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Hello! Well, this is it - the last blog entry for my trip! I'm writing this more than one month after finishing and time has been flying by. As quickly as time has been going, it also seems like I left El Chaltén a lifetime ago. Since then I've seen the massive glacier Perito Moreno, hiked in Torres del Paine National Park, gone to a rodeo, celebrated Christmas in Punta Arenas, crossed the Straight of Magellan, and ridden to Ushuaia, the "End of the world", battling the worst headwind of the trip. Here's how it all went down...
Before leaving El Chaltén, I attempted another trek that I was really excited about. The most popular "extreme" adventure in the area (maybe after scaling Fitz Roy itself), is trekking around the Fitz Roy massif, which requires traversing two tough passes and spending at least two days on the southern ice field - the largest non-poplar ice field in the world. Since I haven't had experience with that kind of thing, didn't have anyone knowledgeable to do it with, and didn't want to pay thousands of dollars for a guide, I decided to do my own version of it. I would head out the way most parties return, crossing the "Windy Pass" first, and then turn left, and walk next to the glacier from the relative comfort of land.
I had just heard that someone else in town had done this route in two days - which I had no intention of doing - so I packed food for three and a half days and headed out of town after registering at the park office. The rangers there gave me some information about the route, including where to cross the melt-water river from the first glacier I'd encounter, then how to cross that glacier and loop around back to town. It was also encouraging to know that someone was able to do it so quickly.
My first day was relatively short to an established camp, since the only other option would get crossing the pass and walking a couple hours more to a refuge. The second day I packed up and early on faced the braided river leaving the upstream glacier. Until the very end, I was able to hunt around for narrow or shallow spots, but the last was deep and wide enough that I had to remove my boots and pants to wade across to the other side. The air and water temperature were just a fraction of a degree above freezing, and by the time I got to the other side, my toes were completely numb. I got my socks back onto my wet feet as quickly as possible, then continued onward towards the pass. After that point the trail became almost impossible to follow - it was hard to believe anyone had been there before. Luckily just after I reached the glacier, an 8 person trekking expedition who had done the full loop over the previous 8 days, passed and I knew I could get on the glacier at that point. I talked to the leaders briefly, who gave me some useless information, and I continued on in the direction of the pass. I reached the end of the glacier without seeing any way to either get off of it, or up the steep, loose moraine (like sand) on the other side, and I walked back and forth for about half an hour trying to find some evidence of a trail, or even the footprints of the eight people who had just passed. Unfortunately, there was nothing. It was also windy and snowing and the visibility wasn't good enough to see the pass, so without a trail, and without being able to see the pass, I had to give up and turn around.
I met the expedition I had passed earlier that day when I got back to the camp and went right to the leaders asking about the trail. The said it wasn't really a trail at that point, and I would have just had to make my way up the moraine and towards the pass. The other group members later told me that even if I had been able to make it, there was too much snow on the other side of the pass, so it would have been impossible to continue after that. So, I guess this is why the trail is marked "Solamente con guia" on the maps. (Only with guide). I really would have liked to get a view of the ice field though, so not making it was disappointing.
After getting back to town I took a day off and prepared to leave, but I woke up with a terrible sore throat that lasted for four days and I was stuck in the hostel until I felt well enough to head out. The next stop was a town called El Calafate, where I would base myself while I made a side-trip to the Perito Moreno glacier. I thought it might take three days to get there, but with the wind, possibly much longer. I packed food for four and a half, hoping it would be enough, and luckily the wind forecast told me I'd have a good tailwind on the day I'd be heading east, not much of a crosswind on the day I was heading south, and only mild wind on the day I'd ride into El Calafate.
The ride went perfectly according to plan and I got to the first junction the first day, about 10 miles from the next junction on the second, and then into El Calafate early on the third. I passed about 8 other cyclists in total on the second and third days - most of them were touring for a few months in South America, and one of the guys was doing the second leg of his 4.5 year round the world trip, and was heading north to Alaska.
Some quick info for cyclists: You can get water about 45k from Chalten, there is a tin shack at the junction, behind the hills - after you turn onto the main road, there is a gate on the left and a dirt road heading towards a windmill, the shack is on the left. There is an estancia near the first junction after the lake with free water and expensive food, a highway department building about half way through the road where you can get water, and the two rivers before the junction for Calafate have potable water. The road to Calafate is pretty rolly and you can expect a headwind.
As I pulled into El Calafate I met two other guys who I had heard about, who had just started their northbound trip to Alaska - one had ridden from England to South Africa a year before. They were looking for a place to stay too and we all went to THE campground for cyclists, where a french couple and a french Canadian couple I had met in El Chaltén were already staying. There was a second French Canadian couple there, that was also headed north to Alaska.
I spent one day seeing the glacier, which was amazing. It's enormous and is one of the few advancing glaciers in South America. Another day was spent looking for a place to get my cracked trailer repaired, but after going to five places and always being sent to another, I gave up and decided to get it fixed in Puerto Natales instead. On the third day I got a late start and tried to leave, but the wind was so strong the police stopped me and told me I couldn't go because it was too dangerous. Before I could even leave, they changed their mind, got my passport number for some reason and told me just to be careful. I had changed my mind though, since even if I survived the wind, there would be no shelter that night and I'd have been blown away in my tent.
The next day was perfect and I did about 80 miles, with a great tailwind helping me over a small pass. During the day I met another French couple who was touring with backpacks on ultralight road bikes. The guy asked me if they'd be able to do the Carretera Austral, which for most people is hard on mountain bikes. I said it might be possible, but even if their bikes survived, it wouldn't be fun. It actually upset me that people would come to a place like this being so unprepared - I wonder how far they made it.
I stayed at a police outpost that night where I was able to pitch my tent in the wind shadow of a small building, and use the indoor kitchen while the on-duty officer stared at me the whole time. Another one for my "most uncomfortable experiences" list. As I was leaving that morning, I met a couple from Oregon, who had started in Alaska a year after me, and had already caught up. If someone I met in Peru hadn't just finished after 3.5 years on the road, I'd have felt even slower! Amazingly, we had already been talking through the panam-riders email group about an end of the world/end of the year party for cyclists in Ushuaia. We rode together for a few days into Torres Del Paine, where they continued on and I stayed to hike.
More stuff for cyclists: There is a river and campamento between the left turn back towards Chalten and the climb - but this is more useful for northbound cyclists. At the junction of the route 40 shortcut there's a highway department building where you can stay. In the middle of the shortcut there is a river and the police station. At Tapi Aike, there is a gas station with drinks and snacks, a police station and the Tapi Aike estancia, where you can ask permission to camp in the grassy area near a very dirty stream (get water at the gas station). Cerro Castillo has a small but well-stocked store where you can get everything you need, without paying the outrageous prices that are found inside the park. There is also a restaurant "El Ovejero" (if I remember correctly), where you can overpay for cookies, or buy bread. You can also exchange Argentinian Pesos at a horrible rate, or "buy" Chilean Pesos with a credit card for a 4% fee. You can loop through the park without backtracking, see the map I posted previously.
I spent five days in the park hiking and was constantly amazed by the scenery. As always, I was more impressed by the "unknown" parts of the park, than the most famous. The two-tone "Los Cuernos" (The horns), were the most impressive feature - better than the Torres (towers) themselves, and the best overall views from the hike were the view of the blue-green lake with islands and a backdrop of snow-covered mountains, which was before Campamento Italiano, and the Campamento Britanico area afterwards, with a massive, multi-colored amphitheater of granite. The day I hiked out to Britanico was my favorite of the five. The weather was great, I could go slowly and enjoy the scenery and spend as much time as I wanted at the viewpoint, before turning back. That night I went back down the trail to try to catch some avalanches from what I think was called the French Glacier (it's in the French Valley anyway), where I found a trail that goes all the way to the base of the glacier. I got to do some great exploring that was off the beaten path, which is hard to do in a park so crowded it's become known as "Tourists del Paine".
From the park it took me two days to get to the next town, Puerto Natales. I spent a day riding out of the park, slowed down partly by the rolling hills and dirt road, and partly by the fantastic scenery and wildlife, and I camped just outside the park in a small "town" (Villa Sorrata) that was little more than a cluster of hotels. A couple people told me that I could buy food there, and that it would be cheaper than inside the park, but when I got there there wasn't a store to be found. Desperately, I went from hotel to hotel, seeing if one had some food they could sell me. Finally I stopped at the Hotel Tyndall, where they gave me all the food I needed (and more!) for a great price. I rode back to a great looking camp spot that I had noticed on my way into town and as I pulled in, I heard a "snap!" from my trailer - it had finally broken. I unloaded everything and made sure it was reasonably well hidden, and rode back to the hotel, where I had noticed a good sized tool shed as I left earlier. I met one of the maintenance guys right away, explained my situation, and asked if he, or someone around could weld the trailer. He said sure, and that it would cost the equivalent of $10 US. After traveling for so long, you get very tuned into the common "micro-expressions" that people make when they're trying to charge you more than they know the service is worth. Not missing his, I said "Wow - that's a lot!", and he quickly said "OK, four dollars!". He was obviously new at this. I told him I'd pay him six (the amount I had paid for my last repair in Chile), but only if it worked - if he broke my trailer, he'd get nothing. We agreed and he got to work. About 15 minutes later he had made the ugliest, but perfectly adequate, weld I had ever seen, so I paid him and rode off. Broken to fixed in such a remote place in under 45 minutes - amazing luck!
The next day was a nice, but relatively uneventful ride into Puerto Natales, where I was looking forward to a few days off after so many back to back days of cycling and hiking (11 in total I think). I met two guys I had met back in Chalten, and we decided to go to the rodeo in town the next day. It was the real deal, with local cowboys and untamed young horses. It was interesting to watch. I checked the wind forecast that night, which was perfect for me to leave the next morning, so unfortunately I didn't get the rest day I had hoped for.
I made good time to Morro Chico, a strange outcropping at a junction in the road, where I was again able to stay at a police station, this time in one of the unused buildings out back. The next day I met a German couple early on, who also happened to be panam-riders members, and they knew me before I even introduced myself. We traveled together for the next two days to Punta Arenas, but since they already had a reservation at a hotel in town, we stayed in different places, and didn't meet up again until Ushuaia. I wasn't particularly attracted to Punta Arenas, and being a port town, the only noteworthy thing is the huge number of strip clubs throughout the town. I met the French couple Seb and Laeti for the third time there, and went penguin viewing with them the next day. They had a flight out to New Zealand that afternoon where they'd ride during the next part of their one-year world tour. I stayed at the Hostel Independencia, where there was a huge BBQ on Christmas Eve, then I headed out the following morning (Christmas Day), hoping to arrive in Ushuaia before New Year's Eve.
From Punta Arenas, I took a ferry across the straight of Magellan, to Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire), the island that contains Ushuaia. From there it was a surprising 6 days of riding to the end, but mostly because I had a headache one of the days and didn't ride far, and because of terrible wind leaving Rio Grande on the next day. Before I left town I ran into a woman named Holly who was also heading North towards Alaska! As always, when you meet these people you have to do a brain dump and give them advice on what's to come. We talked for 2 hours before I finally decided to head out and face what may have been the worst wind of the trip. I had a 5 mile upwind section, before the road turned south and crossed the river. I tried cycling for the first 2 miles or so, then gave up and pushed my bike the rest of the way - even that was hard and I had to stop several times to rest and eat (of course!). After turning the wind was more to my back and I made great time, but I spent so much time on the first 5 miles, and since I got such a late start, I didn't get very far overall. There was a great spot at the river Ewan Sur, where I camped, regretting that I wouldn't make it to the famous Panaderia La Union, a famous bakery that gives cyclists a free place to stay and all the pastries they can eat.
The next day I stopped in Tohluin to get some empanadas from La Union and to buy some food for the rest of my ride to Ushuaia. That night I got a little farther than I planned - to the base of the last pass of my trip, where I found a nice grassy place to pitch my tent.
The next morning I got packed up, squeezed everything through the fence I had come in through, snapped a quick "happy face" picture of myself on the last (928th) day of my trip, and started the easy climb over the final pass (Paso Garibaldi). Unfortunately the weather got worse throughout the day, and it started to rain just as I began the descent. It was cold and miserable - not how I would have liked to end my trip. I also didn't get to see much of the purportedly fantastic scenery on the last part of the road into Ushuaia, and upon arriving to town, I didn't see the famous sign greeting travelers and reminding them they were in the southernmost city in the world (I later learned that it had been taken town and replaced by a more modern looking, but less photo-friendly structure at the town border). I was able to find a "Fin del Mundo" (End of the world), sign on harbor, and settled for a picture there, taken by someone who was asking me about my trip and I figured they could do me a little favor.
So that was it - my trip was finally over. And the big question has been "how did it feel?". Honestly, I can't say it felt like anything at all. As with most people who have done this trip it was just another end of another day, no different than any of the others that had come before it; this day was only different because there wouldn't be another one following it. I wouldn't call it anticlimactic though, since I wasn't expecting there to be a sudden feeling of relief or accomplishment, and I think part of this underwhelming reaction has to do with the sheer size of the trip. It's too big to get your head around in the beginning, and it's too big to get your head around at the end. It didn't feel like one trip or one experience as much as many small trips and many experiences that I began to see more as my life than something separate from it with a clear beginning and end. Arriving in Ushuaia also really reminds you of what a personal mission it has been, since when you arrive, there is no finish line, no one waiting at the end to congratulate you, no one you pass on the street knows what you've done - and if there had been, all they would know is the time you've spent and the distance you've covered, which to me are so insignificant compared to the depth of the experiences that this trip was really about. Traveling this way, you can live 10 lifetimes in two and a half years and to focus on something as insignificant as a number would mean that I had totally missed the point.
I had hoped to find a cheap boat to Antarctica from Ushuaia, but the boats that were leaving soon were too expensive, and the boats that were less expensive left three weeks from when I got there, so sadly, I had to decide that I had seen enough, and a trip to Antarctica would have to wait. I was in town for about a week and a half, mostly looking for boats, selling my bike, trailer, tent and sleeping bag, doing some souvenir shopping, and making trips to the national park and through the harbor on a boat tour. I wanted to leave sooner, but all the flights were booked until January 15th, and even the buses were full for a few days, so I had to occupy myself until I could get out of the city. I opted for taking buses up the coast to Buenos Aires for a few reasons, even though the cost was about the same as a flight and they take 50 hours instead of 3.5 - I could head north much sooner by bus, I wanted to stop at a beach town before Buenos Aires (and without a parachute, this wouldn't have been possible from a plane), and maybe most importantly I wasn't ready to leave the ground and miss seeing everything on the way up the coast. After seeing everything in such detail on the way down, deciding that nothing else was worth seeing on the return trip just didn't seem right - why should I not care just because I had stopped pedaling?
I had two nice days in the Necochea area on the coast, but the water was too cold to spend much time in, and the waves weren't good for surfing. I got to see a little of Buenos Aires, which is an enormous city of 13 million people, with some great architecture and an 18 lane highway that's said to be the widest in the world. It's another place that I could see myself living in - but not now. From there I flew to Santiago for a connection and got to experience a 5.6 earthquake while waiting in the airport, then my next connection was in Toronto where it was snowing, then finally I flew to New Orleans where I arrived at the same time as my friend Cher, who was awesome enough to bring me my favorite pizza in her luggage! We spent 6 days seeing four of the Gulf states, Louisiana, Missisippi, Alabama and a little of Florida. Next I flew to my Mom's place farther south in Florida and spent a few days there with her and her boyfriend, before finally flying back north to Rhode Island where I've been staying with my Dad and step-mom.
Since I got to Rhode Island I've been almost constantly busy looking for jobs, a place to live, a car, buying clothes and other things I need to get started again and trying to catch up on the latest changes in IT, since I'm hoping to go back to a job in that field. Tomorrow I'll be checking out a temporary apartment in Boston, where I can pay week to week while I continue my search for a job and a permanent place to live. I'm still considering a move to another part of the country, with San Diego, Denver and Portland high on the list.
I want to thank my family for their support and encouragement before and during the trip, for giving me places to stay since I've been back, my Dad for driving me around everywhere and letting me use his car (amazingly, I can still drive a car!) and I also wanted to congratulate my sister and her husband for giving me my first niece! I tried hard to get home in time, but they were just a few days too early! Lastly, I want to thank everyone who has followed along, and everyone who has donated to my fundraisers - every donation was greatly appreciated! Thank you all.
Again, if you'd like to be notified of my next trips, please join my mailing list using the form below. I'll send a brief update when I make changes to this website, create one for other trips, or when there is any other noteworthy travel-related news.
Hi all! This is just a summary of the Austral and the crossing into Argentina for the people behind me.
I crossed from Trevelin, Argentina to Futaleufu, Chile and got on the Austral at Villa Santa Lucia.
South of Santa Lucia the road is narrow, with steep sides and loose gravel. My front tire had almost no traction for most of that section and I lost control of my bike on a descent because of it. (I just ran off my bike so I was OK).
The whole route was more hilly than I expected. The days that stand out are the pass south of Queulat, the paved pass after Coyhaique (not too hard, but the highest of the Austral), the day before Rio Tranquilo was pretty rolly, with one section that almost everyone has to push on. From Puerto Bertrand to Cochrane was the hardest day probably, with several very steep sections - if you do Rio Tranquilo to Cochrane in two days, try to get a little past Bertrand on the first, in order to make the second day easier - there was good camping along the river after Bertrand. From the junction to Puerto Yungay there is some climbing - it took me about 5 hours to get from Tortel to the boat, including a break for lunch. The ferry schedule will be changing soon, and should be running 3 times per day (10, 12 and 6 I think) - ask when you're in the area. The first half of Rio Bravo to Villa O'Higgins had about three big climbs. After that it is pretty flat.
Some good things to do/see are the glacier at Queulat (Ventisquero Colgante), the Bosque Encandado after the pass south of Queulat, Capilla de Marmol at Rio Tranquilo, and Tortel.
There is a casa de cyclistas in Maniguales - from there it's a one day ride to Coyhaique. There is a bike shop in Coyhaique. There is a building at Rio Bravo with bathrooms where you can sleep. There are good free maps and an informational book at the visitor center in Puyuguapi. The road is almost always one lane, and dusty - you'll have to get off the road for each passing truck.
Most towns have places to stay, some for as little as 4000 pesos. Finding food also isn't much of a problem, and on average I had to carry food for two days. There is water everywhere. Free-camping is harder than you would think because of all the damn fences (Patagonia ¡Sin Cercas!). I'll be updating TourBuddy soon with info on the towns on the Austral. (http://www.panamericantour.net/tourbuddy/)
To get from Villa O'Higgins to Argentina you need to take the boat run by Hielo Sur (they never answer email - make a reservation, but don't expect it to be confirmed). The boat runs once a week in November, and two to three times per week starting in December. I don't recommend the Saturday departure because if it is delayed and you can't get to Lago Del Desierto by 6PM on Sunday, you will have to wait until Tuesday at 12 for the next boat across Lago del Desierto. At the north end of Lago del Desierto there is a refuge for 20 pesos per night, or you can camp for free, but there is no food available and it can be very windy. The Hielo Sur boat costs 40,000 pesos (Chilean). The Lago del Desierto boat costs 100 pesos (Argentinian). Everyone seems to stay at El Mosco in Villa O'Higgins, which is a great hostel. It costs 7000 per night.
