Talca - Concepción (Actually Santa Juana).

I left Talca last Wednesday with the idea of reaching Concepción and staying there a couple of days to rest my legs. After having last days really busy in the city, and after spending 15 days in Talca (10 actually as I climbed the volcano) it was time to move on.

The road started with several slopes and with the sun hitting hard. Geez the temperatures I've riding in are crazy, 33ºC, 35ºC, it's insane to ride in those temperatures. The 7^th region, which is the region where Talca belongs is slowly becoming a desert. What I recalling seeing green when I was a child, now is all yellow with few native trees around and mostly pines for the wood industry. People told me on the road that the pines are destroying the land but companies don't really care as they are profiting and filling their pockets. Privates also have started planting pines on their own as companies also buy whole pine forests paying in cash as some signs state. This contributes to acidification of the land, making it unusable for farming or growing things and with the desertification of the area. This is also promoting the planting of more pines around as it's becoming an important source of money for the people that lives in the area and have lands, those that don't own pieces of land big enough to plant pines and can't find anything else to do have started to leave the countryside for the cities. As you start getting away from the cities there is less and less people.

Sunrise.

Gone for good.

What once was for farming, now is for the pines.

Riding under such temperatures made me drink 1.5 L. of water every 2 hours, being people scarce on the way and not having rivers at all where to get water from made the pedaling quite hard till I started reaching the 8^th region of Concepción where weather changed and finally some streams appeared on the way.

Right after crossing Cauquenes, still in the 7^th region, I noticed how people started to change their attitude towards other people and towards me too. They started being way friendlier than so far. It's funny how everybody thinks I'm a foreigner by the way I look, a gringo, as they call me. For them I'm blond and white and when they see the bike with all its load they claim “there goes another gringo”. That till I say hello or wave hello to them, then they reply and some of them say anything along “where are you heading to?” “such weight you are carrying”. Some of them yell something typical for the Chilean countryside which I yell back with another typical countryside yell. From then on, everything becomes talks, and of course, in the local Chilean dialect that I guess no gringo can understand unless you have been living in the area for some time. I wonder what foreigner bicycle tourers think when they hear people mumbling something you don't learn in any spanish course you could ever take unless it was given by some local huaso.

From the movie starship troopers, spiders nest!

It's funny how after hearing what I'm doing they become protective and try to find anything, whatever they have in hand to give me for my journey. In Cauquenes town I went into a small shop to buy some supplies for having dinner, the man and owner of the shop, gave me some packages of dry fruits for the journey, he said they would give me energy for the pedaling south he also gave me a discount in what I was buying so I could save some money for the south. The second day, and now in the 8^th region, a man in the middle of nowhere stopped me and asked where I was heading too, when he realized I was Chilean he offered me a beer so he bought a couple of cans at a local house that seemed to bring things to sell to the locals but that it's not a shop, then he noticed I didn't have water and told to the woman from the house to give me cold water because I was doing an “important travel” south and I was short on water. Some men who were having a problem with their truck, yelled to me, I yelled back, and instantly they offered me some apples they had just cut from some trees (best apples ever). Some kilometres ahead, and after lunch, I decided to stop for the day to let the heat go away, a dude that was hitch hiking and had seen me before stopped for a rest and a talk. He said he really would like to share a beer with me and started looking to some houses in the distance for a small shop where to buy a couple of beers. He was decided to get the beers so he left all his belongings with me and went for the houses to ask for a shop, right before reaching the houses he stopped a pick up truck, did some talking and I saw how the driver handed him 2 cans of beers. He came back with he biggest smile ever, and with a reason, the man gave him the cans and they were COLD, with such temperatures they were more than welcome. I laughed at how he said “we are fucking lucky, he gave them for free because he saw your bike!”.

On the third day, finally the weather changed, the night was really cold and I thanked for it. I really, really, really hate the summer and its temperatures. As I started moving that third day I could see in the distance how bad weather was coming from the coast with low clouds that predicted a dense fog and cold temperatures. My body thanked it. It's way better for me to ride under low temperatures than in high temperatures, some police officers told me to get things on as it was cold, I yelled back, I'm alright with t-shirt! I love the cold weather. They laughed because they had checked my speed; 10 kms/h. I laughed afterwards while down the slope; I reached 60 kms/h. Pedaling with cold temperature felt much better and in no time I reached Concepción, this made me think, what if I just keep pushing on till Punta Arenas and Tierra del fuego instead of going to that hell of a jungle with its 38ºC and 90% humidity. Strong cold winds, rain, fog, and even snow seem more attractive now than having over 30ºC day and night. I guess time will say when it has too, things change and I have to adapt to situations as I ended up doing the third day.

I love cold weathers! Although you see crap :P

Before arriving to Concepción, I decided to check with the friend I was going to stay with, the area where she was living. I didn't want to reach the city and have no idea where to go, so I  texted asking her for the address and some directions to get to her place. Sadly, and as shit happens, she texted back that she had issues with me arriving and that she couldn't host me. Damn, no place where to stay in and at the last minute. I got pissed because she could have told me before that she had issues so I could have searched for a back up plan, but after some minutes I just let go and decided I would decide once in the city what to do.

Entering Concepción was fast, and in no time I was in town, after looking around a bit, the city looked as any other big city, lots of people, lots of cars, lots of noise, lots of pollution and nothing compared to being in the peaceful countryside where I had spent the last 2 days. It was 10 am and I had a whole day ahead to find where to stay. After 5 minutes of thinking I decided I wouldn't stop here and that I would move on to the next town, which probably, would be way cheaper, less polluted and with way less sounds than this big city.

Right after leaving the city, in the outside of it, I stopped at a park with the idea of waiting something to happen. And it did. When I was leaving the park, I waved at a man watering the trees, he waved back and said something about the weight. We started talking. (people talks to me all the time!). I told him that I didn't like Concepción because it was too much of a city and I didn't really care of big cities, I told him my plan for the day, go through Coronel and Lota and stay in Lota for a couple of rest days. He told me those places are really bad places to be nowadays. Drugs, poverty, and too many people coming from Santiago have been polluting the area and making it a bad area to be in. Crime rate is high as there are too many people with nothing to do and no income. Those who work, end up drinking or buying drugs to forget about their problems in life. He suggested another route, much better and safer and with much nicer people. So once again I changed plans and had to adapt to the situations. I checked the road the man suggested and it looked nice so I took it.

Near Santa Juana.

Bío Bío River.

On road towards Santa Juana, trucks passing at 100 kms/h.

Things were much better than expected!. The road this man had recommended was indeed beautiful. Going all the way next to the Bio-Bio river towards Angol and the 9^th region, Mapuche lands, lands in war with the natives of the zone, the Mapuches.

That same third day I reached the small town of Santa Juana, where I am now resting for a couple of days to adjust the bike and give my legs a rest. I've been riding an average of 95 kilometers per day which is a lot considering the weight I'm carrying. No wonder why my knee still hurts, but I think it's getting stronger day after day.

Santa Juana is nice, I'm staying at the only place there is in town to sleep, the owner is an old timer woman who runs her business working mostly with wood companies that send workers to cut the pines from the forests, she has told me some weird stories that maybe at some point I am going to write.

For now, I will rest here till Monday morning, on Monday morning I will depart towards Lautaro, and then Temuco, I am quite close to Lautaro so I think I can reach it in two days from here, and if I wanted to, in the same 2 days I could reach Temuco, I'll see how things go. I'm kind of anxious for reaching the south and the colder weather. I'm sick of having summer, I want some cold winds and rain to cool down my bones.

For more pictures, check this link.

Cheers!.