Villa La Angostura is a holiday resort just over the border in Argentina, its location places it firmly in the area known as the Chilean Lake District. It caters for the apres ski set in winter and the outdoor crowd in summer. It reminded us of Whistler in Canada, lots of shops with log fronted facades selling overpriced hiking gear and restaurants charging similar prices. Dave was as good as his word and had reserved us a room in a hotel on the main drag, he left the next morning hoping to rendezvous with Chris whilst we decided to spend two nights in town and wait for Johannes and Jude to arrive before heading south. Chris was still ahead of us and we hoped to catch up with him in Trevelin which meant a steady five hour drive down part of the infamous Ruta 40.
The day after Johannes and Jude arrived we left Villa La Angostura in bright sunshine, the fabulous views over the lakes meant stopping often to take photos and just enjoy the moment. There is a clarity to the air here that is almost blinding, the sun is no stronger or brighter than anywhere else but the lack of pollution and dust give even the most distant objects a sharpness that is noticeable, even to dodgy eyes like mine.
Lake Nahuel Huapi (Argentina's first National Park)
Some lupins (Sue liked the lupins!)
More flowers (Sue liked the flowers).
"Stop posing and get back on the bike!"
Jose and Midori from Buenos Aires.
That afternoon we rolled into Trevelin and had a hell of a job finding a hotel or hostel that had two available rooms, in the end Sue and I stayed in a separate hotel from Johannes and Jude and when we eventually found Chris and Dave it turned out that they had reserved two rooms at the hotel we were staying at but forgot to give our full names to reception. By the time the mistake was rectified J&J were settled in their digs and stayed there the night, Chris had been in town a couple of days and had made friends with Jerry, a local and fellow dirt bike rider. Jerry had taken Chris out for a ride on the back roads today, but unfortunately the big BMW is no motocross machine, as you can see....
Whoops!
Whoops! 2 (the sequel)
Trevelin means "mill town" in Welsh. This small town was established around the first flour mill in the region by Welsh immigrants in the 1860's it's famous for it's cream teas and you can even see the odd advertisement for Welsh language classes in shop windows. Jerry's forefathers were some of the first settlers in the area and their Welsh heritage is still important to the family, that evening we were invited to the family farm for a bit of a barbecue.
Jerry showing Dave how to prepare a lamb.
At this point I'm starving, thinking a burger might be a good idea.
Bloody (starving) Tourists!
"Cook ya bugger"!
What a sunset.
Still cooking, but by now most of us were half full of beer and wine!....
Except Jude and Sue who were full of wine and giggling like schoolgirls!
Let's eat!
Argentinian/Welsh hospitality.
By the time we had finished eating the only part left of the lamb was the bit that farts! and we'd all had more than our fair share of the local beer and wine. Somehow the conversation got round to letting off dynamite at the mine in Sucre and someone said "lets get rid of the last stick of dynamite in Chris's pannier"! Now the combination of blokes and alcohol is usually a recipe for mischief but the combination of blokes acting like small boys with alcohol and dynamite could end in tears! We all drove across the main road from the farm to the local gravel quarry and proceeded to blow up a nice pile of gravel which looked like it had been heaped up for that very purpose, everybody escaped intact except for getting showered in gravel and we made a hasty retreat back to the farm before the local cops came to investigate. Silly, very silly.
There are only two main roads running north to south in Argentina and Chile, if you discount the Pan American highway there is Ruta 40 on the west side and Ruta 3 on the east. Both are mind numbingly boring and windy as hell but to get to Ushuaia in Tierra Del Fuego you must use one of them or a combination of both, there is also the Carretera Austral a 'go nowhere' road that runs through rural Patagonia for a length of 1240km and provides access to only about 100,000 people, half of which live in the main town of Coyhaique. With the exception of a few kilometers it is all unpaved but it passes through some of the most beautiful areas in South America.
The start of the Carratera Austral.