To get from the port where Hielo Sur leaves you (Candelario Mancillo), to Lago Del Desierto, you will have to push, pull, carry and drag your bike for about 6 hours. From the port there is a steep climb where you'll be pushing half the time. From the top you can ride for a while, until you reach the Argentinian border where the road turns into a trail. When you see the sign for the aerodromo before the border, you should go that way instead of along the road, since the bridge has been washed away. After the aerodromo there is a bridge, then take a left where the road splits. Before the border is about 15km and will take about 3 hours.
After the border there is a trail all the way to Lago Del Desierto. This section is only 7km, but will take about 3 hours without stopping - hardly any of it is rideable. There are two big fallen trees that you'll have to lift your bike over, one smaller tree, three unbridged rivers where you'll probably want to take your shoes off to cross - one is knee-deep. All the water is very cold. There are deep "ruts" made by horses and erosion that are too narrow for a bike with two low front panniers, you'll have to remove at least one pannier to get through. A bob trailer just barely fits.
It's POSSIBLE to follow the trail along the east side of Lago Del Desierto, but I STRONGLY discourage it. The group I was with had six cyclists. We were stranded for a while at the north end of the lake because the ferry didn't come (it should come at 12 and 6 every day except for monday). Three of us had enough food to stay and wait, three others took the trail. One couple was traveling very light (two rear panniers each), and they were able to carry most of their gear in backpacks to make their bikes lighter. They did the trail in 6 hours. A man traveling solo with four panniers and a rack bag needed 13 hours to get from one end to the other. For most of the trail he had to carry his unloaded bike, then go back to carry his gear.
I'm using a BOB trailer with a backpack on top. Wearing the backpack between Candelario and Lago Del Desierto helped me a lot since it made the trailer more manageable. I think it would also help people with panniers. There was a surprisingly good selection of Doite backpacks at the general store in Cochrane if you're interested in this option.
There are ATMs in Futaleufu, Coyhaique, Cochrane. Others are off-route in Aysen and Chacabuco. There is an ATM in El Chalten. You will need to pay for the Lago del Desierto ferry with either USD or Argentinian Pesos - they don't accept Chilean Pesos - the same is true for the refuge at the north shore of the lake.
Good luck!
Hi all! I'm writing this from Florida, where I'm visiting my Mom on my way home. Just wanted to let everyone know that I'll be finishing my blog and posting more pictures once I get back to Mass/RI, and I'm hoping to write some more articles and get some other pages up about my gear and recommendations.
I have a few other trips in mind, so if you'd like to be notified about those, you can sign up for my personal mailing list below. It just takes a few seconds, and you'll receive a periodic email about my future trips and where to find their blogs and photos.
Lastly, the NKF fundraiser is currently at $915, which is soooo close to my goal of $1000. If you haven't donated yet, time is running out!
See you soon!
I'm done! 928 days in total. I rolled into Ushuaia yesterday afternoon in the rain, took the obligatory photo in front of the Fin del Mundo (End of the world) sign and then went to my hostel.
I want to thank everyone who has donated since my last request - only $240 to go before I update my blog and pictures!
It's possible to ride into and out of Torres del Paine without backtracking. Since it seems that no maps show this route, I'm posting the map from my GPS along with some distances and place names.
Since it might not be obvious, the distances correspond to each color of the route, Laguna Amarga and Villa Serrano are at the start/end of the colored lines, and Cerro Castillo is at the junction. The gray line to the east of Rte 9 is the Chile/Argentina border.
Rocket boots. It was the only explanation. After all, I had walked across the glacier four times and still couldn't find a single trace of the 8 person expedition that had passed just half an hour earlier. All that I could see was ice to my right, a massive wall of glacial moraine to my left and a white abyss in the direction of the pass I was heading for. At times I had to stop and brace myself against the fierce, cold wind that seemed determined to break my spirit.
And it did. But returning to my last camp wouldn't be easy either. Now I was standing bearfoot and in my underwear in a gusty snowstorm on the bank of the river I had crossed earlier that morning. A battle was playing out in my mind between my cowardice and my growing hypothermia. I squinted hard as if to silence the dissenting voice and took the first step, nearly losing my balance as my foot slipped on a round rock hidden below the icy, turbid surface...
THE END - possibly forever.
It's true. I'm holding this website hostage until I receive $1000 in donations for the National Kidney Foundation. I announced this fundraiser about 6 months ago and have received less than 10% of my goal, from only 8 of the 400 monthly visitors to this site. To be honest, I'm embarrassed to set the bar so low. Since my final destination, Ushuaia, is now less than one week of riding away, if you haven't donated yet, now would be a really good time!
Managing this website requires a fairly significant amount of time and money (spent on food and lodging during the days off while I'm working on it) and I'm not even asking for direct compensation - only a small donation to a charity that I have a personal interest in (if you don't know why, read my Donate! page more closely). If you have enjoyed reading my blog or viewing my pictures, think of your donation as a small token of appreciation for the time I've spent. So please give what you can: $5, $10, $20... If a friend or family member told you about this site, but they haven't visited recently themselves, a gentle reminder would be appreciated.
Click here to go directly to my fundraising page at the National Kidney Foundation website.
Thanks! Hope to see you all again soon!
Hellooooo from Argentina. Another month has passed and I've ridden over 600 miles / 1000 km from Futaleufú, down the famous Carretera Austral to Villa O'Higgins where I crossed into Argentina the "adventurous way" (more on that later...). I did almost no research on the Austral, since logistically it didn't seem too hard and I thought it would be better to be surprised by the scenery along the way. All I knew was that everyone I've met on this trip who has done it has told me that I have to go that way, so that was all the encouragement I needed!
The Carretera Austral is, for the most part, a one lane dirt road through Chilean Patagonia. It passes through mostly small towns and some settlements of several small houses, as well as through forests and mountains, near glaciers, fjiords, rivers, lakes and volcanoes. It's no surprise that it's a common trip for adventurous cyclists and possibly the only part more challenging than the cycling is remembering all the names that start with the letter "C". So let's "c"... It's the Carretera Austral, through Chilean Patagonia, and passes through Chaitén, Chacabuco, Coihaique, Cerro Castillo and Cochrane. Cyclists crossing by boat will arrive at Candelario Mancilla, where they'll cross to El Chaltén, and possibly continue on to El Calafate and later to another Cerro Castillo. Luckily after that things get a little simpler again...
I feel like I used up all the good adjectives a long time ago, and recycling them to give you an idea of what this road and area are like couldn't possibly do it justice. It's heartbreaking that work is already underway to dam the rivers in this part of Patagonia (which will of course flood certain areas), construct hydroelectric plants, and run power lines next to the road, which will soon be paved. It's a tragedy. You can go here: http://www.sinrepresas.com for more information.
I've already written an overview of the Austral and the crossing into Argentina for cyclists, and I think my pictures tell the story pretty well, so I won't try to explain the scenery or road conditions.
After about four months without a single cyclist sighting, I've met a bunch on the Austral and afterwards. The first was Miguel, a Chilean guy from Santiago who is riding the Austral on his vacation. We met between Cerro Castillo and Rio Tranquilo and rode together a bit, then went to the impressive eroded rocks of Capilla del Marmol, where the boat sometimes pulls right into the caves and lets passengers out to explore. We met a Chilean girl named Nidia on the boat, and her and I went to the Exploradores glacier that afternoon as Miguel continued on. I planned to leave the next day, but there was rain in the morning and by the time it stopped I was just too lazy to leave. I also met two more cyclists during the day, this time a couple from Italy who are riding the Austral, then hiking in Argentina and returning to Chile by one of the coastal ferries. We stayed at the same hotel in town, but because they don't speak much English or Spanish we couldn't talk much and only leap-frogged each other a few times after getting back on our bikes the next day.
The big "city" along the Austral is called "Coyhaique", which I came within about 15 miles of before having to hitch for the first time due to a mechanical problem. My extremely expensive, US-made hub (*ahem* - 'nuff info?) had finally died and getting up the last hill before town would have been nearly impossible. The freehub started skipping a little north of Mendoza, and some clever guys at a bike shop in town there were able to temporarily repair it by using some metal shims to fill in the extra space between the sealed bearings and the freehub body. Being only a temporary fix, it bought me some time, but by Coyhaique the teeth inside the freehub were severely damaged and the only option was to replace the hub. The timing was extremely fortunate since Coyhaique is the only place with a bike shop (there is only one) along the Austral and they had only one hub that would work with my bike (36 spoke and disc breaks). The manufacturer of the first hub is going to replace it for free and cover the shipping costs, but I still had to buy the new one to finish this trip. Incidentally, I could have bought 8 of the new hubs for what I paid for my first.
As always I had a bunch of other things to do on my day off, including repairing my fender, replacing my break pads, uploading my pictures, doing an extensive cleaning of my DSLR camera's sensor (and I still can't get all the dust off!!!), laundry, food shopping, etc... Like most of my "days off" I had to make myself a To Do list to make sure I wouldn't forget anything. Also, as luck would have it my kickstand had finally broken (I had been wondering when it would happen) and the bike shop in town had a kickstand almost exactly like mine on the workbench, which had broken in a different place, so I was able to fix mine for free.
Another case of good luck following bad luck was that I lost my gloves (nice Marmots) in Puyuguapi, and found a pair laying on a trail the next day. They're not quite as good, but at least my hands won't be cold.
Along with the glaciers (Exploradores and Ventisquero Colgante), Capilla de Marmol, the Bosque Encantado and the mountain Cerro Castillo, one of the attractions of the Austral is the small town "Tortel". Until about 2003 there was no road connecting to this coastal town, and without cars there was no need for streets, so a network of about 4 miles of boardwalks connects all the houses, stores, etc. It's a very unique place and definitely worth the small side trip from the main road. The only problem for a tired cyclist is the 100s of stairs that you must go down and back up to get to the food stores.
I was really excited to arrive in Villa O'Higgins, literally at the "end of the road" in this part of Patagonian Chile. I imagine getting to Ushuaia will feel almost the same, with the exception that after I get there there will be nowhere left to go but home (wherever that will be!). In town the Italians had already arrived, as well as a French couple who I hadn't seen before, and late in the evening a Czech guy rolled in, so there would be a group of 6 cyclists on the boat to Argentina. In the hostel there were also two backpacking couples, as well as a solo guy from France. It was a great group and it's good to finally be in places not only with other cyclists, but just adventurous people in general.
As always, I had more things to do before the boat left Villa O'Higgins. The "floor" of my trailer was detaching and I had to find someone to weld it. After looking around town I finally found a guy who claimed to have "some experience" welding - he charged me $6 for what must be the ugliest welding job ever done. I also had to replace a shifter cable, some cable housing, repair my themarest (inflatable mattress), do my laundry and put my pictures online. Day off? Ha! I also helped the owner of the hostel (El Mosco) move his website to a different provider that would let him make changes more easily, and since internet access on the Austral only comes from 3G USB dongles and the cell company tells you that it's not possible to share the connection (of course), I set up the computer as a wireless access point so that guests with laptops could connect to the computer with WiFi, to get internet access through the 3G connection. It's relatively easy with Windows 7 (except it was in Spanish of course), and the only tricky part was getting the Ad-Hoc network started when the computer starts (a scheduled task takes care of that). Anyway, for helping with those two things, I didn't have to pay for my three nights there.
Our boat across Lago O'Higgins was delayed for a day due to wind, so we departed on Sunday morning and got to the other side of the lake after 2.5-3 hours, which is where the fun starts for cyclists. The Chilean customs station is close to the port, so the first thing to do is stamp out of Chile, then begin a big climb on a loose dirt road to the pass, during which most cyclists will be pushing half the time. After the pass it's possible to ride again - for a while - before passing an airstrip in the middle of nowhere, and later a sign in the forest saying that you've arrived in Argentina. From that point the "road" (more of a 4x4 track) turns into a trail and for the next 3 hours and 7km or so, cyclists will be pushing their bikes, carrying them over fallen trees, crossing icy and sometimes knee-high rivers barefoot, and navigating rocks, roots and deep, narrow ruts made by horses and erosion.
To make things more interesting it was raining most of the time, and we had a 6PM deadline since the ferry for the next lake (Lago del Desierto) doesn't run on Mondays. It was a great group though, and we were able to work as a team, helping the others with their bikes and luggage, and managing to stay in pretty good spirits. We all managed to get to the lake a little before or a little after 6PM, but because of the bad weather the boat didn't arrive. The incredibly stupid (don't get me started) guys at the Argentinian immigration station/ferry dock, assured us the ferry would arrive the next day, even though we had been told before that it NEVER comes on Mondays. The boat didn't come of course and since we had very little food the backpackers left to hike around the lake.
On Tuesday we still had no guarantee that the boat would be coming, but the smart immigration guys didn't think to ask why, or when it would arrive, so the Italian couple and the Czech guy also left to attempt the trail next to the lake. The scheduled 12AM boat didn't arrive, and myself and the other two cyclists started making other plans including hiking without the bikes and returning when the ferry was running again, or doing the trip 3 times, once with the bikes, and again with the luggage. Then, while I was walking around I noticed that there were horses and asked the immigration guys if they could carry our gear to the other side of the trail, if we carried our bikes. They said "sure, but you should have asked yesterday, because we can't take you today or tomorrow!". They hadn't told anyone that it was an option even though they knew we had very little food and very little Argentinian currency to keep waiting - and the only reason they couldn't take us was that "maybe tourists will come on the boat". Yes, the same boat we had been waiting for and we still had no idea when it would arrive. You can see how frustrating this would be I'm sure. At last, we were told at a little after 4PM that the boat would be arriving at about 5:30, so we scrambled to pack our stuff and get back out to the dock.
As hard as the trail was from the border to the lake, the trail along the side of the lake is supposed to be 3-4 times harder, which is why the cyclists were so reluctant to do it. We all met up after finally arriving in El Chalten and learned that the Italians, who were traveling very light, were able to put their gear into their backpacks and carry their unloaded bikes - arriving at the other end of the lake in only 6 hours. The Czech guy had four panniers and a rack bag and needed 13 HOURS to do the trail. We heard that it usually takes about 12 hours for cyclists to go this way.
Since I had already had some time off waiting for the boat, I headed right out to the trails the day after arriving in El Chalten, the "trekking capital of Argentina", and best known for the amazing peaks of the Fitz Roy Range. I decided to do a three day circuit, first out to the Laguna Torre, with a glacier and Cerro Torre in the background, then to a hike-in campground (Campamento Poincenot), where I'd base camp for two nights while visiting the awesome, thundering glacier Piedras Blancas, and the Laguna de Los Tres, which is one of two lakes right below Fitz Roy itself. The last day was a relatively short two hour hike back to town.
I waited until about 4PM to go up to Laguna de Los Tres, and when I arrived it was snowing. Just as I was about to leave it started clearing up, so I stuck around, and finally stayed to watch the sun set. Here's what I saw:
Pretty huh? After the sun fell behind the mountains it started getting cold fast, and I literally ran back to camp with my camping neighbor, a French girl named Sandrine, which was a mistake that my quads weren't going to let me forget about. I took the day off yesterday to recover and I've done the same today, even though I'm feeling much better. (Gotta be careful with the knees after all). There's another hike that I really want to do, but I might end up doing a shorter version of it instead. It will be from 3-5 days and will give me views of the Campo Heilo Sur icefield, which is one of the largest non-polar icefields in the world. The forecast says it will be raining tomorrow though, so I don't know what I'll do yet.
Hello again! Just wanted to write another quick update before leaving town. I'm in love - Futaleufú is awesome and it's hard to leave, but there are more amazing places ahead and I need to keep moving. Yesterday I got back from my three day trek to Lago Azul and I'm actually feeling pretty good today - my last two day hike did a good job of getting me in shape apparently. The hiking was relatively flat, but where there was a trail there was a lot of mud, and after branching off the main valley the trail vanished and a fair amount of bushwhacking was required. The effort paid off though, and I arrived at Lago Azul just in time to catch part of the glacier give way and the following cascade of snow down a sheer granite face. I stayed at the lake for more than an hour while there were more booms from the breaking ice, and the kind of cracking you would hear during a great thunder storm.
At least one tour company in town advertises trips to Lago Azul, but I'm not assuming that means they've actually GONE there, because getting through the thick forests wasn't easy (understatement of the year) and there were absolutely no signs that anyone had ever been there before. The fact that I made it to such a remote, unvisited place definitely added to the experience. I'd love to go back and check out the other lakes in the valley. A girl working in the area and living at the hotel I've been staying at has some contacts in town, and if I can get a job leading hikes or bike tours this tourist season, I'll definitely be back!
Futaleufú from Cerro de la Bandera The reason I stayed!
Lago Azul from Space! When I got back the first thing I did was check my GPS Logger to make sure I got to the right lake! (The white spots on the lake are floating ice!)
Snow cascade! This was happening just as I arrived.
First Cairn! I had to mark my territory by erecting the first cairn at the lake!
Well, I managed to get one short day of riding in since my last blog entry. Between Trevelin and here was probably the easiest Andes crossing of the trip, and since there was no one else around, the customs process was also a breeze. I planned on spending just one night in Futaleufú, and I actually did try to leave the following morning, but it started raining heavily and after only 30 minutes I turned around. Things cleared up enough that by around 5PM I was able to hike to the Mirador de la Bandera (viewpoint of the flag), where the amazing panoramic view convinced me that leaving this area without exploring it more would be a bad idea!
Not wasting any time, the next day I caught a boat to a remote village on the far side of Lago Espolón, and hiked back to Futa that afternoon and the next day. Other than some soreness from my backpack and my soft feet, it was a pretty awesome trek. I took a "recovery" day after, then had a rain day yesterday, which was also a holiday here so I couldn't do any route-investigation. Today I finally was able to get more info about the other routes in the area (really so little that I shouldn't have bothered) and I did another short hike to Piedra del Aguila (Eagle Stone), where there was another mind blowing view. Tomorrow I'll head out to the Rio Azul valley, which I spotted in Google Earth and later learned is hikeable, where I'll base camp after a day of hiking and spend one or two days exploring two or three amazing looking lakes in the area - at least one of which has floating ice, and presumably a small glacier!
Futaleufú is famous for the great rafting in the area and during the summer people come from all over the world to experience the rapids. Since I'm a few months too early for the party I seem to be the only tourist in town, which is great because the hotel here gave me a special deal - if I don't sleep here, I don't pay! I can just leave all my stuff in the room and come and go as I please. It's really a shame that Futa isn't considered a hiking destination, since in my experience (over a year in the Andes!) it's a pretty unique place. It's right in the mountains, with valleys radiating in every direction, and a short walk or "hitch" will get you to any trailhead. The trails are also great, they're unsigned and generally not designed with trekking in mind, but instead are used by all the locals who live in remote places throughout the area - many of which are subsistence farmers. There are so many hiking possibilities I could spend weeks here.
