12. Carretera Austral
DAY 178. Puerto Aysén to Rio Tranquilo
Looking out of my window in the morning, I can see lots of clouds. But some of them are very thin, so today has a potential. I slept pretty well, except I was waking up too often. But then I didn't have any problems to fall back to sleep again. People next-door were leaving it 4 o'clock in the morning and were making lots of noise. Where do you go at 4 o'clock in Patagonia?
I would like to get to a beautiful lake about 300 km from here today. The road takes me through deep and narrow valley full of trees and waterfalls. I stopped to take a few pictures, but I have to be selective over here. There are just way too many waterfalls to take pictures of. The farther I go the more of the blue skies is showing up. It is a chilly morning, temperature is just above 10°. When I reach town of Coyhaique it is a beautiful fall day. Summer is definitely over in Patagonia. I stopped for gas and took the opportunity to get a coffee and a sandwich. There is pretty much nothing for the next 200 km.
The road takes me through nice rolling hills. All of them are already harvested. It definitely looks more like in the Alps in Europe. But maybe it is the other way around. I turned off the main road which goes to Argentina and the scenery changes right away. There's more mountains, more Alpine, and more rivers. And nothing but blue skies. I ride through one National Park to another one. They are all spectacular. I stopped many times to take pictures and also return many times, if I don't have time to stop in time. If I continue like this, I will never get back home. And the scenery is getting more and more beautiful. One thing I realized that I have not seen any loging or commercial activities in Patagonia. Probably because it is just a mosaic of national parks.
Then I see the sign saying that the payment is ending. Oh, no what I'm gonna do? I guess I will continue. One thing I didn't mention here is that there are many people on bicycles on this route. I mean a lot. Today there are many times more bicycles than motorbikes. And the road for bicycles is not easy. Twisty and hilly, and lot of gravel. And the road is extremely dusty. One good thing about that is that you can see approaching car from afar. Chilean drivers like to drive in the middle of the road. They also like to cut corners. It's like they have to pay extra if they stay in their own lane. Luckily, the traffic is not that bad even though there are a few cars on the road. But considering this is the only road heading south or north it is not that bad.
It doesn't take that long to get to my destination on a beautiful lake. It looks pretty huge, even though this is only a small arm of a much bigger lake which straddles both sides of the border. It is extremely windy and there are a lot of whitecaps on the lake. It would be a good day for windsurfing or kiteboarding or sailing in general. I'm not sure it is allowed because I haven't seen any water sports activities for 700 km.
Rio Tranquilo a small settlement on the shore of the lake. Is a very touristy place. I've seen several dozens of adventure bikes around the village. I planned on camping tonight but after seeing few campgrounds, I ditched that idea. Pretty gross. Then I found a small motel and luckily for me they had a free room.
They are beautiful marble caves on the lake which are the main attraction over here. Unfortunately, the wind is howling today because there are huge waves on the lake. All the operators are grounded and nobody's going anywhere. Maybe tomorrow. I have to keep my fingers crossed
DAY 179. Rio Tranquilo to Cochrane
Morning today is pretty chilly. It is 7° outside. There are a lot of high clouds today, it can go either way. I may go for a boat tour in the morning but I'm not hundred percent convinced either. There are four other bikers staying in the same place as me, they are from Chile. But they have so much crap on their bikes, it looks like they're going around the world at least three times. I'm not sure what people are taking with them. I have less than half what they have and I have used only about 1/3 what I've got. Whatever works, I guess.
I was packed and on my way very quickly today. When I got to the lake, there was nothing moving. I don't plan to hang around and wait for a tour boat. So I'm going to skip the marble cave. Not a big deal. The road is the same as yesterday coming in. Actually, it is worse, it is more broken up and more washboards. And it is still incredibly dusty. It is still quite early for the traffic but they're already people on the road. They ride like they stole the car, rocks and gravel are flying everywhere. Unlike yesterday, there is no wind in the morning today. It takes a long time for dust to settle. But by then there's always another car nearby. It is incredibly frustrating and highly annoying. I'm not having fun riding today. It doesn't help that it is the weekend and a lot of people are coming up just for the day. The scenery, on the other hand, is gorgeous. There's always a snowy mountain peak or two in sight. Together with beautiful turquoise colour of the river makes beautiful views. Today is only short hop to the last town in Patagonia on the Chilean side. It is only 110 km today. But still hate the ride today.
The highlight of today is the confluence of the river Nef and river Baker. Beautiful view of the River Baker with a huge drop in elevation forming giant rapids. Colour of the water is beautiful and contrasting with blue sky and snow covered peak behind. There are a few other serious photographers judging by their camera gear. Naturally, we started to talk about photography. Francisco is from southern Chile and specializes in photographing volcanos. I haven't checked his website because I don't have internet here but judging by his business card, there should be some seriously beautiful pictures. I'll just put the link here.
I hung around for a little bit and it was time to go. The road was getting from bad to worse. The traffic has increased that there is one car after another. I cleaned my visor about 10 times in 100 km. The last 20 km was on an incredible bad washboard. Doesn't matter what speed I was going, I was afraid that my bike will fall apart any second. Unfortunately, I will have to go through this stretch again in a couple days on my way to Argentina. But let's not think about it yet.
