Hello again!! Its been a long time since we've had the opportunity to update our blog and a lot has happened between El Chaltén, Argentina and Coyhaique, Chile. We are doing well and we hope that all of you are too! Thanks again to all for your support and all of the great emails. It's really a treat to read correspondence from you guys reading our blog. Your support really helps us and keeps our spirits high! Keep it coming!

Congratulations to Angela Mallon for correctly guessing our last mystery picture correctly! It was a picture of an abandoned observatory in the middle of nowhere. Also, it should be noted that you answered correctly and record time of response....less than an hour after we posted the blog had you answered!! You rock!

Normally we write a more or less day-to-day accounting of our travels, but this time because so much time has passed we are going to write a more general account of our journey. We hope that you all enjoy!

El Chaltén to Villa O'higgins

The owners of the hospedaje that we were staying at were very concerned about our well being as it was raining out and they wanted us to stay and wait for the weather to clear up. They had already been telling us for the previous three days of rain that "tomorrow will be sunny." Thus, we left the Argentinean town of El Chaltén around 9:30 in the morning to set off for the Lago del Desierto (Lake of the Desert). The day was nasty as it was raining and misty for most of the ride down some serious "ripio" (gravel road). We rode the 37 kilometers through beautiful leñgas and ñiere forests alongside crystal clear streams and peaks topped with glaciers to the southern end of the lake.

There are two options to get to the north end of the lake. The first option is to push your loaded bike around the lake for 12 kilometers on a nasty horse trail (it is said to take at least one full day to complete because it is so difficult). The second option is to buy a ticket on a ferry and cross the lake in 45 minutes. We chose the second option...we went in to a small office to buy the ferry tickets. When hearing the price of the tickets Karen said "Hepy!" to Joel using our now secret language of Guaraní to talk about things. Hepy means expensive in Guaraní. Well it turns out that the man, Pedro, who was selling the ferry tickets is from a town in northern Argentina on the border of Paraguay and he spoke Guaraní as well. He laughed and was quite surprised to find two gringos that knew how to speak Guaraní. We sat and talked with him in Guaraní for about a half an hour. It was really great and we all had very big smiles on our faces. It turns out that he hadn´t spoken Guaraní in about three years of working in southern Argentina. Guaraní is a very beautiful language and it is amazing to see how it brings people together. It was great to speak it again and we are both excited to be able to speak it when we return to Paraguay. We ended up with the tickets and headed to the dock to catch the ferry.

There were only three of us on the large ferry. We rode across the lake and watched the wind whip up the water into small tornado-ish formations as it was very stormy for the crossing. We sat and talked to the other fellow, Daniel, who was also heading north by bicycle. He shared many interesting stories with us as we crossed the lake. He had ridden a bicycle from Norway to Cape Town, South Africa over the course of two years and had lots to tell. Probably the most shocking story was that of when he was riding through the Tanzanian countryside. He was approaching four men that were walking in the opposite direction. The parted to let Daniel pass on the bike when at the last second, one of the men tried to cut off Daniel's head with a machete! He succeeded in cutting Daniel's face severely and breaking his jaw in two. Somehow Daniel stayed on the bike and escaped. He was flown to Sweden (his home) two days later to undergo surgery. After recovery (and a year later) he flew back to Africa to finish the ride! He is a bit crazy but a real nice guy. After some more stories and maté we made it to the north end of the lake, got off, went through Argentinean customs, and set up camp for the night to prepare for what many say is the hardest part of the Carretera Austral.

The Carretera Austral is a road that links southern Chile with the north and was the grand plan of former dictator and leader of Chile, Pinochet. The road is largely a gravel, dirt, sand, pothole-ridden, and washboard riddled track that has been cut out of some of the most difficult terrain where one could possibly ever think of putting a road. Though to its credit it is an engineering marvel and takes those that travel its course through some of the most beautiful scenery this world may possess. That said, back to our journey.  

To begin the Carretera Austral in the south one has to pass from the Argentinean Custom's post at the northern tip of the Lago del Desierto to Chilean Custom's post of Candalario Mansilla by way of an insane stretch of horse trail and "road". We woke in the morning to more mist and rain to begin the worst of what lay ahead. It began with a small river crossing where we had to unload the bikes and carry all of our gear across a very cold river, then to reload the bikes and head uphill. Normally, this pass is only traveled by horses, hikers, and people pushing their bicycles. Due to the rain that day (and for the previous five days) it was a slippery, muddy slope. We began pushing. The first few kilometers are very steep and deeply rutted out from all of the horses traveling the route. This means that the trail is up to three feet deep in some places and only about a foot-and-a-half to two feet wide making it very hard to push a fully loaded bike up especially in the rain. We had made it about two kilometers when Daniel was struggeling very hard to heft his bike and gear up and over a big obstacle. He let out a cry and when we got to him we learned that he had dislocated his shoulder. So, we helped him get all of his gear back down the hill and to the custom's post so that he could get medical attention.