During my rest and rain days I looked a little more into my plan for the remainder of my trip. The route I REALLY wanted to take back to Argentina requires taking a boat, then possibly a few horses (for my gear), then another boat - and the boats only start running in November. So I get to spend a little time here hiking, and then a little farther south I'll do another trek of about three days in a place called Reserva Nacional Cerro Castillo, which is supposed to have some of the best self-guided hiking in Patagonia. After that I'll take the boat to El Chaltén, the "hiking capital of Argentina", where I'll hike through Los Glaciares National Park and around Fitz Roy. Not long after that I'll check out Perito Moreno Glacier and just a little farther on I'll arrive in Torres del Paine, where I think I'll have to do some more trekking. :)
Here's a Google Earth pic of where I'll be heading to tomorrow - wish me luck!
Holaaaaa! Time is flying - how has a month passed since my last full blog post? (Don't I always say something like that though?) I'm in Trevelin, Argentina now, and I'll be crossing into Chile tomorrow (weather permitting) to ride down the famous Carretera Austral. I figured if I don't take some time off now to get my pics and blog up to date, it's never going to happen.
So! Lots to write about. Since Malargüe I've had more inconceivably bad wind, amazing scenery, and great, unexpected hosts. The wind was bad right from the start, and after only 66 km from Malargüe I was forced to stop in the small town of Bardas Blancas after being blown off the road twice and having my bike blown out of my hands while I was resting on the side of the road - I don't know how I managed to stay on my feet. I don't think it's possible to explain how forceful the gusts can be, but I've dealt with bad wind in the past - including in one of the windiest places in the world, in Mexico - and the wind here makes that look like a gentle breeze. My first stop in town was at the police station to get whatever information I could about the wind. Since Bardas Blancas is a junction town with one road leading to the Chilean border, I was seriously thinking about abandoning my route through Argentina and hoping for better luck in Chile. After banging on every door and window at the police station, I was finally greeted by a sleepy looking officer who was wearing nothing but a towel. Right, how could I forget about siesta... He told me that it's an unusually windy place and that the pass was closed for the season. So with no options for changing my route and too much wind to continue for the day, I got comfortable at the front door of the town's only hotel, where I waited for the owners to wake up and let me in.
From Bardas to Barrancas, the road is marked "Ruta en estado precario" on my map, which I'll loosely translate to "road in bad condition". Other than a few potholes, it was fine, and there was amazing geology all around, especially looking back towards Bardas. It's a volcanic area, and there is a place where the Rio Grande is forced into a narrow canyon in the lava field. There is a small footbridge and trail that I checked out during my break there. This is also where the road changes to loose-surface dirt, which I had read about in a two year old blog, so it hasn't changed in that time. It was rideable, but just slow-going. That night I reached what is marked on my map as "El Zampal" with a circle that generally indicates a good-sized town. There were only two houses in the distance, but nothing else around, and I set up camp at the end of a tunnel next to the river. This ended up being a big mistake since as soon as the wind picked up my tent filled up with sand and I had no choice but to pack up and move down the road. After an unpaved climb the next day, there was a paved downhill and then a steep but short climb to Barrancas, where I got a great hotel room for only 45 pesos/$11USD.
The next day as I rode through the town of Buta Ranquil, a woman yelled "From where?". I'm amazed she could hear my reply - "Alaska!" - over the deafening wind, but she must have since she gave me a little round of applause - go me. :) I got some empanadas in town, then continued on towards Chos Malal. (Note to cyclists - Buta Ranquil is divided into two parts - the part with more services is farther south). After rounding a corner near Buta Ranquil, the wind completely stopped, the landscape became a desert and it got HOT. Crazy. I camped that night at a really cool, rustic, but seemingly abandoned farm, which was my only opportunity to get out of the wind. I spent a while looking to see if anyone was around, and later just checked out the grounds and some of the old buildings. Good stuff.
In Chos Malal there is a municipal campground and a few overpriced hotels. I didn't feel like camping or overpaying, and I had seen in someone's blog that there is a volunteer fire department there and they had been allowed to stay, so I went to see if I'd have the same luck. The girl at the front desk just had to make a phone call to be sure, then said that I could stay in the bed in the heated room above the office. Sweet! It was only my second time staying with the "Bomberos", but some cyclists do it in nearly every town. I wondered why I hadn't done it more myself.
As always in Argentina, there would be two days of cycling before I reached the next town, so I went out to buy some food for the two days, including a bag of cookies for the volunteers. I also finally bought myself a small thermos, which I've been totally amazed by. It's just a stainless steel container with a vacuum between the two layers, but even 4-5 hours after filling it, my drink (usually apple Tang) is still so hot I have to let it cool down. Who knew they worked so well? Something about having access to something hot in the middle of the day is very comforting too, and I don't know why I didn't buy one sooner. The same store had a relatively cheap pair of waterproof gloves, which I didn't buy and totally regret, since I haven't seen anything nearly as good or cheap since.
It seems that most people do the Malargüe to Chos Malal section in 4-5 days. I ended up doing it in 5 because of the bad afternoon winds, and it worked out very well from a logistical point of view. I can see it being possible in 4 or less days if the wind cooperates and the days are long enough. Finding water was never an issue in this section.
Between Chos Malal and Las Lajas I camped along the long downhill after the small town Churriaca, where cyclists can get water but the store in the main part of town is too far from the road to bother. I got my water from someone who I saw outside of his house, and told him he should open a small "kiosco" to sell drinks and snacks to cyclists, since it's a common cycling route. Who knows, maybe it will happen. Near my stealth camping spot that night, someone nearby must have gotten out of their car to pee (there's no other reason to stop around there), and set their alarm off. I was resting and half asleep, so at first I didn't pay much attention to the bird that was almost exactly imitating the sound of the alarm - it was amazing! I got a video of it, but unfortunately after it started "forgetting" the alarm, and before it started copying a cricket. Really incredible, I had never seen or heard anything like it.
I camped at the municipal campground in Las Lajas, which I thought would be free since no one was around and the bathrooms were closed, but in the morning someone was there to collect their money. He said someone told them I was there and that I was supposed to have told them (how??), and I asked why he didn't open the bathrooms if he knew I was there. He wanted almost double what I've paid for municipal camping in the past, and I told him I'd only pay 2/3s because the bathrooms were closed. I'm not sure why I should have paid anything since I could have camped anywhere else in the area for free. After wild camping for so long, it just seems ridiculous to pay to do the exact same thing.
There was one more short day of riding to Zapala, with a great tailwind. I stayed in the "Circulo Policial", which is like a hotel but can be reserved for police functions. There was also a similar one for the military around the corner, for the same price, but also with WiFi. They were the cheapest options in town, but still more than I would have liked to pay, and because of the wind I couldn't have camped at the several camping areas in town (two gas stations - one muni). I planned to take one day off to figure out where to go next, since there was snow in the mountains and some roads had been closed. I had also done eight days of riding since Malargüe so a day off was due, but since the next day had 40 mph winds I decided to wait it out and I stayed two days instead.
I made my plan for the next two days with the wind forecast in mind, and it worked out perfectly. There was almost no wind on the day that I left, and I passed through Laguna Blanca National Park (lots of birds) and continued on to a communications outpost for the highway department, where I got my own room and bed, and was able to use the kitchen! The guy who was working there was very nice, and had his two dogs and cats with him. He said something about us being friends when I gave him some oatmeal I wasn't going to use, which I thought was nice, and we watched "Death Race" (I think is the name - terrible movie) on a small DVD player in the kitchen. It seems like his job is only to relay messages that come in through one radio to the other radio, linking Rahue and Zapala. The next day, as forecasted, there was an uncommon northwesterly wind that helped push me up the first "pass" of the day. It's funny that what I consider a pass now is usually only 1500 feet of climbing, with a maximum altitude of around 4000 feet. It's a big change from 1500 METERS of climbing to over 4000 meters of altitude (3.3x higher), which I was used to in Peru and Ecuador. The second climb of the day was unpaved and at the top there was some great umbrella-like pine trees that I can't recal the name of. I camped on the banks of the Rio Aluminé south of Rahue, where I had a nice hidden campsite and even a warm breeze.
The road along the river was still unpaved and with enough rolling hills that it slowed me down more than expected. It still would have been possible to reach Junín de los Andes that night, but there was a great place to camp next to the river in Malleo/Tropezon, and I decided to stay there. The next day I passed through Junín de Los Andes, but didn't see a reason to stay. I did hear from a hostel owner that Antonio, who I had ridden with in Peru, had just passed a week earlier. Since I hadn't seen another cyclist in months, this was great news! I continued on to San Martín de los Andes, the current home of a PanAm-cycling couple (Harry and Ivana) who are settling down there for a few years to start their family. They host cyclists who they catch passing through town, and had also invited me to stay with them a few weeks earlier through the PanAm Riders email group. San Martín is a relatively touristy town, with a lot of wood/log construction and surrounded by mountains all around and a lake at the south end. It was a great place to take a few days off. Harry is a "seven summiter", which means he's climbed the highest peak on each continent (including of course Everest, Denali and Kilimanjaro). He's written books on three of the climbs and is part of a project that provides solar lighting to African villages (http://illuminationhq.com/). Interesting stuff.
When I was talking to Harry and Ivana about their choice to live in San Martín, they mentioned how it's great that such a small town has almost everything you could want. When I went to one of the local bike shops looking for new bearings for my trailer though, I wasn't really expecting to be able to find them and wasn't surprised when the guy said he didn't have any bearings in stock. Instead, he said, just go to the bearing store down the street! Incredible! Even better was that the store had exactly the bearings I was looking for, so I got my old ones swapped out that day. The wheel seemed to spin fine with the old ones, but I had been hearing a noise from the back of my trailer and since I hadn't changed them since Peru, it was time. I could hardly spin the old ones after they had been taken out of the hub though, so I may have waited too long to change them. My laptop was also acting up again, which I narrowed down to the cable, and I was able to buy a new cable in town too. I also had to replace my holey socks, which I could do in town too. San Martín does have everything!
I did a good, short hike from San Martín (near the water processing station) up to a viewpoint, which I recommend - but be persistent - the trail is hard to follow! I also got in touch with Antonio while I was there, who was in Bariloche, just a few days south of me. Unfortunately he wants to finish his trip at the beginning of November (he started in Alaska a year before I did) and he'll be taking route 40 through Argentina instead of crossing into Chile, so riding together wasn't going to be an option.
From San Martín, I followed the amazing Seven Lakes Route for three days until reaching the village of Angostura. There is a volcano in the area that has been eruping for months, covering everything in ash, leaving a haze in the sky and making cycling pretty miserable at times. Fortunately it was still clear enough that I had some great views, but on the second day I had to stop early because of all the ash in the air (as well as my mouth and eyes), and because I pretty bad headache. On the third day I reached Angostura, which was hit the worst by the ash cloud, and I stayed at a hostel that's owned by a couple who usually take a few months off to go bike touring every winter. This year they had to stay around to clean the 6 inches of ash off their property. When I first came across ash on the ground I didn't even realize what it was - usually I think of ash as being something organic, like what you would find after having a camp fire. Since there is nothing organic in the center of a volcano, volcanic ash is basically sand. As you could imagine, having 6 inches of sand dropped on your house, car, yard, etc is quite a problem.
The next day the beautiful riding continued, unfortunately with so much haze that getting good pictures was impossible. When I was approaching Bariloche, a famous tourist town in the area, someone yelled "HEY!" from his garden. I looked back, slowed down a little, but didn't stop. He yelled again so I figured I'd go back and see what he wanted. It turns out that the guy "Baldy" rode most of the PanAm from Ushuaia north, unfortunately having to leave the states as a result of the September 11th attacks. He hosts cyclists that he sees passing by, or if someone knows about him through word of mouth. He lives in a very nice house with his wife and two year old boy. They rent the house out during peak tourism months and live in a smaller cabin on the same property. He also bakes organic bread that he sells in town - making twice the money in half the time as when he worked at a restaurant. They have ducks, chickens, are working on a small garden and his wife makes impressive products from recycled materials. As always it's so mind opening to see how people can live such great, simple, low-stress lives.
They put me up in the top floor of their house, which has a double bed, a huge window overlooking the lake and mountains, and a private bathroom with jacuzzi! They also make great homemade food, including the best pizza I've had in a long time - so it's no wonder I stayed there for four days. Antonio, I found out, had stayed there for a week, and other cyclists for as much as 10 days! I spent one day there trying to hitch up to a nearby lake, but apparently no one in Bariloche stops for hitchhikers. That, combined with my horrible map, made getting to the lake impossible. I did manage to catch a ride into town and spent a few hours there before trying again to hitch back to his house and eventually giving up and paying about $8 for a taxi.
The day before I left I took a bus out to the famous hotel "Llao Llao", and wanted to do some hiking nearby but someone told me it was a few miles just to the trailheads, so I caught another bus back to a place called "Cerro Campanario", which I heard (but can't confirm), has been called one of the 10 best views in the world by National Geographic. It was very impressive and I highly recommend it to anyone passing through the area.
From Bariloche I rode the 130km/~80mi in two days, stopping early on the first because of rain. The rain continued on the second day unfortunately but I had no choice but to push on to the "hippy town" El Bolson. I stayed at the Hostel Pehuenia, which was my first hostel since Malargüe. As with every town that I've stopped in, my first stop is the tourist office to see what the hiking options are. Unfortunately being between seasons there are a lot of fallen trees that haven't been cleared off the trails, and many of the "refugios" (shelters) are still closed. None of the open trails or refugios interested me much, so I spent a day off visiting the handmade crafts market that the town is known for.
I rode to a town named Cholila from El Bolson, which was the hangout of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for six years. My guidebook said their house(s) were more impressive when they were old and crumbling and since they've been repaired it's not even worth the side trip to see them. I figured if I passed them I'd stop and check them out, but I didn't look too hard and didn't see them. Those guys did know how to pick a good hideout though - the area surrounding Cholila is amazing, with snowcapped, jagged, rocky mountains in every direction, pasture around town, and a hill that I definitely recommend hiking to the top of for the panoramic views of the area. I definitely have to give Cholila my "Best Small-Town Scenery" award.
I continued along route 71 from there, through the beautiful Alerces National Park, home of trees as old as 3200 years. As through the rest of this section, the scenery was incredible and I had another great camping spot at a "Camping Libre" named "Francais" (or something similar). I met a Swiss couple there who were traveling in a Land Rover and had planned to go to Alaska before she got pregnant (whoops!). They decided to shorten their trip to just a few months in Argentina.
And... Now I'm in Trevelin, a small Welsch settlement near the Chilean border. As usual my idea to take one day off turned into two, partly because I needed to get my pictures and blog up to date, partly because of the rain, and partly to look into the next part of my route - the Carratera Austral (CA) in Chile. I'll cross into Chile tomorrow - weather permitting - and continue south along the CA for as long as possible before crossing back into Argentina. I'd like to go to the official end, but the ferry that runs from there to Argentina doesn't start until the beginning of November, so I would get there two weeks too soon. It looks like I have about 1500 miles left, so it's possible that I'll finish in under two months. Since I definitely want to do some trekking in southern Patagonia, this will push things back a bit, but probably not by too much.
Oh - another noteworthy thing is that a day before arriving in San Martín, I had my first flat tire since Mexico! I think my last one was on the coast in January or February of 2010, so around 19 months without flats. Thank you Schwalbe and Slime!
That's all for now...
Hi all! I finally got around to posting a map of my route - you can find it here, or my clicking "Route" on the menu on the left. I made it using data from my GPS and it's not perfect, but it's enough to give people a general idea of my route.
Tech stuff. I wanted to use my GPS data to draw the map, mostly because I'm lazy and didn't want to do it all by hand. This ended up being a little more tricky than I thought. My GPS records a "track" for each day, and each track contains multiple track points. There are usually about a week's worth of tracks per file, since that's about how often I download the data from my GPS. So, basically what I had to work with were about 80 gpx files, each file contained multiple tracks, and each track contained multiple track points. I wanted to get just a few points from each day (three seemed to be enough) for every day of my trip, and combine them into a single track that I could import into Google Maps. The most popular software for dealing with GPS files is called gpsbabel, so this is what I used for the job. The first thing I discovered is that I had too many files for it to merge, so I used the old DOS trick "copy *.gpx all.gpx" to get one big file with all my tracks. This resulted in a file with some unnecessary tags, so I used Notepad++ to globally replace/delete the extra tags.
The tags to be deleted are:
and anything after </gpx> at the end of the file.
Next I ran three gpsbabel commands to remove waypoints, simplify each track to contain only three points, merge the resulting tracks, and finally convert the file into a "language" that Google Maps can understand. Here are the commands:
gpsbabel.exe -i gpx -f all.gpx -x nuketypes,waypoints -x simplify,count=3 -o gpx -F simple.gpx
gpsbabel.exe -i gpx -f simple.gpx -x track,merge -o gpx -F simple.gpx
gpsbabel.exe -i gpx -f simple.gpx -o kml,trackdata=0,labels=0,points=0 -F simple.kml
Lastly I created a new map in Google maps and imported the "simple.kml" file.
Hope this helps people trying to do something similar!
What's this? Another blog entry, and so soon? Hey, I'm as surprised as you are... This one is coming to you from Malargüe, Argentina, where I've taken three more days off. My last two days of riding were incredibly windy, and on the second to last day, I was forced to hitch for the last 12 miles/20km or so into town because the crosswind was making riding nearly impossible. Since I arrived, the weather has been beautiful and the wind has been non-existent - just my luck! Escaping the wind wasn't my only reason for stopping though; I've been working on another project which I'm calling "DisqusThis!", which makes it easy for people using Google Sites (like me) to add social networking to their site. It's something I probably should have done sooner for this site, but now that I have, and since I think it will be helpful for other people, I'm trying to make it as user-friendly as possible and maybe make a little money from it too. Also, since my trip will be ending soon, and I have to think about "real life" again, I'd like to have a few technical things to put on my resume during what will be around 3 years of unemployment. (Yikes!) I figure that if spending a few days on these projects will save me a few weeks (or more) of unemployment when I get back, it will be worth the effort. Also, I'm still on the trailing edge of winter, so more days off equals better riding down the road!
Somehow my little side-trip to Easter Island from Mendoza led to over three weeks off. As I wrote in my last entry, I was sick (probably with the flu) for about 5 days after returning from Chile, then I wanted to see the town a bit before heading out. After that, the forecast showed that temperatures all through the area would be going up by about 10 degrees F, so I decided to leave on Monday with better weather. Also, Mendoza was maybe my favorite city of the trip so hanging out there for a few more days didn't bother me at all.
