Tag: Villa O’Higgins

Day 20: Puerto Yungay – Villa O’Higgins

Distance: 62.94 miles

Time: 7:55

Elevation Gain: 5,525 feet

In the morning, Fabian and Noah were up early, and asked if I had any recommendations for food to eat on the road. Having some of the Bizcocho scones and a small tub of Manjar dulce di leche in my panniers, I passed forward the morish flavour combination that I’d been recommended by Pablo, right at the start of the trip. It seemed like there might be new converts to it too, as Noah took photos of the various packets to remember for the future.

Soon, they were gone, heading north towards Caleta Tortel, and for me, I was waiting for the first ferry of the day, at 10 am. Well, the first passenger ferry of the day, a boat for dangerous loads, had already left at 8 am, carrying the Copec petrol tanker, presumably to service the filling station in Villa O’Higgins.

On reaching the other side, at Río Blanco, there was another little cyclists’ shelter, but this one with toilets. It was a quarter past 11 by the time I left for what was undoubtedly going to be my longest cycling day of the trip, 100 km on gravel roads.

The first few miles passed quickly enough, and the road was relatively flat for the 8 miles to the Río Bravo María campsite, after that the terrain became far more challenging, with a series of tough climbs dragging me quickly away from the river.

It was a wild day, with regular showers and a strong cool wind, thankfully blowing in a favourable direction. To combat the cold, I was wearing extra layers, but in turn, each time I reached a hill, I quickly overheated and got off the bike to push. I knew that pacing myself was the key to making it all the way to Villa O’Higgins today.

22 miles in, after an energy-sapping sequence of steep climbs, I reached a refugio, or shelter, near the top of a hill, in an exposed spot. There were a Chilean couple already cooking up some lunch when I arrived, and they were generous enough to bring me over a cup of coffee while I prepared my own.

10 miles later there was another similar shelter, after which the road dropped and flattened out along the side of a lake. The tailwind whisking me along at a speed rarely accomplished on this trip.

I stopped at a thunderous waterfall, being asked if I’d like my picture to be taken by a man. On offering to return the favour, the man politely declined, before climbing back into one of two police cars parked nearby.

It wasn’t long before I spotted the glaciated cap of the mountain high above from where the cascading water was originating, the hillside shining with the many streams of glacial melt running down its slopes.

Towards the end, I rose slightly once more, with fine views offered up over Lago Cisnes, before the road took a long detour along the side of Río Meyer, before making the last approach to Villa O’Higgins.

After checking in at Los Pioneros campsite, I made to pitch the tent, quickly realising that my tent pegs must have escaped during the short period that I rode with one of my bags accidentally open on the rough roads. Scavenging some sticks from around the site, I managed to do a reasonable job of staking it out.

Afterwards, I made for the kitchen to prepare some food, and was introduced to a fellow cyclist called Belén. She offered me a huge bowl of salad that she’d made and had plenty left of, and I was happy to accept.

She told me that she was waiting on the boat to Candelario Mancilla, that she was booked on the Saturday sailing, that it had already been postponed until Sunday, and that most of the other people on the site were waiting on the ferry too. She did also know of somebody that had successfully got a place on the Monday sailing earlier in the day, so for tomorrow, visiting the Ruedas de la Patagonia office, to book the boat, was a massive priority.

Day 19: Caleta Tortel – Puerto Yungay

Distance: 27.18 miles

Time: 3:55

Elevation Gain: 2,336 feet

The next day, Desiree was taking a rest day, and I was pushing on the 45 km or so to Puerto Yungay ferry terminal, ideally in time to make the last ferry at 7 o’clock, and continue the 8 miles to Río Bravo María campsite.

By the time that we headed out for lunch though, that was already seeming optimistic, and I soon started to realise that it was likely I’d be arriving at the ferry port after the last ferry had already left, and I’d be camping in the vicinity of the port.

This feeling was reinforced quite quickly, when Desiree, liking the look of the Calafate cake in a craft shop, proposed the idea of having coffee and cake first, and then going for lunch straight after. Sounded like my kind of plan.

The cake was delicious, and the boardwalk around the harbour offered up fantastic views of the layout of the town, as it reached upwards from the coast. A short chat with some construction workers informed us that the wooden boards used in the creation of the walkways required to be replaced every 12 years, no doubt maintaining the place was a year round occupation.

We moved on to El Mirador restaurant for lunch, and when the waitress pointed out that there were only 3 items on the menu, and one of them was salmon, it was a fairly easy choice in what to have, for both of us.

It was almost 4 PM, before I finally moved on, but it had been a very pleasant day so far, so I wasn’t regretting not getting back on the road in the morning when the forecast was good.

It was a tough stretch back out of Caleta Tortel, into the wind, and I hadn’t got very far at all, when I passed the Colombian couple from 2 nights before on their way into town.

If I thought that the initial part was tough, I hadn’t seen anything yet. Conditions had worsened when I reached the bottom of the climb over to Puerto Yungay, and the sign at the bottom warned of 20 km of dangerous curves. Sounded fun.

The opening hairpins were unrideable and I was forced to push up what seemed like a steep open boulder field. As the road climbed, the views back down towards the river had virtually disappeared into the gloom.

The next part was direct, steep and narrow, and with the addition of a few cars making their way over the pass, it was a tricky part to navigate, but eventually the road climbed onto a plateau and swept past Lago Caiquen.

Dropping down the other side, I had to manoeuvre my way around a truck that had skidded into the safety barrier, and was now stuck, at times having to battle with my bike to stop it doing the same, thanks to brakes that were struggling in the wet conditions.

Eventually, at almost 9 o’clock, I rolled down the hill towards the ferry port at Puerto Yungay, dragging my bike up a ramp towards a building with a porch which offered some shelter from the rain, while I looked for somewhere to pitch my tent.

Soon after, I heard voices from inside, and then someone opened the door. You can sleep in here if you want, said one of a pair of German cyclists, Fabian and Noah, who were inside a waiting area that was apparently there for the usage of cyclists.

Fabian and Noah had teamed up while waiting, for several days, for the boat, at Candelario Mancilla, perhaps a precursor of things to come for myself as I’d be taking the same boat in the opposite direction. Yes they had the phone number for the ferry company they said, and that was the first I’d had the correct one, it was evidently a very popular service, I didn’t have a booking and now I was stuck a day away from Villa O’Higgins, without any signal. There was a boat scheduled for the day after next, and unless I was very lucky, I wouldn’t be on it.

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.