Santiago - Talca; the beginning of the journey.

It took me 4 days to arrive from Santiago to Talca, my hometown. Despite all the heat and my now arm sunburns I did it fast the first 3 days. I found mostly nice things on the road and found the usual when camping in nature such as mosquitoes and strange sounds at night. I managed to reach Talca at the 4^th day in quite good shape and with the spirit up. The only problem so far, one of my knees hurt. I'll have to rest and take it a bit easier to get better. Still everything went quite good. I don't know how long this post will be but I think a bit long. Take it easy when reading.

Leaving the City, Santiago to Rancagua.

We starting pedaling around 8.30 past Thursday, and as last time with Daniel, it took us quite long to reach the border of Santiago. The now loaded bike was weighting even more than last time, but we managed to reach the border of the city in around 2 hours. The gang this time was composed by Tom, Jota, Daniel and me. Right before reaching the city limit Tom bought a watermelon, we found a nice small plaza and ate it all, the sun was hiting hard on our heads and a fruit was very welcome, time for a “technical stop” at the border of Santiago.

The face of the Negro (Mattia) when he saw me riding my bike out of the city.

Buying the watermelon.

A slice for each of us.

The gang.

Our goal for the morning was to reach Buin, meet Camila there around 11-12 and have some lunch together. The last of the lunches some said. It was noticeable how my speed was different compared to the rest of the lads. Tom, Jota and Daniel would advance much swifter than me through the wind without the loaded bikes, the 110 kilos rolling against the wind do count. Still, we arrived to Buin a bit before 11 am. Right on time and with such munchies. We met Camila and headed for lunch.

For lunch I had a couple of lomitos italianos with some fries and a couple of Canada drys at the “All-in Ramirez”. Complete and healthy lunch. The place we chose for lunch was weird. They did a lot of other things besides food. They also worked selling vegetables, doing car parking, car washing and selling exotic meats. A wide variety of things. Exotic meats... what the fuck?.

After helado at the Plaza de Armas it was time to leave. We said our farewells with Camila and left in the middle of the heat. With full bellies we would ride round 20 minutes where I would depart from the rest but on the way we found a nice and cold Mote con Huesillos, a typical Chilean cold drink. With such a heat it was a sin not to drink one. This gave the group more energy and we kept moving on for around one hour more for the last of the technical stops with me. We stopped, said our farewells and we went our own ways.

All-in Ramirez; parking, fast food, car wash, food market, exoticarnes.

Camila, a 7 up, Tom.

One of the two Lomito Italiano I had.

The gang in Buin.

The rest of the road was already known for me. The only difference now was the heat. I hate the this damn summer, I can't wait to reach the south of Chile. After the first day I found out I have to sleep siesta in order to avoid the heat. It's much better to pedal in the morning and the late evening rather than in the middle of the day. I've started taking 2-3 hours siestas in order to avoid the heat, I'm such a bum.

Soon I reached Rancagua and Sergio was waiting for me there. First Warmshower host of the road. I called him right before entering the city and he said he would go pick me up on the way. We met shortly after and he told me we had to keep moving fast. The place I had chosen to enter Rancagua was quite dangerous as he told me. I didn't know this, I just used the road we used last time with Daniel when going to Coya. He said it's rare that you pass that area without being robbed.

At his place we shared beers and stories together with his wife Marcela while their kids were playing around. They invited me to once and we planned the road for the other day. Sergio would join me for a couple of hours the next day because the way out of Rancagua was tricky.

 

The armored resting a bit.

Somewhere over there Santiago, maybe under the grey cloud.

Somewhere there, Rancagua.

He wanted me to adopt him but I couldn't. Sorry mate, had you been a kitty...

Towards Santa Cruz.