I have no idea what happened to my legs during those three weeks, but I did a lot of walking during my last few days in Mendoza and my quads were quite sore from it. The soreness turned into something closer to burning about 30 miles into my first day back on the bike, but I had a good tailwind and I still managed to get about 65 miles in, arriving in San Carlos at a reasonable hour. Greg, who I toured with a little in Central America, had told me about a hotel in town where I should stay. After waiting for the owner to return, we talked for a bit and I brought my stuff up to a room, unfortunately forgetting to ask the price. When I finally asked, and learned it was 145 pesos/$36.25, I told him I'd have to camp instead. I wanted to get an early start the next day, and possibly arrive in San Rafael by that night, but since I usually pay a third of that, it wasn't going to happen. Camping cost 30 pesos/a bit under $8, which I still thought was ridiculous, but by that point it was too late to find another place. The only other place I had seen in town was closed, but appeared much more expensive, and amazingly, San Carlos has no municipal or gas station camping, which might be a first in Argentina.
I was on the road at around 10:30 the next day, which wasn't too much later than normal since daylight has been from a little past 8AM to a little past 7PM. I would have been on the road sooner if the woman at the hotel hadn't shown me the guestbook, which included entries from a huge number of other travelers, including the "Ribbon of Road" guy, whose website I had come across early in my planning for this trip.
The scenery in the area was fantastic, with huge, completely snow covered mountains to my right and I was in a really great mood because of it. My legs definitely weren't up for an 85ish mile day though, especially with the late start, and I took a pretty long break at Pareditas, at the junction of route 40 (which deteriorates beyond that point), and route 143, which would take me to San Rafael. I still managed to get almost 60 miles in, which left just under 30 for my last day to San Rafael.
After San Rafael there are two routes, one goes through the scenic Atuel Valley, and the other follows the road that will become route 40 again. The Atuel valley route is unpaved and has more climbing, but since it was the more scenic option, it was the way I wanted to go and I decided my legs needed a rest day before tackling it. San Rafael was nice enough, but seemed like a wannabe Mendoza, and Mendoza had the bar set pretty high. I did some shopping while I was there, and got a new tire and tube for my trailer, since the tire I bought in Peru was getting pretty thin and I had just had a flat between San Carlos and there.
It was surprisingly hard to get information about the Atuel Valley, but I found that it was quite a developed place, with a lot of "upscale" hotels and expensive camping. My biggest concern as always was where to find water, since there isn't much around after the first dam, but after the road climbed away from the canyon for a while, it descended and I got a great campsite in a flooded area with clean looking water that I filtered just to be safe.
The next day I climbed out of the canyon and passed the town of Nihuil, which was just far enough off-route and with a just-big-enough-hill that I didn't head into the town. Luckily there were a few restaurants closer to the road a bit beyond town and I stopped at one for some empenadas and to buy some water. (I almost never pay for water, but they told me the tap water wasn't potable there). After that I had a great tailwind (from the South) and had a good preview of the mountains I'd be heading back into the next day.
At the junction of the road to Nihuil and route 40/144 is a little place called "El Desvio", which has free water, some basic food and a simple restaurant. This is a great thing for cyclists, who like me, are always told "No hay nada!" (There is nothing!) when asking what's down the road. There's a guestbook for cyclists at El Desvio and I found entries from Matt, Phil and Manu, and Joe, which were cool to see. Phil and Manu wrote that they were close to reaching 32,000km for their trip (just under 20,000mi) and while they had done a few detours that I haven't, I would guess that I might be a little closer to 35,000km by this point because of my own detours, or just under 22,000mi. While I was reading the guestbook, I noticed the wind had shifted and was blowing the flags straight out in the direction I'd be going - great! I rushed out and got back on my bike, taking advantage of the tailwind for about 3 miles before it turned 180 degrees with the same force as before. Cyclists hate the wind in Argentina, and this is why.
But... The wind was nothing compared to the next day... It wasn't so bad in the morning, but got progressively worse throughout the day, until at the end I finally gave up and hitched the last 12 miles into town. The wind was more or less from the north, and I was heading west, so I had a very strong crosswind that was pushing me all over the road and making reasonable forward progress almost impossible. Before I gave up, it was so bad that I had to yell "Are you f'ing kidding me?!?!" to my invisible enemy.
One of the guys in the car that drove me to town said the wind is from the temperature difference between the cold mountain air and the warming land farther east. It makes sense in theory, and is just like the on-shore and off-shore winds that sailors are familiar with, but didn't explain why the wind was coming from the north on this particular day.
It was almost as bad on my last day into Malargüe. There was one section of road with the same ferocious crosswind, but I could see from quite far away that the road turned south ahead, so I dealt with it, occasionally shouting more expletives at the wind, and laughing out loud about the ridiculousness of it. I finally reached the turn and with the wind to my back, increased my speed from maybe 3mph to about the mid 20s, occasionally being accelerated by another forceful gust. It was amazing how much my perception of the day changed, and cruising down the road almost effortlessly, I realized that there was a nice blue sky, with little fluffy clouds around, and for the time being, the wind and I were on good terms again.
When I got to Malargüe I realized that my laptop battery had died and it wasn't taking a charge from the cable, so I spent a few hours on the first day walking around town looking for a place that could fix it. I finally found a place, but the owner was leaving so I had to return later. When I got there and demonstrated the problem, there was no problem, and it was working perfectly again. I really hope that it was a one time "glitch" since this is my last good opportunity to get back to Mendoza if it needs service, and I don't know if I'll find any good places south of here.
So that's about it for now. I've been getting information about the road ahead, and other than having some concerns about the wind, I'm really excited about what's to come. I'm pretty happy with my timing now since the temperatures in the forecast are in the 50s and 60s and I still get to ride along the still-snow-covered Andes. I heard from one hotel I contacted that there is enough snow farther south that one of the roads I wanted to take has been closed, but hopefully by the time I get there it will have melted.
I'm pretty tempted to go skiing, and one of the most famous ski resorts in Argentina is very close to here, but with transportation, rentals and lift tickets, a single day of skiing would cost over $100. I think I'll wait until Bariloche, where there is also skiing, but much cheaper.
Hello from Patagonia! I made it here at last. :) Zapala isn't a particularly exciting town, but I needed a day here to figure out where to head next, since there has been snow in the mountains along the route I wanted to follow. Today is my second day here, and this time it's the wind that's holding me up. A weather site tells me it's blowing at about 61km/hr (37mi/hr), which may not seem like much, but it might as well be a hurricane when you're on a bike. (Put your hand out the window the next time you're doing 40mph in your car and you'll understand). The day after leaving Malargue, I was blown off the road twice, and my bike was blown out of my hands when I was resting on the side of the road - it's pretty powerful stuff. Fortunately, since then, the wind has been much more cooperative, a bit calmer, and with only a few upwind sections of the route. The wind forecast for tomorrow looks much better, and I'm planning to do a short day to "laguna blanca", a lake about 20 miles from here. The short day is more to have a sheltered place to camp than anything else, and the following day I'll be heading towards the town of Alumine - over a few hills, but potentially with a rare northeasterly wind to my back.
I was also looking into my remaining distance yesterday, and apparently I only have a little over 2000 miles to go - it seems like so little after I've come this far. I'm really excited about the riding south of here, since I'll be going through the famous "Lake District" next, followed by the "Carretera Austral", a beautiful, remote road. Lakes, mountains, glaciers, volcanoes, ancient forests - what more could an outdoor guy ask for? I might still try to get a day of skiing in before I leave the lakes area, and I'm definitely planning to do some trekking farther south.
That's all for now - I'll do my pics and a full blog post about a week from now. Ciao!
I'm raising money for the National Kidney Foundation - click here for more information!
NEW! I'm testing a new message board - you'll see it at the bottom of this post. Feel free to leave a comment, and let me know if you think it's worthwhile, since it takes a little work to set it up for each blog entry.
Hi all! Looks like I've got some catching up to do - a lot has happened since I left Córdoba. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina, with a population of about 1.3 million (according to Wikipedia). It was a nice enough city, but during my three rest days there I was mostly taking it easy since I had had some Achilles tendon discomfort at the end of my last two days of riding. It came out of the blue, and three days off seemed to take care of it, since I haven't had any other pain since.
As I mentioned in my last post, there were a few things I was looking forward to seeing on the ride from Córdoba to Mendoza. The first was the Punilla Valley, which is where people from the city go to escape the city. I didn't find it to be as beautiful as people had said it would be, and I think most of it's appeal is due to what it's not (a big city), than what it is, per se. Lago San Roque was a nice lake, and there is plenty of camping and restaurants around. My favorite town of the area was one that the guidebooks don't even mention, named Villa Giardino. As with many of the other towns or cities that I've liked I can't say exactly what it was about it that appealed to me. Maybe it just depends on where I am when I'm tired enough to take a break for a while. :) A little beyond there I wanted to make a detour to a town named "La Cumbre", where I learned there was a bike/motorcycle museum. The museum is modern and very impressive, with a good collection of restored motorcycles and bikes of all types. About 90% of them are functional, and none of them have been repainted or repaired with non-original parts. After leaving the museum, I continued along the back road towards route 38 - the main road through the valley. There was a big, steep hill right away and instead of dealing with it, I turned around to reconnect with 38 via La Cumbre, the way I came. Somehow I forgot that I had come down a big hill before the museum, so I had to do some climbing either way. I finished that day in the town "Cruz de Eje", where I decided to get a hotel room - partly because it was too late to find a campground, and partly as a little birthday present to myself.
After Cruz de Eje my route took me back across Salinas Grande, the salt flat I had crossed about a week earlier on my way to Córdoba. The places I crossed were nothing like the salt flats in Bolivia, where all you see is a huge expanse of white, although on Google Maps it does look like parts of Salinas Grande are that way. The road was just like the previous road before Córdoba (route 9), only a bit flatter, and not as well maintained. Luckily there was less truck traffic though.
In the town "Chamical" there is a sign for a municipal campground, although it's basically any place you want around the town field. The field was actually an "American Football" field, with the upright goal posts at each end and even a "tackle sled" for training. It's the first time I can remember seeing anything for American Football in Latin America.
I asked a few people in town where I'd be able to get gas next (for my stove), and everyone told me the same - not for what would be two days of cycling for me. I had a bit, but wanting to play it safe, I decided to get some before leaving town. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, except there is a gas shortage in the province of La Rioja for some reason, and as soon as the gas trucks came in, a line started forming. Eventually I think everyone in town was waiting there to fill up. I was lucky and got in at the beginning of the line for motorcycles, but there was still quite a long wait. A few people approached me to talk as usual, and at one point a guy came up with a cell phone in his hand and the earpiece in his ear. He asked me a few questions about my trip, always shoving the cell phone in my face afterwards, then more or less put the earpiece in my ear and said "you're on the radio". Maybe that should have been exciting, but I had no interest and gave him the phone back. Who interviews someone without telling them, anyway? Later I got my 6 oz or so of gas, and headed out. Before finishing for the day, I passed two more gas stations and as always, I'm totally bewildered by the fact that people from such small areas don't even know if there is a gas station at the next town, and that instead of saying "I don't know", they just make something up. Before this trip ends, I'd really love to hear someone say those three words, just once...
I had also been looking forward to two parks that I'd pass by on my way to Mendoza. One was off-route and is where some of the oldest dinosaur bones in the world have been recovered. I saw some pictures of the park though, and the side trip to it didn't seem worth the effort. Instead I took a day off at Talampaya National Park, after passing through some nice scenery, and camping between the town "La Torre" and there. I was happy to find a small, reasonably stocked store in La Torre, which saved me a trip off-route to the next large town (Cyclists: ask them for what you need, they have more than what's on the shelves).
At Talampaya, like the other park, visitors are not permitted to wander the park independently, meaning you need to pay for a guide, a bike tour, or bus to take you through the park. There was a great looking loop hike that I wanted to do, but being low season, there weren't enough other people around for them to run it. Instead I just did a shorter out-and-back hike through the canyon with the guide and a couple from Mendoza. There was some pretty interesting geology, including a place where you can see the same fracture line probably 1/4 of a mile apart, on each side of the canyon. In another place there were some smaller formations with the same line running through them. Pretty neat.
The comfortable temperatures I had had after leaving Córdoba slowly disappeared, and the nights became very cold again. One night in the park, my thermometer said it was about -8C (after I corrected for it being 5C off). A park guard told me it was actually -15C, which would definitely explain why I've been so cold on some of these nights! -15C is 5F, and since I have a tent that is more or less designed for summer camping, it doesn't do much to keep the cold wind out. Maybe when I get home I'll finally be able to figure out how far off the thermometer really is.
From Talampaya it was another 7 days of riding to Mendoza, including a two day break in the nice little city of San Juan. The riding and scenery was pretty unremarkable, with the exception being the section just before San José de Jáchal - an area with steep hills, but incredible scenery. I had considered taking the longer, but flatter route 40 around this section, but I have no regrets about going this way. Also during this section, there were many ravines crossing the road, and in some places it looked like there would have had to be a flood to shape the landscape as it had. Since the "pre-Cordillera" of the Andes were so close, even in heavy rain it was hard to imagine that so much water could be flowing through the area. It's also not an area that gets snow, so snowmelt isn't a possibility. So that was a bit of a mystery. Anyway, because of the ravines, there are annoying "dips" in the road, almost the opposite of the typical "rolling hill" terrain. Later the same source of water - whatever it was - had also wiped out an old railroad in many places, sometimes leaving only suspended sections of the rails behind.
I spent two days in San Juan, which is another small city that I liked for no particular reason. There was no real need for staying two days, but I already had my flight to Easter Island booked and I was a little ahead of schedule, so I had no reason to rush. From there to Mendoza, as was common throughout this section, there was two days of riding between the cities. I left San Juan riding into a crazy, gusty headwind (and sandstorm!), which was made worse by the fact that I knew it was only temporary. I still managed to get about 36 miles in, which would leave a manageable 60+ miles for the next day into Mendoza. My goal is usually to do the opposite in these situations, timing it so I have a short day before arriving at a city, but as long as I'm not riding through a city in the dark looking for a place to stay, I don't mind so much.
Mendoza is where I left my bike behind for a while, while I took a bus over the Andes to Santiago, flight to Easter Island and back, another bus to Valparaiso, and yet another bus back to Santiago, and lastly back to Mendoza. I had to replace some gear so I did some price shopping in Mendoza first on my day off there, then did the same in Santiago. As people had told me, outdoor gear is quite a bit cheaper in Chile, which was a surprise because Chile in general has been the most expensive country for me in South America. Some of the things I had to pick up were a warmer sleeping bag, new boots (the $27 pair I bought in Peru didn't really work out), new pants, new pump for my stove, etc..
After a day in Santiago, I was on my way to Easter Island! Going to Easter Island was something I hadn't thought too much about in the past, but I finally decided to go for it when I was in Córdoba. I figured three days and four nights would be enough, and while I got to see every part of the island I wanted to during the three days, I could have spent another day or two doing the "cultural" stuff, like visiting the museum, watching one of the traditional dance shows, and just enjoying the town.
After deplaning the, uh, plane (I had a rookie flight attendant once and never forgot that mistake) there were about half a dozen people from local campgrounds and lodges all trying to convince the travelers to stay with them. There were three people from campgrounds, but the best - by far - is Mihinoa, which is right on the ocean, has the best camping facilities I've seen, and has decent rental tents, so they're who I went with. I had some time to walk around town after getting settled at the campground and went to the archaeological area just on the outskirts of town, where I saw my first Moai - one of the huge stone figures that easter island is famous for. On the first full day, I rented a mountain bike and did a 10k/6m loop through the southwestern corner of the island. I thought about cycling the big loop, but it would have been a full day on a painful bike seat, trying to carry enough food and water for the day. Since it took me so much longer to do the 10k loop than I had thought, due to all the stops, I decided the best way to see the rest of the island would be on an ATV! My license expired over a year ago, but I recently renewed it and my Mom was able to send me a scanned copy of it, which is enough to rent and drive a vehicle on Easter Island, fortunately. It cost only about $10 more to keep the ATV for 24 hours than it would have for only 8, so keeping it for a full day was the obvious choice. I did the "big loop" clockwise, first exploring some of the central forest, then the northern beaches, then the east coast, which is where the 15 Moai and the Moai "factory" are found. It was a great day. I woke up early the next morning and went back to the 15 Moai to watch the sunrise and take pictures. Totally incredible experience. After sunrise I had to get back quickly to return the ATV, and afterwards I went for a hike around the southern end of the island, to the volcano and a ceremonial village on it's side.
On the 4th morning I got my flight back to Santiago and mostly spent the next day getting my pics from the island online. Since my camera had been acting up a bit before leaving Easter Island, and since I had had the same problem in Peru, I decided to have my camera checked out once and for all. I brought it to the camera shop on Friday, where they told me it would be ready by Monday. I had been wavering about whether or not to go to Valparaiso, a city near Santiago on the coast, but since I had to wait for my camera, I didn't have an excuse not to go. I caught a bus there on Saturday, and spent just Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning walking around. There is one scenic area of the town, but the rest was pretty ordinary so that was plenty of time. On Monday I went back to the camera shop, where they hadn't even looked at my camera yet, and told me they needed two more days. I was obviously upset, because of could have taken it to another shop in town if they had told me they were going to be busy. Since it was magically working fine again, it wasn't a huge problem that they couldn't fix it, and since the pass to Argentina had been closed because of snow, I would have been stuck in Chile anyway. On Tuesday the pass finally reopened and I got a bus back to Mendoza with some other people from the hostel in Santiago.
I've been back in Mendoza for nearly a week now, it's a really nice city and I like being here, but unfortunately I've been sick and not able to do much. This is the first time of the trip that I've had a standard "full-on" cold, so I guess I was due. It started out being a headache, congestion, throat, stomach, fever, and now all that's left is a bit of a cough and congestion. I really want to wait until I'm 100% before starting the next section, since it looks to be a tough one.
The day after I got here, I met a cycling couple who I met through the "panam-riders" email group. They just finished a one year tour here, starting in New York. The guy has done a lot of touring in the past, and wants to do one of the other tours I have in mind - the top of Norway to South Africa (basically this trip, farther east) - so we talked about that a bit and our experiences touring in the Americas. Since I've been sick since then, I haven't done much other than short walks around the nice center, and getting my bike tuned up. I hadn't had my fork oiled since Colombia, and it wasn't working too smoothly, so I wanted to get that taken care of. I also needed a new bottom bracket (pedal/crank bearings), since I hadn't changed mine since California and it wasn't spinning smoothly, and lastly my freehub had been skipping when I pedaled hard, so that needed some work. Why it was skipping is a bit of a mystery. The freehub assembly was loose because there was some space between it and one of the cartridge bearings, also allowing some play in the cassette, and this could have kept the teeth/pawls from grabbing as they should have been. But, even after changing the cartridge bearings, there was a bit of play, so the mechanic used some metal pieces to fill the gaps, and so far it seems to be better. We'll see...
So what's next? I'll mostly continue to follow route 40 to Bariloche (right near where the volcano has been erupting), with a few detours to San Rafael, Junín de los Andes, San Martin de los Andes, and Villa Angostura. From Bariloche, I don't really know yet, there are a few options for getting between there and the Carretera Austral, a remote, scenic road that's famous among cyclists. From here, Matt finished in about 2 months / 42 days of cycling, and while I won't be riding at his pace, finishing around the middle of November still doesn't seem out of the question.
