Thighs of Glory: Crossing the Andes from Santiago to Mendoza

After a great few days in balmy Santiago we decided not to head for the coast but to tackle the toughest section of our trip so far - crossing the Andes just north of Santiago back to Argentina, across some of the highest mountains in the world outside the Himalayas. After previous bad experiences in big cities we caught an amazingly cheap bus to Los Andes, a town just north of Santiago and at the turnoff to the border. We had a terrible night lying awake listening to traffic noise and sleeping on the worlds largest, yet thinnest bed.

Ben enjoying the comforts of our large yet thin bed in Los Andes

 We set off the next morning armed with 9 litres of water and 12 egg and avacado sandwichs with about 60km and 2700m of climbing to the border. We knew from other cyclists that is is difficult to get up and over in one day, and camping at the top of the pass isn´t ideal. We had heard that there was so possible camping spots near the top that had clean water so we were aiming for somewhere around there. After all, there was no shortage of trucks passing us should we need a lift.

Another overdramatic warning leaving Los Andes. The gradient was nowhere near that steep.

 

Leaving Los Andes. Sun shining, birds singing, etc.



Anna coming up to one of the many tunnels, complete with a nice track for cyclists around the outside. There were many trucks on the road as this is the main link between Chile and Argentina. The truckies were all very friendly, our arms got tired from waving to them all. Many also slowed to offer helpful advice and encouragement, such as taking a car next time. Ho, ho, ho. 

The day was once our best so far, with great scenery and relatively gentle climbing. So gentle, in fact we were beginning to wonder how we were going to get so high with only 10kms left to the border and 1000 metres below the pass. We turned a corner and saw the reason: trucks crawling up a never ending wall of switchbacks. We gulped, had a morale boosting egg sandwich and set off to join the trucks climbing with the chariots of fire song in our heads.

Switchbacks. 29 of them.

We did the first 21 switchbacks in the afternoon before stopping to camp for the night behind a machinery shed at about 2500 metres. We finished off the remaining 8 the next morning.

Ben near the top

Camping in the high Andes next to a shed

The tiny orange building is the shed we camped next to.

Climbing? No problems here.

The next day we carried on to the top after passing unexpected roadworks, confusing border control and cycling the last kms in a tunnel all by ourselves as traffic was rerouted outside to allow for repairs. We liked to think of it as the "Ben and Anna executive cycleway".



At the top, feeling pleased with ourselves. All those vehicles are waiting to go through the tunnel, we got a sweet ride on the back of a truck.



Hello, Argentina.

The highest mountain in the western hemisphere was toweing over us when we were at 3000m.

After eventually clearing customs and describing our trip to the 10 people that came up to take our photos and talk to us we had an initally great ride down the valley stopping at many small villages. We carried on past all obvious accomodation options until the wind turned into a headwind and rain rolled in. We found some shelter in the ruins of an Inca village (incredibly, true) in the most scenic campsite we could ever hope for.

Puente del Inca - A natural bridge and thermal spa that are slowly being eroded.

Camping amongst ruins, hoping no archaelogist drives by.



High Andes camping. So glad we sent the orange tent home days before cause it wasn´t stealthy enough.

 Rain set in the next day along with more gastric distress. Turns out the crossing was too exciting for Annas digestive system. We spent 2 nights in Upsallata (where the film seven years in Tibet was filmed) recovering before heading down the valleys to Mendoza. We cycled most of the day with Fernando, an Argentinian who was cycling home from Chile. Together we managed to lose a town and ended up sharing a awesome cabana on the outskirts of Mendoza.

Anna and Fernando leaving Upsallata



Typical views from the road.




The guys at our cabana the next morning.



We have had a great time in Mendoza, it has had unseasonal rainfall whilst we have been here but we have enjoyed the wineries and tried our hand at horseriding on an estancia in the foothills of the Andes. If engineering doesn´t work out for Ben he may become a gaucho. From here we are heading north into northwest Argentina and then (gulp) Bolivia.

 

 

Pan Am Chile. Well the bridges of anyway.

We have now completed the ride from Puerto Montt to Santiago on the Pan Am, averaging 100km days. Our speed and distance traveled has doubled since leaving patigonia so now we feel like we have got some traction on the globe and have made some real progress. A few days off near Pucon allowed us to relax check out the local show and for Ben to attempt to summit the vulcan. In a few days we will leave chile behind only to return for our flight back to NZ. There is only one small hill in the way the 3500m pass to Argentina and the Mendoza wine region {mt cook is 3700ish} so we will be higher than ever before.



