Punta Arenas and the uncertainty

Several things happened this days I've spent here in Punta Arenas, from taking some days off the bike and hitch hiking to the southernmost point of the continental mass of land till having the bike checked several times because something was wrong with it. I have been thinking what to do with life for the winter season too. I wasn't supposed to get to Punta Arenas in the first place yet here I am. Last days have been kind of crazy but here is a brief of all that has been going on.

Faro San Isidro and the coldness.

Alejandra is from Punta Arenas but she left this city 10 years ago to study at the university in Temuco. She didn't know much of the area and one of the goal of coming back for her was to visit as much as possible before getting into a job so we teamed up in order to do some trekkings and get to know the area. Among all the places we visited we decided to take a trip to the last of the lighthouses in the american continent, the Faro San Isidro, located around 80 kilometers south of Punta Arenas.

Initially I thought about going by bike, but the bike was unrideable by that time so I took some days off the pedaling and decided we would walk our way to the lighthouse.

We left Punta Arenas with not much luck for hitch hiking, after around 15 kilometers of what someone picked us up and we made it before sunset to San Juan, a small village and the last of the villages south of Punta Arenas. We camped at a reddish forest next to a river and with a crazy level of humidity. It was kind of cold too so we tried to make a fire, unlucky us though, all branches, trees, and whatever it was lying around to make fire was so wet, that making the fire was impossible. I decided to make a fire with the nuclear, but even for the stove, the small twigs I found around were too wet to have a good fire, still, we are talking about the nuclear here, not your regular wood stove, so anyways, after sometime, I managed to make a steady fire that allowed me to drop in the wet twigs I had for cooking. With the leftover of the fire we tried again to do a huge fire, but it was impossible. Finally we gave up as it was really really cold and hit the tent to sleep.

We departed really late the next day, but we knew the lighthouse was 4 hours away from our starting point so we took it easy. When I say we departed late that day, it was really late, we woke up around 11 am and ended up leaving our camping place by 2 pm. It was quite weird to sleep that much. Despite having slept more than 10 hours I woke up feeling tired and spent the rest of the day feeling sleepy and with not much energy, quite weird considering I have really active days almost everyday when on the bike.

The walk went quite slow but steady nonetheless, still, we arrived to the lighthouse after sunset which made it kind of difficult to inspect the area and find a nice camping spot. I've been getting used to night talks anyways, and after a couple of rounds to the place I found a nice camping spot to spend the night. The next day would be tough and we needed to rest.

On the third day we were going to do what we were there for; take a swim in the cold Magellan strait waters. We decided this before leaving Punta Arenas, it was a must do once you reach the southernmost point of the continent. Lucky for us, there was kind of a clear sky and a good sun to warm the body, the bad thing, good weather means wind, and winds over here and not your regular warm wind, over here the wind is what makes everything cold. After not much of thinking, Alejandra went really slowly into the strait. I could hear some nonsense and swearing from the distance till her head disappeared under the cold waters. She came out being someone else and thanked the sea for the dive. Then something happened and she went into the water for a second time. Tough girl.

For me, the thing went quite different. As usual, and as the chicken that I am when it's about getting into cold waters, it took me a little longer to get into the strait. I slowly started taking out my clothes in order to get used to the cold winds, which were very cold indeed. Once naked I stared at the sea for a couple of minutes till I couldn't hold it any longer. I ran into the waters and the coldness hit my body at once. It was quite a surprise to notice that once in the strait, the water wasn't thaaat cold or at least that was the initial feeling. I took a small swim and headed back to the beach. It was then when I noticed my knees where purple and I couldn't feel my feet, every single finger was numb. Yep, the water was cold. Instantly after getting out of the water I started shivering and the cold winds splashed against my body. Slowly, because my body wouldn't allow me to move faster I dried myself and put all the clothes I could on. My feet were still numb. Alejandra was already inside a small hut we found and having chocolate to let the coldness go away. Despite the water being soo cold, I thought it would be much much worse. It wasn't that bad and the coldness helped a lot to wake up and get some energies.