We left Sergio's house at around 8.30. He would lead the way out of Rancagua towards Coinco where he could come back to Rancagua. The way there was mostly going down because we were going towards the sea, so it was quite easy to maintain the 28 kms/h. We managed good timing and after we said good bye I kept on till 1 pm where I finally stopped because of the heat. On the way there Fernanda texted me that I was going to pass near her work place so we managed to meet and have lunch where I stopped, right next to a huge cross with Jesus Christ. After that I kept on a bit more trying to find a good place where to have siesta, I wasn't going to sleep next to a dude in a cross bleeding and trying to convince me he would resurrect at the third day. Finally at 2 pm I found a good spot and fell there because of the heat. I had my 2 hours of siesta and kept on.

Sergio testing the armored. "How the hell do I drive this shit!"

Plaza de Rancagua.

This is bizarre. You can see the balls of the horse.

Why do politicians come here?

Around 1 hour later and while going uphill I met and old man sitting in a bench who asked me if I was carrying things for trading. I asked him for water but he didn't hear and asked me where I was coming from.We started talking, but he would keep asking me if I was carrying something for trade. He was 93 and had some hearing problems, he told me how he was born and raised there and that owned a small hill since 60 years ago. He gave me fresh water and asked if I was carrying things for trade, again. It was funny every time he asked me this. We talked like for around 1 hour more. And I after I managed to make him understand I wasn't a trader he wished me farewells and greets to my parents. Cool dude.

From then on, everything was sun and pain till I got to Santa Cruz. Well, it wasn't really painful, but I started noticing my knee was hurting a lot. I started realizing I was taking it too fast. As I'm not really counting how much kilometres I'm advancing, I'm just pedaling as much as I want. The first day I did around 110 kms. The second day I managed to pedal 115 kms. Quite a lot considering I planned all with 60 kms per day. At this rate I'm gonna cross the whole continent in less than a year.

Siesta place.

I didn't know this place existed! :O

Quite a nice town.

I reached Santa Cruz and stayed with my second WS host. Roxana is a girl who left the career of Biology and started working in tourism.She's doing tours around the wineyards, doing mountain bike tours in the hills of Santa Cruz and also around Chile. Right after arriving I headed for the veggie market, for some reason my body was begging me for tomatoes with garlic. A couple of hours before reaching Santa Cruz I started picturing in my mind a huge dish of sliced tomatoes with garlic  and olive oil. I couldn't stop thinking about it so for once I had my prize of the day, a banana, tomatoes and avocado. For washing my throat?, a nice cup of tea, one whisky, a glass of white wine and 2 beers. It's funny how everything escalated quickly. Roxana's brother was going to have a whisky so they offered me one, the rule is, you never deny whisky, so I had whisky. Then Roxana's mother recalled she had a white wine and offered me some, it was a nice late harvest, I couldn't skip the opportunity to try it out, so I had some. And then Roxana told me she was going to a local pub with some friends and invited me, ah what the hell, tea, whisky, wine, some beers won't do harm. And they didn't. The pub was really nice and the music was cool, no shitty things such as reggaeton gasolina crap but mostly a place to talk and have a drink. I met nice people and had fun but my body started asking me to sleep, at 2 am I needed to sleep so we left.

The road.

Drawings on the hills.

Third day, finally wild camping. 

I started the day at 7 am. At 8.30 I was ready to depart and so I did. I thanked for the hosting and said my good bye and left towards Lolol. Lol. I had a nice climb outside Santa Cruz but as always, if you have to go up, you will definetely go down at the other side of the hill. I reached the nice speed of 50 kms/h down the hill. It's amazing the speed the bike reaches while going down the hill, I feel like driving a small motorcycle. Mid in the morning I found a mobile vegetable market from where I bought a whole melon and had it all. Middle morning snack to keep on till midday.

In Lolol I bought some sweets at the local “OMG” shop, what's the deal with this town?. The lady that sold me the things actually said OMG when she saw me cycling with the all the things under such a heat. I then told her g2g and she replied gl and I left. lol. Brb. xD. (nerd :P)

Santa Cruz down there, somewhere.

Towards Lolol.

The "OMG" store.