Vulcan Villarica the morning of the climb



The beginning of the walk looks a little windy but it will get worse

Can you see anna sunning herself on the beach in villarica

Me and 300 others attemp the summit only to be turned back by gale force winds 500m from the top, our guides were the most in control and just had us sit behind a rock for a while, others were running around panicking shouting and girls were crying, pity my small camera was stolen otherwise there was some good pics and vids of the wind blowing others over and having to use their ice axes to stop getting blown away.

Lautauro, where the phase I do not speak spanish does not work but we did end up sleeping on these kind folks lawn instead of in the middle of the fair that was going on in the park where we were going to camp

Yellow on a grand scale

We only sleep under the best bridges, good morning view



The beasts of burden that beat us to the top of the hill. We should have asked for a ride.



Pan Am to the left and rail to the right

At the top.

We thought we had been on the pan am for a while but Los Angeles already we must have missed something

Salto del Lajas {waterfall at Lajas}

Upside down arch, quite common on the railway here

Yellow is big in this region



One of the more elegant rail bridges



Funicular or steep tram to the top of the hill in santiago

Not a bad view from the top

Statue at the top overlooking Santiago

Where the dickens have we been for the last two months?

Been wondering where exactly the action has been taking place?  Wait no more!

The map below shows our route thus far, nearly 3000km from where we began in Ushuaia in December. Happily settled in sunny Santiago for a few days here, where we can catch up on some missing blog entries, chillax and enjoy some time in the city.


View The South in a larger map




P.S. If anyone was wondering about the earthquakes here the other day, we were right where they struck and didn't even notice.

The worst (and yet most exciting) birthday ever. And then Pavement :-)

After our interesting / miserable (depending on whether you were Ben or Anna) boat trip to the marble caves we left Rio Tranquilo under overcast skies to head north towards Cerro Castillo, a village 120km and two days away. We were feeling a bit run down from the lack of vegetables, fruit or protein in the last two weeks and the gravel out of town was very loose. It at times resembled cycling up a dry riverbead. The weather was very cold and we could see alot of rain over the mountain pass ahead. Anna was feeling particularly bad and after cycling a pathetic 5kms we were seriously considering hitching a ride in one of the many utes that had been passing us. The moment we starting thinking about it though all traffic dried up and no cars passed for a whole hour - typical. With rain closing in we pitched our tent about 5 metres from the road and went to bed at 5pm.

We awoke the next morning to Annas birthday - it was her first roadside verge birthday and we had no choice but to cycle on.

Cycling around the lake. The bridges are obviously paved but there is road/riverbed in between. We were not happy campers.

The weather was a little better in the morning and we managed 40km before the rain started in earnest again. Sheltering from the rain in an abandoned farmhouse for lunch, Anna got stung by a bumble bee. This simply added to the already wonderful brithday she was having, but being in the middle of nowhere we continued riding as the rain got heavier and heavier. We still hadn´t even reached the bottom of the pass we were meant to be going over today but we felt that hitching a ride was very unlikely so pedalling was our only option.

Ben putting on a brave face before the rain got really heavy.

About ten minutes later a huge transporter truck came up behind us. We wern´t expecting it to stop for a moment, but Ben hopelessly stuck out his thumb without even getting off the bike whilst Anna undertook a passive-agressive roadblock by cycling down the middle of the road. Against all odds he pulled over (and a choir of angels sang from above). We looked at the back of the lowbed, on it was a van. He must have used all his rope to tie the van on (no chains, just rope like it was a load of firewood). He looked a bit puzzled for a while while he was working out how to fix our bikes onto the deck without any rope, then he just opened the back of the van, folded back the seats and we proceeded to put our bikes in the back. It was great!

And we were off, sitting in the cab of a Mack on a road that he probably should have had a pilot for as there was not much (no) room for any oncoming traffic. We nearly ran one car off the road during our ride as it came around a blind corner way too fast and Joe (our driver) had an expression on his face like sh%t that was close.

During the ride Anna was still not feeling that well and became concerned that she may experience imminent gastic distress. She gave the phrasebook to Ben (who was sitting next to the driver) so he could tell Joe that he might need to pull over. That was not easy for Ben and as he fumbled for the right chapter Anna intervened in fluent spanish "pare. banyo" (stop. toilet) which got the point across. She experienced her moment of gastic distress under the goose neck of the trailer in the middle of the road, with no toilet paper. By now this was without a doubt the worst birthday she had ever experienced.

Once we were over the first pass Joe met some friends in a ute coming the other way and pulled over to have a chat for a while. He then climbed back in the cab, moved it of the road and said that he was going to to their house for a coffee and we should unload our bikes and carry on riding as the town was "just over that hill" We now know never to trust a motorist when they say something is not far away. But having got through the worst of the rain and now with a tail wind we were happy again and set off on what we thought was a gentle ride into town.