After having some soup for lunch to warm up we went for some hiking and ended up doing a night trek, again. The landscapes at this latitude are simply amazing, and quite different from what I was expecting. North of Punta Arenas, the only thing you can find is pampa, but south of the city, trees and forests started to show up. It was quite weird even to see that what I thought would be red and orange colors on the mountains were still a strong green with no signs of going red soon. We reached the now, southernmost point of our walk, bahía del aguila. Quite special place. When we decided to go back to the lighthouse and the hut, the sun was already gone, night trek again. I'm getting kind of used to the night treks and have got some experience in order to not get lost in the woods when it's pitch dark, which is pretty good.

We came back on the fourth day and it didn't take us long to come back to civilization. After taking a bath in the Magellan strait when winter is almost here, you are ready to face whatever comes towards you, so the walk that took us 4 hours the second day, it took us around 2 on our last day. We reached San Juan really early and with such a luck that the first pick-up we saw that day picked us up and in no time we were back in Punta Arenas.

The bike is wrecked.

The rear wheel failed pretty badly before I arrived to town, besides having problems with the inner tube the wheel was also fucked. After a close inspection and having three different guys taking a look at it, they all agreed that I had to replace the wheel, the bad news, none of them had a replacement for me. It took me 4 days to finally find a place where they had an acceptable replacement 2 more days to find a place where they could do the job. Damn it's difficult to find people with enough knowledge about bikes in this latitudes!!. After having the wheel fixed I noticed that there is something wrong with the frame too and the inclination of the wheel, it's biased to one side which may be frame problem or the wheel being wrong, I am not sure and have not had more time to check it. I think I will have to wait till I reach some place with someone experienced who can give me a hand on fixing it.

And now what?

Well, by the time I am writing this I am still in Punta Arenas figuring out what to do. I wasn't supposed to reach this place from the beginning, I was supposed to turn towards Argentina south of Coyhaique and then head north to Buenos Aires to keep on north. But for some reason I came all the way south. I have options for the future but the season is coming fast and soon it will be really hard to keep on pedaling through this area. I could stay here in Punta Arenas though and spend the winter here, but that means getting a job doing something, living in the city is expensive and demanding. I've tried some options already, but so far, I haven't found something interesting to do. It's mostly regular jobs which don't seem interesting at all. Still I am waiting for a response from the ski center they have here in town, which sadly, is not a big thing. They don't have money for hiring now but still the administrator of the place told me she will talk to the main board in order to request budget to see if she can hire me or not. I have to wait for that response and see what I do with life.

Recently I moved from Ale's house to a hostel where I am taking care of some small things in exchange for food and accommodation. I was feeling kind of weird being so many days at Ale's not doing much for life, so I found out about this hostel that needed help and they happily said yes because they needed some things done. So far I've been painting things that needed to be painted and helping in general things around the house. Fair deal for me at least, I do some work in the morning till around 2 pm and the I have the rest of the evening free to do as I please, I get all the food I need plus Internet access. At least I'm feeling useful while I wait for the answer from the ski center.

So for the future, uncertainty is what rules my life. I have no idea what I will do or where I will end up during the winter, which is certain though is that the bike needs to be repaired and I need to do something with life for the winter, after that, it's most likely I will continue pushing pedals.

Till then.

Cheers.

Good bye Pampa and to Punta Arenas we go!

After three days of rest at El Calafate, I decided I had to keep on the move. Not much happened during our stay at the city but there was a possibility that Florencia would join Kanaan on a ride from El Chaten towards El Calafate. It took them longer than expected to leave El Chalten and I couldn't wait more, I had a weird urge to leave El Calafate and keep on the move. Connor decided he would wait another couple of days in the hope of meeting them again. Everyday we spent at El Calafate was colder than the day before, winter is coming fast now and I had to keep going.

Good bye Pampa Relaxo.

I said my farewells to Connor and departed from El Calafate with the goal of entering Chile near the Torres del Paine national park. For the fist day my goal was to make a 100k in order to take it easy the following days. I expected a flat road all the way so I should be done with it quite fast. I was wrong.