After Lolol I started heading for the Maule Region but the pain on the knee would hit plus the road south had no trees on either side. It was 1 pm and I the siesta time was calling. At 2 pm I found an attempt of forest where I had my 2 hours of siesta and lunch. I started noticing the lack of houses and people now. The road went gravel and started crossing hills with less houses. After crossing this small group of coast mountains I arrived to the valley of Mataquito near the city of Curico where people started showing up again.

No trees where to have siestas.

No trees where to have siestas!!!

Some shadow where to have siesta.

At the end of the day I had managed to pedal 96 kilometres. Good thing I had decided to take it easier (irony). My knee was hurting less than the day before though, a good sign, but still was hurting. After entering a gravel road I found what seemed to be an abandoned house near a small artificial lake they use for watering the valleys. The house was indeed abandoned and seemed suitable for me sleeping in the surroundings, so I did.

As it's summer and the weather is nice, I didn't mount the tent, I decided to sleep under the stars. When the sun was finally away mosquitoes started attacking me, but definitely I thought it would be worse. I made of myself a cocoon with my sleeping bag, tried to sleep and left all the garlic I must have in my blood deal with the mosquitoes. Finally a night of wild camping and with it, the sounds of the countryside. At the distance I could hear a party with its characteristic Cumbia music mixed with some Mexican Rancheras. No gasolina crap either. Somewhere near the small lake, a tree full of birds, fighting I suppose, and maybe a pig being killed by some aliens that would come later and abduct me. Seriously though, it sounded like a pig being killed, I think it was the birds, they were big and fighting before sunset and made really strange sounds. Over my head, a mosquito trying to find a weak spot in my face to suck some blood. At the distance, a small dog barking, but weirdly barking. This kept on for around 1 hour, so many different sounds I'm not used to. Then the small barking dog started getting closer to my location, slowly till it was somewhere behind me. The small barking dog had a problem though, it was barking for its inside. A weird and perturbing sound that wouldn't let me rest. I thought it was a dog and that maybe would try to steal something from me or maybe bite me so I yelled to him; “what the fuck man, I'm trying to get some rest here, go away”. It got instantly quiet and after I flashed my flashlight at it, went away. Later in the night I would hear it again, flying over my head towards the distance, then I realized it was a damn bird! Doing that barking sound, such a weird bird, I wish I could have seen it better.

Sunset was getting closer.

Where I slept.

Gravel, Heat, Huasos, Pencahue, Talca. 

I woke up at 6 am. It was already clear and I could see everything around me. I had a nice sleeping night after all and for that day I would reach Talca. I started moving around 8 because this time I would face mostly gravel roads through the hilly countryside of Talca and I had to make good use of the morning and non heat hours. Right after leaving my sleeping place I met the “owner of all of this”. I had started pedaling and I saw a pick up truck I had seen the day before. The driver honked at me and did some light signaling so I could stop. He asked me where I was heading to and where I had slept because he saw me the day before while entering this road. I told him my story and asked where he was from, then after a mild laugh and a smile he said “I'm the owner of all of this.” doing in circle with his index pointing all the hills and lands around us. He smiled at the thought of owning all of that. He was nice and wished me luck and departed. I got the impression he was really happy owning all of this.

After a couple of hours riding thinking about the life of the owner of all of this I met a huaso riding his horse towards his mother. He was going to do some plowing for a short summer harvest. He told me the owner of all of this wasn't really the owner of everything but of just half the valley. There was another owner which owned the other half of the valley. He explained me how there were several families living around these valleys, working the land for the “owners of all of this”. They get to live there for free as long as they work the land and do tasks for every owner of all of this. They get most of the things from the land and get money for the work done so it's quite a great deal for them.

After a hilly section of up and downs, ups and downs and more up and downs that made me hate whoever designed that road for not going through the valley instead of the hill I got to the paved section. It was already late and siesta time but I decided to keep pushing in order to reach Pencahue.  The thought of a completo or a Lomito Italiano motivated me a lot so I kept pushing.

The bike likes to pose for the pictures. Ready to depart.

Stealing some water from the drop watering system that waters trees and other vegetables.

The valley of one of the owners of all of this.

