Leaving Puyuhuapi

Friday was a strange day; almost nothing went the way I expected. The group left Puyuhuapi around seven, but we quickly separated. This is normal; groups don’t usually travel in a pack so much as they cover the same ground at around the same time, but they go half an hour or an hour at their own speeds and then whoever’s ahead stops to wait for the others.

I was ahead. I stopped when I got to a place where the road was down to one lane because of construction, so they had to let traffic through in shifts, one direction at a time. I waited for several shifts and then started to worry. Where were they? Was one of them having problems with their bicycle? Had they somehow passed me without me realizing it? They hadn’t been that far behind me. I started to ask the waiting drivers if they had passed three cyclists, and if so, how long ago, but none of them had seen anyone. Was I going insane?

I waited an hour and a half and then finally gave up. They must have gone back; something must have happened. The next time our lane opened, I went through to the evil road.

The first part of the road was truly evil. It was narrow and full of construction workers and machines; a motorcycle got stuck and held up traffic for several minutes until some guys went over to help him. I walked part of the route, not because it was steep but because it was rocky.

As I went on, the traffic thinned out completely. On either side of the pass, they close the road from 1 to 5pm, so after about 1:30, all the cars had gone through and I was the only person on the road.

It was awesome. The road was a struggle — hours of uphill twists and turns, some over ridable dirt but some over impossible rocks — but the views were stunning.

I did start to run out of water, so that was a problem. It was afternoon and hot and I needed to find something. The water in Chile is all safe to drink, and there were several waterfalls, but the problem was access — they were all too far from the road. Finally I came to a spot where I could reach the falling water to fill my bottles, but only by taking my shoes off and stepping into the small pool of water below.

I got to the second cut off point around 3:30pm, so I had an hour and a half to wait. The cyclist trio showed up at 4:30.

I was super happy to see them. They told me they had stopped to go on a short hike, and that’s why nobody had seen them on the road. I thought that was a little strange, as they had never mentioned this plan, but whatever.

Half an hour later, we were headed downhill, which was in some ways just as awful as the climb, or at least differently awful. You basically have to use the brakes the entire way down, and the road is rocky, so bad in places I wound up walking, and it goes on forever, and my hands were killing me by the end, but I didn’t care because there was PAVEMENT! Blessed pavement! I don’t care what Brian and Amy say; pavement is heaven — and the road is paved from here all the way to my ferry ride.

Not only that, but pavement meant we had reached the end of our planned route, and it was time to look for a campsite. We had done it! We had made it across the mountain pass! Now it was time to rest and make dinner and drink wine!

Or not. We talked briefly, agreeing, I thought, to stop at the first suitable campsite, and then we started peddling.

I was not in front this time, and I was hurting. And hungry. We kept passing spots that looked perfect — flat, a ways from the road, close to water — but no one ever stopped. I became increasingly frustrated and increasingly crabby. What the hell were they doing? What cruel trick was this? The next actual town was twenty or thirty miles away, and we had already been on the road for twelve hours!

I tried to talk to one of the guys when I caught up with him, but the girl in the group was so far ahead by that point that the conversation was useless; even if I convinced him, we would still have to catch up with her. Plus, he said, they wanted a shower.

A shower?! I thought. We’re in the middle of nowhere! I was angry at their insanity and their complete lack of communication, and exhausted past the point of emotional resilience. Eventually I had to pull over and cry a little, and then I let them go. I put on my favorite music and sang along as I pushed myself forward, this time looking for a campsite for one.

Of course there was nothing. The road had veered away from the path of the river, and the land was all fenced off, but I didn’t see any houses or other signs of actual humans I could talk to, and I wasn’t brave enough to try squatting on my own.

And then, after a couple of miles, I saw it: a house! Oh my god, with people! I could see them; they were walking outside! I biked over and asked if I could please just pitch my tent in some corner of their yard and sleep.

Of course, they said. Then they invited me inside and offered me food and use of their bathroom. It was amazing. I was filthy and exhausted and ready to pass out in my clothes after eating nothing more than a hot dog bun, so a shower and an actual meal pretty much felt like a miracle.