After around 50k a huge climb appeared in front of my eyes. An 8 kilometers climb called cuesta Miguez that took me exactly one hour to complete. I guess it's the only proper climb I could find at this side of the pampa. From then on everything went quite smooth for the rest of the day. Finally I got to experience the so feared winds of the pampa, lucky for me, after reaching the top of the climb I got it over my back which helped me to advance like mad. In no time I reached where I wanted to be for that day. Next day was pretty much the same.

View from half the climb of cuesta miguez.

I have no idea what's going on in this picture.

A dude next to the road.

On the third day things changed. After having a light storm during the night I woke up to face a strong headwind that would not let me pedal at all. It was a fantastic day though, sunny and blue skyes. As I slowly approached to where I would cross towards Chile clouds started to populate the skies. I would look towards the Chilean border and would see nothing but a huge mass of dark clouds covering the pass. Bad omens for someone on a bike. It was most likely it was snowing over there. On the Argentinian side, still a bright sun and blue skies. After some rethinking about crossing the border there I decided I would keep pushing on over the Argentinian side. At least I had nice weather.

I'm kind of getting used to people being wrong, and even me being wrong. In a matter of minutes the blue skies became grey skies and a light rain started to pour. Good thing, wind changed direction and now I had tailwind instead of headwind. Temperature started to low down suddenly and I started to freeze as rain started to become snow. I was going at the speed of light though, tailwind was doing its magic. From now on everything with the weather went from rain, to snow, to rain again, to snow again and so on till I finally reached Río Turbio, the coal mine town.

Initially I thought about calling it a day at Río Turbio, I was cold, I was wet, I was tired. As I entered the town I crossed through a huge coal refining factory right outside town, right next to the road. Heavy traffic was on the road too, something I hadn't seen in the whole pampa and not even in the carretera austral. I mean, I would have cars passing next to me every 5 seconds.

I crossed Río Turbio at the siesta time. It was 4 pm and nobody would be in the streets. Typical Argentina. As I crossed the town several dogs started to chase me in my slow pace through the hilly town, which by the way, was not nice to the view. Dirt all over the place, unmaintained buildings, and nobody in the streets didn't help to the sight either. I didn't glance any camping, hostel, shelter, albergue, or whatever where I could get a warm shower and some rest. What called my attention is that I started to see chilean plates on cards. I was really close to Chile.

Despite being tired, wet and freezing I decided I would continue the pushing towards the border. Ugly town didn't look friendly and something made just keep on. I reached the Argentinian border and they told me I was only 20 minutes away from Puerto Natales. It wasn't raining anymore and the sun showed up to greet me from above. I decided I would keep up despite having done over 100k already. I was 25k away from town and that shouldn't take me much and actually it didn't matter, I would get a bed for that night.

Done with the Argentinian border and done with the Chilean border. Time to do t he 25k. An awesome downhill showed up, straight and down which made me reach 70kms/h. The fastest so far of the whole trip. 70Kms/h is simply INSANE. Having side wind which kept me pushing me to the center of the road was more than dangerous, good thing is there weren't that many car on the road so I managed pretty well. Sad thing, the slope was over quite fast and once again and slow pace thanks to the strongest side wind ever. It took me around 2 hours to finally reach Puerto Natales where once again, the sun showed up to give me a warm welcome to the city. It was funny how the elements played tricks during that day for me.

Finally, Punta Arenas.

After a couple of days rest in Puerto Natales and not much going on in town as I had already been in that town some years ago I headed towards the last city I would visit in the south of Chile, Punta Arenas, the southernmost point I wanted to reach in this continent. When I decided I would keep on south to get some coldness I started picturing Punta Arenas and something told me I had to go that way, what for, no idea, just for the sake of it probably.