Some horses doing their businesses.

Once I reached Pencahue everything was closed but some small place for general things. The completo had to wait so I sat next to the plaza when an old man approached me and asked how much I would ask for my motorcycle. He was and old timer and confused my bicycle with a motorbike. When I told him it was a bicycle he opened his eyes wide open and asked me where I was coming from. He didn't get it at the beginning but after a while finally understood what I was doing. He told me how he was single and free to do whatever he wanted and that he had to stop drinking alcohol because it hurted too much his liver. It was 2 pm and he was doing some time before going to the church, at 6 pm. He had nothing else to do in the rest of the day so he liked to wander around the plaza waiting for the church time at 6. I told him I had to sleep siesta because the heat was killing me and went to sleep in a bench.

Gold mine in the hills of Pencahue. Hidden but closed due to some accidents.

 When I woke up I finally had the completo I wanted to have. I then saw a man surfing the web with his phone next to the town hall. I asked him if there was some free wifi signal and he told me he worked in the city hall so he knew the wifi password. He procedeed to give me the password of the network and I got some internet. Soon he started talking to me and told me how he hated all the communists of this world because they are all lazy fucks. “Those motherfuckers want everything for free without any actual work, who the fuck do they think they are, now they chose Bachelet, this country is going to go bankrupt soon. Everything will go to hell thanks to this damn commies”. He then proceeded to talk about Pinochet and other generals and started to watch youtube videos of the Chilean army, the Pinochet funeral and the Chilean militar parade. Extremist guy. After a while, for some unknown reason, he asked me if I liked beer, I said yes. He then proceeded to open his suitcase, take out a 1 Lt bottle of cold beer and a glass, passed me the bottle and the glass and said; “serve yourself”. Shit, a cold beer with this heat, thank you very much sir. I had two glasses and after some more talking I left.

I met this guy going down hill. He saw a video on youtube with this kind of bikes, liked the idea and built one himself. This was his testing day with this kind of tribike.

The last 15  kilometers towards Talca were fine, pavement again and all went well till the highest point before reaching Talca. Going down Cerro la Virgen was awesome. 4 kilometres of paved downhill and my bike reaching the highest speed so far; 60 kms/h. I wonder if I will be able at some point of reaching more than 60 kms per hour. I don't think I've been able to reach more than that with this bike.

So far all has been good. I can't say I have had bad things on the road besides the heat and the sun hitting too hard on my now not so white arms and legs. Gladly I have this expedition like hat that covers my neck and face from the sun. First part of the road done. Next goal, the summit of Descabezado Grande.

It will take a while till I write again on the blog. Next friday I'll leave for the Descabezado Grande Volcano with Jota and Maximiliano. After that I may write a bit about the volcano.

If you want to see more pics of the road, check out this link: click here!

Be safe on the road.

Cheers!

It's time to leave.

Finally the day has arrived. By the time this gets published, hopefully, I will be on my way out of Santiago. It’s been around 10 months since I decided I was going to do this and time flew damn fast.

Past days here in Santiago have been good, since I realized everything was set I’ve been enjoying all the small good bye meetings, asados and onces I have been into. It’s been really cool to say good bye to everybody. Going breaking bad style has also been awesome. Too many stories to write them all, but all of them were epic.

It’s time to leave though and take a look out of the city, face the unkown, suffer, laugh, be sad, be happy, everything outside the city and somewhere around south america. Best way to do it is by bike. I thank you all who are supporting this in some way and are reading the blog. I’ll let you know how things are going. I hope I see most of you on the road at some point!

In drama they say; “break yourself a leg” to wish you luck, I wonder what bicycle tourers say to each other, maybe something like “let the dogs bite you”, hahahaha.

I though about writing a list of what I’m taking, but that would be too long and boring, I’ll save time for the road stories.

Below, some pictures of what I’m taking with me.

Cheers!

The Kitchen.

Spares kit.

Pump for the flat tires.

A SPOT gps tracker thanks to Fraunhofer. Check the map on the right side of the blog, you will be able to follow me in real time.