After we dropped him off we ran back to our bikes to complete the pass. We were on a time schedule as we had to make it to the Chilean Custom's post and then to a dock at Candelario Mansilla to catch a ferry across a large lake to the Chilean town of Villa O'Higgins. The ferry only runs every couple of days so we had to do all we could to make it there on time. What happened next can only be described in a string of adjectives because it really was quite a crazy experience making it through the horse trail part of the pass. So, here goes: wet, drenched, muddy, sandy, cold, beautiful forests, glacier capped mountains, heavy heavy bikes, frustrations, swearing, short breaks, lots of hills, lots of falls, scrapes, and bangs, amazing rivers, birdsong, team work (there is no way we could have made it if we hadn't worked together as we did), wet, muddy, really difficult, sweating, hunger, river crossings, slipping, pushing, and braking (with our bikes) a lot. Finally, we made it across to the Chilean side of the border where the horse trail turned to "road". This was the worst road we have yet to see and was little more than a rocky gravel track through the forest and around mountain sides. We rode our bikes and eventually came to an old bridge that had washed out.... What to do? Ford the river? It was a huge cold raging river. We did some exploration and found a small foot bridge across the river so we unloaded everything and crossed piece by piece to the other side. We rode on. Finally, we arrived at the final descent to get to the boarder post. It was about 5 or 6 kilometers of steep, rocky downhill carved right into the side of a mountain. We also realized at this point that our break pads were almost completely worn down to the metal because of the wet sandy mixture on our rims that had been eating away at them all day. What to do? No time to change everything out because the ferry was going to leave. So, we basically ran with our bikes down this massive hill to the custom's post and the ferry dock. Luckily we made it there in time because the ferry was running an hour late. What we found when we arrived was about 25 people that had been stuck waiting for the ferry for up to four days. The ferry hadn't been running because of the foul weather. Everyone was wet and it was like appearing on a deserted island. People came up to look at us and to talk and they kept telling us how lucky we were to have arrived just an hour before the ferry. We were just exhausted, cold, and wanted to drink maté. In total there were 12 bikers waiting to board the ferry and it was fun to talk with some of them. We all boarded the ferry and crossed Lago O'Higgins in about 3 hours. We arrived at our port of destination in the pitch black of night in the middle of a down pour. After getting all of our gear we set out on the road to town and decided to set up camp at the nearest flat place and called it a night. Fully drenched and totally wiped out we fell asleep sometime after midnight. It was the most difficult day of our journey and also one of the most memorable. It was a great way to spend valentine's day together working as a team.

Villa O'Higgins to Tortel:

We rode into the town of Villa O'Higgins the next day, figuring we could clean up our bikes, change our brake pads, buy some food and be on our way in a few hours. Then we discovered that our replacement brake pads were completely the wrong size and model. Time to get creative. We got handy with a knife and carved us some somewhat functional brakes. We worked on our bikes alongside a team of 4 American bikers, who after having crossed the pass a few days before us, were having similar problems with their bikes. One guy superglued pieces of old tire to his brake shoe... they worked and are still working!

We ended up spending another 2 nights in Villa O'Higgins, one night with the carabiñeros (policemen), and one night in a little hospedaje.. but not by choice did we stay. It had been raining so much over the past week that the roads north were flooded in several places. Big floods, 2 meters deep and a km wide in some places. We held tight in Villa O'Higgins, relaxed, and chatted with other travelers who we had met on the ferry ride. Everyone was in the same boat (litterally!) hehe. We got antsy and when we saw sun on the second day, we hit the road. It immediately started raining again of course, but we kept going. We stopped to take a break at a house along the road, hoping we could take shelter under their porch for a few minutes. The family ended up inviting us in for coffee and cookies and later on invited us to camp near their house and stay for maté and dinner! They were an older couple with their grandson, Gonzalo. They were extremely kind people and we enjoyed talking with them and playing with Gonzalo a lot. We brought in our American cards and played "war" with Gonzalo and then he taught us some of his favorite games with Spanish cards. After dinner we got to play "truco" with the couple, a Spanish card game we learned how to play in Paraguay. It's a complicated game of lying and betting and it's reeeally fun to play, especially with older people who really know what they're doing! Joel and I got smoked pretty badly by the couple but we had a great time. We drank maté with them in the morning and then were off again, after they gave us homemade bread and a kilo of honey to take with us. They were nice beyond words.

