This has been a breath of fresh air since leaving southern Patagonia which left us stronger and very appreciative of basically everything I can think of. Knocking straight up the guts of Chile has been blissful joy. With every turn, no headwind to toss us from our steeds and another valley or mountainside.

The Carretera is a name given to an incredibly isolated part of Chile. The gravel roads you can see in the gallery are the very best of what we rode on making some of the small towns inaccessible except by air of 4WD. Not having a car or enough money for a flight is quite standard in these parts making the area almost a country within Chile. It is quite strange telling the locals about the primo sites we have seen in there country not more than a few hundred km away which in some cases they have either visited when they were a kid or never been to.

The riding has been either up or down, it could not have been more different to that in Patagonia. We are either climbing up a ridge or descending into a valley, constantly ducking in and out of the snow line. Above 1,000m there is a cool chill in the air that makes your hair stand on end. At 500m the warmth of lush forest hits you with a warm breeze and the smells of spring. Not having a topographical map makes each day quite an adventure, we often get a clue as to what the day will entail by the locals saying the next town is up there or down there pointing diagonally through a mountain.

The camping has been incredible and mostly free, it is just a matter of deciding which amazingly clean and picturesque river to camp next to. Then where to go for the afternoon swim followed by what to have for tea some fine tuning of the bikes and all there is left to do is watch the sunset over a pot of coffee or carton of wine. Life sure is simple when you travel like this and makes me appreciate what is important and what a short time we have do it all.

This I’m sure will be one of the highlights of the trip, we are taking our time through this section and a few photos when we get the chance. The next few days see us heading back into Patagonia partly because Chile is costing more than double that of Argentina and we are keen to head up to Mendoza the wine capital of Argentina and the world if you talk to anyone over here. This also means a slog straight into a ferocious head wind through desolate planes with towns spread hundreds of km apart for about 1,500km waahoooo you beauty can’t wait!

Our legs have changed shape and Angela is starting to contest the sprints to the Guardaganados (cattle stops 10 points) so we are ready to tear the road apart on our way to a well deserved day (or days) off in wine country.

I trust all is well in London NZ and Europe, keep it cranking and drop us a comment or email, nice one.

Silas

This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2005 at 10:39 pm and is filed under All Categories, Chile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.