of Patagonia Brewery beer, with which to help her relax after a trying day.

Day 17: Cochrane – Camping El Risquero

Distance: 48.17 miles

Time: 7:12

Elevation Gain: 3,704 feet

Being the last big town of the Carretera Austral route, it made sense to have a rest day in Cochrane, to prepare for the remote stretch ahead, so that’s what we did. Taking some clothes to the laundromat, stocking up on several days of food, and for my part trying to sort out my brakes, which now seemed to be stuck on in a position that barely allowed the wheels to turn and had made the day before quite a difficult pedal.

Fortunately we had plenty of time to manage all of these things, and for Desiree to take her bike for a check up that had been recommended by the bike hire company, and where she had to explain why there was now a piece of wood playing a vital role in the mounting system of her handlebar bag.

Whilst we were standing outside the workshop, another cyclist turned up with a bike to fix. He was German, but had been living in Canada until two years before, when he had set off back and forward across Canada before turning south and continuing onwards until he had met a partner, here in Chile. Now they were readying to move to Germany, and it sounded like he had been operating as part-competitor, part-business partner to the local mechanic while he had been living here.

The rest day also gave me an opportunity to find out a little bit more about Desiree as well, she was German, but now had Ecuadorean citizenship. She’d studied in Vienna and Barcelona, and also lived in Myanmar, Argentina, Ecuador and Peru, and after the trip she’d be moving her life back from Lima to Quito, where she was also the frontwoman of a punk band, who had just toured in the Southern United States. Other than commuting, she didn’t do a lot of cycling, but had done some climbing around Quito, including 5,897m, Cotopaxi.

On leaving Cochrane, we had stocked up for the three days that I’d originally planned to reach Villa O’Higgins in, but by the time we actually left, we’d already decided to aim for Caleta Tortel by the end of day two, a combined total of about 80 miles. This involved a detour for me, but was a heavily recommended side-trip, and Desiree was planning a rest day there. I would skip the rest day, and push on for Villa O’Higgins, in another two days, instead. Caleta Tortel would have been another resupply point if we’d planned for it, so our bikes were probably heavier than necessary.

Setting off, it wasn’t long before we reached the dreaded ‘fin pavimento’ sign, on the outskirts of town, fortunately we received a stay of execution for many miles afterwards, with the tarmac continuing until we reached a bridge after Laguna Esmerelda.

Desiree was in good spirits, but I did get a bit of a surprise when I suddenly heard singing, back down the road. She broke into song several times during the day, and the highlight was, by common agreement, a rousing A cappella duet of the Radiohead song, Creep

After the end of the pavimento, the ripio (gravel) track that continued, climbed high onto a wilderness plateau, and was rough and rutted, with a washboard consistency that was jarring on both, bikes, and riders. A steep hairpin bend opened up views of the glaciated top of Cerro Trunco, some 2000+ metres high.

Towards the end of this rough rolling section over the plateau, the next part was made more interesting by a pair of Andean condors circling high above the forest as we started to drop down alongside the Río Barrancoso on the way to the turn off towards Los Ñadis.

Beyond the turn off, the road levelled out, we were pleased with the progress we had been making for the day, and had already covered 30 miles, when we encountered 4 female German cycle tourists standing beside where a cafe was marked on the map. The gates to what looked like a farmhouse were closed, but soon one of the group made contact with the owners and we were all invited in for a feast of bread and jam, the best being rhubarb, and several flasks of coffee.

Having conversed in English initially, and in Spanish with our hosts, the girls, who were from Cologne, were surprised when they learned that Desiree was also German, from Aschaffenburg in Bavaria. Thankfully, they kept on speaking in English, for me.

The group were going to be travelling for several months, having just arrived in Caleta Tortel on the 3 day ferry from Puerto Natales, where they’d had to endure the whole trip from the comfort of a reclining chair. Their plan was to travel as far as Lima, so they took Desiree’s number in case she was still there when they got there.

The break had been very pleasant, but the lengthy time off the bikes had allowed the weather to take a turn for the worse, and by the time that we reached the first campsite option Patigon Baucha, after 12 miles, we were starting to get rather wet. The sheltered tent spaces were occupied and the open field and lack of communal enclosed spaces, stopped us from lingering too long, and we carried on into the rain.

Another few miles saw us sheltering under a tree at the worst of the conditions, but eventually after 48 miles for the day, we found somewhere that looked like home for the night. El Risquero had camping in a field on a farm, but after a little negotiation from Desiree, we were offered the use of the old farm buildings to set up our tents, and that seemed ideal, until the lady pointed us in the direction of the empty six bed dormitory up the stairs.

Even better, as we were able to use the downstairs space to dry our clothes, and there was also a kitchen area, so while I went off to enjoy a highly-restorative hot shower, Desiree whipped up a hearty 2 course meal, comprising chicken soup, followed by polenta and salami. There was even hot chocolate for afterwards, to ensure that the recovery process had well and truly begun, after a hard day on the road.

Day 16: Camping y Cabañas Cerro Color – Cochrane

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.