· Hello all! Greetings from El Calafate, Argentina!!
First, a few important notices...
1) Thanks to your support and those who have donated to our cause, our American partner organization, InterConnection, is preparing to send a pallet of computers to Paraguay for CECTEC (our Paraguayan partner organization) to distribute and install in each of the schools involved in our project!! This is great news and we are all very excited about this new development. For those of you whom are new to this blog, or don't know why we are riding bicycles 6,000 miles in 6 months, please visit our website, www.bikingtobuildschools.com to learn more about our project. We are biking to raise awareness and funds that will be used to remodel and build schools in rural Paraguay.
2) We have already ridden over 1,000 kilometers! This is a great milestone (kilometerstone?) in our journey. We are both on our first long distance bicycle tour and thus we are really excited to be rolling down the road. Your support and kind words of encouragement help us every day. Please keep them coming and we'll be sure to keep riding.
3) The "Mystery Photo" in our last blog was of the unfamous and cynical to bikers headed north, Monument to the Wind. Basically, we were riding in the absolute middle of nowhere when we came across these large egg beater-like things near the road. "What the heck?", we thought. Apparently someone thought it would be good to build this monument in the middle of nowhere to comemerate the impressive power of the wind. The ironic thing was...it wasn't windy that day. HA! We'll get you wind...we'll get you. Thanks for your guesses, we got some good laughs reading the guesses. Take a shot at the new one if you dare...
4) Since our last blog entry we have had 2 falls (by Karen on gravel road), one flat tire, tears in our tent's rain fly, clothing, and panniers (the bags on our bikes), holes in a sleeping pad, AND we broke a chair (Joel's) and sunglasses (Karen's), all in unrelated events. However, we feel great and are in better shape than ever. Our legs are getting harder and bigger and we are able to go farther and longer than when we first started a month ago.
It's been a long stretch of riding and camping for us, and when we arrived in El Calafate 2 days ago, we immidiately found a hostel and took long showers. This was followed by extensive chocolate eating, and then beer, pizza, and ice cream. Perhaps we went a little overboard?? El Calafate is a very interesting little tourist town in the middle of the barren, dry Patagonian steppe. It was very surprising to go from nothing but dirt, rocks, yellow grass, and small shrubs to very green grass, trees, and tons of flowers (they like to water here). The town lies on the very large Lake Argentina, another one of the beautiful blue-green lakes of the area fed by glacier run-off. But lets get back to where we left off way back in Puerto Natales...
We left Puerto Natales around noon on the 23rd with very little wind and beautiful sunny weather. Thanks to advice from Don Rueben, the owner of the hostel we stayed at, we followed a new route to the park which allowed us to get there in 2 days. It was paved at first and then turned to gravel, something which Karen struggles with having both front and back panniers on her bike. Joel has a BOB trailer on the back of his, and it is a little more stable on gravel since the weight is more distributed and does not rest all on the back tire. Plus, Karen is sometimes a little clumsy and uncoordinated... so, after passing by the mylodon cave (the cave where they found remains of the mylodon which is a giant sloth, like 20 feet tall, that lived in the area 10000 years ago), they were rounding a sloped, loose gravelly curve at a good speed and Karen took a dip. It left some amazing, colorful bruises on Karen's hip, elbow and wrist, but thankfully nothing was broken. Karen was a little shaken after that, but we rode on and took it slow. We got our first view of the Torres del Paine massif and camped in a tall beautiful grove of forest. It was our first experience with mosquitos as the climate had gotten slightly warmer and wetter. Karen apparently sat one some thorny plants in her camp chair so got quite a few holes in her sleeping pad. All patched up and ready to go the next morning, they started off only to realize that Karen also had a flat back tire. She put on a spare and they headed out towards the distant vista of large craggy snowy mountains. They got closer as the day wore on and we rode by amazing green-blue glacier fed lakes. The terrain was rough, with tricky gravel roads and lots of steep hills, but the wind was calm and we were excited to get to the Torres del Paine National Park.