I left Natales with no bigger issues, I managed to do 100 on the first day of pedaling. In the morning of the second day of pedaling I woke up and noticed how the rear wheel had lost all the air. Finally a puncture I though. I proceeded to do the normal repair when I noticed the puncture was in the inner side of the inner tube. Shit. Bad sign. I checked the wheel but seemed to be ok. I fixed it and kept on. When I started the pedaling this second day there was no wind at all. After 1 hour all changed and again the strong patagonian wind hit my face. Head wind and after 30 kilometers I couldn't pedal anymore, it was simply impossible. I sat a while to get some rest when the rear wheel suddenly went flat again. Again!? Shit. I proceeded to fix again and once again in the inner side of the inner tube. Fuck. The wheel is fucked maybe? This time I changed inner tube for the last one I had, which to my bad luck, was fucked up too! Oh no, stranded in the kilometer 130 out of 240. Gladly I had some shelter.

Bus stop in the magallanes region.

What to do, wheel fucked up? Inner tube fucked up?... no possibility of repair... hitch hike then. I hitch hiked for around 2 hours but nobody stopped despite the fact I had the bike turned over and with no gear on. Finally a small truck stopped and asked what's wrong. I told my story and the driver agreed to take me to Punta Arenas. After arriving to the city I tried to fix the wheel again, but I kept getting punctures in different parts of the inner tube which lead me to think that the inner tube is death due to being so long time stored inside the pannier or at least I hope it is that and not the wheel the one fucked up.

Looking at the Magellan strait.

I called Alejandra, a friend of my cousin who told me could host me for some days in Punta Arenas. Again to my luck for this weekend, she lives far away from downtown up a hill. I had to push the bike all the way up to her place where finally I got some rest after a really really bad luck day. But so it goes, some days are good, some days are bad, some days are the worst days ever and then again the road provides with some solutions. I am now at a house where I got a nice welcome and going to spend some days here trying to fix the bike and check what the heck is wrong with the wheel. I also realized that the road south keeps going some more kilometers, around 60, so I may take the bike over there or maybe hike over there, with not that much weight though and maybe will camp a couple of days there to experience the coldness of the Magellan strait and its weather. Reaching the southernmost point of the road was my goal, and there I should go. I have to fix the bike first though.

Until then.

Cheers.

The pampa relaxo, mall city and sneaking our way towards the glacier.

As we departed from El Chalten, weird feelings were with us. The happiness of hitting the road again, the sensation of complete freedom embracing us that would lead us towards the unknown. But also the more good times we would have had, had we stayed at Florencia's, everything mixed created a really weird feeling. Still, at least for my part, the itch to move, and the red warning showing up in the hills made me decide to leave that day. It was hard as usual, leaving Florencia's is so damn difficult!!!! But we managed. We departed with Connor with the goal of reaching the city of El Calafate and get to visit the Perito Moreno glacier. The glacier of glaciers. One glacier to rule them all. The one that if you see, then you are allowed to skip any other glacier that crosses your path, or so the tales said. So many people spoke about this damn piece of ice that I had to go there and check if the tales were real. Getting there would mean a detour from my initial plan, but once again, who the fuck cares about time! The only thing that matters here is that winter is coming.

The Fitz Roy in the background, El Chalten somewhere over there. Such great times.

A gringo puto riding away from El Chalten.

La Pampa Relaxo.

Everybody scared me about the pampa. Everybody told me how the winds would stop you and forced you to pedal only 30 or 40 k per day. Everybody would tell me how I had to plan my trips in order to avoid wasting food days and water days and how with tailwind it was so easy to pedal more than 100k in 4 hours. Everybody would also say how after leaving El Chalten, the tail wind would make its magic and I would be instantly in the crossing with the ruta 40. And once again, as the weather guy, everybody was soooooo damn wrong. Nature has no rules!

Right after we left El Chalten, a light head wind crashed with our faces. It went from light to light-strong in the matter of 10 or 15 k and kept like this till we reached the route 40.

Some people say that we are at the right time in the right moment when we are doing things like traveling the world. In this case, I strongly agree, 30 k after leaving el Chalten one of my spokes decided it had had enough and broke. I stopped and yelled to Connor that my spoke had broken. We stopped for lunch and also to repair my rearwheel. I tried both spokes I had and none fitted my bike. What the fuck?. Connor said they were probably too short for my wheel so I tried one of his spare spokes and magic. Worked. Had I been alone in the pampa I would have had to hitch hike my way back to El Chalten or just wait for the birds to do their job with my corpse. Still, Connor had the right spokes and he was there and then. Also is funny how after, mmmh, let say, 4000 kilometers, after crossing the whole hellish roads of carretera austral and when being in the nice and best paved road I could be riding on, one spoke broke, shit happens sometimes I guess.