It turned out I was not the first person to turn up on their doorstep; they get so many visitors they are planning to set up their own campsite over the next year or two. There’s just nothing around here, they said — nowhere to even buy bread.

I have no idea what happened to the trio of cyclists; I can only assume they kept going to the next town. It doesn’t seem humanly possible, but then again, neither does skipping breakfast, which they did, or not having lunch until they got through the mountain pass at 4:30, which they also did. Maybe they’re robots.

One of them had warned me the night before that they were amateurs and not professionals like me. Surprised, I laughed and said if I was faster than anyone, it was only because of my 29-inch wheels. And he said no, I mean like planning everything.

I’m still not quite sure what that means, but it does seem that perhaps we were not the most compatible of traveling companions.

They didn’t even laugh at my jokes.

Puerto Cardenas

I biked about 8 hours on Tuesday. It was hard, but it didn’t kill me. In fact, I felt less exhausted than I had on some of the shorter days earlier in the week.

The reason I biked so long, I realized later, was because there was a group of us. Not an official group, but just a bunch of cyclists all on the road at the same time, passing each other every couple of hours as one or another stopped to rest, to have lunch, to adjust something on their bike, to wait for a friend. We didn’t even know each other’s names for the most part, but we started to recognize each other. Oh, it’s one of those French guys, or, oh, it’s that guy in the bright orange shirt. And we were all suffering together, so that made it okay, and gave me the energy to keep going all the way to the next town.

Sometimes when I’m alone and struggling, I get this idea that it’s only hard for me, that I’m just weak and unprepared while people in better shape are cruising uphill with no problems. But when I see hard-core athletes gulping down water in the shade and saying, damn, that hill nearly killed me, I think, okay, I can do this; we’re all in the same boat.

I’m still not quite sure where all the cyclists came from; I was alone from my side-of-the-road campsite to Villa Santa Lucia, where the Carretera connects to the road from Futaleufu, so some of them may have been joining up there, but today I rode for four hours and saw only one pair of cyclists, who were heading the other direction.

Tomorrow though it looks like I’ll be part of an actual group — I’m setting my alarm for 5:30am to pack up and head out early with a trio from Santiago — a couple I ran into during my eight hour day, plus their friend who was behind that day trying to fix his bike rack. We connected again at a campsite in Puyuhuapi, where I am now.

Apparently tomorrow we will face the worst part of the Carretera in terms of both uphill-ness and road quality, so we want to get an early start, but then once we get to the next town, the road is paved all the way to Coyhaique. I’m getting close to the end, which is sad; part of me wishes I’d planned to do the whole Carretera instead of just the first half.

I bought my ferry ticket for January 30 — a 24-hour ride that will take me from Puerto Chacabuco back to Puerto Montt. Then I have another week before my flight; I haven’t decided yet what I’ll do.

Many more things to tell — and more photos — but they will have to wait for another day.

Leaving Chaiten

“How far are you going today?” the cyclists always ask each other. The hitchhikers too. In Chaiten my answer was a shrug, followed by, “Hasta que me canse” — “until I get tired.”

In fact, I was hoping to camp with two of the guys I’d met at the hostel/campsite, but I got the impression they were in better shape than me, so I really wasn’t sure I could keep up.

In fact, I could have, but I stopped after just a couple of hours at a swanky (for the region) hotel, where I sat inside, drank a Coke, read a little, charged my devices, and otherwise hid from the hottest part of the day.

I set off again around five. Around 7:30 I texted Antonio and it seemed they were only an hour or so ahead of me, which was totally doable — but 45 minutes later I was doubtful. I had made little progress; everything had been uphill and my knees were killing me.

Then I saw the perfect campsite — a little flat bank off the side of the road, above the river, partially concealed by bushes.

I considered my options. My knees were unhappy, I’d started pushing my bike uphill instead of pedaling, and I had no idea how far I was from reaching the top. If I kept on, I might not find a campsite as convenient and lovely.

So I stopped. It was the thing I’d been most afraid of when I learned I’d be going alone — pitching my tent by myself in the middle of nowhere — but I really didn’t see a better option.

I did have cell reception, so I posted my location on Facebook, and somehow that made me feel better. Like at least if anything happened to me, the police would know where to start looking — not actually that comforting of a scenario if you think about it logically, but comfort is not a logical thing.