It was another rainy day. After about 30km of riding on some pretty bad road, Joel's front rack (which holds one small bag on each side of the front tire) broke in 3 places. As the bags and rack fell off of his bike, they cut two of his spokes in two.. he was lucky that we were not going fast down a hill because it could have been much worse for him and his bike. We stopped and thought for a while. We were in the middle of no where... the only option was to strap Joel's front bags on top of the BOB trailer bag and replace the broken spokes in his front tire. The other option was to get a ride into town. Since replacing spokes and truing a wheel is a pretty complicated and slow process which neither of us had any idea how to do, we set up our tent and made hot chocolate. Luckily we were situated right next to a beautiful mountain with a bright blue glacier on top.. something to keep us in high spirits. Joel started reading in our very fantastic bike manual by Mel Allwood about how to fix his wheel. He worked and worked on it... needing to get the tension in the spokes of the wheel just right so that the wheel is balanced and turns true. He worked on it all afternoon and all morning the next day, but he got it running true and balanced. We loaded up the BOB trailer with more weight and headed up and over big mountain passes. Unfortunately our brakes were pretty unreliable still so we ended up walking down a lot of hills (yes, it should be the other way around!).

We made our way up and over one mountain pass and Karen spotted two rare huemeles (a small deer) that were foraging on the side of the road. They were qutie tame and we got really close and watched them for a while before heading down the road. It had been rainy and nasty for days and when we saw a bridge with a nice dry place to camp underneath it we snatched up the opportunity to call it a night. We made a campfire and felt like true vagabonds under the bridge. It was great to wake up dry but that didn't last long once we got on our bikes. The mist kept falling as we made our way down the road to the Rio Bravo ferry port. Luckily we found some shelter to sit in while we waited for the ferry and we drank maté with an Aussie named Will who was also waiting for the boat. We loaded up onto the boat and crossed over to the small town of Puerto Yunguay. It was late and still raining so we made camp next to a small store for the night. Morning came quickly and we woke to a wet day.

It continued to be rainy and chilly and very hilly as we made our way to Tortel. We had to climb up a very large and steep pass through some incredible virgin forests that were crisscrossed with cascades and clear streams. Along the road we spied two very large red headed woodpeckers working away at a lone dead tree. This area from Villa O'higgins up until 25 kilometers from Tortel are absolutely amazing. Virtually untouched landscapes that are still covered in thick forests. Bird life is abundant here and we both found ourselves lost in awe of the amazing landscape. Joel got two flats that day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon... and the last one we had to patch in the rain and with clouds of attacking mosquitos since we had no spare tubes left! It was a very difficult stretch and very frustrating but we perservered and made it to Tortel late in the day.

Tortel is an interesting place. The road there was built just five years ago. Before this, the only access was by boat. The town began as a lumber exporting town... and you can tell, as a lot of the surrounding mountains were pretty ravaged by logging. The town had no sidewalks or roads, just boardwalks and steps made out of wood. When we arrived, we had to leave our bikes at the top of the slope and then walk down the stairs and boardwalks to get to the town and the water front. Tortel is actually quite large and very unique. Different wooden steps and paths lead to houses or a restaurant or a store. It is very interesting and unique to see all of the wooden walkways, but we heard many people wonder just where all of the wood to build these walkways came from and how they replace it. They are good questions to be asked and one of the locals said that they have cut down all of the "good" forests and now all that is left is "bad" wood and that they must go to greater lengths to find good wood. The same man also mad a very interesting commentary on the effect of tourism and the new road on the town and its people. He claimed that before the influx of tourism and the subsecuent money ther community was more united and that people helped one another when in need. Since the development of the road and the tourism boom, it's every person for his/her self and that the feeling of community has diminished greatly. Food for thought.

We explored Tortel and relaxed for a day after our difficulties on the road. There were a lot of a certain kind of bush in Tortel, a bush that blossoms with bright fushia flowers with purple interiors. We had been seeing this bush all along the way, but there were tons of it in Tortel. Humming birds love the flowers so all day long in Tortel you could hear humming bird song and hear them flitting all around you. There were soooooooo many humming birds, we've never seen so many in our lives.

Tortel to Cochrane

This was a short bit of road... extremely beautiful and fairly uneventful. We camped in some amazing forest (with some amazingly ferocious mosquitos) next to clear streams. The Carretera Austral was pretty terrible along this part with long sections of washboard and long sections of very loose gravel. Not fun to ride up hills on this, but the scenery was incredible.

Cochrane is a slightly larger town of 4000 or so also having started as a logging town. We planned on staying a night and heading out the next day for the final stretch of 330km to Coyhaique. We were stocking up on groceries when Karen heard a "Tia, tia, do you remember me?" Tia means aunt (and tio means uncle) in Spanish, but they are used as kind of terms of endearment. It was Gonzalo, the boy who's family we stayed with way back near Villa O'Higgins. The grandmother and Gonzalo were in town for a few days staying with a cousin that lived in town. Grandma immediately invited us over to the cousin's house for maté and bread. We chatted with them for most of the evening over maté and ate homemade bread and jam. YUM. A lot of the women around the area make homemade bread and jams from raspberries, plums, another fruit like a plum, and a waxy flower called grosela. Oh man, so good. The cousin ended up making bread for us to take on the road and gave us a huge jar of jam as well. The next day Joel worked on his back wheel hub with the help of the 4 American bikers who we ran into again in town. The guys were staying at a church and the pastor invited us all over for lunch. We headed out the next day in the morning for the long haul to Coyhaique.