Lo Vasquez; an all night ride towards the sea.

With my group of friends here in Santiago, we are all used to ride at night. We have been doing our night rides towards the San Cristobal for over a year so far, climbing the hill in pitch black nights, or sometimes with a beautiful full moon enlightening our way. Sometimes the clouds make a screen where city lights reflect and everything seems to be a mixture between yellow and orange, pretty much like if we were part of an old movie in sepia.

Once a year, we have the possibility to leave the city and take the road that leads to Valparaiso, a whole night ride on a closed road for cars, but open for pilgrims who head towards Lo Vasquez sanctuary. We are not pilgrims, but we are bicycle travelers and as many others we take the chance to ride on a normally forbidden road that gets open just this night in the year.

The taken road, Ruta 68. Normally  the transit is forbidden for bicycles and pedestrians.

Leaving Santiago.

This time we would be less than last year, but nonetheless we were all excited about it. We had been talking about Lo Vasquez for a while already and were checking who would join and who wouldn't be able to. Finally the group for this year would be Jota, Daniel, Nacho, Tom and I. Camila would also go, but she would leave way before our group on her own. As we were only men we would be pedalling fast, way faster than her. Camila knew this so she decided to depart a couple of hours before us so she could have advantage and eventually we would meet later in Lo Vasquez, the idea was to do a joint attack to the city of Valparaiso, the last part of the night ride.

Camila left around 9.00 pm on "La Flaca Comunista", the skinny communist. A red road bike with one gear that should take her at a good pace over the road and the tunnels ahead. At that time I was still on route towards my flat to pick up things I needed for the night. I arrived late from Talca and I had to rush it to my flat to get things in order before departing. At 9.30 I managed to get to the flat and waited for the rest to show up. Tom said he would be at a party and that we should call him around 11 pm to check his status and leave.

After a tea and a sandwich we left the flat around 11 pm. Night was a bit chilly, for some reason lately during the day, we have been having temperatures nearing the 30ºC but at night we get wind and chilly temperatures. We decided to check tire pressure at a nearby gas station and we encountered our first problem of the night. Jota's inner tube had a short valve which didn't fit the air valve of the machine at the gas station. We tried a couple of times but we were out of luck at that moment and Jota ended up loosing all the air inside his front wheel. Fortunately, he had a spare inner tube with a longer valve, so we decided to change inner tubes. We spent way less time changing the inner tube than the time we spent trying to get some air into the other inner tube, so finally we were ready to keep on again. It was already 11.30 and we still had to meet Tom at downtown.

Checking the air pressure at the gas station.

We met Tom and his friends around 00.30 am and finally started to pedal our way out of Santiago. This city is quite big but most of the way we were going down the hill. Santiago is right next to the Andes Mountains, so if you live on the west side of the city and you have to go to the east side, you will be going uphill, on the opposite if you move from east to west, you go downhill. The difference in altitude is not that much, but is noticeable when you pedal through the city, as you go way faster when you move from east to west.


Finally, we started to reach the border of the city, we were really anxious about leaving the city. Along the way we started to encounter other small groups of bikers that were heading towards Lo Vasquez. We were at the tail of the crowd though. The pilgrimage starts quite early, police close the road for cars around 4 pm, and from then on, cyclists and walkers start to swarm the 68 road to Lo Vasquez and Valparaiso. We were leaving Santiago at 1 am, so most of the people was already ahead from us.

Tom and Nacho at Plaza Italia.

 Ruta 68.

As soon as we entered the road 68, we started to push hard. All the time in the city, we would be stopped by some cars taking a turn in the next corner, or the traffic light giving us a red, or some pedestrian to avoid at last minute. As we left the city, cars started to disappear and traffic police started to show up. The anxiety raised, city lights went off and my mind clicked on reaching a previously agreed check point. I think the anxiety of the moment made us all go fast. Daniel was behind me all the time so I thought the rest was there too. We had a fast pace, I never went under 35 kms/h, which for my touring steel bike is quite a lot, the going down gradient helped to maintain the speed.