Not that I was terrified — it definitely felt much safer than when I’d been worrying about it at home; my biggest concern was that some official would kick me out and tell me it’s illegal to wild camp in national parks, and then what would I do? Pack up and start biking in the middle of the night? I didn’t actually know whether or not I was in a national park; my map was kind of vague.

I waited for the sun to set a bit so I would be less visible. I put my bike under a bush, completely hidden from the road, and locked the wheel to the frame, with the cord running through all of my bags. My tent was a foot away so if anyone messed with anything I would hear them.

The night was peaceful; nothing happened. I couldn’t cook because there was no safe way to get down to the water, but I had bread and ham and cheese, plus that bag of cookies. And I loved drifting off to the sound of the rushing water below.

The next morning I had a rough 20 minutes or so of climbing, and then it was all downhill to Villa Santa Lucia, where the guys were camped, less than an hour away.

I thought of Chaiten as The Big City — I’d been told it was the only place between Puerto Montt and Coyhaique with a cash machine, and the place most likely to carry my camp fuel.

So I was surprised when I rolled into a tiny-looking place with half the buildings boarded up, clearly abandoned, some with broken windows. What the hell happened here? I wondered.

I asked as soon as I found a place to stay.

A volcano, the manager told me. In 2008 the town was washed away. It happened slowly enough that no people were hurt, but everyone was evacuated, and it was two years before people started moving back and rebuilding.

A few houses have been left untouched, still buried up to the roof:

The volcano also rerouted the river, which used to run next to the town, but now cuts right through it.

The place I stayed (Las Nalcas, and not Las Nalgas (butt cheeks) as it’s apparently listed in one of the regional directories), was a hostel and a campsite — basically there were a couple of beds available in the house, and then a big yard where people could pitch their tents, while still taking advantage of the house’s bathroom, kitchen, wifi, etc.

I was planning to take a rest day and stay for two nights, so it worked out well that there would be partying. I could tell that right away — it was only four but already (or still?) a group of young people were sitting around the fire pit, laughing loudly, drinking beer, and listening to music off someone’s cell phone.

I claimed a spot in the corner of the yard, away from the noise, then went to take a shower. On the way out I passed one of the partyers, and he handed me a pack of cookies. No thanks, I said, I just had some. “Keep it for later!” he replied, and went back outside.

Once I was clean and settled, I went to the fire pit, where people kept offering me beers, and then offering to walk me to the store to buy rum, since I don’t like beer. On the way there, someone offered me his last tab of LSD. I was almost tempted, but ultimately declined.

I started to buy food along with my rum but Leo told me, no no no, we’re cooking tonight. We’re roasting meat on the fire.

It was a really fun night. There were maybe six different groups of people, all of them quite lovely and generous. There was a German girl who liked talking to me because she barely knew Spanish and needed a break (she did know English) and then two Russian guys, one who spoke a little English but no Spanish, and the other who spoke neither, but who wound up playing and singing Russian folk songs on someone’s guitar. And the meat was absolutely amazing.

Leo – a Chilean traveling with the cook and the guy who gave me cookies – got increasingly flirtatious as the night went on. I didn’t say anything; he’d put his arm around me and I’d just smile and gently step away. But after I went to bed, I heard a voice outside my tent. “Katherine! Invite me into your tent!”

“No!” I said.

“Invite me in!”

“No!”

“Do you want a massage?”

“No.”

“Do you want a kiss?”

“No!”

“Katherine! Tell me how to get into your tent!”

“Go away! Leave me alone.”

He left.

Some time later — two hours? Three? — I was awake again, having that debate with myself about how badly I needed to use the bathroom and whether it was really worth getting up or could it wait until morning, when suddenly a light was shining through my tent.

“Katherine! Invite me into your tent!”

Jesus Christ, I thought. “Go away! I’m sleeping!”

We proceeded to more or less repeat the conversation from earlier, with more irritation on my part and the new argument of “why do you want to sleep alone? It’s sad!” on his.

I got up, thinking I could go tell his friends to call him off, but everyone had gone to bed. I used the bathroom, came back, told him to go to hell, and climbed back into my sleeping bag.

