Waiting at the ferry ramp.

THE BAD

1. Flies
It’s not that they bite (though they do); it’s the constant buzzing sound, which is not only annoying but also taunts me with how slow I’m going (i.e. slow enough for flies to keep up with me).

2. Ripio
I was prepared for the gravel roads (ripio) that make up a significant part of the Carretera Austral, at least in theory. I was also prepared for hills. But I hadn’t considered the two in combination.

It’s awful. Some parts are relatively smooth, but when the rocks get bigger, you have to maintain a certain speed just to keep your balance. Which, when you’re going uphill… Yeah, it’s terrifying, especially with clip-in shoes. After nearly falling, I gave up and resigned myself to pushing the bike uphill whenever the rocks felt dodgy. Going downhill was almost equally terrifying, so I clipped out of my shoes every time just in case an awkward rock made me fall. (I just read today on the Carretera wiki that the section I’m talking about is one of the two worst, so that’s comforting.)

3. The sun
The sun here doesn’t care about sunscreen. I could feel my skin burning by early afternoon and so added a third layer of sunscreen, then eventually put on my jacket-vest when my skin started to feel even worse. The ferry actually had a UV forecast, and that day’s rating was the highest possible level.

And it was hot. Toward dinner time, I was feeling woozy and realized I was at risk for heatstroke, so I stopped at a random house where people were sitting outside in the shade and I asked if I could join them and rest awhile. After ten minutes I thought I felt better, but the moment I was back in the sun again, I started to worry. Would I make it to the next town? Where was the next town? There was thick forest on both sides of the road, too dense to push through and set up camp, so I had to at least wait for a clearing, and who knew when that would be? I’d been looking for hostel or campsite signs for almost two hours and I hadn’t seen anything.

Then the very next house had a sign: hospedaje familial.

THE AWESOME

I spent the night on this amazing farm with the nicest family. They have pigs, turkeys, goats, an apple orchard, a greenhouse with flowers and spices, and a full garden made doubly impressive by the fact that it’s on a steep hill.

The are also bees, and some cousin came over for an arthritis treatment I’d never heard of — Marilyn, my hostess, plucked a bee from the hive with tweezers and handed it to her cousin, who held the bee to his knee until it stung him. He left the stinger inside for about a minute and then removed it. Apparently that’s a thing.

Their homemade treatment for my sunburn (oil and sugar) was less effective, but I did get a couple of aloe leaves from the greenhouse. Then Marilyn brought me a white long-sleeved shirt of hers and insisted I take it with me.

Also, I lied — the sun does care about sunscreen. My back is red but the spot on my neck that I missed with the sunscreen is blistered.

We stayed up late talking and drinking mate; Marilyn lives with her parents but her daughter and grandson were also visiting so there were four generations in the house, and they were super fun. (I love making people laugh in Spanish. In English too, but in Spanish it feels like more of an accomplishment…)

I had such a good time that in the morning I decided to take an early rest day — after all it’s not like I’m in a hurry. Plus, it would give me time to investigate the strange shakiness I was feeling in the front of my bike…

THE KIND OF SHITTY

It looks like I may be bussing back to Puerto Montt to get my bike fixed. The headset is broken and I’m not thinking any of these tiny towns are likely to have replacement parts. I’m still investigating, both whether the next town might have a bike shop, and how dangerous or important this particular broken piece actually is.

Slightly less shitty but still a problem: I can’t find the fuel I need for my camping stove. Apparently it’s available in bigger cities, but as it’s less common for camping stoves than regular gas, not one place I’ve been to has had it. I could hypothetically live on sandwiches and other things that don’t require any cooking, but once I start camping (which I haven’t actually done yet) I’m going to at least want coffee in the morning, and mooching off other trekkers doesn’t seem like the best solution. So if I do have to go back, it will give me another opportunity to at solve that problem.

Plus, I’m really not in a hurry. When I first realized I might have to start over, I felt like crying, but really, I only did two days of the trek, the paved parts were gorgeous and worth doing twice, and for the ripio part, there’s actually an alternate, slightly longer but flatter coastal road I could take instead, so I’d only be repeating a few miles of the same ripio. And I could stop by and visit this family again.

So yeah, overall, everything’s still pretty awesome.

Puerto Montt does not seem to be a big fan of street signs. I wound up climbing a killer hill in the wrong direction — and then a second killer hill in a different wrong direction — before I finally found the right road.

I biked along, sometimes singing at the top of my lungs, hating the steep hills but otherwise having a great time. I didn’t make it as far as planned because it started to drizzle and my options were to pull over and dig out my raincoat from the bottom of my pack, or to just stop at the next hostal I came to, go inside where it was warm, take a hot shower, sleep in a cozy bed, and have internet access — plus, as it turns out, a hearty breakfast, which I’m very much looking forward to, having eaten nothing today but yogurt and bread.

