I assume that the fjord of Cochamo has an astonishing view on the nearby mountains and amazes with it’s blue water if not everything was covered up by clouds the day we passed. It started raining during the day, again, as if one could fully rely on the fact of getting wet once a day. Looking for a suitable campsite for the night we finally agreed to put up the tent under a huge fir tree which gave us some shelter from the rain for camping and cooking. What seemed a great place in the evening was not that great anymore in the morning: still being half asleep we thought that it started to rain again until we realised that we placed our tent just below the restroom of a quite big family of massive birds as it seemed. David did a great job cleaning our temporary home. It took a bit to dry up again. And as if this was not enough we even had to defend our place against some cows during breakfast before we finally set off to cycle to Hornopiren at around 11:30am. The 50km ride turned out to take us almost all day with an average speed of 10km/h to arrive in Hornopiren. Lots of steep parts, plenty of roadworks and rough gravel roads made the ride harder than expected.The campsite was great: we were the only people and had an amazing view on impressive Volcano Apagado.
We got on the ferry to Leptepu easily which left at 11am, plenty of time for us late risers and no reservation was necessary. Really, I have the feeling that we’re the only tourists cycling the Carretera Austral at this moment of time. Considering the chilly temperatures and the amount of rain, I quite understand why spring is not the favourite time to travel Patagonia for most people. However, having a campsite for yourself for almost no money and not seeing much traffic on the road is a real plus for travelling south Chile before or after the main season. On the boat we enjoyed a 4h journey along a fjord with Volcano Apagado in the back, snow covered mountains to the east and some views of the Pacific Ocean to the west. The Carretera Austral is not everywhere fully developed. Some parts are purely gravel road and the part we took that day was only possible to pass by a combination of car and ferry. Schedules are well aligned so that you don’t have to wait for the 2nd ferry. And that’s the point we did not get maybe due to our poor Spanish. Maybe you can load the bikes on the bus (a regular long distance bus from Puerto Montt to Chaiten) and unload the bikes again on the second ferry. That’s not what we did but we were lucky enough to get assigned to a guy who took our bikes on the back of his pick-up. And as if this wasn’t already great enough he also took us to the center of Pumalin National Park where he dropped us off at the Lago Blanco campsite. Again, we had the privilege to be the only guests and to chose from several beautiful spots with amazing lake and mountain views. Also nobody turned up to collect the fees so it was a free camping night at a beautiful spot with a breath taking sunset in between the mountains. Owner of the biggest privately owned National Park called Parque Pumalin, is Douglas Thompkins. It’s weird to see that a North American was able to buy that many hectars of land in Chile, especially splitting the land in 2 halves as Pumalin National Park reaches from the heart of the Andes of Argentina to the Pacific Ocean. The Tompkins foundation aims to protect the pristine Valdivian temperatured rainforest of the region. So, hereby a greeting to my brother who told me that I should definitely stop by in the park when I travel Patagonia. Done and yes, it’s definitely worth a visit as the landscape is untouched and wild. A great experience.
Our 30km ride was a quite easy one this time. Mainly downhill or only short climbs of not more than 150m altitude made us quickly arrive in Chaiten. Volcan Chaiten was unfortunately covered up in clouds. We got used to that by now. The town is a weird place. After the eruption of the volcano in 2008 it has not fully recovered from that serious event. Also it’s not advisable to climb the almost 1000m high Chaiten as the volcano is not yet considered as asleep. And that’s how the town looks like, especially during spring time: for it’s size it appears fairly dead and only by the amount of buildings one can guess how lively the town must have been with it’s former 4000 inhabitants. Some houses have not been repaired as not everybody had came back and from what I understood, most of the population has been resettled to some safer places.