Howdy folks. Well, this still won't be the usual type of blog post I've been wanting to write, but it's gonna have to do for now. :) I'm back in Salta again after a two week trip back into the mountains and through the towns of Cafayate and Cachi (no, I just can't seem to get enough of the mountains!). For most of that section, I rode with another cyclist named Joe, who is riding from Ushuaia, Argentina to La Paz, Bolivia. It was good to have someone to ride with for a change since I've been solo since Puno, Peru. I've also been busy with a few projects, including my second (and last) fundraiser of the trip, this time in support of the National Kidney Foundation. See the "Donate" link on the left for more information on that. I've also been working on a iPhone/iPod app and website, where touring cyclists can record and retrieve information about the towns they pass during their trip. That can be found here: http://tourbuddy.zymichost.com/home.html. It's all pretty basic for now, but I did it with a $2 budget and my spare time, which there is never much of! I've also been refining my plan for the rest of my trip, and I've given myself a target date of November 15th to finish. This should let me travel at a pretty relaxed pace and also avoid the winter as I head south. I hope I'll be able to do at least some light hiking in Patagonia, and if I get a chance (and a good price) I might even go to Antartcica - after all, when will I get the chance again? Next I'll be following the edge of the Andes to a town named La Rioja, then I'll head southeast a bit to Cordoba before swinging back west to Mendoza. I'm shooting for August 1st to arrive there.
So far I've just typed up my notes for the section from San Pedro to here - including the trip to Cafayate and Cachi. I'm going to post those under "Attachments" below for now. I'm not sure if I'll ever get to turn them into a normal blog post but I've been in front of my computer too much lately as it is, and it's not going to happen today!
Here are the maps and elevation profiles of my riding since San Pedro:
San Pedro to Salta
Salta, Cafayate, Cachi, Salta
Coming to Córdoba wasn't part of my original plan, but since I'm still trying to slow down enough to avoid the worst of winter, the side trip added just enough time to put me on schedule for arriving in Ushuaia in mid-November. I wish I had a better summary for this section than to say that it was cold, windy and hilly, but I can't say a whole lot more about it than that. I rode on route 9 the whole way, which had no shoulder and alternating periods of heavy truck traffic and bad-to-worse rolling hills. The scenery was better during the first few days when there were lots of green hills around, but that tapered off into a far less interesting landscape and farmland for the remainder of the two weeks. The first few days were also the warmest, but that suddenly changed and I ended up spending one cold, rainy, windy day in my tent. The next morning I headed out in near-freezing temperatures, and a few days later had a 15F night --- when I left the mountains, I thought I also left the cold nights behind too!
I did a lot of camping between Salta and here, spending all but three of the nights in my tent. Camping is quite popular in Argentina (probably more-so in the summer) and it's easy to find designated campsites from free to $2 per night. On nights where there weren't organized camping areas, I usually didn't have much trouble finding a place to pitch my tent. One of the advantages of camping this way is that I can ride almost until sunset, then finally find a place, pitch my tent, cook dinner and fall asleep. Since the temperatures were generally always cold, but the nights were not as bad as they had been in the mountains, I didn't have a big incentive to stay in my tent until sunrise (8:30AM) and I could start making my breakfast as first light, about half an hour earlier.
I passed through two large cities, a couple smaller ones and quite a few small towns. The cities were Tucumán, and Santiago del Estero. Tucumán was just a typical city, and I planned my arrival so that I'd have time to spend the afternoon walking around. There are some historic buildings and some interesting architecture, but nothing that made me want to spend another day there. There are a few hostels there and I stayed at one that happened to be housing a truck driver who must have been preparing for a contest to see who can stuff the most coca leaves into their cheek. I've never seen anyone with so much in their mouth at one time, and it made him nearly impossible to understand. If that wasn't annoying enough, he was also in the same dorm as me and he snored louder than anyone I've ever heard. Half way through the night I had to change rooms to at least get a few hours of quality sleep in. The hostel (Hostel OH!) was a nice place though, with a pool, big kitchen and a courtyard. In Santiago del Estero, I stayed at the municipal campground, which was at the north end of the city, about "30 blocks" (according to a cab driver) from where you enter on rte 9. I'd recommend that other cyclists take the alternate route that branches off route 9 and enters the northern end of the city. Anyway, since I rode across the city twice on my way to and from the campground and didn't see anything good, I decided not to stick around. Jesus Maria was maybe my favorite of the cities I passed through, being modern and clean and easy to get around in. I was also able to meet up with a woman named Dayana, who runs a blog on the area and had given me some advice on what to see. From there it was just a short ride into Cordoba, where I learned the World Cup was being hosted and prices for lodging were all doubled. I managed to get a special "poor biker" discount which made staying here much more palatable (I promised not to say what I paid!). I'm at the Hostel Aldea, which is basically a perfect hostel.
I started out feeling great and got back into a routine of doing days of respectable mileages, even with the constant rolling hills. I was really surprised about my endurance, since in the mountains I hadn't been riding very far each day, or very long between breaks. I felt like I could ride forever with the only reasons for stopping being to add or remove layers, eat or answer calls of nature. This eventually wore off unfortunately, as the road, lack of interesting scenery and traffic all conspired against me. I finally broke out my iPod and listened to it through only one of the headphones so I could still hear overtaking vehicles. Music helped a bit, then I finally changed to my NPR podcasts.... Ahh, much better.
I had my third bloody fall of the trip during the first half of the section, when my front tire slipped over the edge of the pavement, then couldn't roll back over the lip. It was a clumsy, skidding fall, probably caused by the pressure wave of a truck that had just passed in the other direction. Sadly, I was wearing the down jacket I had received in San Pedro, and "christened" it with holes on the inner and outer layers that the down all seemed to be escaping through - a couple pieces of duct tape took care of that. At other times the combination of the wind and passing trucks would create a pressure wave either strong enough to nearly blow my helmet off, or give me a significant "pull" in the direction that I was going.
When I was in Tucuman I spent even more time revising my route. I've spent more time on the Salta-Mendoza section than probably any other - for the most part because I just couldn't get excited about any of the ideas I had come up with. My new route from Tucuman was to continue on route 9 to Cordoba, then head north a bit through the Sierras to the west of the city, then head more or less west back towards the Andes, where I'll pass through some areas known for having interesting geology and rock formations. Since those two things are still ahead of me, I'm excited about my next couple weeks (and mostly getting off route 9!). From the formations to Mendoza I'll be back in the mountains, which should be nice too. I also just decided today that I'll go to Easter Island after cycling to Mendoza. I need to get my passport "re-stamped" so that I'll have more time in Argentina, and in most countries, the only free way to do it is to leave the country and return, getting a new stamp in the process. I also wanted to see Santiago and Valparaiso in Chile, and since flights to Easter Island leave from Santiago it was a perfect opportunity. I'll be arriving at Easter Island on July 30 (which is a full moon!) and I'll spend three days there before returning on the 3rd of August.
OK, that's all for now - I have to go cook my dinner. Ciao!
Just another quick update for now. I got to Salta, Argentina two days ago, unfortunately on a Saturday night, so I had to wait until today (Monday) to do my errands. I'll be heading out tomorrow to do a loop through some purportedly fantastic scenery and to the towns of Cafayate and Cachi - it should take from a week to a week and a half. When I get around to writing my next full blog entry (it's coming, honest...), I'll go into detail about my Andes crossing from San Pedro to here. In short, I did it in 11 days - largely thanks to the many passing motorists and tour groups who gave me food and water, allowing me to take my time and enjoy the surroundings, which I'll have to classify as some of the best of the trip. My three-plus weeks off, along with the high altitude, dirt roads and cold nights of the high Andes made it a challenging, but totally worthwhile section. As with my last photo album, but this time due to the especially slow internet connection here, I've been unable to label my latest photos. You can still get to them from the View all link on the homepage or by clicking the yellow box at the top of the Pictures page. Ciao for now....
Hello again! My mail finally arrived yesterday, so I'll be back on the road tomorrow! I have no idea how it got delayed three weeks, and I didn't ask, but I have my warm jacket back so that's all that matters. :) My side trip to Uyuni, Sucre and Potosi was great and since all of it would have been very challenging and cold I don't mind too much that I didn't do it by bike. Hanging around San Pedro for another two weeks really wasn't something I wanted to do anyway. So, today I did some work on my bike, including changing the front bearings for the first time of the trip, and I bought food for the next 6-7 days, since there won't be any reliable food stops until Argentina - unfortunately I have to lug it all over the high passes between the two countries. I'll probably check in next from Salta, Argentina 8-9 days from now, but I'll be using my Spot along the way. Also, I've posted my pictures from the past three weeks, but since I haven't had a chance to label them, I haven't linked the album to this site yet. If you're curious, you can open the Picasa page and check out the latest album (top left). That's all for now - I just hope the westerly winds keep up to push me over the passes. Ciao!
Well, I've been here for a week, waiting for my mail to arrive. I finally decided to see southwestern Bolivia with a tour company, which is a beautiful place, but very difficult for cycling. I also got a great last minute deal that made the decision a no-brainer. So tomorrow morning I'll start the three day tour, which will end in the town of Uyuni (right next to the salt flat). Next, since the cities Potosi and Sucre are so close, I'll take a bus there to see them. Finally, I'll get another bus back to San Pedro, where my bike and mail (hopefully!) will be waiting for me. This all means my route will change again slightly, but I don't know exactly what it will be, although I should be able to cycle to Iguazu falls now. We'll see!
Hello from San Pedro! I spent a little while longer in Iquique after my last blog entry, for a total of two weeks off my bike. I was tired of having sore knees and wanted to give them a chance to rest once and for all. While I was there, nothing too interesting happened. Most days I would walk along the beach a little, but not enough to hurt my knees. The hostal was pretty nice and was one of those places where many travelers get "stuck" for much longer than they had planned. There were some other "long timers" such as myself, and others came and went, only staying for a day or two.
So finally I headed out, with the coastal town of Tocopilla being my next goal before heading back into the mountains, climbing from the coast to San Pedro. The wind, which had always been coming from the west during my time in Chile, was always coming from the south during my four days on the coast. Since I was heading south, it did a good job of keeping me cool and along with the constant rolling hills, made sure I wasn't riding more than 5mph. Is at least ONE easy day too much to ask? The coast between Iquique and Tocopilla is scenic at times, but since it's all desert, there isn't much to see other than the gray sand and water. The towns I passed weren't especially interesting, but the biggest surprise was the "desert", grass-less golf courses that I passed.
I camped at Chanabaya (Chanabayita?) the first night after a frustrating day of fighting the wind, and the second day was about the same. The highlight from the second day was when a trucker gestured for me to pull over and handed me a bag full of sandwiches, apples and a liter and a half of water! I camped that night a little beyond San Marcos in an area that was rocky enough to keep people from seeing me from the road. A seaweed "fisherman" came by and complained about the waves, which he said were unusually large and had been keeping him from working. He said the seaweed gets sold to Japan, but didn't know what they do with it. It's hard to believe that someone can spend their whole life doing a job only for the money, without even know what the result of their work is. Anyway, unlike the fisherman, I wasn't complaining about the waves. They were maybe the biggest and best I had seen since the Baja Peninsula, and that night before setting up camp I just relaxed and watched them roll in.
The next day I met a total of five other cyclists, but unfortunately they were all heading north. The first was a guy from Buenos Aires. We talked for a bit and then decided to head a little farther south, turning into a town on a road he had just passed (Chipana maybe?). He commented immediately on the wind - you don't realize how big a difference it makes until you're riding straight into it. After we got to the town and bought some food we met three other bike tourists, who were also from Buenos Aires. I stayed there a while, but finally headed out, wanting to make some more progress for the day. At "El Loa" there is a customs station where they had to search all my stuff. There was a very expensive restaurant there, and a snack stand where I got some water, chips and cookies, since I knew there would be very little between there and Tocopilla. I met a German guy there, who is retired and touring indefinitely. He was planning to camp in the area that night, but I wanted to push on, with the goal being to arrive in Tocopilla the next day. I found a campsite with about a billion noisy birds, and no privacy, so I waited until just before the sunset to pitch my tent.
I met the sixth cyclist the next day, a French guy who was also riding north. I passed a couple "vacation towns", the first was called "Quebrada Honda", which had no store. The next was Urcu, where I found a place to get some expensive cheese empenadas, and a little store for snacks. After finally getting to Tocopilla, I found the Hostal Marbella, where I spent two nights to get my legs ready for the nearly 14,000 feet of climbing through the desert to San Pedro.
The climb from the coast to San Pedro happens in what can be thought of as three "steps". The first is a steep 5000 foot climb to the town of Maria Elena, then a more or less easy day, then another 5000 foot climb to the city of Calama, then two more days with a total of 3500 feet of climbing, before descending into San Pedro. I gave myself goals on the climbs, such as climbing at least 45 minutes without a long stop (preferably non-stop), then a short break at 45 minutes if I hadn't climbed an additional 350 meters yet, then I would continue until I had hit that elevation, and then I would take a longer rest to sit and eat.
The first 3000 meters were the steepest, then the climb became a bit easier and I finally had a tailwind to help me along. There was some construction happening at about 3000 meters and the workers there gave me some water and soup. I definitely haven't minded getting all this free food! Close to the first "peak" there is a big water tank that provides water to Tocopilla. The guard gave me water, which meant I could camp before getting to Maria Elena. Once I could see the town in the distance, I found a sheltered spot and set up camp there.
Maria Elena is a sodium nitrate mining town, and has a very interesting layout (see here). It was off route, but passing through it was easier than carrying all the food and water I would have needed from Tocopilla. I bought food for two more days there, and left with about 9 liters of water, which I think is roughly about 18 pounds. The weight made a big difference and I didn't make it as far as I expected towards Calama, but I arrived the next day and camped at a campground near the stadium in town. The guy said the price was $10 to camp, which is crazy, and I talked him down to $6 (still too much). I would have camped outside of town but it was very windy, sandy and there was nowhere that I wouldn't have been visible. I left Calama with another 18ish pounds of water, and rode very slowly to about km 40 where I found a decent place to camp. After only 20 km more of climbing the next day, I was at the top, with a downhill almost all the way to San Pedro.
There was one more climb just after the turnoff to the "Death Valley" and that road appeared downhill, so even though it was slightly longer, I decided I had time to ride through it. At the guard station I could see a hill climbing ahead and around a corner, so I asked him how big it was. He said 800 meters, which is a huge climb that I couldn't have finished before dark, so I turned around, pretty upset that I had wasted my time leaving the main road to go there. From the access road, I stopped and looked back at the hills around the valley and thought that MAYBE the tallest of them was 800 meters, and that MAYBE(???) he meant the hill was 800 meters LONG instead of HIGH. So, I rode back to the entrance again to get some clarification, and sure enough, it was 800 meters LONG and afterwards it levels off before descending to San Pedro. What a ridiculous misunderstanding. I guess that since I had been measuring my progress in meters gained since leaving the coast, I was probably just primed to interpret it that way.
The death valley was a pretty beautiful place, and I was there at a good time since the sun was low in the sky and the long shadows showed the texture of the landscape. Between 4:30 and 5PM, all the tourist buses started rolling in to see the valley at sunset, so I guess I'd recommend cycling through as late as possible, but before all the bus traffic starts.
So, now I'm in San Pedro with yet another holdup. If I had known that I was going to be in Iquique for so long, I would have had my latest care package sent there, but since I didn't, I asked my mom to send it here instead. Unfortunately it hasn't arrived yet and I don't know when it will be here. Probably, like in Ecuador, it's been hung up in customs and will be delayed by up to a week. Unfortunately there's no way of knowing if it's in customs, or lost, or how long I should stick around. It's kind of frustrating especially after having just taken an unplanned two weeks off. I spent my first two nights here camping at a place that charges 4000 pesos ($8!! per night) before I found a nice new hostel that charges 5000/$10 per night. Moving from a campground with practically no services to a place like this is a no-brainer, and I've also met some other cyclists who I hiked to some ruins with yesterday. They're headed in roughly the direction I am, but since I don't know when I'll get my mail, I don't know if we'll be able to head out together.
With these new delays I had to revise my route once again. I'll be heading to Argentina next still, but I haven't decided which pass to take, then down possibly as far as San Fernando del valle de Catamarca, then up through Santiago del Estero, San Miguel de Tucuman, Salta, Sal Salvador de Jujuy, then back to Bolivia: Uyuni, Potosi, Sucre, back to Argentina (no more Paraguay) to near Corrientes, where I'll take a bus to Iguazu falls and back (no sense in riding 100s of miles just to see a waterfall), then to Santa Fe, where I might take a bus to Buenos Aires and back, then Cordoba, Mendoza and south. There's a chance that I'll do a side trip by bus to Santiago and Valparaiso, and maybe even Easter Island if I can get a good price. A map might make this easier to picture, so here it is:
Like the other maps I've posted, this one doesn't show the route all the way to Ushuaia, but it's still my plan to end my trip there.
Hi all! It feels like I was in La Paz a long, long time ago. Since leaving I've had some incredibly scenic riding through very remote areas. I started with more "Big Sky" country on my way out of Bolivia before reaching a number of active and inactive volcanoes along the border of Chile and Bolivia. Heading south along the border, I passed through many all-but-abandoned villages in the mountains of Chile, before crossing back to Bolivia which I'll have to say was the biggest mistake of the trip. For the better part of five days I had to push my bike through horribly sandy roads, across the salt desert of Coipasa, and finally over a pass to get to the coast of Chile. Since reaching the coast, I've been taking some time off here to rest my knees, which had been doing better until the five days of pushing, and generally, just to enjoy the better climate and the beach, which is just across the street from the hostel here.
My time in La Paz was pretty boring. There wasn't much in the city that interested me, and since it's a very hilly place and I was trying to rest my knees, I didn't get to go out walking much. I tried to see the "Valley of the Moon" at the south end of the city, but since my guidebook had the wrong times for the tourist bus, I missed my chance. I did get to meet up with another bike traveler named Andy, who is heading north through South America. It turned out that he grew up in the town next to where I lived, and we spent the afternoon talking about our trips and plans.
There is a big climb out of La Paz and I took it slowly, not wanting to stress my knees very much. After that the road is pretty flat and boring, with a lot of truck traffic, and I rode until just before Patacamaya, where there were a couple hotels on the side of the road. The "Gran Poder" is a little more expensive than the one across the street, but I could get a ground floor room, which saved me from carrying all my stuff up three flights of stairs. After a day of riding, it's worth a few bucks to be able to roll my bike right into the room. They also have a nicely stocked store, and they even sell maps of Bolivia, which I had been hearing are impossible to find since I started my planning.