I slept soundly. It’s not like I was scared; there was an entire campsite of people well within screaming distance, and he hadn’t made any move to touch me or actually come into my tent.

And then I was yanked from sleep once again. “Katherine!”

My eyes snapped open. Motherfucker! I thought. I could hear rain slapping against my tent.

“Katherine, invite me in! It’s raining! Give me refuge!”

“I told you, leave me alone!”

“But you’re pretty!”

I told him if he didn’t go away I would tell the owner and he’d be kicked out. He made some angry comment, basically calling me a rich bitch, and finally left, but I couldn’t fall asleep after that. I started to worry. He could be slashing my bike tires, or peeing into my bags — who knew what sort of drunken idiocy he might be capable of. After half an hour or so, I gave up on sleep, climbed out of my tent, and made breakfast.

My stuff in the garage was completely untouched, and Leo seemed to have finally gone to bed. It was six in the morning. I read for awhile and then went back to sleep.

When I got up again, Leo’s friend (the one who gave me cookies) apologized profusely on Leo’s behalf and promised to talk to him. The manager also apologized and told me I should have woken him up. Everyone seemed to feel really bad, which was comforting — no one took the attitude that this was acceptable behavior or ‘boys will be boys’ or anything like that.

When Leo finally woke up — around four in the afternoon — I confronted him, and he apologized and assured me it wouldn’t happen again. For the rest of the day he would barely look at me, even when we were in the same room.

Friday
I did a stupid thing. After the long ferry ride, I started pedaling, without stopping to buy food. I’d half forgotten and half assumed I’d get to a town before I’d have to worry about it. Which might have been true, had the road been flat, but it was all treacherous hills, so we made it less than 15 kilometers.

Fortunately there was a we; I was riding with the two other cyclists on my ferry, Diego and Cesar, both from Chile. They grew up together in Santiago but now Diego lives in Puerto Montt, where he works as a tattoo artist. (He is also so much a vegetarian that he wouldn’t even eat the honey pouches from the gigantic flies.)

They had plenty of food but no stove, and campfires weren’t allowed where we stayed, so it worked out well for everyone. We cooked their rice and vegetables on my stove and life was good. It was raining but the campsite had a small shelter with a table and benches so we and all of our stuff stayed dry.

Santa Barbara
We biked together on Saturday through light rain and up and down many, many hills. There were no towns to stop in until Santa Barbara, and we didn’t get there until about three o’clock. I was super happy because a) we could finally eat lunch and b) I knew the road would be paved the rest of the way to Chaiten.

I was ahead of them so I stopped as soon as the ripio turned to pavement, to wait for them and adjust one of my front packs that had come loose from all the rocky, bumpy, downhill coasting.

The road was strange — it was the width of three roads, paved all the way across, but cones blocked entry to the middle section, turning it into a divided highway.

A car pulled up and the driver asked me if I was resting. I explained that I was fixing the bag that was starting to fall off my bike. He asked if I could move back just a few meters, as an airplane was about to land.

I looked back and saw Diego and Cesar a ways back behind a flashing bar that had come down blocking the road right after I passed. I rolled my bike a few meters back onto the dirt and pulled over to the side of the road, and the guy in his car went back behind the barrier — but I was allowed to stay.

A minute later, I was certain the tiny plane was coming right at me. Why had he let me stay here? The plane was buzzing like an army of angry flies and I could feel its breath; it felt so close there was no way it could pass over me without at least knocking my head off, if not crushing my whole body.

Obviously the plane came nowhere close to hitting me, still meters above as it passed on its way to the runway, but it was an exhilarating moment — and such a random and unexpected thrill.

We ate lunch in Santa Barbara, Cesar adding avocado to my usual meat and cheese sandwiches, which was delicious, and then it was just another ten kilometers to Chaiten, on smooth roads, though still infested with hills.

Loading the ferry is quite an endeavor and I arrived early enough to catch the whole show. They start with the biggest trucks (one, according to its label, was carrying cows) and they all have to back in down the ramp and into the boat. There are guys in front and behind, shouting or talking on walkies, telling the driver when to turn, when to pull forward and adjust, when to back up again, until he’s safely on the ferry. Meanwhile these crazy dogs are running in circles, playfully jumping and fighting each other and dashing to and fro like they have a death wish. I asked one of the loading guys if the dogs ever get killed. Of course, he said.