More bicycles started to show up along the way and the show finally started. It's amazing to see the road on the distance with endless small and red dots shining non stop. It's like a river of small lights that move slowly towards the sea. A river of cyclists and walkers and we were in the middle of it. Moving swiftly through the stream of people going towards the virgin Mary sanctuary. We were way faster than the average cyclist so we were advancing through the crowd doing maneuvers to avoid a crash that would cause a collapse in the stream of people.

The road towards Lo Vasquez and the stream of people and lights.

More and more people started to appear on the road as we were advancing through the multitude when we finally reached our first checkpoint, the first of two toll gates. Camila had sent a message that she was already in Lo Vasquez, she made a really good timing on the skinny communist and arrived quite early to the place. We still had all the way ahead of us.

At the toll gates.

Looking at what was ahead, pitch dark night.

Behind me Daniel showed up, we kept the same pace so we arrived almost at the same time to the toll gates. We waited some minutes till Jota and then Nacho showed up. This first toll gates were a checkpoint for most of the people, as there is light it's easy to meet up with the rest of your group and do a "technical stop" to eat, talk, drink something and decide which will be the next check point. We waited for Tom and his friends, but after waiting around 10 minutes we decided to call them. They were way behind us, more than we thought they would be!, so Tom said we should better split so we could continue at our own pace. We agreed on maybe meeting at Curacaví, a town in the middle of the way towards Lo Vasquez. We chilled a bit and talked to some other guys who were walking, not pedaling. They mentioned that their estimated arrival to the sanctuary would be around 3 pm at the other day (it was almost 2 am), but surely they would sleep at some point ahead. They were having fun though, they were drinking some "petrol" (pisco and coke) to maintain the spirit up while walking and they were also smoking some weed to ease leg pain.

Tunnel, Curacaví and Tunnel again.

We departed from the toll gates and reached the first of 2 tunnels. Going down the tunnel at speed and with lots of other cyclist around you is like playing mario kart. As we were pedaling faster than the average groups it was easy to imagine ourselves in some sort of video game race trying to avoid other players on the game. A real life race game, a  MMRLRPG (Massive Multiplayer Real Life Role Playing Game). The bad thing about the tunnel, is when you reach the exit of it. Inside, there is enough light to see everything around you, but, you are going at around 50 kms/h when the tunnel suddenly ends moving you to the pitch black night. The small red lights keep shining down the road in the distance and farther ahead, it is possible to see the lights of the small town of Curacaví. There is to maintain control of the bike in order not to crash with other cyclists as you go from light to darkness. If you crash here, it's quite likely you end up causing a multiple crash. So there is to adapt to the night again and avoid other cyclists that may go slower than you and some may go faster than you.

In the tunnel, playing some video game race.

We reached Curacaví and it was time to eat. As last year we stopped at the same bar but this time we were reluctant about eating or not. Nacho wanted a beer, Jota wanted just to eat some bread he already had, Daniel wanted to eat something big and I wanted some bread that I also had. We ended up going for 2 chorillanas (fries, eggs, meat, onion, sausage) and Jota and Nacho shared a beer. After our small mid night snack and after around a stop of 1 1/2 hour we started pedaling again. This time with full bellies.

Eatin 2 chorrillanas, a small snack at 4 am.

By this time, Camila was on a queue in Lo Vasquez, several other people had arrived and were waiting for the morning to come and the buses that would take them back to Santiago and other towns in the surrounding area. She said everything started to collapse as more and more people started to arrive to the place and that it was really cold down there. Surely it was, after you cross the second tunnel the weather changes. The influence of the sea can be noticed once you cross this second hill through the tunnel. We still had to cross this tunnel so it was time to move.

Entering the second tunnel.

The second tunnel is shorter than the first one but it's steeper, so you reach a higher speed than in the first one. Again same formation and time for some more of the MMRLRPG. Soon after the tunnel we reached the second toll gates and with this, we were close to the last climb and Lo Vasquez.

Lo Vasquez.

