More wind news: Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales

After three unexpected but welcome rest days in Punta Arenas (which translates to Sandy Point for those Invercargill readers) we headed north to our next target: Puerto Natales. This was an intimidating 250 kilometers away to the north west with one particularly concerning stretch going due west - straight into the wind!

The local military parading around like they owned the place in Punta Arenas.

Our bikes on the ferry across the Strait of Mellagan. Thats not how its spelt either, sorry.

After what we had considered a capitulation on Tierra del Fuego we hopped on the internet to hear about how other cyclists had fared on the same route, where we discovered that almost no one ever makes it without catching a ride, which made us feel much better. We were also very interested in what lay ahead and after reading some wind horror stories thought it prudent to allow five days to cover this distance, breaking it into five 50km days based around towns on the way.

A typical Patagonian cycling scene. Usually we are riding the bikes very slowly, not pushing.

Our first day took us out of Punta Arenas towards the turnoff towards the north where we had heard there was a petrol station that we might be able to camp behind. We ran into a group of older French cyclists cycling south who told us stories of staying in estancias (large farms) and being fed great food and wine, but also warned us of how hard we were going to find it biking into the wind in the days ahead, and how hard some of the roads ahead were going to be for us. We chose mostly to forget about these warnings and to ponder the stories of wonderful estancias instead, which was nice as by now it was both windy and raining and we slogged the remaining 25km to the petrol station at the lightning speed of 10 kilometers an hour. We arrived in the rain at lunchtime and went inside for coffee, where we met a group of French motorcyclists (it was a day for meeting French people it seemed) who were holed up waiting for a member of their group. They were good company and told us how they had been blown off their bikes the day before and how the guy at the petrol station told them that the wind was the strongest it had been in 15 years yesterday. The weather is a big conversation item down here. Some Dutch cyclists pulled up whilst we were gasbagging inside, they had come south from Peru and had covered 100km with a tailwind already that day. We were envious of their effortless cycling. They gave us some tips on the road ahead and were off again, which made us look a bit lazy just lounging around drinking coffee at 2pm in the afternoon. This spawned the one of the greatest quotes of the trip so far when their guide arrived and asked how far we had come today and upon hearing of our dismal efforts stated "Well thats a bit lazzzyy New Zealand..." He verbalised what probably most people had been thinking but were too polite to say. We reluctantly carried on in the hope of making tomorrow easier, covering 20km and passing a mine field before setting up camp in what looked like an uninhabited gaucho (cowboy) camp.

Mines! No roadside camping here.

The next day dawned sunny with strong winds but we were cocky as we "only" had 30kms to Villa Tenchulches, the next town and goal for the day. Within 10 minutes we were in our lowest gears and moving at a glacial pace. We eventually resorted to pushing our bikes before finding shelter in a bus stop about 500 meters from town at the top of a hill. Never has a bus stop been so appreciated. We sat there for about 10 minutes looking at the town at the bottom of the hill wailing that there was no way we would ever make it there. Eventually we channeled our inner Willie Apiata and hardened up to make the final walk into town. It took us a good 20 minutes. Nevertheless it was still quite early in the day so we once again set up camp in a cafe and wondered how long we could sit there without really buying anything before we got kicked out. This turned out to be about 6 hours in which time the cafe had one other customer apart from us. After enquiring about a place to camp the lady in the cafe directed us to the police who in turn directed us to the local rodeo stadium. It was weird that a town with barely 200 people could have such a rodeo stadium but we guess rodeo is big here. It turns out that north-bound cyclists get stranded here all the time and the town directs everyone here. The police even let us fill up our water bottles in the station which was awesome.

Our sweet gig in the rodeo arena. The ground was frighteningly hard to put the tent pegs into though.

We were sitting up in the stands having dinner that evening when a couple of slow moving shapes came into town - more cyclists! New Zealand cyclists as it turned out! we jogged down to the street to greet them and discovered that they had been relying on a hotel here and had no tent. Luckily we were overprepared and had a spare we could lend them in the rodeo stadium, where in return they shared some of their chocolates with us. We definately got the better deal, the chocolate was fancy and wasted on our unsophisticated palates.

Anna G and Ben in the police shed at Morro Chico. The pizza oven is behind Anna. Other furniture included a new bed and couch that we were very tempted to take advantage of, but good manners pervailed. You don´t want to make the plice angry, after all. We have seen their guns.

The next day we all up early to try and get some distance in before the wind got up and got to Morro Chico by lunchtime to begin the now embarassing pattern of sitting in a cafe for 8 hours buying nothing. This one had a fire and appeared to serve food but no one offered us any until we asked, then all they could give us was the soup the staff seemed to be having for lunch. Once again we were the only customers and when they stopped stoking the fire we cycled to the police station to ask for a place to stay. They let us spend the night in their shed, which came complete with a functioning pizza oven! This would have been great if we had pizza, but alas it was pasta sauce again for us so we didn´t light it. This turned out to be a terrible mistake as the temperature plummeted that night and we all woke up at 5am freezing with a frost outside and the wind blowing. Until this morning we thought those two weather conditions were mutually exclusive but alas, not here. Due to our wind anxiety heading west we hit the road at dawn to cover the dreaded westerly stretch wearing pretty much all the clothes we had. Anna F used her emergency toe warmers for this cold weather emergency. It was so cold the lighter wouldn´t work when we stopped for a warm drink! There was alot of bus stops along the way thankfully as a big snowstorm came through in about 10 minutes with the snow falling parallell to the ground - the second time we have seen this in Patagonia. Thanks to the energy providing powers of a packet of biscuits we made it to the Hotel Rio Rubens where we called it a day after a warming lunch. This place actually had customers which was nice too. We spent the afternoon lounging around, having our first shower in 4 days, and playing ludo. We covertly cooked pasta in our hotel room with Ben lighting the cooker on the roof to avoid setting off the smoke alarms.

The next morning dawned calm and we had a comfortable 65km ride into Puerto Natales, mostly downhill. For the first time we experienced what it must be like cycling in the other direction and spirits were sky high. We went back to our old ways of unsoliticted waving at every vehicle that passed us, including a police car with lights flashing speeding to some emergency, which tooted hello as it zoomed past. Not even emergencies get in the way of being friendly down here it seems.

Heroic arrival in Puerto Natales. The downhill behind us added to our effortless look as we rode into town.

This is a Molidon, a prehistoric gaint sloth and town mascot. We felt it had a distinctly ninga pose, and we were in the mood for posing. Hilarity ensued.

From Puerto Natales we have lurched straight into the Torres del Paine National Park, aiming to complete the 5 day "W" track in time for Christmas.