After the huge trucks came some smaller trucks, and after that, it seemed like they were going through the line of cars, deciding which ones were the biggest and inviting them to come first.

Then a garbage truck passed by and I thought, how will there be space for him this late in the game? He’s huge! But he didn’t go on the boat; he was just passing by to collect garbage.

It was a three hour ferry ride, mostly in the rain, and then the sun came out just in time to attract flies for the otherwise beautiful ten-kilometer ride to the next ferry. Though while waiting for said ferry, I did get some justice — I finally tried one of the uberfly honey pouches. It tasted just like honey. So weird.

At the end of the second ferry, I started riding again, the task before me now clear:

P.S. It has come to my attention that for some people the photos are appearing sideways or upside down. I have no idea why this is happening and it looks perfectly normal on my ipad, so, weird. I will investigate further when I get home, but until then… Sorry?

A river in Hornopiren

Trekker thinking
When I was washing my clothes earlier, I accidentally spilled a quarter bottle of my camp suds soap. My instinctive reaction was, ‘sweet, less weight!’

I need to start camping soon because I’m getting resentful of my tent and stove and all these other pounds of things I’m carrying but not using. Though I realized today, laziness isn’t the real reason I haven’t camped yet — it’s because I’m alone. If I connected with a group and they were pitching their tents, I would join them rather than spend the extra cash to have a bed and wifi, but I don’t want to be alone in my tiny tent all bored and lonely. So I stay with families or at hostels, where there are other people around, or at least a comfy chair to sit and read in.

Postcards
I’ve been looking, but I haven’t found any yet. Well, a couple in Puerto Montt, but they were tacky and/or of places I’ve never been and have no intention of going, at least not on this trip. But along the Carretera, I’ve seen nothing. Postcards just aren’t a thing here.

Or so I thought. Then today a store clerk told me that a local printing company burned down recently. They supplied all the region’s postcards and several tourist maps, which are therefore temporarily unavailable.

The picture above is not of that company; it’s of the big supermarket in Hornopiren, which also burned down recently. A guy in the main plaza told me there aren’t enough firemen around here.

Trutrucas
The guy in the plaza, Carlos, was selling these Mapuche instruments called trutrucas. You blow into it like a trumpet, so of course I was terrible at it.

Safety
You will notice that Carlos is not in the above picture. He is off getting lunch at this time — leaving his backpack and merchandise behind without a second thought.

People keep telling me that down here in southern Chile, no one steals anything. It’s hard for me to trust this, but then again, I suppose these are mostly small towns where everyone knows eveyone, and would notice if someone suddenly had something of someone else’s.

The hostel owners always put my bike in a barn or a garage or, in one case, a fenced-in yard guarded by a dog who barks at anyone who enters, but they all told me that around here you can leave things out and no one will mess with them.

As for physical safety, the travel advisory warnings for Chile, even in Santiago, are about pickpockets and scam artists; armed mugging isn’t even a thing.

Samuel confessed he’d been nervous about the trip before he started, but on his first day, he knew everything was going to be okay. I feel the same. And Samuel pointed out that when you travel alone, people are more ready to help you. When you’re with a group I guess people figure that someone else can take care of it, but when there’s no one else they jump in and do what they can.

So yeah. Though obviously anything is possible, at this point I’m much more concerned with physical injuries from falling while riding than I am about any dangers that come from people.

Except maybe people who are driving big trucks. They can still be pretty scary.

The coastal route was much longer than the regular Carretera road — apparently it takes cars an extra hour — but it was totally worth it. Gorgeous, along the ocean, with only a couple of big hills and hardly any traffic, plus the road was smooth dirt rather than rocky horribleness.

Here is me and Samuel resting on a bridge in the same place as that picture above.

It took Samuel and I five hours to get from Contao to Marilyn’s place, which is the longest I have ever biked in one day. He went on to Hornopiren but we exchanged contact info and might connect again in a couple of days.

I took a shower, then a three hour nap, woke up, ate everything in sight, and went back to bed.

