HALF TIME IN COYHAIQUE IN SIGHT

Having been blessed with plenty of sun in the Park Queulat we started with new energy to face a relatively easy climb of a bit less than 600m over the pass to Villa Amengual. We heard about some roadworks on the way and that they block the road from 1pm to 5pm. We passed all of them until midday at least that’s what we thought until we arrived at around 2:30pm at a third one. We joined a group of waiting tourists: 2 Russian cyclists, 3 motorised British guys and shared some tea and biscuits while trying to keep us warm at the same time. With a slight delay we restarted the day at 5pm to face the last 40km arriving late in Villa Amengual. I convinced David to go for the first Hospedaje we found as we just got wet again on the last 10kms or so. Also the next day was a challenging one cycling more than 100km that day. We enjoyed some pretty strong tailwinds and we easily cruised until the early afternoon. The last third of the distance gave us a first idea of how it is to fight with headwinds. We arrived at a camping in between El Balseo and Coyhaique where we happily installed our tent, learnt how to drink Mate in a formal Chilean way, fed some little lambs and got introduced in the owner’s farming business.

Getting up late to make the last 30km to Coyhaique we thought that we would have an easy ride in front of us. We totally ignored the 400m climb in between us and the capital of Aysen not mentioning all the usual uphill and downhill, which the landscape usually has to offer for us.

Crossing from National Park Queulat to Coyhaique was a strange  thing. Within 3 days we left the rain forest behind us, passed by some mountains, which really reminded us the soft hills of Scotland and arrived in Coyhaique which one could easily confound with the landscape of Chambery or Grenoble.

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