The road from there towards Sajama National Park was still relatively boring for the most part. It's generally just long, straight and flat, and there isn't much to look at. There were a few small villages, and at least two seemed to have simple stores. The first town of any size is Curuhuara, but it's off route and I didn't go there. Shortly after the turnoff the landscape totally transformed and all of a sudden I was riding through a landscape that could have been taken from Utah or Arizona - lots of great red rock and interesting formations. I was also getting closer to Sajama, the volcano which is the highest peak in Bolivia, and occasionally I had a good view of it. There were also quite a few burial Chullpas along the way, where mummies used to be kept.
I decided to take the back road around Volcano Sajama and through the park (30 Bs fee). I'm not sure if I took the right road, since I ended up in some enormous plains with little clusters of adobe houses scattered around. I stopped for water at what turned out to be a school, where the teacher came out to introduce himself. He spoke very clear, excellent spanish, which was a real surprise given where we were. Unfortunately, he didn't know about the back road to Sajama even though there are only two roads in the area, but he could at least tell me how to get to another village that was on my map. So, I followed a series of roads and paths to Ojsani, where there is no store, but I was able to trade a pair of extra gloves i had been carrying for two cups of pasta and a cup of rice. There were signs for Sajama from there, so I finally knew I was heading in the right direction. Since from that point on the signs were pretty good, I assume that if I wasn't actually on the right road before Ojsani, the correct one would probably have been equally well signed.
The next day I rode to a great campsite at Huaynacota Lake and walked around for a little while there. There were vicunas grazing around the lake and flamingos, which I had been seeing in the mountains since Peru. Unfortunately they would always fly away if I got too close, so trying to get a good picture of them was a challenge.
The highest forest in the world is around Sajama and before leaving the next day I walked up a hill to take a closer look. Afterwards I rode to the town of Sajama, where I made a side trip to the geysers and bought some more food. I also wanted to go to some hot springs, but got some confusing information about where they were and what they cost (apparently some in the area are free). The ones I found cost about 10x more than the hot springs I went to last in Peru, and on principle, I refused to pay... I have a real problem with putting a fence around something natural and charging admission (which made me think for a while if parks are very different, but I decided since they protect and improve beautiful places, paying the fees is acceptable). That night I camped in the valley next to the Sajama river (not much creativity in the names around here). There were snowcapped volcanoes and mountains in every direction and one of the most incredible sunsets of the trip. I was spinning around so many times trying to take it all in, I was surprised I didn't make myself dizzy. After that show was over, the full moon came out and I walked through the valley looking for the other hot springs. Since I couldn't find them I ended up back at the first place, where one of the other things the fee wasn't used for was 24 hour security, and since no one was around I hopped into one of the pools and relaxed, with the full moon overhead, and the imposing peak of Sajama in front of me. Totally incredible experience.
The next day I rode across the border to Chile. There was rain around, but I stopped a few times until it crossed the road ahead of me and I managed to stay dry. Before the border I stopped to buy some gasoline for my stove, which ended up being free since they're used to filling up the passing trucks and didn't have change for my 30 cent fillup. There was a big climb before crossing border, with a pretty boring summit that you wouldn't want to hang around at anyway, due to all the land mines in the area.
Shortly after the immigration station for Chile (where everything is searched so that fruits and vegetables aren't brought into the country) I came across an actual campground in the park, with bathrooms, tables and water. It was the first park campground I've seen since the US, if I remember correctly. The area was beautiful, with Parinacota lake and volcanoes all around, and a lot of birds (140 types in the park). The guy who ran the campsite said it would cost 6000 pesos ($12) to stay there, but after I said it was too expensive, he changed his mind and decided the price was 2000 pesos ($4). I almost always say "wow, that's expensive" after hearing the price for just about everything, and most times I end up getting a significant discount just by asking.
The next day I looked for food in two towns, but there was no one around at either. I rode to Las Cuevas next where there are more hot springs and caves (not surprisingly). I camped there and went into the hot springs before making my dinner. Just like the ranger station in Parinacota, there was no one around. I had been pretty fortunate during the day and got lots of free food from a guy making the documentary "Travestia del Norte" and from four archaologists who passed.
I woke up with a headache that lasted the next four days. Since I hadn't been able to find any food, I had to go to the town of Putre, which is 3000 feet lower and a good place to recover since I attributed the headache to the altitude - Chungara is at about 4600 meters (15,000 feet). While I was in Putre, I drank as much "mate de coca" (coca tea) as possible, which is supposed to help with altitude sickness. While I was there I met a guy named Ciro who is doing engineering work on the roads in the area, and making plans to build tourism around Putre. I was running out of sunblock and had to go to the six stores in town to finally find some more. I also saw firsthand how expensive Chile is compared to the other countries I've been in. Most things cost 4-5x more than in Bolivia, where I had my cheapest Coke to date for 14 cents (200ml). The next day Ciro and his crew gave me a ride back to Las Cuevas and I was glad to see that my bike was still locked behind the ranger station.
My plan was to follow the "Ruta Altiplanico" at least as far as Colchane, where i'd be able to get more info about my options. I knew there wasn't much on the way, so I carried enough food for four and a half days. On the first day I rode to near Guallatire, but id recommend going through town for water (and maybe food from the hotel) and camping in the valley beyond it where there is a small river. It was a cold night as always and the water bottle that I left on bike was nearly frozen solid in the morning. There was also a lot of frost on everything - including my tent. I could smell sulfer in the morning and I guessed it must have been from active Guallatire volcano nearby.
In Guallatire there is only a police station, park office and park hotel (7000 per night w breakfast), and all the adobe homes had been abandoned. The woman at the hotel said everyone had left but comes back occasionally for reunions.
I expected another easy day to the ranger station at Surire, but it was longer than expected due to the hills, sand, and wind. I also had my first broken chain of the trip, which I'd normally be able to fix, but my chain breaker also broke so I had to put my backup chain on. Fortunately, my backup was a tool-less SRAM - I'll never buy anything else. I finally reached the ranger station a little after sunset and camped there for free. (It's possible to get a room there for 5500 pesos.) I got to cook and eat in the heated lodge, which was a real treat.
I took a wrong turn the next morning, shortly after leaving. It was partly my fault, and partly my map's. Just like the turn onto the backroad to Sajama, my map only had one road in the area, so when i got to a road that seemed "map worthy", I took it. If I had looked closer to the free tourism map of the area, I could have figured out that I wanted the second one, but that map ended just south of Surire so it wasn't obvious. There are always many more roads than are on my map, and many towns are missing. I usually have two maps to get as much info as possible, but different maps show different towns and different roads and I have to compare maps looking for a town that happens to be on both, to figure out which road is which.
The wrong road was over a steep, bad hill. I had a little doubt if it was the right way to go, but couldn't see another road farther on. I realized my mistake on the other side of the hill unfortunately and started riding back on the same road, which was steeper and in worse condition than the climb on the other side. I had great luck though because a group of people restoring the old churches in the area passed and took me back to the "main" road, at the junction I had turned off of in the morning, but I had still lost more than half a day. Next, my map said I could pass through the town of Surire to continue south, but nope, it's a dead end and I had to backtrack to an unsigned road that I had passed before Surire that I guessed would lead to the next town on my map, but that town didn't seem to exist at all. I followed the road to what seemed like the "main" road i was looking for, but there was no sign at the junction. Just to be sure that I was finally in the right place, I rode all the way back to the salt desert (Surire) to where the signs were. It was the right road after all, but I lost more time going to check. The day ended with a long, deceiving climb that was hardly noticeable to my eyes, but not to my legs.
The next day I finished riding over the pass (4800 meters) and down through more huge plains. The road was pretty bad, and drivers make their own alternate roads parrallel to the official road - sometimes there are up to four roads. I camped before the town of Enquelga in a strange stone fenced area, which, like some other ones I had seen before, didn't have a doorway. Luckily, this one had a collapsed corner and I could get my stuff in through that. Throughout the day I passed through more villages that were either partly or totally abandoned. I always had to stop at each to explore, and the highlight was finding a bulge in the earth that pure, spring water was flowing from.
I reached Colchane finally next day. I was a momentary celebrity as a bus full of women passed and gave me a lot of attention - yelling and taking my picture through the bus windows. When I reached the only hotel/restaurant in town where they were staying, they were much more reserved - maybe it was because I hadn't showered in nearly a week, or maybe it was because I hadn't shaved in almost two months. :) A few were nice enough to talk to me, and since I had three options at that point, I wanted all the information I could get. I was very interested in continuing along the Ruta Altiplanico, but the police had told me the road had been damaged in two places and that while it might have been possible to pass by bike, if I had a problem there would be no cars around to help me. The police were missing the map for the most important section of road, and the women told me that the road that was on my map wasn't the best to take. All of that combined with the fact that they told me the two salt deserts were dry (and flat) made me choose to go that way.
I had a short border crossing day next. I had to buy more food and either buy a chain tool or get my broken link removed at the bike shop in Pisiga (Bolivian side). Since I crossed on Sunday, I had to wait for Monday for the bike shop to open.
I hoped to be able to provide details on the back road route to Coipasa, but there is a confusing web of roads and I guessed my way through it. Generally, you want to aim between the largest pointy peak on land, and the mountains in the direction of Coipasa (which are Coipasa Island). It wasn't a very good road with mud in one place and quite a bit of sand. Some people gave me a landmark to aim at to cross the salt desert to the town of Coipasa, on Coipasa Island. Since it was flooded, I couldn't cross it, but I still got some good pictures before backtracking to the road. Once I reached the island, there was a lot of deep sand on road to Coipasa town. When I arrived, I saw a lot of water in the direction I was going. Someone I met in town said it was waist deep and I couldn't cross there, but that Uyuni was dry and I could cross Coipasa on the other side where there was just surface water, then follow the roads to Uyuni.
So... I backtracked on the sandy road to cross the drier, narrower side of Coipasa to a road that would take me to the town of Llica. From there I could cross Uyuni. The salt on Coipasa varied from mostly dry to having up to 2-3 inches, but it was almost always soft enough that it was easier to push than pedal and I spent most of the day pushing. Where the water was deepest I pedaled anyway to keep my feet dry. When I reached Irpa, the first town on the "coast", I decided I had had enough for the day and set up camp there. Like most of the villages I had been passing through, Irpa had a remaining population of two people.
I might have been a little euphoric from all the pushing, or just extremely happy to be done with it, but to me the the village seemed like paradise. there were maybe two dozen homes, and on the edge of the hill behind them were the stone walled areas where crops were still being grown. There were large, shady trees in the farming area, and farther up the hill there were huge barrel cacti that seemed to be glowing as the sun set behind them. Some of the homes had stone walls around their "yards", and later it surprised me that my idea of a eutopian paradise would include barriers around personal property.
I left the next morning thinking that the worst was behind me, and for the first half of the day that seemed to be the case. Unfortunately the road slowly and continuously deteriorated until I was spending more time off my bike pushing, than pedalling it.
I had heard from a few people who passed that Uyuni was flooded too, and that it would only be possible for me to cross by bus. This didn't really fit into my plans since after crossing by bus I wouldn't be in a place that I wanted to be (at least for now) but Llica was the only place to buy food and from there I could try to get more information. Once I arrived, the rumors were confirmed and I decided the best thing to to would be to cross back into Chile and head to the coast, since this is what i would have done if the people I had talked to in Colchane hadn't told me the salt deserts were dry. I stayed at the Hostal Central, which looked like a nice enough hotel on the outside, but only had one shared room from what I could see. The woman who works/lives there said the price would be 30 Bs, and as is my habit now, my first response was "wow, that's expensive!". She then said 25, and before I could even answer, she decided 20 was more fair. I agreed. In Colombia, I could save 20-25 percent on every hotel by doing this, but different places allow diferent levels of negotiation.
Since I wasn't going to be crossing Uyuni either, the next day I backtracked on the ridiculously sandy road that I had come from, knowing the junction for the road to the border wasn't far. That road ended up not being in much better condition - alternating between ridable sections and sections with enough sand that i'd come to an abrupt stop and have to push for a few meters/yards to get through it. Amazingly, half way through the day a French family passed in a Range Rover and offered to give me a ride to the border. The road seemed to improve after then, but the perspective was a bit different from the cushy back seat of the truck than it would have been from my bike.
We all had to "stamp out" of bolivia at a small military outpost which, incidentally, didn't even have a stamp. We had to look around at first to find someone to help us, before being brought to a small room that contained a DC radio at one end, along with a small table with a bolivian flag on the corner. The back corner of the room had two military models, one of the base, and the other of the surrounding area - both complete with pastic army guys in all the strategic locations. If I had to imagine what a remote Bolivian military base would look like, this would be it. The guy who had to hand write our exit stamp was all military from the waist down and from there up, he looked like he was about to head out for a night of clubbing. He was wearing black boots and fatigue pants, along with a designer shirt, sunglasses and slick hair.
The Chilean immigration office was relatively far from there, over a hill and an incredibly bad, narrow road that didn't look like it had been used in quite some time. This ended up being not far from the truth, since we were informed that it was a "pedestrian" crossing only and that cars couldn't cross there - I wondered how many pedestrians had crossed there, if any. A few minutes later though, they changed their minds and said the family could cross with their car, but they'd have to go to another office on the coast within a day or two to finish the process. Possibly to make up for the confusion, the officers there made us dinner and offered to let us stay in the guest house. The family had to keep going, but I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and have a good night's sleep. They also fed me again in the morning, and let me use their WiFi to check my mail!
Thinking that finally, the worst MUST have been behind me, and that i'd be going downhill more or less all the way to the coast, I headed out the next day towards the oasis town of Pica, where I thought I'd arrive in two days. As you've probably already guessed, the road wasn't in much better condition, and on top of that there was the steepest climb that I've seen on this entire trip. Steep, sandy climbs and heavily loaded touring bikes don't mix, so once again I was pushing. I camped that night next to a small stream, which was great since I had plenty of water for cooking and my dishes. The water was even a little on the warm side, but I didn't look around upstream for hot springs.
I passed the salt desert Huasco the next day after riding through huge, totally deserted areas with almost no plant or animal life. Just like many other times after leaving La Paz and passing through these remote areas, the silence was deafening. Once in a while you hear a bird or a buzzing fly, but generally there is just - nothing. If there is a breeze and there are bushes around you can hear that as well, and other times even if it is calm, you can hear what sounds like very strong wind very close, although you can't see it, as one of the many dust devils (whirlwinds) passes by. Many times, when I would stop to rest, I could see up to 3 or four of these around, kicking up dust in the distance.
There was a surprisingly steep and long climb after Huasco, and I didn't reach Pica as I had hoped. I finished the climb the following day, before the starting HUGE descent to Pica. There is about a 10,000 foot drop in about 30 miles, which is incredibly steep and I have to think it would be impossible to bike it in the other direction. The water bottles in my tent froze during the previous night (making it by far the coldest night of the trip), and when I reached Pica there were people walking around in shorts.
Pica is described by my guidebook as a "beautiful oasis" (I only agree with the second word) and is pretty touristy - although seemingly more for Chileans than foreigners. There are hot springs and pools, but i wasn't interested in swimming and spent a pretty boring afternoon there. The most notable part of town was the campground that I stayed at, since I haven't seen a non-park campground since the Mexican coast! It was nothing special but there were individual sites, bathrooms with showers, and even a table and bench.
I decided I'd take a slightly indirect route to Iquique on the coast, first passing by some geoglyphs (pictures drawn on the side of mountains) and through a "forest" in the Atacama desert, which is one of the driest places on earth. The forest was almost entirely cut down during the nitrate mining boom, and this section of it has been protected and also has a campground where I planned to spend the night. The hard light along with the angle of the geoglyphs made most of them impossible to see, but there was a nice shady area and tables at the park entrance, so i spent quite a while there waiting for the heat of the day to pass. I've been in cold places for a long time - the heat wasn't easy to deal with!
I passed the abandoned mining town of Humberstone on the way to Iquique, which is now a world heritage site. Like many of the other abandoned mining towns in the area, it appeared during the "nitrate boom", which collapsed with the advent of artificial fertalizers. It was a pretty interesting place, being a completely "planned" town to house the mine workers and their families. It cost about $4 to enter, and I spent a few hours there thinking that since I had about 30 miles left to the coast, and it was about 3000 feet lower, that I'd have a pretty easy ride ahead of me.
No, I never learn... and I had what seemed like a mostly uphill, upwind ride to the coast. It defies the laws of physics, but I swear it's true. It seemed more like a 25 mile uphill with a final 5 mile descent to the coast. I still arrived early enough and found the hostel here pretty easily. It wasn't my plan to stay here for long, but my knees, which had been slowly improving since leaving La Paz, were sore once again - no doubt from all the difficult riding and pushing I had been doing over the past week. I spent a day walking around town and to the "tax free mall", which left my knees feeling worse than before. So I've spent the rest of my time here doing as little as possible - resting, doing short walks along the beach, etc. If I remember correctly, Iquique is Aymara for "place of rest and tranquility" (which sounds more like something the tourism department would have come up with), and it's been that for me (except for all the construction happening at the hostel). Iquique is a popular place for surfing, and I got in the water quickly to do some body surfing, but it's too cold to stay in for long. Parapenting (paragliding) and sand boarding are also popular, but $70 for 30 mins of parapenting is a little ridiculous, and I haven't met anyone who is going or has been sandboarding, so I haven't tried that either.
Next I'll spend a few days riding along the coast to Tocopilla before heading inland again to the supposedly beautiful "San Pedro de Atacama". After that I haven't decided yet, but I'll probably cross into Bolivia to the lakes area, and while people do cycle the roads here, they're mostly in the same condition that I saw before coming to the coast so I might spend a couple days hiking there instead. After that I'll most likely head to Argentina and do a small loop in the northwestern corner before going back to Bolivia for the fourth time (good thing the $135 visa is good for 5 years). If the salt desert is dry by then, ill give it another shot, but either way, ill head east through the colonial towns of Potosi and Sucre on my way to Paraguay and Iguazu falls in Argentina.
Most importantly, since I left Bolivia originally to avoid the rain, I should mention that there has been almost NONE since I left La Paz. After having rain for most of the 10 months prior, it's been a great change.
Hi all! That's right, I'm finally in Bolivia! It's hard to believe I spent five months in Peru, but it's a big country and I got to see pretty much everything I wanted to. The only "touristy" area I missed was the Nazca lines, which weren't easy to get to from any of the other places I was in, and I guess they didn't interest me too much overall.
When I was in Ollantaytambo (near Machu Picchu) I had to buy the Boleto Turistico, the tourist pass that's required to see most of the tourist areas around La Paz. Before I left Cuzco, Laura and I used our passes to see a few of the museums in the city. There were some interesting art and historical exhibits and even though I was mostly trying to get the most out of the relatively expensive tourist pass, I'm glad I went. There were also three or four ruins northeast of Cuzco that were covered by the tourist pass, so after leaving Cuzco, I decided to take the indirect route to Puno, via Pisac to see the ruins along the way. At the first, Sacsayhuamán, there are more huge stone walls, carved with incredible precision. While I was there I met Javier, a bike tourist from Spain, who was also headed to Pisac. We rode together for the rest of the day, and checked out the two other ruins before Pisac.