If you´re going to hitch a ride, might as well do it in style..

Of course this gentle ride into town turned into two small mountains on the worst gravel we had ever seen. It was so bad people were stopping to ask if we were ok. Just short of the town a French guy in a land cruiser modified camper that we had talked to about four days earlier stopped us and asked us if we´d like to join him camping just off the road. We had been eyeing up hamburgers for dinner [Ben was even practising asking for a table for two] but he offered us wine, cucumber salad, bread and steak. We contributed pasta and it was a nice meal.
The next day we slogged the remaining 10km into town and rewarded ourselves with giant hamburgers from a roadside bus. This was also the start of the pavement, our first proper road in 500kms and something well worth celebrating.

Scene of wonderful hamburger breakfast.

We were initally thinking of staying the day here, mostly to shower and recover from the gastric distress of the day before, but the hamburger spurred us to carry on and over the biggest pass on the Careterra Austral and towards Coyhaique, the biggest town on the road.

Anna pretending she was enjoying herself at the start of the pass.

How Anna was actually feeling.

Downhills.

The top of the pass. Much easier than expected.

Yep, thats us nearly at the tree line.

 We found the pass much easier that we had thought, and made it over the second climb without actually realising we had been climbing. After that we roared downhill into the valley before being stopped in our tracks by a raging headwind reminisent of southern patagonia 30km from town. There was a great Hosteria nearby that cooked us great dinner, had very modern rooms and best of all new egyptian cotton towels in neutral tones. Anna nearly fainted with joy. The women there were a real treat, they fussed over us and we spent a great night practicing our spanish on them.

Villa OHiggins to Puerto Rio Tranquilo: Hills, Rain, Boats....

It has been a while since our last post as there is not many people at the end of the world and even less reliable internet (even this one has been on and off all day).

We left the hostal in Villa O Higgins with meagre supplies of pasta and sauce, stale bread, no eggs and no veges as the monthly truck that restocks the towns minimercardos with things like fruit and veges was not due for two days (it nearly ran us over at the top of one of the first passes).

One of many roadside waterfalls

We were pleased to find the gravel road in quite good condition, partly because the ferry that connected it to the rest of Chile could only take 6 cars at a time, three times a day. This meant we could predict when the cars were going to pass us which was nice. The first day we saw more cyclists than cars.





The lake we went around leaving Villa OHiggins. We could still see the town but had biked 15km





There was pretty stunning views along the road when the clouds were not getting in the way. We cycled 100km without passing any houses or farms really at all, just wilderness. After descending the first pass at the end of the day we were faced with a choice of finding a place to camp, or climb again on what looked like a steep sided hill with nowhere to stop should we have to give up half way up (which was not out of the question). We opted to occupy the little poled house with no walls that was painted orange as if to say "camp here". We accidently fell over a locked gate with all our bags to get in, but as the five cars from the ferry had already driven by there was no chance of being told off. The ginger tabby cat that came and saw us while we were making dinner did make us wonder if we were in someones front yard but we were happy to be out of the rain so tried not to think about it too much.

The River Tigre waterfall where we had lunch in an abandoned house to get out of the rain.

Good "ripio" (gravel road) with mountains to one side with the occasional waterfall and alpine swamp to the other

Getting close to the end of the valley, lakes replaced swamps

Nearly at the top....

Can you see us? We could have used my tent to match the poles but chose to match the grass instead. The road is on the left, no cars passed all night.

Nearly there and in time for the '3pm' ferry.

The ferry finally arrives.

The waiting room at the ferry which we became well aquainted with. The cyclists going the other way had already wheeled their way inside, which was much easier than pitching the tent.

The climb from the campsite was smaller than expected but the headwind slowed our progress to the ferry accross the fiord. Our hostel owner in O'Higgins had told us that the ferry sailed at 11am, 3pm and 7pm so we ambled along aiming for the 3pm sailing. As it turned out his info was way wrong and the 3pm ferry was actually at 1pm, so we were well and truly late when we rolled in at 2pm. The 6 hour wait for the 7pm ferry truly mucked up our plans of making it to the next town by nightfall, but provided the perfect opportunity for humorous holiday snaps in the local foliage. Luckily as we were walking off the boat in Puerto Yungay one of the boat workers said he had a cabin that he was renovating up the hill and for a small donation we could stay there. If we wanted a fire we should chop some wood (Ben loves chopping wood at the end of a hard days cycling). A cabin was a much better option than a tent site on a rainy beach, so we took it.