I arrived in Cochrane and drove through the town. There's really nothing here. Half of the shops are permanently closed, there is no hotel and nothing really to see. I checked one campground, but I didn't like it so I continued and found another one, this one is much better. Nice grassy area off the main road with hot showers included. All for $10. Can’t go wrong.
It is getting colder overnight. It's supposed to be 4° tomorrow morning. Pretty chilly. I have about 230 km tomorrow including one ferry crossing. That will take me to the end of Carretera Austral. The road ends there. There is no way to get through mountains to Argentina from there. I have to come back to Cochrane again and then over the pass through the mountains to Argentina. That will be in the next chapters.
DAY 180. Cochrane to Villa Higgins, The End of Carretera Austral
We had some excitement during the night. One guy’s alarm went off and it did nothing to wake him up. After a few minutes when everybody in the camp was awake except this guy, people start making noises. Nothing was working and the alarm kept ringing. I have finally had enough, and got up and walk over to his tent. I was calling the guy and shaking his tent, but nothing was working. I open his tent and his phone was right beside his head. He was squirming little bit but didn't wake up. I turned off his alarm and it was quiet. The girl from the next tent was awake now and pretty pissed off. She was yelling something in Spanish at him which I didn't understand but I don't think it was anything flattering. After 10 quiet minutes, his phone went off again. The girl went over there right away and sorted it once for all. That was our night intermezzo.
The morning was pretty cool, meaning it was very cold. 6°. Few clouds around, otherwise it looked pretty good. There are some lenticular clouds over the mountains so I know it must be blowing pretty hard up there. I packed the camp and had a shower and I was driving south. I took a full tank of gas is there is nothing for next 230 km.
The road was as bad as yesterday. A lot of washboards and very dusty. How dusty I found when some cars passed me. With no wind, the sand was hanging around for a long time again, it wasn't a fun ride. The views were beautiful just like yesterday. The sun pretty soon hid behind the clouds. It was nothing to write home about but it was pretty nevertheless. I must've eaten at least 5 pounds of dust. The bad part is, I have to do this sector tomorrow in reverse.
I arrived at the ferry terminal on the lake. The ferry should take us about half an hour across the lake. It is part of the road so it is free. There were already cars lined up, but I rode all the way up to the front. Bikes have special privileges everywhere except in Canada. There was a bike touring company there with huge camper like support vehicle and two EV pick up trucks. There were two EV charging stations and pick up trucks were juicing up. Both charging stations were powered by a huge diesel generator sitting next to it. I just don't get this EV stuff. Side note, rental company Hertz announced this week that they are selling 20,000 of their EV vehicles because they are too expensive to maintain.
Anyway, the ferry came, we all boarded and we were sailing on the other side of the lake. Actually, only half of the vehicles got on. It is a small ferry. My problem was that I was stuck all the way in the back and now I will have to pass all those cars or eat the dust for the next 100 km. I have decided to switch on Dakar mode. It was tricky because it was basically one lane dirt and dusty road. For some reason drivers in Chile don't wanna let me pass them. I don't know if it's me or it is motorcycles or they just been stupid. I passed everybody except one Kia. I was right behind him, and it was obvious he was doing anything so I cannot pass him. Came to a wide place like a bridge and he just went right to the middle and I had nowhere to go. Sides of the road were deep loose gravel so I couldn’t pass him. The thing he had to do was just to slow down 10 km/h and move the side. Nope there was too much for him and he was driving like his Dakar victory was on the line. He had the Dakar logo sticker on his car. It was really pissing me off. There was no real reason to keep me behind him. I will disappear in the distance within a few minutes and he's sitting in nice air condition car. I was flashing my lights honking my horn. I was right 5m behind him, and he still didn't let me pass him. If I would slow down, I would probably be still behind him, eating the dust. This doesn't make any sense to me. After this was going on for about 20 km I was getting really pissed off. But then he made a mistake in one turn and let me in enough room just to squeeze by. All I wanted to do is to stop and put my bike across so he cannot pass me and beat the shit out of him. But I just slowed down to a crawl and let him suffer for a little bit. And I also did some gesturing, and shown him some of my fingers on my hand. Then I just accelerated, and never saw him again. I swear if I see him in the town I'll go and slap him silly. Anyway, the rest of the road was really nice and I have a lot of good time just riding. I'm getting really comfortable with my bike in the dirt. There were few really nice places to take pictures of, but I didn't want to stop and let everybody pass me again. So I just concentrating on riding my bike.
The nature here is pretty rugged. The climate here is very tough. There's no settlement or villages or anything until you actually reach the last town, which is Villa O’Higgins. This is the last town on this road. You can’t even call it town. It is just a few houses. And this is also the end of Carretera Austral, Ruta 7. The official end is about 7 km behind the town. Of course I had to ride there. There's a big sign saying that this road is 1,247 km long and this is the end of it. I took a few mandatory pictures and return back to town looking for a place to sleep. I found a nice campground and made it home for one night. There are a lot of people on their bicycles over here and also on their motorbikes. Interestingly enough, there are more bicycles here and I've seen many more on the road. Hats off to them because the road is not easy for motorbike not to mention bicycles.
Anyway, this is it for this chapter. The only way to get out of here is to do this section in reverse tomorrow and then further up north before I cut to through the mountains to the east to Argentina and continue riding south on the Argentinian side of Patagonia. It was fun riding here. I have some amazing pictures and for 90% of the time I really really enjoyed this road.