The next morning Javier continued in the direction of Machu Picchu, and I headed south towards Puno on Lake Titicaca. About half way through the day, I met another bike tourist named Carlos, who had ridden to Cuzco from Argentina, and had just turned around to head back home. When we were ready to call it a day, we found a big, currently unused stadium that we were allowed to sleep in.
It rained pretty heavily on the afternoon of the next day. Fortunately we arrived at some hot springs shortly before it started. It cost about 50 cents for us to use the pools, and we stayed there for a few hours until the rain had passed. While we were there, another Alaska to Argentina rider arrived. His name was Antonio and he's from Italy. He's been on the road for longer than I have, and I still hadn't heard of him. How many more of us are out there?! Carlos and I left the hotsprings just to get over the pass to make the next day easier. We camped at a university where Carlos had stayed on the way up. School wasn't in session, but there were still some people around, and they gave us dinner and breakfast for free.
We met up with Antonio the next day and the three of us rode together all the way to Puno. The whole ride from Cuzco to Puno was great. Except for the one pass, the road was flat, there was great "Big Sky" scenery where you can see forever, little traffic and a good shoulder. At the end of the first day riding as a group, we rolled into Pucará and asked someone where we could stay. The guy said we could stay with him, and led us to his house. His wife looked out the window when we arrived and he yelled "Look, I found gringos!". They were very hospitable and since we didn't want to trouble them, we said we could just sleep in a covered workshop instead of in the house. This ended up being even more work, as they decided to clean the whole workshop and then lay down a plastic tarp and straw mats for us to sleep on. In the morning the wife made us breakfast, and the husband showed us all the ceramic products that they make there. Some things were very simple, such as coffee mugs, but there were also some very elaborate vases. Before we left, he gave us each a small bowl as a gift. It was a very nice sentiment, but I'm not sure how I'll carry it for the rest of my trip.
Antonio and I stayed at a hostel in Puno that night, but Carlos camped just outside of the city. I wanted to see at least the floating Uros islands on Lake Titicaca, and the next day I went to the dock to see what the prices were. Two guys working in one of the offices on the pier told me that it would cost 30 soles / 10 dollars to see Uros, Amantaní and Taquile - with food and lodging included. This seemed ridiculously cheap (even for Perú) and I went back to the hostel to ask the owners what a tour should cost and who I should go with. They said that it was a scam and that I'd have to pay for my own food and lodging once I got the the islands. They knew a reputable company that I singed up through (it cost $30), and the next two days I saw the three islands, and spent the night with a family on Amantaní.
The floating islands of Uros were interesting, everything is made from reeds including the houses, boats and the islands themselves, but it has become extremely touristy and didn't feel very authentic. Amantaní and Taquile are both actual islands (not floating), and Taquile is the most developed for tourism, so staying with a family on Amantaní is recommended as the more authentic experience. The tour group was split up after we arrived and taken to the homes of our host families. The family that two Austrian girls and I stayed with had a nice but simple house, with no indoor plumbing or electricity, and they grow their own food and raise their own sheep. The husband works with stone, and the wife also creates crafts to sell to tourists. The two meals we had were made from homegrown food and were excellent. That night they had a party that the girls and I had to get dressed up for in traditional clothing. The whole thing was just for us tourists, but it still had a pretty authentic feel and I had a good time there. The next day we went to Taquile, which didn't really impress me and I would have been happy skipping it.
The day after we got back I caught a bus to Arequipa, which is considered to be one of the nicest cities in Peru. There is an old convent there that I got to see during one of the days it's open at night. It's an incredible place and I highly recommend it to anyone in the area. For about 400 years the convent was completely closed off to outsiders, and inside the walls are a complete "city" within the city of Arequipa. Next I got a bus to the Colca Canyon. Which is the first or second deepest canyon in the world, depending on where you look. The other one is Cotahuasi Canyon, which isn't too far from Colca. My first day there, I did a short hike from Chivay to Yanque through terraced farms and cliff-side tombs where bones and skulls were scattered everywhere.
I took a bus from Yanque to Cabanaconde, where the popular treks through the canyon start. The next day I spent about 5 hours at the "Cruz del Condor", a viewpoint where the huge Andean Condors can be sighted. There weren't many around when I was there, but I got a few pictures of passing condors nonetheless. The best flyby happened just a few minutes after I got impatient and went for a walk around the parking area where local woman sell food and crafts. Darn. Even though there weren't too many condors, the scenery from the viewpoint was spectacular, and it was a great place to hang out for a while.
For the next four days I hiked down into the canyon to the beautiful Oasis of San Galle, through the town of Malata to Fure, with three amazing waterfalls, through Llatica to Llahuar, where I was expecting to find hotsprings, but they had been completely covered by the turbulent waters of the Colca River, finally I returned to Cabanaconde with a 4 hour steep climb. I caught the local bus back to the Cruz del Condor the next day where it was too foggy to see anything, and then I managed to find an extra seat on one of the passing tour buses. It was really great luck, I paid about $5 and had a guide, a comfortable bus, and a ride all the way back to Arequipa, which I wasn't expecting.
When I arrived in Chivay, I asked someone who worked at the hotel if I should walk to Cabanaconde instead of taking the bus and she told me there was nothing to see. On the bus ride there "nothing to see" turned out to be some of the most extensive terraced farms I have ever seen. It's totally mindblowing to see a landscape that has been sculpted to that extent. I was pretty disappointed that I didn't get to stop for a closer look on the way, or to take pictures. Luckily, the tour bus back also stopped at a few of the amazing viewpoints along the way.
I spent another day in Arequipa before heading back to Puno, where I still had to spend a couple days, mostly working on my plan for the rest of South America. From Puno I rode to Juli, then to Copacabana in Bolivia. They were two good days of riding along Lake Titicaca, but my legs were pretty sore from hiking (which was strange because they didn't bother me much during the hike) and I eventually started getting some soreness in my knees. I took two days off in Copacabana to let my knees recover, which is where many people go to the Isla del Sol, but since I had already done a tour of three Titicaca islands from Puno, I wasn't very interested in seeing that too - it's also supposed to be very touristy, which is always a turnoff for me.
I left Copacabana after noon when the rain had stopped, and made it over the big hill to the straight that connects the north and south parts of Titicaca. I overpaid a little to take one of the rickety outboard powered barges across, and decided to stay at a town on the other side, where I paid less than $3 for a hotel room (my cheapest yet!). I probably could have gone farther, but I wanted to take it easy on my knees still and I just liked hanging out in the small plaza which was right on the water.
It took two more days for me to get to La Paz. The first had more rain, and I stopped in a town at one point when the weather looked especially bad ahead. They were getting ready for the biggest night of Carnaval, and people were already drinking and dancing in the streets - all in traditional clothing and Carnaval costumes. I decided that I might stay there since it would be an interesting cultural experience, but it was still early, and people were already pretty drunk, so once the weather cleared ahead, I headed out.
Farther down the road I stopped a school and a small area of trees that seemed like a good place to camp. I talked to some kids there who showed me where to get water, and later returned with a notebook so I could teach them English! After that they watched me cook my dinner, then left and returned and asked if I wanted to stay in their house for the night, so it looked like I would still have a good cultural experience after all. After we arrived at their adobe house with dirt floors, they put a DVD in and we watched WWF's "Royal Rumble", and later "Hotel for Dogs". Not really the cultural experience I had in mind... They gave me some food too, which I wasn't able to finish since I had already eaten my pasta, and later the grandmother came in to introduce herself. Just like a few of the people in the town that was celebrating Carnaval, she was speaking to me in a mix of Spanish and Aymara. The only thing I recognized was "wayleekee", which I had learned on the island trip, and I remembered that it was a greeting, so at least I could say that back to her. The girl had to translate the rest of what she said for me.
The next day was the "day of water" during the Carnaval celebrations, which is when everyone throws water balloons, shoots each other with water guns, or just tries to soak another person by any means possible. Some cars are decorated with balloons and ribbons, which I guess means "Game on!" as they always seemed the most into the celebration. Combis and collectivos would also be part of the action, and when one passed one another, they'd shoot each other through the windows. Cyclists aren't excluded from the fun, and throughout the day people threw water at me as they passed, or sprayed me with cans of foam. Lots of fun...
So, now I've been in La Paz for four days, and I think I'll finally head out tomorrow. My knees were still a little sore between Copacabana and here, so I want to let them recover once and for all. There wasn't much in the city that interests me, and since I'm trying to be good to my legs I really haven't done too much. It's getting pretty boring to be honest. The biggest project has been coming up with yet another new route to Patagonia. The rain has been worse lately than ever before, and all the reports I've heard have been that Bolivia is even more rainy than Peru. My new route goes straight to Chile, which should be about four days away. From there I'll ride along the Ruta Altiplanico, maybe all the way to San Pedro de Atacama and through some parks including Lauca, which is supposed to be one of the best in Chile. After San Pedro de Atacama, I'll head across the Andes again to Argentina and I'll loop down south to San Miguel de Tucuman, then back up to Bolivia where I'll ride across at least the Salar de Uyuni (largest salt desert in the world) and then head east to Paraguay. I'll see the Igazu Falls in Argentina, then head towards Cordoba, with a possible side trip to Buenos Aires. The new route is about the same overall distance as my last one, but I'll spend more time in the mountains than before, and I won't get to see Brasil or Uruguay, overall the weather window will be better - I hope! To add to my weather frustration, since I arrived in La Paz, the weather has been beautiful. I'm not going to assume that the rainy season has ended for good though, and I'm pretty happy with my new route now, so I think I'll stick with it.
That's all for now, ciao!
Here's the map of my route through Bolivia! After passing through the town of Uyuni, I'll head west across the salt desert for a day to Incahuasi Island (instead of following the road on the map), then I'll head south to route 701, which I'll follow to the Chilean border. Ciao!
Hello! Just wanted to write a quick update to let you all know what I'm up to. After six days of riding from Cuzco, I reached the town of Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The riding was great, good road and impressive "Big Sky" views, and I rode with three other cyclists along the way, including yet another Pan American cyclist who I had never met or heard of. From Puno, I went on a two day tour of three of Lake Titicaca's islands, including the floating islands of Uros (made entirely by reeds!), and an overnight with a family on the island of Amantaní. Next I took a bus to Peru's second largest city, Arequipa, which is quite far from my route and on the other side of some pretty big mountains. I spent yesterday exploring the city and the amazing Santa Catalina convent. Today I'll catch a bus to the Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world, where I'll spend a few days hiking. After that I'll head back to Arequipa, where I plan to climb the 6000 meter (nearly 20,000 foot) volcano, Chachani. The side trip to Arequipa is something I had been considering for a while, and it's a good way to spend some time while I wait for the rainy season to pass in Bolivia, which will let me cycle across the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. A traveler I met recently took a 4x4 tour across it, and as amazing as it looked covered by a few inches of water, it would make for some pretty miserable cycling (and camping!). I should be back on my bike by close to the first of March, and after two or three days of cycling, I'll reach Copacabana, a town in Bolivia on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Since my passport was stamped for four months in Peru, and I'll be leaving after spending five months here (!!), I'll be fined for $1 per day when I leave the country, but that's still cheaper than when I extended my stay in Colombia! That's all for now - ciao!
Hello everybody! Lately, I've been starting too many posts with "this will just be a summary", so after leaving Huancayo I decided to stop being so lazy and take notes for every day until I reached Cuzco. Hope you enjoy all the extra effort. :)
I was off to a bit of a bad start leaving Huancayo. The main road leaving town didn't connect to the main highway as I expected. Once I realized my mistake I could either have backtracked a little and get on the right road, or take a small connecting road that some of the locals told me about. When I was in the area where the road should have been, I asked someone else who told me the only way to cross was to go back to Huancayo. I didin't believe him, but rather than dealing with the frustration of getting more bad directions, I decided to keep riding in the same direction (since the roads were parallel) and eventually cross using a road that was on my map.
My map was wrong about this road being paved, and I had a good size climb on dirt, with some rain in the afternoon. I passed through some nice farmland, and a few small towns along the way, and in one of the villages, I passed an old woman who I assumed was with her daughter. After I passed, the old woman said "He's from another country!". I passed them again leaving town, and asked which turn to take. They told me, then asked if I was from another country. I said yes, I was American. I guess they don't see many travellers in that area.
Throughout the day I met many friendly people, which would be the norm for this entire section. I don't know why it came as such a surprise to me, since I've never considered Peruvians unfriendly, but it's probably because for most of Peru, I had either been traveling with other people and talking to locals less, or in the mountains where there weren't many people around.
I got to the small town of Pazos, where my map said I could connect to the main highway, and I asked a few people how to cross. One of the officers in the area had studied English a few years before, and was eager to practice on me while giving me directions. He told me where to "ride-a-bike", which unfortunately was over a pretty big hill. The climb took a while, and near the top I had to get off and push a little. I don't know if the hill was to blame for my pushing, or if it was the fact that I had just taken a month off. It was also harder than I expected to breath during the day, and even on the bus coming back from Lima I was surprised to feel a little shortness of breath and increased heart rate coming over the 4800 meter (just under 16,000 feet) pass I had crossed on my bike only a month earlier.
After reaching the top of the pass, I started the descent and talked briefly to someone I passed. She said she was surprised that I was riding alone, since she usually sees groups of 2-3 people. I was surprised that she sees anyone else on that road, and since there is no particular reason for anyone to ride to Pazos and cross, I assumed that the other people she had seen had taken the same wrong road as I had.
I reached the paved highway that night, and camped behind a small hill in some farmland. I was dissapointed to see that the eggs I had bought in Pazos hadn't survived the descent, but one was unbroken and I gave it to a man and woman who walked past the next morning. They said they were growing potatoes there, which wasn't much of a surprise since potatoes are one of the biggest crops in Peru (if not the biggest). There are over 4000 varieties of potatoes grown in Peru.
The day started off with a good descent down to the Mantaro river valley, and since I was on pavement again, the views were good and the weather was cooperating, I was in a great mood all day. As usual, I stopped several times to talk to the people I was passing. Some kids had seen Naomi pass about a month earlier, but no one had seen anyone more recently than that. One man said that an American had passed with a donkey, which he had been travelling with since Huaraz! I forgot to mention it in my last post, but I met a Japanese guy at the Hostel in Huancayo, who is also riding from Alaska to Argentina. He's been on the road 2.5 years already, and I was surprised I hadn't heard of him.
On this day, I would pass the junction where I could either head into the mountains to one of the highest passes in the world and the highest continuous road in the world, or continue along the river valley almost all the way to Ayacucho. During my side trip into the mountains after Pasco, I'm sure I was at a much higher elevation, for a longer overall distance than the highest continuous road in the world, and my last pass along that section was just a bit lower than the highest pass in the world, so I wasn't too compelled to go that way. I also didn't think I'd enjoy it as much because like my previous mountain experience, it would be cold, with lots of precipitation, difficult to ride because of the altitude, and difficult to sleep from waking up, unable to breathe. The river valley was more or less downhill, warm, and as I had heard from Naomi, very scenic. So I had no regrets about continuing along the river when I reached that junction. If I remember correctly, the mountain road left from Izcuchaca, which is also where the pavement ended again.
Some other omissions from my Peru posts included a few "round number" celebrations during my time in Peru, including 2 years since I quit my job, 1 year of travel in Latin America, and 500 days on the road. When I was traveling with the swiss girls from Huascaran, I told them there was always something like that to celebrate and keep yourself motivated. They asked how I celebrated, and my answer was that I'd say to myself: "Hey, that's kind of cool - woohoo". :)
Throughout the rest of the day, the rolling downhill continued along the river, and as my elevation decreased, cacti and black-trunked trees that I don't know the name of started appearing
I covered a lot of distance, and when I was ready to call it a day, I came across a nice grassy area next to the river, with enough trees to give me some privacy from the road. Cows were grazing in the area, and I could hear them crunching grass feet from my tent as I was trying to fall asleep.
The next day I stopped for a drink and some snacks in a town known as both Anco and Esmeralda. While I was eating, I asked the store owner if they speak Quechua there, and I was surprised to learn that they speak Quichua, which is a similar language that is also used by indiginous people in the Andes. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I started learning Quechua in Ecuador until I learned that they speak Quichua there instead. The differences were significant enough that I decided I'd wait to start learning more Quechua until I reached Peru, and for my first month or two in Peru, my first question to the people I met would be "Do you speak Quechua here?". If they said yes, I'd try the little Quechua I remembered: Yes, No, Please, Thank you - and in each area, there were subtle differences. At one point I heard that Quechua-speaking people from one area would be completely unable to understand Quechua-speaking people from another. After hearing this, I basically gave up on learning Quechua, although my goal was only to learn a dozen or so common phrases.
I was doing some people watching during my snack break too, and was surprised that people dress the same in the warm climate of the river valley, as they do in the mountains. The oldest people in town were also very short - one old woman with an arched back and the typical dark face with deep wrinkles walked by. Her cane was probably about 2.5 feet long, and she was only a little taller than me when I was sitting on the sidewalk. Like most old indiginous woman, she was not wearing shoes. Another old woman passed and with her equally short stature and heavily wrinked face, the first thought I had was "Yoda!". When I was in Quito, Ecuador, I met some people who were studying indiginous people in the area. I asked if the portions were small because the people were small, or vice versa. They told me that they tend to be shorter because of malnutrition, and that if you raise someone born in that area in a western country, they'll reach a western height.
I felt great today, with a surprising amount of power in my legs, but the terrain was more rolling than the previous day, and I made surprisingly little progress. Toward the end of the day, I passed a small house that had no signs, but bags of oranges and a juicer on a table outside. Of course I had to go check it out. I had two big glasses of fresh orange juice while I talked to the husband and wife that live there, and learned that the oranges are grown very close to there, near the bank of the river. I paid either 1-2 soles (33-66 cents) and as I rode away, admiring the amazing view in the area, I hit my brakes a bit too hard at the place I wanted to take a picture, and with the loose layer of sand on top of the road, my bike went out of control faster than I could do anything to fix it, and I went over the handlebars. I had some cuts on my hands, ankle, knee and hip, and luckily I was wearing my helmet, since I could feel it hit the ground as I fell. I wasn't far from the next town, so when I was there I asked at a small store if they had anything for my wounds. They gave me some alcohol on a cotton ball, which was extremely painful, but necessary. For some reason I never get bruises, but I must have hit my knee pretty hard since I'm writing this nearly a month after my fall, and there is still a little tenderness where my knee hit the ground.
I stocked up on food at the store, and even though they told me there was a Hospedaje (small hotel) in town, I continued a little further out of town, and over the bridge to a flat spot near the river where I camped.
The beautiful desert scenery continued the next day, and I talked with some 20- 30 year olds at a small store, before crossing a bridge and into a different region of Peru. They had the usual questions for me about my trip and bike, and I probably stayed for longer than I should have before I headed out again. I reached the town of Huanta, where there were some ominous looking clouds moving in my direction, so I waited for a while and had a coke while I watched to see what would happen. While I was there a couple guys walked up and we talked for a while, and he bought me another Coke from the store I was sitting in front of.
