I arrived in Puerto Montt the day before New Years Eve. Next day I rode to the airport to meet my friend Stella. She came per flight from Stockholm. But not her bike! She had to take the bus downtown.
There we stayed in a very nice hostel called Pink House. Eventually we learnd to know that her bike was still in the customs and the staff at the ariport promised to do all they could to send it to Puerto Montt. Although Stella also did all she could to accellerate the process The bike did not come the following two days.
While we were waiting we explored the town...
..and took a ferry to a tiny island south of it.
On this island there was a cross that reminded me of Rio de Janeiro
And this is the view from the hill downtown.
On the fourth day Stella learned to know that the only way to get her bike was to go to the customs in Santiago in person. But Santiago is about 100 km north of Puerto Montt!
I was a little restless so we decided she should go there by herself while I should do the first 200 km (three ferries) to Chaitén. There is a direct ferry between Puerto Montt and Chaitén so Stella planned to catch me up there.
The first part of the Carretera Austral was very beautiful ...
...and the road was paved
Even the weather was nice.
I arrived the first ferry in the very last minute! Then the rain begun...
Next morning I agin made it to a ferry oin the very last minute!
On this ferry I met a touring family with two kids.
They had one single wheel trailer each!
The distance from the second to the third ferry was only 10km. Since the ferries were syncronized (for car speed) the company had a transfer bus between them. Our bicycles and the trailers were transported on a pickup.
I helped the family with all their stuff and was surprised how fast they were to the third ferry.
They decided to stay in Caleta Gonzalo while I decided to continue to Chaitén.
It rained all afternoon and the national route 7 was not so good.
Sometimes there was quite narrow.
But the landscape was beautiful rain forest.
When I arrived in Chaitén it stopped raining and the sun came out.
There is a volcano near Chaitén which 2008 had an erruption that forced several thousand citycens to evacuate. A new river was born that devided the town in two parts.
Now most people have moved back and they are rebuilding and digging down the river in a bed.
Here you can see the volcano which still is smoking
And here you see all deposit it has brought in the river. Actually the waterfront of the town has moved 800 meters out in the ocean!
Stella came WITH her bike after I had a resting day in Chaitén.
We visited some houses which had not been digged out
And looked at the disaster.
In Chaitén I also met Sebastian Woitsch a German bicyclist who had a lot of things in common with me.
We invited him to join us and he agreed. First day we rode onlu about 30 km to a thermal spring.
It was raining again.
But the steaming water was hot and nice so we stayed there all afternoon.
Not far from the hotspring we stayed in a free camping in the National Park.
Next day the road was paved some more kolometers
We passed a bridge with a nice view
Also the bridge was very beautiful
Stella and Sebastian on the bridge
Soon after the bridge we decided to leave our bikes at a camping...
and hike for some hours to see a glacier tongue
It was a nice walk through a marvellous forest
But the path was very wet...
This is almost at the glacier
Soon the road was gravel again. (They call it ripio) What you can not see is that it was very steep as well
After a long downhill we exchanged important road-info with meeting bicyclists.
And in the evening we decided to camp at the same place as another group of four, so now we were seven.
Next day we met a family from Dresden where the mother had all luggage on her bike and the father all kids
The five year old girl sat under a waterproof shield in the rain and liked telling us all about everything.
Her brothers behind did not want us to chat...
Mainly we followed a river until tar changed to gravel again.
Whenever we stopped there was soon a group with a lot of touring bicyclists. Here the family from Switzerland cought us up
Once, when Sebastian had to fix a flat tire...
...a lady in a house at the road watched us and invited us for breakfast!
When we left Sebastian asked her if he could take a picture of her. Her face was special!
Here you see some more bicyclists in our group: Jens from Norway and Jessica from San Francisco.
And here you see all our seven bicycles outside a hostel in Puyuhaupi
famous for its German Kuchen
(we were eating a lot of them!)
Sebastian did not feel cured after a longtime cold and decided to stay in Puyuhaupi.
At the same fjord we camped close to the ocean. In the middle of the night two of our tents were flooded by a very high tide! Jessie and the Australian couple had to flee with all their belongings about 50 meters to the place where we camped.
This is an island in the fjord after the tide went back
We had really fun in our bicycle group! Here you see Jonathan and Angie from Brisbane
And the road was much more paved as we had read in blogs from some years ago
The landscape was changing everry minute...
...and it was never difficult to find water
We did not only see beautiful flowers...
...but also nice rocks...
Once we came to a steep downhill so the road was a serpentine
I gave my camera to another bicyclist and asked him to take a picture of me. Can you see me?
I was fast!
From the same point the view on Cerro Castillo (Castle Mountain) was also very nice
At the village with the same name ther was a wooden monument offering Mate (herbal beverage you drink in South America) to Stella
Fianlly we came to Lago Gral Carrera. Because of the many glciers around it was completely torquise,
especially when the sun was shining.
We found a nice camping in Puerto Rio Tranquilo
Stella and me decided to pay for a kayak tour to the famous Blue Marble Caves
Although it was a little cloudy and windy...
it was a marvelous trip!
Next day we continued along the Lago Gral Carrera
towards Cochrane
Camp fire at Rio Cochrane
The current was strong and fast!
The last afternoon before Cochrane we decided to tle a little alternative route ...
... over a steep mountain...
...and then back over a line-ferry (which could move across the river without an engine!)
On the ferry.
At the main square of Cochrane...
I was welcomed by a sweet dog!
Next evening Stella and me met another family from Germany
We decided to camt together in a nice wood and had a good time with little Milo!
Rio de los Nadis
The last ferry in Chile goes from Rio Bravo to Puerto Yungai and does not cost anything
After more glaciers,
waterfalls and a lot of rain we finally arrived
a hostel in Villa O´higgins
where a lot of touring bicyclists stay
Many of them leave the spare parts they don´t need in case somebody else can need them
This is the hostel after the rain (under the rainbow)
Next morning we rode the very last 8 km of the Carretera Austral to a ferry
which brought us to Argentina.
After the border point there was a long uphill to the real border.
At this point Stella decided that we should not camp in the international zone (No Mans Land), but we should try to catch the ferry over the Lago Desierto the same day.
Continue reading in my next post!