A bit before Lo Vasquez and when it wasn't dark anymore, the MMRLRPG got serious. I was advancing through the crowd with Jota, Daniel was closely behind us. We were pedaling machines just advancing at higher speed than the rest of the people there. Then Daniel took lead and kept pushing on. Out of the crowd, two other cyclists on road bikes sticked themselves to Daniel's tail. He noticed them and kept pushing even faster. As I noticed how these 2 lads were sticked to Daniel's tail I did the same to them, so we created a line of 4 cyclists advancing through the crowd. Jota noticed this and also joined us. Now we were 5 in a line, moving like a snake avoiding people. Splitting the formation and joining up again to keep on when obstacles (other cyclists) got on the way. When Daniel got tired, the road bikers kept on, thinking game was over slowed a bit the pace till they noticed that the three of us were still behind them. Game hadn't ended lads!. The game kept on. I'm not really sure how much time we spent doing this, but it lasted quite a lot, we would exchange the first position from time to time, we would split to avoid people, we would do the formation again and keep on. Despite the fact my knees where hurting at this point I kept on with the game. We were pushing fast to keep on the pace with the road bikers. None of us was using a road bikes, we all have steel frames and mountain bikes, so the bikes demanded good legs to keep the pace with the road bikers.

Finally we lost them at the last climb before the sanctuary and the game was over. Down there, in the sanctuary, a huge crowd could be seen from above. Somewhere there, Camila was on the line waiting for buses. We got to the place and waited for Nacho who we had lost while we were playing our race game. I called Camila and she said she was still waiting for the buses, she had been waiting in the line since 3 am and it was already 7 am. Our plan was still to keep on pushing towards Valparaiso, mainly, because you can't really quit at this point, if you already reached Lo Vasquez and have no business with the Virgin or the Christians, then it's proper to take the chance to keep pushing towards Valparaiso. We found Camila laying on the floor almost at the beginning of a long long long queue of people waiting for the buses. She was freezing but fine. After telling her our plan, she decided to team up with us and do the final push to Valparaiso. Most of the way would be going down, with some small climbs and a final steep down hill that would take us to the entrance of the port city. Nothing too bad considering what we had already pushed so far.

Valparaiso, Viña and the pirate bus.

 

Entrance of Valparaiso, Camila and her protection for the coldness. On the left the skinny communist.

The way to Valparaiso was smooth, we slowed a bit the pace, but we kept it constant. Formation got lost though. We all split and everybody followed his/her own pace. After around 2 more hours of pedaling we finally reached the city. Early in the morning, not even the local street market was fully open. It was around 9 am on Sunday when we arrived to the city. Now the hard part would come, we needed to find tickets to come back to Santiago by bus. Lots of cyclist keep on from Lo Vasquez til Valparaiso. So a swarm of bikers arrive to the bus terminal every year in search of a bus to get back to Santiago. Despite the fact we had arrived kind of early, the bus terminal was a disaster. Everything was full and in the windows of each bus company we would read "no more place for bikes", "no space available for bikes, only sits", "all sold out". Shit happens, and then you die they say. The only chance we got was to come back later in the day and try to get lucky or wait in a long queue in the hope of finding a bus available for the bikes and us. There were buses, but you had to talk directly with the bus assistant to secure a spot for the bike and then move to the office and buy a ticket. Too much for us after a whole night of exercise and no sleep. We went to find some sleep, we would return later to try our luck.

After sleeping getting ready to fight for a ticket towards Santiago.

After eating and sleeping at the flat of Jota's brother it was time to go back to the bus terminal again. Now it was 3 pm and the place should be less crowded and we should be able to find a bus to go back to Santiago. Sadly, we weren't lucky, same situation as in the morning. Long queues of bikers waiting for a spot in the bus for the bike and themselves. The same signs stating there was no more place available for the bikes and not much to do besides waiting for who knows how many hours. We put our options on the table; 1º stay there in the queues and wait for hours for a bus and a spot for the bikes, 2º move towards Viña del Mar in the hope the bus terminal would be less crowded, 3º call some of Camila's relatives who may or may not had available a pick up truck to go back to Santiago. Sometimes the easiest solution is the best, so we discarded the third option, we didn't want to wait so we decided to move towards Viña del Mar.