Everyone left late the next morning with that hungover feeling and headed for the Austral, the first days ride was fairly difficult with odd sections of really deep gravel that kept us on our toes. An hour into the journey and we were crossing back into Chile at one of the outpost borders, this was where the 'cock up' with the paperwork raised it's ugly head. When we entered Argentina at Angostura, the young border official had given me the wrong form (bastard), I was unaware there was anything wrong until the Customs guy pointed it out in a "do you realise what this means" manner. In theory, you should return to the point of entry to rectify the problem and I had heard of people being forced to travel hundreds of miles to do just that!. You know how actors have the ability to turn on the tears when in character, well, at that moment I would have loved to have had that talent. Fortunately for us the Official was composed almost entirely of human parts with the odd electrical circuit board implanted to allow him to function as a government employee, so with a little pleading and "how could such a thing happen in Argentina" routine from all of us, I was out of there with like a shot with a new set of 'toilet wipes'.
The term 'highway' is a gross exaggeration, in parts, the road was wide enough for only one vehicle and the hairpin bends through the mountains meant you had to take a really wide line in case there was something coming the other way. For the most part we rode slowly on the deep stuff but still maintained a steady pace and where the surface was hard packed and straight you could run at 50mph(ish). We stopped often enough to take photos or just enjoy the surroundings but if we're honest it was a chance to get off the gravel and off the bike. By the end of the day, Johannes and Jude were fed up with the conditions and so we stopped short of our intended destination at Puyuhuapi and stayed at a little gem of a hotel in La Junta.
Views along the Caraterra Austral.
Turquoise waters of a glacial river.
This was one of the good stretches, a wide road and tracks to follow.
Views straight out of a tour brochure.
Dave refused to stop playing the part of a 'Star Wars' storm trooper.
Another mobile road block, and a bunch of backpackers (SB's).
Today had been fun for most of us in a sadistic kind of way, the rough conditions were enjoyable but only on reflection. How anyone has the nerve to sit for eight hours on the back of a bike that's all over the road is beyond me, my admiration for Sue and Jude as pillion passengers increases daily ( "no ladies there is no other option"). Today though, I got the feeling that if there had been an easy 'get out' option J&J would have taken it. As it was they were in it now for the duration, another couple of days and we would hit Ruta 40, the chances are the gravel will be as bad if not worse and then there's the wind...
The route on the map for day two promised mostly paved roads...it lied. At some point in the future the Austral will all be paved and no doubt widened to enable tour buses to ferry 'hardcore tourists' back and forth along it's length. For now it remains in bad enough shape to deter everyone except the foolhardy or the traveller looking for the kudos of having travelled one of the few remaining adventure highways.
The now defunct sign for the Austral originally named The General Augusto Pinochet. I'm suprised it's still standing (unlike the General!).
Riding down into Puyuhuapi
Smelly bikers Rule OK!
This is why you ride the Austral.
Where a stream floods and washes away the road surface they simply fill the hole with bigger rocks.
Because the Austral winds it's way through the mountains it gets more than it's fair share of rainfall which sustains dense, lush vegetation.
The second day was slow, the road conditions were worse and everyone was happy when we rolled into Coyhaique, the main town on the highway. In the hotel that evening we met Charles from Brazil, Charles is a State Trooper (traffic cop) back home and had been on a ride to Tierra Del Fuego with his wife, Suzette, she had flown home from Ushuaia and Charles was making his way back to Brazil up Ruta 40 and the Austral. His comments on Ruta 40 sounded like a horror story but there is a perverse pleasure in having done something really difficult and then making it sound even worse for the next person!
Sue had a bad camera day and both cameras she was using packed up, the extract from her diary reads: My camera is broken - Shit!, G gave me his other camera and that won't turn on at times - Shit! Shit!...I love the sincerity in Sue's diary, and whilst it's not a private document I do feel as though I am invading the only private place she has on this trip. I have to refer to it in order to complete the blog entries. Without it I would be completely knackered and becuase it's updated daily we always have a reference to where we were and when, so for me it's essential. For months now I have lost track of time (nothing unusual there then!) I honestly do not know what day it is, (nothing unusual there then!) but in reality there's no need to worry what day of the week it is, unless an appointment has to be made and then we tend to work with dates rather than days.