The clouds continued to get worse, and I decided that instead of pushing on to my destination town of Ayacucho, I'd find a hotel there to spend the night. I went back to one of the two squares in town, and stayed at my the first hotel I found. It was only $5, and I wouldn't have to carry my bike and stuff up any stairs, so I didn't have to look any further. I didn't write the the name of the hotel down and as I recall, there was just a sign outside that said "Hostal". It was on the downhill side of the main square, on the side opposite the main road.
I passed a few pizza places in town, so it was tempting to head over to one of those for dinner, but it was raining pretty hard and I decided to just cook dinner on my stove in my hotel room.
The next day was a short ride to Ayacucho. There was a relatively small, but paved climb into town, and when a woman kindly gave me a big, heavy bag of "papitas" (small potatos), all I could think of was "Great, now I have to carry these up that hill!". Although Ayacucho was a nice colonial city that is on the itinerary of the few tourists that head into this part of Peru, I decided that walking around for half a day was enough. I did my shopping at the market, where a person could buy pretty much anything they need. In Peru, supermarkets are almost non-existant, and instead the "mercados" are where people get their stuff. I usually pay about 33 cents for 4 eggs, and about 50 cents for about 10 rolls. Cheese is sold by weight, and I don't remember exactly what I've paid, but I think about $1-2 for a pound is the average. Other common items are pasta and pasta sauce, flavor cubes for pasta, potatoes and onions, apples, bananas, Tang or Zuko for my water, and cookies (they have Oreos everywhere!).
After Ayacucho is where the road turns evil. There is one huge climb after another with almost no break, and this continues all the way to Cuzco. The climb from Ayacucho is one of the most difficult logistically, since there are no good water sources, and it takes about two days to get to the next town. I was lucky and there were road crews along the way who would give me some of the "agua mineral" they had in boxes at the work sites. If they hadn't been there it wouldn't have been too much of a disaster, there were a few runoff streams along the side of the road (only because of the rain) and some pools of water in several places close to the side of the road. Neither is a choice water source, but a person wouldn't die of thirst here.
I stopped just before the top, when the rain started getting bad, and luckily there was an abandoned worker camp where I could sleep in one of the empty buildings. It was only about 2:30 when I stopped, which I wasn't happy about, but there wouldn't be any shelter or place to hide once I reached the top. I was pretty discouraged by all the rain, since I've been riding through rainy seasons almost constantly since El Salvador, and I spent the afternoon thinking of other plans, including taking a bus to the coast where it's drier. The coast of Peru is basically a 2200 mile desert though, and for me it wasn't worth all the boring riding just to avoid a few hours of rain every day. For the rest of this section, the rain wasn't bad, and I was glad that I stuck to my planned route. Another PanAm cyclist who I was going to meet in Huancayo was so fed up that he took a bus half way through Chile where he plans to ride to the end, then bus back to where he left off and finish the route.
I finished the climb the next day, and rode for a surprisingly long time through the grassland and rolling hills before descending to the small town of Ocros. The grassland or "pampa" was beautiful and reminded me how much I like being in remote, vast, empty places.
*** The next paragraph is about a bus accident that I passed, you might want to skip it ***
Before the final descent started, I passed the site of a bus accident, where some people were standing around the overturned bus, and the partially covered body of the bus driver, who I was told was the only fatality of the rollover. Someone said that it was a night bus, and I was surprised that the body hadn't been taken away sooner since it was late in the day, but before I left, four guys picked him up and put him in the back of a pickup truck. This was also shocking, since it was a bumpy dirt road for many miles in either direction. There are ambulances around, but maybe those are only for injured people. Another surprising thing was that another bus from the same company stopped at the site, and let everyone out to look at the accident. Peruvians, and maybe Latin Americans in general, have a very different perspective on death and it's not uncommon to see a similar scene on the daily news, along with interviews of the mourning family.
*** End of bus accident info ***
A Belgian couple was on the passing bus, and we talked for a little bit in Spanish, since it was our best common language. They had been volunteering nearby and were headed to Ayacucho. I asked them if they had seen Ocros on their way, since that was my destination for the day, and they said they had been sleeping. I can never understand how people can sleep on busses, or take night busses and miss everything they're passing through. This shows the difference in mentalities between bicycle tourists and some (but not all) bus travellers. When you travel by bike, the trip is almost more about the places between the destinations more than the destinations themselves, and when people travel by bus or plane, the destination is the only thing that matters. Obviously I think this is extremely unfortunate, and when I was in Eastern Mexico (what I thought was my half-way point for distance and time - HA!) I thought about whether the trip was going the way I wanted it to be, and if I would enjoy it more if I continued by traveling by bus, motorcycle, car, etc.. For the reason I explained above, I decided that even though it's more work, cycling is the only way for me to travel - you just miss too much otherwise.
The descent to Ocros was probably the most beautiful of the trip. It was raining lightly, but I still had a clear view into the valley and down to the town. The road meandered wildly to Ocros, which was still quite far away. Along the descent through the valley where I'm sure the grass really /was/ greener, there were small houses made of stone, with thatched roofs and green moss growing everywhere. The low sun and rain created an incredible rainbow that stretched from one side of the valley to the other. While crossing one of the switchbacks with a few small farms below, there was an indiginous woman leading a horse along a path in an especially green grassy area. If I still had doubts about riding in the rainy season, this, and the memory of my climb from Las Balsas in northern Peru completely erased them from my mind. The road work I had seen leaving Ayacucho, will eventually extend the wide, paved road through Ocros as well. I can't imagine what this will do to the town and surrounding area, but a two lane paved highway in the place of the one lane dirt road will be devastating I'm sure.
Ocros was a typical small village, and I walked around a little before cooking my dinner outside of my hotel room. There is one road through the town that is used by cars, and the other roads are only for pedestrian use and are pretty much overgrown by grass since private cars in most of Peru are unheard of. Chickens, dogs and pigs are usually seen walking through the roads, and hearing children say "Mira! Gringo!" as I walked by was not uncommon. (Mira, Gringo! = Look, a white person!). The center of town had a really big, old tree, which I guess is a good indication of the fertility of the area, and probably why it was chosen as the site for the town. Buildings were the usual adobe and stucco, with curved tile roofs. There were at least two small hotels (mine was a spare room in a house, with a door to the outside), and amazingly there was even a Chifa (chineese food restaurant) next to my hotel - but I cooked pasta anyway.
The road continued to descend after Ocros, through another town where I would recommend that people stop along this route. It might have had a little less character than Ocros, but since it's a popular place for long-haul busses to stop, there are plenty of places to eat and stay. It would also set a person up to continue past Chincheros the next day to Uripa. If possible, I'd even recommend continuing to through the great canyon near the bottom of the descent, to the bottom of the valley to the river, where there are some stores and flat places to camp.
That night I stayed at the nice and reasonably priced "Hostal Paraiso" on the main street of Chincheros. There are quite a few restaurants in town, which all decided to close right around the time I wanted to eat. I had to wait until 7PM for them to start reopening, and I got the most common Peruvian dinner "Pollo a la brasa" (chicken), with fries and rice.
I had a later start than I wanted since the restaurants had an equally strange schedule for opening in the morning. I had my eggs and rice, then got back on the road. The climb to Uripa wasn't too bad, and as I mentioned, it would be a good place to stay instead of Chincheros, since it would mean less climbing the follwoing day. I stopped there for a drink and a couple of bananas, and three young kids asked me a bunch of questions about my trip, my family, and the United States.
The road continued upward and around numerous switchbacks after Uripa, and hours after leaving, I could still see the town behind me. There were many "false summits" as usual, which is when it looks like you MUST be at the top, only to round a corner or reach the top and see that the road continues to climb.
Today there were quite a few kids asking for "platita" (change), and two kids looked like they were trying to set up a barricade - maybe hoping the passing collectivos would throw some money their way. They asked me for some money, then tried to explain how we could have a "collaboration" - I don't think they know what the word means.
My trailer tire had been looking really bad the night before - a place that I had had patched in northern Peru was finally giving out, and there was a big buldge in the tire. It finally decided to blow up (literally) at the top of the pass, and the bang made me think someone was shooting at me. (I don't think people have guns in Peru, actually, but it was loud..).
The 4500 foot climb from Chincheros took much longer than I expected even though I felt like I had been making good time, but I was determined to get to Andahuaylas that night, where I'd take a day off after 9 days of riding. After reaching the top, the dirt road turned to beautiful, new, smooth pavement
. It was paradise. Unfortunately this didn't last long. The
pavement turned to hard- packed dirt, then it became infuriatingly bumpy and I had to go very slow to make it bearable.
Andahuaylas was just a typical, working small city, but it was a good place to get some chores done. I did my laundry, got a haircut (5th of the trip I think) which cost $2.33 with a beard trim and neck shave, got a new tube for my trailer, and called home and wrote a few emails, but didn't do anything with my website. I also wanted to give my wounds a chance to heal, since my knee was still tender and my right hand was starting to look a little infected.
My day after leaving Andahuaylas was a very relaxed one. I left the "main" road at the town of San Jeronimo, to head up to the Laguna Pacucha, which was a very nice area, and then onward to the ruins of Sondor. I stopped for an early lunch at a restaurant on the lake and stayed for probably two hours, first talking to some guys working on the presidential campain, then two police officers and the girls that worked there. One girl was 18 and had a one year old girl that she offered me. That's probably the 4th time in Peru that a mother has offered me one or more of her children. I usually just laugh and say I don't have enough room for them, but I'm sure they're serious when they ask me.
The ride along the lake was nice, then I passed through a few villages, where there was a woman making a small blanket using only traditional methods - it looked pretty complicated. She said it would take a week or two to complete, but I don't know how many hours per day she worked, and she said that she would sell it when it was done.
The Sondor ruins were pretty nice, with a good view of the surrounding area - back to the lake, and even to some snowcapped mountains in the distance. A few women passed through the ruins with their cows and goats while I was there. There is a great shortcut through the ruins to a road that follows the side of the ridge with great views, saving a significant amount of climbing for people who want to take the northern route instead of the slightly larger route 3. The shortcut would probably be too muddy to be passable in the rain, but it was dry when I was there and I wished there were more roads like that to ride on.
I camped just at the end of the shortcut road, where it reconnected with the main road. There wasn't a good place to camp in the area, so I pitched my tent in an empty water reservoir that looked more like a swimming pool, and flagged down a few cars to see which way I had to go the next morning.
There was a big descent down to another river, followed by a big climb up the opposite side of the valley. I was in a pretty bad mood about having come this way, since it was a totally unnecessary extra climb. The best way to go is through the valley to the right after Sondor, reconnecting with rte 3. The overall elevation would be a bit more, but with less climbing in total. Anyway, I didn't have much energy or motivation, and didn't reach Huancarama as I had hoped. I was a little low on food and water, so when I passed a mother and her son standing on the side of the road with about 10 big bags of potatos, I stopped to ask if I could buy a couple. They gave me two for free, and I continued a little farther on and camped in the foundation of an old adobe house, and fried a potato with an onion I had been carrying, and some salt an pepper. I had some leftover tomato sauce too, which I coated the potatos with. So, so, good.
Since I only had pasta but no water to cook it with, I made the same thing the next morning.
This was the first time on the trip where I could see my previous night's campsite at the end of the day.
I finished climbing to what a sign called the "intangible" ruins of Curamba, which were hidden behind a hill, but tangible after all. There were a bunch of piles of rocks, a few foundations and one small tower/platform in good condition. There was a small descent from there, and another climb before descending to Huancaramba, where I got a late breakfast/early lunch. There was more climbing after leaving the town, and then a big downhill to the river before the city of Abancay. As I passed some guys working on a farm, they yelled to me that there was a "gringita" (little white girl) around. I said "Where?" and they said "Now", which doesn't make sense obviously and since I had already passed them, I continued riding away. A woman further down the road hadn't seen any gringitas.
From the top of the descent, you can see the city from miles and miles away, and I ended up not reaching it that night. Instead I stopped at a gas station on the river at the bottom of the valley, but they only had a room with a mattress on the floor to offer me, so instead I filled up my water bottles and camped a few hundred meters away in a small quarry.
The view of Abancay from the descent is very decieving, since it seems to be at the same elevation as the river, but is in fact 1500 feet higher. The road was paved again, and it was great being able to climb at a reasonable speed. I felt strong during the climb but was pretty tired after getting to the hotel, and I felt exhausted the next two days. I'm not sure what the cause was, but I was dehydrated, and fluids (even sports drinks) would pass right through me, I couldn't eat much, and didn't want to do much other than sleep. The third day I was feeling better, but had to eat properly for a day before hitting the hills again. The problem (I think) was probably an electrolyte imbalance, but I should be getting plenty of sodium, and since I had had two potatoes near Curamba, I shouldn't have been depleted of potassium. So who knows?
From Abancay, I had a 5000 foot climb to the top of the next pass. I was feeling good again and had plenty of energy until the very end. I was trying harder to eat and drink well throughout the day, and I was giving myself elevation goals - climbing a certain distance between breaks. There was only one small village during the climb, but I had enough food and didn't need to stop.
I got a late start in the morning because the ATM across from my hotel (Hostal Arenas ~$8 per night w/ WiFi), ate my credit card as I was about to leave at 8:30. Someone there said they couldn't get my card until 12PM, but I went back at 9:30 to make sure. The guy ran around for a while with different keychains, and after about 15 minutes returned with my card. I was finally on the road at about 10:30. Because of the late start, I didn't make it all the way to the top, and camped on a small side road before the pass.
Around the pass there were plenty more places to camp, including at a small religious building on the left just after the top. There were villages all along the descent, even though the hotel manager had told me "No hay nada!" (There is nothing!). Well, bad info is nothing new... I met a German cyclist during the descent, and as usual, forgot to take his picture. He's ridden in many parts of South America, but he does shorter trips and a lot of meandering. He had come from Limatambo, the town I was headed to, and recommended the Plaza Hostal, where I stayed for 10 soles or about $3.50. I got my favorite Peruvian dinner that night "Milanesa de Pollo", with a big pile of fries and rice. The town was pretty nice, and I explored some of the cobblestone pedestrian roads before eating. I don't remember seeing any stores on the climb to Limatambo from the valley floor, and the road was the steepest just before town.
I finished the climb and rode to Anta the next day. This set me up pretty well for a short day into Cuzco. In Huancayo, Sigal had recommended the Loki Hostel, and since it was the cheapest one in my travel guide, that's where I went. I walked around Cuzco a bit for the next two days, sometimes alone, sometimes with another traveller named Laura, who's a prospective med student from Costa Rica.
Obviously you can't go to Cuzco without going to Machu Picchu, but there are a number of confusing options for getting there. You can hike there along the Inka Trail, except for in February or March when it's closed. Take a number of collectivos to a small town named Santa Theresa, where you can walk to the ruins from. It's also possible to cycle that route, but there have been landslides recently and it wasn't recommended. The last option is to get to take a train from either Cuzco (too expensive) or catch it later down the line in a town called Ollantaytambo. I took two collectivos to get there, one to a town called Urubamba ($1.66 - I could have lived without seeing it, but there are supposedly nice ruins in the area), then I took another collectivo for about 40 cents to Ollantaytambo. I had a little bit of time before the train left, so I walked around the town, which was "one of the best examples of Inca city planning" and it has been occupied continuously since it was created. There are also the impressive Ollantaytambo ruins on the hill on the edge of town, and on the opposite mountains, some buildings that were used for grain storage.
I had taken the night train to Machu Picchu town (aka Aguas Calientes), so I arrived pretty late. The next morning I had to get my Machu Picchu tickets in town since you can't buy them at the site, and my bus tickets for the final trip to the ruins. (The busses were brought there by the train - there are no roads that go all the way to the ruins). Finally, I had arrived at the first view of Machu Picchu is totally mind blowing. It's by far the largest site I have seen, and the most impressive. It's in the mountains and the scenery is as stunning as the ruins themselves. I saw the ruins in two parts, first crossing them to climb the peak known as Waynu Picchu, which is a strenuous climb and has it's own ruins, but people mostly do it for the great view back to Machu Picchu.
There was rain around lunchtime, so I hid for a while and paid $16 for a hamburger, coke and ice cream. After the rain let up, I headed back out to the ruins and saw the Inca Bridge - a "drawbridge" between two sections of trail carved into the side of a cliff that must be 1000s of feet high. I also passed the house of the keeper, which has a great view of the site, and then explored more inside the ruins themselves. The Incas were incredible at working with rock, and just like with the Egyptions, archaologists are stumped as to how they were able to carve such huge pieces of rock with such precision, and then move them into place. Just before I left the site, there was another rainbow crossing from one side of the ruins to the other. Rainy season ain't so bad after all.
Now I'm back in Cuzco for maybe a couple more days. I've have some "life" stuff to catch up on, including renewing my travel insurance, which I feel obligated to have even though if you read the policy, nothing is actually covered, I have to get my PayPal account fixed, since they decided to lock me out after I changed my account type from "business" to "non profit" when I was raising money for the orphans, I had to write this blog entry, still have to get my pics online, had to get some new bike parts (new pedals, chain, cassette, handlebar tape). I'm also trying to get a lower price on my storage unit at home, since the price has gone up by 40% since I left, and I've had to find and buy travel guides for my new route to Ushuaia.
What, a new route? Yep, looks like I lied when I said I wouldn't be changing it. The problem now is that if I ride my old route to Ushuaia, I'll get there in the middle of their winter. People have done it, but the days are short, it's cold, there's snow, and of course, there is the constant Patagonian wind. I came up with a few options for dealing with this.
1.) I could take a bus from Cuzco to somewhere farther south, get to Ushuaia while the weather is still good, then bus back and finish the part I skipped.
2.) I could ride really fast on the flattest possible route, not see much, and get there before the weather gets too bad.
3.) I could add a few more countries to my trip, to add a few months and arrive in their spring.
Of course I had to pick option 3. :) So the plan now is to spend some more time in Peru, I'll head down to Arequipa to see the second deepest canyon in the world, I'll see Lake Titicaca, then I'll go through Bolivia after paying my fine for staying in Peru longer than my passport was stamped for (hopefully by that time the Salt Desert won't be flooded), I'll cross into Chile were there are more salt deserts that won't be flooded, then back to Argentina, where I'll go through some nice areas on the way to Paraguay, where I'll ride through the eastern part of the country to Iguazu falls, then I'll ride through 2-3 states in southern Brazil (no, I don't speak Portuguese yet), next will be the coast of Uruguay on my way to Buenos Aires back in Argentina, where I'll cross the country again on the way to Chile, where I'll ride down to the Lakes district (again in Argantina), then the Carretera Austral (Chile), then to Usuaia (Argentina). Hopefully with that route, the weather will be good enough that I'll be able to enjoy the southern part of the route. I'd also like to fly home for a week or two, if the price is right. I would probably do this from Buenos Aires.
OK, that's all for now. Congrats if you made it all the way through. :D
My GPS didn't record from just past the Sondor ruins until Cuzco. I continued north of Route 3, through Huancarama, then reconnected to route 3 in the valley before Abancay and stayed on Route 3 until Cuzco.