Cochrane to Coyhaique:

It had been beautiful and sunny the day that we left Tortel until the day that we left Cochrane. We set off from Cochrane with clouds in the sky. 15 kilometers from town and it started raining hard. We were tired and our spirits low by the nasty weather and the really tough road. Luckily though, the rain only lasted for about two hours and by the time we stopped for lunch it was sunny and bright. We set our clothes out to dry and ate dulce de leche with crackers and tuna fish sandwiches for lunch. We headed off down the road again all dry, full, and in high spirits. We both noted that it is so easy to get down and be negative and unhappy when the times are rough, but that when the sun is shining and the weather is sweet the smiles come out again and the spirits get high. We road on and on up one hill, down another, and up another. That is what it was like all day...up and down. Then, Joel got his third flat tire since leaving Villa O'higgins. Luckily, it was a quick fix and we were off again. We summited another pass and were delighted to find the raging Rio Baker and an amazing campsite waiting for us. We set up camp and then watched the sunset over Baker's rapids while drinking maté and talking. That night we slept under the star filled sky for the first time with out the rainfly on our tent.

We set off to ride along the Rio Baker and the road was much of the same. Hills, ripio, washboards, hills, hills, hills. The Baker River is absolutely amazing. Its color a rich blue that is so light and vibrant it is truly incredible and impossible to fully describe. The majority of tourists here are cyclists and fly fishermen. The rivers are outstanding and so abundant. There is so much surface water here that it is amazing. Another quality of the water is that much of it is fresh glacier runoff and is so clear it seemingly has nothing tainting it at all. Currently there is a battle over these rivers and their future. There is a consortium of transnational companies that own rights to the rivers and want to install many dams along these rivers to generate hydroelectric power that would be sent via huge towers over 2,000 kilometers to Santiago. The battle is fierce and many many locals have stickers on their homes and cars proclaiming their disgust with the proposed projects. For more information please visit, www.patagoniasinrepresas.cl. The website is in spanish but its worth taking a look even if you don't know how to read spanish. It would be a shame to destroy such an amazing natrual wonder in leiu of pursuing the alternatives. We pushed on through the day until reaching Lago General Carrera where we made camp in a small, protected dip on the side of the road.

For the next three days we road aournd the Lago General Carrera (the second largest lake in South America) and its amazing deep, radiant blue waters and up into the southern Andes mountains. We rode up and down hills and up and down hills, over pothole and gravel pit, through second and third growth forests, past cascades and countless rivers, through clouds of mosquitoes, up and over mountains and past their glaciers, and on and on. We pressed on and on riding through the sun filled days enjoying our company and that of many other cyclistis whom we met, and camping in some incredible places alonside beautiful rivers and with great campfires. We are constantly in awe of the kindness and generosity of the people that we meet on the road and as well in the beauty that we see in the natrual environment.

Unfortunately, just 30 kilometers outside of the town from where we are writing Joel got his fifth and final flat tire. He applied the fourth patch to the beaten and worn tire tube and then set it back in the rim to pump it up and set off the final stretch. When he started pumping it up he realized that the worst had happened...the valve in the tube had failed and ripped in a manner that was irrepairable. With no spare tubes left and after thinking about the options we had to throw out the thumb and try to hitch a ride to Coyhaique. It was a bit demoralizing but we had to do it. Luckily a very large man named Oscar picked us up in his large truck and drove at a snail's pace to town. He was really really nice and invited us to his house for bbq when we come back to Chile (if we come back to Chile). He dropped us off 15 km from town and within minutes we were in another truck bound for Coyhaique.

So, there you have it! We have so much more to tell about the last couple of weeks, but only so much time to write and we don't want to go overboard with the blog as this is already really long. We are going to try to keep it more regularly updated, it just so happened that the last leg of road was really remote and that the internet service was down in some places we visited due to the poor weather.

Thanks again for all of your support and your emails. Please keep them coming and let us know what you think! If you have any great ideas for helping us fundraise or want to help us out with our cause, please just write us and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

Just to let you all know, we've also had to change our route plans again due to a volcano eruption in Chaitén, Chile. Now, we will be heading north through Chile to the town of Futelefú where we will cross back into Argentina and take the Route 40 to Bariloche. From Bariloche we will be riding north to take the "seven lakes route" and cross back into Chile near Pucón.

Thanks again, much respect, and be well!!!!