We reached the park that afternoon (15,000 Chilean pesos entry fee) and made camp for free behind the visitors' center in some trees. By that time, the wind had picked up so we were happy to have arrived earlyish. The next day we left our gear in the tent and tried to bike over to the left side of the park which features Lake Grey and the Grey glacier. The was absolutely impossible, and we found ourselves being dangerously blown every which way and off the road. We were heading into the wind, pedalling as hard as possible, and going 9k/h. We turned around to head back to camp and were going 20k/h with the wind, without pedalling at all. Woooee! The bus fee out to Lake Grey was ridiculously expensive so we hitched a ride with Don Mario and Don Mario, two very nice and helpful fellows. We had planned on taking a ferry boat ride accross the lake to see the glacier up close, but the tickets were all sold out. That was for the better since they were super expensive ($80 US each!) and we ended up taking a beautiful hike out along a sand spit on the lake to an island. The wind was impressive, as was the view, the water, and the icebergs we saw on the lake. The blue color of the icebergs looked so unnatural next to the greens of the trees, the blacks and browns of the mountains, and the dark grey blue green of the lake. We caught a ride back to camp with a tour bus full of friendly Yale alumnis who were touring around Argentina and Chile. Thanks for the ride!
The next day we rode our bikes up to the central area of the park, and had a tranquilo day of patching tubes and the sleeping pad (again), washing clothes, and cleaning/tuning our bikes. We took a little hike up the nearby hill and got a spectacular view of the park. We camped at Lake Pehoe Campground, the most beautiful campsite we stayed at. We woke early the next morning and rode our bikes without gear down to the dock on Lake Pehoe and took a catamaran across the lake to get to the middle hiking trail of the park. The day was fairly clear and beautiful and we had a fantastic hike. One of the most striking things was seeing the 100s of cascades of water running down the mountains from the glaciers. Some of them were huge, many small, but it was humbling to think how much water in the world is derived from glacier run-off... and what it will mean if and when many of these glaciers disappear due to global warming. Glaciers.. one of the most impressive things we have seen in our lives. The forests are very interesting here. Largely composed of lengas and beech trees. The trees only grow to a height of 30 to 40 meters here and are quite skinny and contorted by the winds. It seems like the perfect environment for coniferous trees but, we haven't seen a one. It would be spectacular to visit this area in the fall when the leaves change colors and prepare to fall. We hiked up the middle section of the famous "W" trail to the "British Camp" where we were delighted to find an absolutely breathing view of the park. From this vantage point one can see the "Torres" (granite towers), the "Cuernos" (granite towers topped with dark sedimentary rock), the glacier crested "Paine Grande" and out over many aquamarine lakes, forest, and a long valley that was carved out by glaciers during the last ice age. Words (and photos for that matter) can not describe or capture the grandure of these amazing physical features. Torres del Paine is truely an amazing national park and a wonder of the natrual world. After standing in awe for a while at the summit, we made our way back down the trail to the dock. While waiting for the ferry ride back to where we left our bikes, we started talking with a very nice Chilean family from Santiago. The Argentinians and Chileans we have met (including this family) are very supportive of our trip, and in general extremely nice and genuine people. This family invited us to stay at their house if we ever pass through Santiago! We rode back to our campsite that evening in rain and cold and decided to treat ourselves to a steak dinner at a restaurant in the park. The quality wasn't amazing (it is extremely difficult to transport veggies and things into the park), but we were full and happy and slept well that night.
The next day we had a longer ride (about 35k) over to the right side of the park, the side that features the "torres" or towers. It was another rough ride, up and down hills, all with gravel, but the mountains were so close and the scenery amazing. Karen took another spill going down a gravel hill, but it was minor and nothing was hurt except her pride. The bruises from the previous fall had just started to fade away... but new bruises were added right on top of the old ones!! We are learning the tricks of the gravel road as we go along and are becoming better riders little by little. Along the road we saw many herds of guanaco and ice in the lakes. We arrived late into the campsite next to the Hosteleria Torres del Paine. The torres were shrouded in clouds and it was lightly misting. The campsite wasn't as nice as the previous one as there were lots more people and less private campsites. We bought some extremely expensive food at the store and prepared for the next day's hike up to the torres.
We awoke early to mist and light rain but started hiking anyway. There were few people on the trail and the view of the torres was covered with clouds. We made it up to the first campsite after 1.5 hours and stopped in the refuge for some expensive hot drinks and to dry off a bit. We met some very nice Brits and Americans, all eager to share stories and laughs. It started to clear up a bit so we started off again, and it started raining again. We made it up to the second campsite after another hour and ate lunch under drippy trees since there was no room in the refuge. We got chilled to the bone and decided to head back down to camp since the torres were shrouded in clouds, mist, and whipping wind not to mention it would be another 45min hike up slippery boulders before we reached the terminus of the trail. We were happy with our decision to save our ankles since the clouds didn't clear and we got back to camp early and could relax a bit. We bought more expensive groceries for our ride out of the park the next day.