The road to Viña was a bit tricky as there is no bike path between the two cities and drivers in Valparaiso and Viña del Mar are animals. After many honks and some dangerous situations we managed to get to Viña and the bus terminal, only to find that there were no tickets at all for bikers!. Nothing, Nada!. Not a single one. At least in Valparaiso there was hope if we waited at the queue, here in Viña all of the bus companies had a notice stating there was no place for bikes till Monday. What to do? Go back to Valparaiso again? Make yourself a ball and cry till you fall asleep?. I just sat outside the bus terminal for something to happen. Suddenly a fat lad showed up from who knows where saying; "are you going to Santiago mates? I have a bus... wait, the guards are there... shhh, don't ask... shhh... I'll come back, wait here." and he left. Pirate bus to the rescue!!. Pirate bus is a term we use in Chile to describe buses that show up when the normal bus system collapses. These buses run some other route but as the drivers notice there is need for more buses, they show up at certain places, yell which route they will follow and wait for people to go to them. These buses are illegal mainly because they don't fulfill any safety regulation and in case of accident, nobody will really be responsible for the accident, belongings and the usual things that law pursues. The law in this case, didn't fit our needs, we needed transportation.

This guy had been in Lo Vasquez and realized there were lots of issues for regular buses to take the cyclists back to Santiago, he took the chance with a mate of his and drove a small bus to Viña del Mar offering an alternative to the regular buses with no space for more bikes.

After playing find and catch with the guards the lad finally showed up and yelled, follow that group!! and disappeared. Shit, we had to move fast or we would loose the place on the bus, the only one that we knew could take us to Santiago. We ran, but we lost the group, we got lost, no other cyclist was around, we collapsed and went crazy. We divided the group trying to find the guy but we were out of luck again. Where the hell did he go?, we didn't knew, we went back to the bus terminal and then Nacho showed up and said "he's back there! go back there!". We rushed and saw the small bus from the distance with a line of cyclists waiting to start putting the bikes over the bus. Salvation arrived and we managed to get on time to the place with the bikes. Some bikes fitted on the roof, but mine and two others didn't fit so we had to put them inside the bus with the rest of the people.

Reflection of the roof of our small bus with the bicycles.

The pirate bus got full of bicycles and after some jokes of how the police would catch the bus and put us all in jail for using an illegal bus we departed from Viña. We took some weird turns through downtown of Viña and realized how weird the small bus looked with all those bikes on the roof. People would open their eyes weirdly at the sight of us and the bikes. We passed right in front of the bus terminal, where a small group of 4 cyclists were clearly in despair because there were no tickets till the other day. When they saw our bus they could do nothing more than stare at us and point at the only mean of transportation there was around for going back to Santiago with bicycles. One of them opened his jaw and stared at how the small bus left the city, inside the bus everybody laughed at the misery of these poor lads.

The "armored" inside the bus.

I fell asleep a bit after leaving Viña. From time to time I would wake up and realize something was wrong with the load on the roof. Some bikes almost fell it seemed and while the bus was still moving, the fat lad would get on the roof through the hatch to try to accommodate the load. Then he would come back and assure everything was fine. Everything went well after all and we managed to get to Santiago.

Finally the bikes went out of the bus and our adventure had concluded, we just had to go back to our flats and get some rest. As last year, Lo Vasquez was an awesome chance to warm up the legs for the end of the year and for what the days shall bring for me.

Finally in Santiago.

Soon I'll depart and I needed some warming up to test the legs. They seem to be ready for what is to come so I just need to tune last details and set sail for the unknown. Sometimes I get anxious, sometimes I get scared, sometimes I don't want anything at all and just make myself a ball and roll down a hill, anxiety hits sometimes and my mind wanders through weird thoughts and expectations. Soon things will change.