We found a pick-nick area 1km before the town center where we put up the tent. On day 8 it got harder to accept to sit with 3 layers of pants and jumpers in front of the tent and to resist the cold, to snuggle into the sleeping bag at around 8 or 9pm with minimum space around me and to know that it will be hard in the morning to get out of the cosy warmth of my sleeping bag to get dressed with around 8 degrees in the tent. Also a two-person-tent is quite small and there is no such thing like private space. But I am really happy to have David around me. Without him I would have possibly given up during one of the rainy nights.
And yes, it was worth not having given up. We left Chaiten quite late because we had waited again for our equipment to dry up. But this time we were blessed with almost 50km of good tarmac and a soft wind pushing us into direction of El Amarillo. What was meant half way of our day trip was easily made in a bit more than 1h. Even though it was cloudy, it was quite warm and even some of the mountains showed their snow covered summits. The second part was fairly similar: an easy tarmac road, hardly any climbs and we kept our average speed of a bit more than 20km/h until Lago Yelcho, where we caught some beautiful views of the mountains and volcanoes around us. The campsite was not officially open and again, we were the only guests and they even offered us to stay for free as there was no hot water available yet. Instead of a cold shower we took a bath (for David) or rather a quick wash (for me) in the ice cold lake. A lovely spot with an amazing view and great facilities for camping. So much happier faces after yesterday. The easy road, the sunny spells and the lovely landscape washed away all doubts and grieves of the day before.
What should I say, things can change within less than 24 hours. We got up late because it had been raining all night. The continuous dropping on my sleeping bag created a worst case scenario in my dreams: tent under water and all stuff soaked from the rain. Of course I was proven wrong when I was fully awake. Only my sleeping bag was slightly wet but nothing bad really. Still, our motivation to get out of the tent was as low as 0. After having discovered the night before that my bike rack was broken already (on day 10) we tried to fix it with the help of the guys from the camp site and some cable strap. Despite the bad forecast we decided to set off for a demanding 30km trip. We stopped after kilometre 10 as it started raining badly and we were soaked through after 20 or 30 minutes. We hid under a tiny bus stop shed next to the street and David tried to stop some pick-ups. Eventually, a guy stopped with his small truck, on which we loaded the bikes and made the next 20km in Hectors car to Villa Santa Lucia. Finding a stay for the night was not that easy. Standing outside being soaked through and withstanding the cold and the wind we tried to find a Hospedaje. Completo! Nobody opened! No adverts or signs! I already feared that we had to spend the night in the tent. Asking a couple of people on the street we finally got sent to a house where I would have never expected a hotel in there. Very simply furnished and with a small bed we got a cheap and warm stay for that night. Also I should not forget to mention the warm shower which I have not had since 5 days.
It had rained all evening and all night when we decided in the morning to take a camionetta to the next bigger town, which was approximately 100km away. We got a bit influenced by 2 Italians who were in the same situation like us: how to continue going south without getting completely soaked and trying to withstand temperatures of less than 10 degrees on not very well maintained dirt roads. Maybe we’re too soft. We have not yet been snowed in, so what’s the matter? Well, we dreamt of being in Puyuhuapi, a beautiful little spa village established around 1935 by 4 German families. And another important factor: we also assumed that there might be at least one nice bakery in one of the famous Teutonic houses. All these things made us ruin our budget planning to arrive as fast as possible in a town where we hoped that all our dreams would come true. What should I say, we were at kilometre 15 before arrival when our patience got slightly challenged: Roadworks with a scheduled 2,5h waiting time. As it was raining cats and dogs nobody was really keen on getting out of the car. Of course we arrived and of course time did pass by quite quickly. We did not miss much in town as also there it had been raining badly all day.
The Hostel Evelyn where we checked in was quite basic but did cost only 6000CLP, less than 9 Euros, per person. It was a dry, warm and quite cosy place and we made ourselves comfortable on the second floor living room, listening to the Armageddon outside while eating chocolate and drinking a bottle of 1,5l Chilean wine (my god do Chileans produce great and cheap wine).
Plan for the next days: enjoy some spa, visit the famous carpet factory of the first German immigrants of the region, hope for better weather and drink more wine.