I left at 10:30 the next morning, expecting a three hour trek to Hornopiren, and was surprised and elated to find myself pulling in just after noon, though also somewhat disappointed. Apparently I’d been misinformed about the distance, though also I was biking fast to outrun the goddamn flies. (These are not your normal everyday flies, but big stinging hellbeasts; think bumblebees on steroids. Marilyn showed me how you can catch them and kill them and eat the pouch of honey they carry inside, though I never got the opportunity to try. Which is just as well; I had very mixed feelings about that.)

Diego chases a flock of escapees back to their pen.

Diego tries out my gear. He also rode with me up the first hill when I set off ths morning.

Now I’m in Hornopiren until tomorrow’s ferry ride. It’s a longer one — three hours or so, then ten kilometers across a peninsula, then another half hour in a different ferry, though you pay for it as all one journey. I haven’t decided if I will rest on the other side or bike to the next town. From 5-8pm seems like a good time to ride; the sun isn’t harsh anymore but there’s still plenty of light. But we’ll see how I feel when I get there.

Hornopiren ferry landing.

Waiting for the ferry. Again. In different weather.

I left Puerto Montt around 10am, so two hours later than I’d hoped but not bad. The weather forecast was light rain, which was mostly accurate, though there was maybe half an hour in there I would never describe as “light.” I got to the ferry around 1pm, had lunch, talked to some hitchhikers from Argentina, took the ferry to Puelche, and then biked another 10k to the next town.

“Welcome to Blue Rock.” I regretted not having taken a photo the first time I passed it and was glad to get another chance.

Now I’m in a hostel where I’ve been giving other cyclists advice about the road ahead. I saw a lot more cyclists today than I did my other first day. This guy Samuel and I are going to ride together tomorrow.

He’s Spanish but has been living in Santiago for two years because it was easier to find work here than in Spain, which makes perfect sense but still felt surprising. I guess there are a lot of people from Spain living in Santiago these days.

And now, a random picture of a cemetery.

I took the bus back to Puerto Montt on Sunday with Marilyn’s daughter Denisse, my bicycle, and four cats. Denisse invited me to stay with her in Puerto, and Marilyn let me leave a bunch of things I wouldn’t be needing — my tent, my stove — until I passed by again.

Anything I needed they somehow produced; any problem I had they solved. At one point I told them they were too nice, and Marilyn said, that’s just how we are; we like giving more than receiving. I said they were so nice I almost felt bad for not being nearly as good of a human. I was mostly joking around, but then I said, though maybe in the future I’ll be inspired to be nicer, and Marilyn seemed completely serious when she replied, “exactly.”

My bike gets fixed

Confession: I know very little about bikes. I do know how to change a tire, generally with a lot of swearing involved, and I used to know how to adjust a different kind of brake that my current bike doesn’t even have, and that’s about it.

I brought my broken bike into the shop, convinced I’d wind up waiting for weeks while they ordered a replacement part. Instead, the mechanic, using a tool I already had, fixed the problem in about ten seconds. Boom.

It turns out there’s another screw you have to loosen first and then you can tighten the one that needed to be tightened. Which was exactly what my bike guy back in Minneapolis had told me via email, but, not knowing the names of the parts, I didn’t understand a word of it until I watched the Chilean mechanic.

He didn’t even charge me.

I find my fuel
Denisse and I went everywhere. The biggest supermarket where they even sell clothes. The gigantic Chilean equivalent of Home Depot, with an entire camping section. No one had my fuel.

I had resigned myself to using rubbing alcohol, which I had remembered was a back-up option, but after getting my bike fixed I happened to walk past a small hardware store and decided to stop in just in case.

When he handed me the bottle I was so surprised I had to ask three times and inspect the label to make sure it was really the right fuel. “No one carries this; I’ve looked everywhere!” I said.

“I know,” he said, “but we do.”

I celebrate my birthday
Since I was leaving the morning of my birthday, Denisse decided we needed an early celebration. She took me to a bakery and ordered one of every kind of pie — four slices in all. We had it for dinner along with a bottle of mango sour, which turned out to be much stronger than I had anticipated.

Then I packed up and went to bed, ready to start the Carretera again the next day.