Luckily our weary bodies were awarded the next day with a tail wind that took us out of the park with a speed previously unknown to us on gravel roads. Not long after leaving the park, we met a very informative cycling couple, Ralph and Sandy who had come all the way from Alaska and were about done with their trip! We exchanged info and smiles and rode on until we rounded a corner... suddenly the wind was in our faces and a lot stronger than it was before. We had to walk our bikes for a while but eventually hopped back on once it had died down a bit. Next thing we knew, we had a tail wind and pavement once more (ooohhh the pavement feels like you are gliding on ice after you have been on gravel for a long time) and the wind pushed us up hills on into the town of Cerro Castillo. We camped for free at a fancy hotel and ate out at an expensive tourist shop/restaurant. By the way, it is an incredible phenomenon to see the effects of tourism in these small nothing towns that happen to be on the tourist route. Unrestrained and unplaned development and growth at its worst. Everything is outrageously expensive as well. Let's just say we will be happy to get off of that route in the future. We had "chacareros" which are these huge sandwiches with a thin piece of grilled beef and all the fixins (but the fixins will cost you). They are tasty and filling especially if you get avacado on top.
We woke early, crossed back into Argentina with no problems, and had a day of part pavement and part gravel. The pavement is such a treat now... we find ourselves cruising along at 25k/h and can barely believe our eyes. Plus it was another calm day and we took advantage of it, reaching 1000k along the ride and enjoying every second. After leaving the park, the landscape faded back into the crazy-looking steppe we know so well now. Yellow grasses, dark green shrubs, endless blue sky, guanacos, rheas (relatives of ostriches), huge rabbits the size of dogs, ibises, condors, hawks.. it is beautiful in its own way. We turned onto the gravel Route 40 at the gas station town called Tapi Aike and rode a ways until we found a suitable place to camp. Suitable being a little ways off from the road and behind a pile of rocks for a little protection from the wind. We were some tired puppies having had another high km day and crashed out early.
We woke early again and were on the road by 7. Although getting up early is painful at times, we both really enjoy riding in the early morning when the wind is calm, the light is beautiful and there is a lot of wildlife to be seen. Along route 40 we met up with 3 friendly French riders and chatted for a while about the route and about our project. We were kind of jealous of the fishing pole one of the guys had on the back of his bike... We continued on and had another high km day, turning onto pavement for the last 20k or so of the ride. It started to sprinkle and storm clouds were building so we set up camp near a bridge in some long grasses. We were exhausted and filled ourselves with pea soup and rice and chocolate. We awoke before sunrise the next day, hoping to make it to El Calafate. It was frrreeeezing that morning, literally. Our bikes and tent were covered with frost and the water in the bottles on our bikes was partly frozen! The sunrise was fiery and spectacular as was the clear blue sky day. We had a huge 10k down hill which helped us do 75k and get to El Calafate in no time... not to mention the paved roads and no wind (and our huge buff legs hehe).
We are staying in El Jorgito, the little George hostel and have been resting and taking care of errands and such. El Calafate is the town from which buses leave to go to the Perrito Moreno glacier, a huge beautiful glacier, and one of two that is still advancing in the western hemisphere. It is actually part of the same glacier field, part of the same huge mass of connected ice, as the one we saw in the Torres del Paine National Park. We took a bus out to the glacier yesterday (we didn't want to ride the 80k there and back on bike for this side trip) and were amazed by it's greatness and beauty. Since it's summertime, huge chunks of ice crack and fall off into the lake with loud crashes. We got to see and hear a few big ones.. it was quite a site!!!!! We took a ferry ride to see the glacier up close. It was chilly but beautiful. They served whisky with glacier ice on the ferry ride, but Joel and I decided to pass at 10:30am. We met 2 very nice teachers from California, who were very interested in our project and eager to help us out. The kindness of people we have met on our travels so far has been amazing. It is always very uplifting and motivating for us to meet such people from various places and at various ages.
We are hoping to set out again tomorrow; we start to get restless after a few days of not riding! We will back track about 30k and then head up to the town of El Chalten where we will get a chance to hike around a little in the Glacier National Park near the beautiful Mount Fitz Roy.
Whew, that was a long one. Congrats to you if you made it this far. Thank you again for all of your support and kind words! Until Chalten, hasta luego!