 

Some fun with the enormous plants that lined the side of the road.



Looking relaxed on the downhill before the Tortel turnoff.

The next day we climbed to the top of the next (and much bigger) pass in the showers and decended into heavy rain on the other side. The supply truck had passed through Tortel on the way to O'Higgins, so we opted to take the 40km detour to refresh supplies and see this village that is famous for having timber boardwalks instead of roads. The directions from our O'Higgins host here were also way off: he told us to take the road towards the airport and get a water taxi to a hospedaje (bed and breakfast) in the old part of town. We took the road (downhill), found the airport and where the boats should have been but when we asked where the boats were the lady looked at us like we were stupid and said "no, you go back the way you came and take the road, that's what is its for, stupid cyclists.." So now taking the road back up the hill, in the rain, we arrived very wet and could not face walking out bikes along the boardwalks and up all the stairs, so we got the closest hospedaje to the carpark. We ate our first local meal there, a "lomo a la pobre", which is steak and chips with two eggs and fried onions. We think anything "a la pobre" is good news.

Tortel turned out to be quite a nice place in the morning when it stopped raining. We had a nice walk around while waiting for the small grocery store to open. The store had home made bread but clearly something had gone askew as it was very, very dense.

Tortel public art

Tortel again. Cypress boardwalks are everywhere.

The stairs we couldn't be bothered with the night before, but great views.

We left Tortel the next morning in the hope that the fine break in the weather would hold until we were behind the Northern Ice Field (Campo de Heilo Norte). The road slowed our progress as it was big loose gravel mixed with corrugations. Late in the afternoon our friend Pavel caught us up as he had been chasing us "like a puma" having caught the later ferry on the epic border crossing. We made camp by the river after deciding not to stay at a campground which offered us a stony paddock and a cold shower for the price equivalent of two steak dinners each. After all we could wash in the cold river just down the road for free.

Wilderness. Cold and rainy, the usual.

The next day was a big one to the first 'town' on this road, Cochrane. This town is the second largest on this 1200km stretch of road, but has only 2000 people so not large at all. After stopping to talk to all 20 cyclists we passed during the day we finally made it. A room at the hospedaje was arranged for a two night stay and a rest before the next uninhabited stretch of road was attempted. It was exciting to find that this place had a bakery and we could do some washing, and surf the internet. It even had sealed roads.

Deciding to get some fresh bread and collect our washing before leaving town was a bit of a mistake as it was a Sunday so everything was a bit slow to start. By the time we had collected our clothes, waited for the bread to come out of the oven and changed into our cycling gear it was already 11am.

On our ride out of town we saw some more cyclists and decided to say hello (as you do here). There was a nice Australian couple who had some good tips for us, but after a gathering of up to 8 cyclists on the side of the road we finally left 3 hours later. We headed out on what they had described as their hardest days ride on the whole road. Two of them took great joy in describing injuries and pulled muscles from the 4 hills that we had ahead of us. Not 5km out of town we met some more Aussies who had biked from Alaska and had another chat, swapping route and road information. Now nearly dinner time and we had only biked for about 20 minutes. We had some serious ground to make up, but the weather was warm and cycling along next to the beautiful Rio Baker we made Puerto Bertrand at sunset. We camped for free right in the middle of the village next to the lake amongst some apple trees.



Guanacos on the way out of Cochrane.

Ben on the way to the Rio Baker



After picking up more freshly baked bread (not as dense as Tortel) the next morning we started riding around Lago General Carrerra, the largest lake down here. We were aiming for a hamlet called Rio Tranquilo which turned out to be not so tranquil.

Bridge.



Anna expertly colour coordinated with the bridge.

We made slow progress over a hilly road in the morning, talking to cyclists from Chile, Holland, France, Slovenia and Germany before stopping for coffee at a small place next to an impressive bridge. We carried on around the valley and with the wind getting up and rain beginning to fall found a sheltered campsite in a field next to the lake. We were joined by Pavel and another cyclist later in the evening and treated to sun and no wind when we woke up the next morning. We ate our breakfast on the beach.

A room with a view.

The 20kms left to Tranquilio the next morning turned out to be a giant hill, 10kms up and 10kms down. The moment we got there it became very windy and stormy which was bad news as we wanted to take a boat trip to the marble caves that are famous here. The boat operator suggested first thing tomorrowu morning so we booked into a cheap hospedaje and hunkered down for the night. The next morning was just as stormy but we went out on the boat anyway. The caves were very nice but with a 1m swell the ride back in the boat was a bit bumpy and wet. 

Ben on the boat at the marble caves



Marble cave.



etc.