Until next time… I suspect civilization will be sparser on the other side of the ferry ride, but I could be surprised.

1. The airport
Sky Airlines is used to flying bikes, and they don’t charge you anything. When I got to the airport, it took me less than 10 minutes to get my bike in working order. There’s actually a street in Santiago that is full of bike shops, so I had found the wrench I needed the day before.

Then it was time to pack up. My assorted dry bags and panniers had been packed into a red suitcase I bought for eight dollars at Savers, and now I needed to get them all on my bike.

It took about an hour to get ready. Next I found a place at the airport that stores bags for people, but they charge per day so it turned out it would be cheaper to just buy a new suitcase when I get back to the airport.

I gave the red suitcase to the clerk at the storage place; she seemed pleased, and I was happy not to just throw it away.

2. Frustrations
When you first get on a fully loaded bike, you might think you’ve made a horrible mistake. Your balance is off, the bike is harder to control, and it just feels so heavy. You adjust quickly, but starting off on a crowded highway with a tiny shoulder is a little unnerving to say the least.

Then too, people started honking at me. They were soft, cheerful honks; they didn’t seem aggressive enough to mean “get off the road!” (plus, there was no other road) so I was just confused. What did they mean? “Hello”?

I asked a man I passed who was waiting at a bus stop, and he looked embarrassed. He told me he didn’t know why people were honking at me, but I now think he was lying.

In my defense, I never once got cat-called in Buenos Aires, or in Santiago, so I wasn’t expecting it here, and it’s not like these honkers were yelling words at me out the window; they were just honking.

Puerto Montt is beautiful but it’s a maze; most of the streets don’t connect and if you don’t have a good map you can end up going in circles of dead-end streets trying to get over to the next neighborhood. I made it to my host’s neighborhood, but the buildings don’t have numbers on them, so I wasn’t sure which one it was, and I didn’t have a working phone. I also couldn’t find a café or anywhere to sit, and he wasn’t going to be home until 9 o’clock. Plus I was hungry, but it’s hard to go into a store with a bicycle, and even if I lock up the bike, it has six bags on it that I have to either remove and take with me or else worry about someone stealing.

What the hell am I doing? I thought. Maybe I am out of my fricking mind.

I decided to bike to a hotel instead, but I got lost so I went back – or tried to, but of course I got lost again. Though I did find a place I could bring my bike inside and wait, and a stranger let me use his phone to call my host and work out the logistics.

3. Happy again
I found my host on Warm Showers, which is like couch surfing but for cyclists. He was lovely; we drank wine and talked and everything felt okay again. He hosts a lot of cyclists – I’m the third one he had this week. He himself wants to travel, but he’s a medical student, which means he works 15 hours a day and basically does all the work of the doctors. After two years, however, he will be a doctor and have his own medical students to do all of his work, and then he can travel. So I guess it’s not a terrible system.

He left at six in the morning but I slept until noon, and now I’m writing this blog post from his apartment while I wait for all of my devices to charge. The Carretera Austral starts just outside Puerto Montt and then it’s about 30 miles to La Arena where I camp for the night and catch a ferry tomorrow. Unless the ferry is still running tonight when I get there. I really don’t know. I don’t know much of anything. I’ve traveled a lot but this trip is more mysterious and outside my comfort zone than anything I have ever done. Plus, my Spanish is rusty, I keep fucking up the money (I tried to pay 16,000 instead of 1600 for my wrench) and I generally feel totally out of place.

It’s kind of glorious.

1. People are helpful

I have the wrong tool. The allen key I have brought to the airport fits my bike pedals but is not the proper tool to remove them; I need a wrench. I briefly panic, but before I know it, half a dozen people are jumping in to help me. An airport maintenance guy finds a wrench that is the right size but too wide to get in where it needs to go. Sorry, he tells me, that’s the thinnest one we have — but he comes back twice more, each time with a thinner wrench.

The third one fits and the right pedal comes off easily, but the left one is stubborn. It eventually takes an extra tool attached for leverage and three different people pushing. I swear to God, eight different people were helping me at one time or another. Sometimes people are awesome.

2. You need a box

I get my bike wrapped up and go to check in. Two different agents tell me they will only take bikes if they are in a box. Swallowing a second urge to panic, I tell them, that’s not true. You have to remove the pedals, turn the handlebars, wrap it, and pay $200. Check your website.

They do so. I’m good to go.

3. Out of my mind

Next stop is the oversize luggage room, where I drop off my now awkwardly wrapped bicycle. A TSA agent asks me where I’m going and I tell him Chile. “Alone?” he asks me. Yes, I tell him; my friends were coming with me but they had to bail.

“You’re out of your freaking mind,” he says.

“Yep,” I say cheerfully.

He gives me his contact info and says he wants to hear about what happens. He promises they will take good care of my bike.

As I walk to security, I’m pretty sure my grin is the widest and dopiest it has ever been in my life.