Sue had a bad camera day and both cameras she was using packed up, the extract from her diary reads: My camera is broken - Shit!, G gave me his other camera and that won't turn on at times - Shit! Shit!...I love the sincerity in Sue's diary, and whilst it's not a private document I do feel as though I am invading the only private place she has on this trip. I have to refer to it in order to complete the blog entries. Without it I would be completely knackered and becuase it's updated daily we always have a reference to where we were and when, so for me it's essential. For months now I have lost track of time (nothing unusual there then!) I honestly do not know what day it is, (nothing unusual there then!) but in reality there's no need to worry what day of the week it is, unless an appointment has to be made and then we tend to work with dates rather than days.
The last day on the Austral would take us to the ferry across Lake General Carerra, it was only a short ride so we had a lie in and a late start as the ferry didn't leave until 6:30pm. The Caraterra Austral finishes at a dead end 440km south of Coyhaique and from there the only way forward is by ferries (or turn around and come back) so most people travel around the lake and enter Argentina at Chile Chico. Scenically, the ride around the lake is supposed to be the best part of the Caraterra Austral but also the most arduous in terms of riding, J&J had decided they'd had enough of gravel roads and would not contemplate another day of discomfort so we opted for the easier ferry option. We'd only gone 40km when Chris got a puncture but not your usual nail in the tyre job, no, this one had managed to cut the sidewall of the tyre. We managed to fix it with some tyre 'snakes' which are plugs of soft rubber that are forced into the hole in the tyre and then expand to fill the gap assisted by copious amounts of glue.
Not a good start to the day.
Johannes gives the repair the thumbs up.
Looks a mess but believe it or not it worked.
Riding from Coyhaique to Ibanez.
Pure Patagonia!
Overlooking Puerto Rio Ibanez.
When we finally arrived at the ferry port we discovered there were no tickets left for our ferry, then someone suggested we talked to the captain when the ferry docked and see if he could squeeze four bikes on board. The ferry arrived late and the car park was full, so we figured it would mean spending the night in town and catching the ferry the next day.
Women and children first, Oh! and smelly backpackers!
As it turned out the Captain was a real gentleman and gladly accepted our money, but still refused to throw the backpackers overboard.
Crossing on the ferry.
'Feet up' time at Hostel Patagonia, Chile Chico.
Next stop Ruta 40.
The ferry was an hour late in arriving due to a head wind, and by the time we disembarked at Chile Chico it was 10:00pm and pitch dark. Fortunately we were the first off the ferry so managed to get to the hostel before the SB's and a quick bite to eat before hitting the sack, sadly J&J had made up their minds not to ride Ruta 40 down to El Calafate and would head east tomorrow and we'd catch them up on Ruta 3.
In the morning I went with Chris to a local tyre shop to get the puncture repaired properly, I'm impressed with the way the tyre snakes sealed the hole for the duration of yesterday's journey and when Chris checked his tyre pressure before we left for the repair shop it was still holding air well enough to ride on. Once that was done we set off for the junction of Ruta 40 at the town of Perito Moreno where we would once again separate as a group for a few days.
In the morning I went with Chris to a local tyre shop to get the puncture repaired properly, I'm impressed with the way the tyre snakes sealed the hole for the duration of yesterday's journey and when Chris checked his tyre pressure before we left for the repair shop it was still holding air well enough to ride on. Once that was done we set off for the junction of Ruta 40 at the town of Perito Moreno where we would once again separate as a group for a few days.
Next stop Ruta 40.
The road to Perito Moreno.
With our heads full of uncertainty about the coming trip, we rode the few miles down the road to the start of Ruta 40. We took the now obligatory photos next to the sign and said our goodbyes to Johannes and Jude before heading off on the short tarmac stretch to the 'road from hell'.....Hey, how hard can it be?
At a gas station in Perito Moreno we met Kev and Lorraine Hatchett from Portsmouth in the UK, they left home for Africa in January last year on their way around the world. They had just come off the 40 and over breakfast recalled more horror stories of wind, rain and gravel....Thanks for that guys!
Kev and Lorraine.
With our heads full of uncertainty about the coming trip, we rode the few miles down the road to the start of Ruta 40. We took the now obligatory photos next to the sign and said our goodbyes to Johannes and Jude before heading off on the short tarmac stretch to the 'road from hell'.....Hey, how hard can it be?
Johannes and Jude about to head the other way (on tarmac).
This lot on the other hand are in for a shock!..........Stay tuned.
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