Bikes and Pampa.

After some 70 or so kilometers we reached the crossing with Ruta 40. The so known road that would take us south. We knew of an abandoned pink house in which every cyclist would sneak in to spend the night. We still had to 30k more to go and it was already sunset time. Riding the 30k would mean to ride at night and risk not to see the pink house over the road. Some hitch hikers approached us from the distance and told us about a small cover in the area and asked if we wanted to camp there. We checked the place and it looked ok to spend the night. The hitch hikers asked again, "do we meet here then?", we said yes. Something wasn't right here. Why would hitch hikers ask us to go and camp with them at some spot they knew of beforehand, and then try to make sure we would join them (?) Maybe nothing was wrong and they were being nice, but instinct would tell me that something was wrong here.I asked Connor for his opinion and he also thought it was weird behavior. We are sorry lads but we keep on! Without even making and effort in telling them we kept on for our night ride.

Finally, after 1 or so hour of pedaling in complete darkness we found a nice and perfect spot to spend the night. A sewer tunnel. Perfect shelter for the cold night and the dew that falls in the pampa at night. Good protection from the sight of drivers and also perfect cover for the wind. 106 kilometers for the first day of pampa was not bad at all, it reminded me of the old days over central Chile where I would pedal nearly the 100k everyday. In contrast, in the carretera austral, the norm would be to be around the 50k or top, 60k. I still remember that path near La Junta, such a hell. This pampa, despite all the horrid tales, was pretty much fine!! Connor even called it La Pampa Relaxo in a noticeable broken spanish.

Perfect bed.

Bike on sight.

Stealth enough!

Towards El Calafate, the Mall city.

Second day of Pampa went quite straight as the first one, a bit more of head wind but nothing really to care. We payed a visit to the pink house and made what we had to do, write our names on the wall. It was nice also to see how other people I've met had put their names there too, Jerome and Stephane from France, in Colombia now, Jacque and Kayla from the states on their way back north, John from england who may be somewhere here in the south, some lads I met while coming south, and many others. 

Connor proud of being the only irish on the wall.

Another day of pedaling at La Pampa Relaxo was done and we spent a nice evening and camping day under a bridge. Hell we even found water every now and then. Tales would talk about couple of hundred of kilometers with no water at all, still couple of rivers on the way where to fetch water from and kept on with the day.

Finally on the third day after we had left the so lovely town of El Chalten we arrived to El Calafate. The intrance was a long downhill to what it seemed to be quite a big town from the distance. After 3 or so kilometers downhill we reached downtown and a complete shock for us bicycle tourers who had spent the last couple of months in small and quiet cities.

Where the hell am I? I asked myself for a second. Suddenly, everything that was around me were stores selling whatever they could sell you; food, souvenirs, clothes, jam, chocolates, books, posters, tours, equipment, more souvenirs, bars here, there, over there restaurants, there too, more souvenirs, A CASINO!!!!!!! WHAT IS THIS!?!?!?!?!?.

So many bright signs surrounded the city, so many people walking through the streets, so many business all around and the sound of the city once again hiting our hears, cars driving by, honking now and then, and the funny look of tourists and locals who probably had seen bicycle tourers before but still got amazed by the funny look of a guy riding his bike with all that load.

We did what we had to do in the city, have a beer, get internet access, buy groceries and get the hell out of town. Priorities man. We kept on and left the city at sunset, instantly after leaving the city the awful sounds went away and the relaxed and quiet pampa was back. We kept on for another 15 k in darkness till we reached a bridge with an amazing camping spot where we would spend the night before approaching the glacier.

The bridge where we camped.

In a mission to Perito Moreno Glacier.

The goal was simple, we knew the rangers would charge us a crazy amount of money to get into the national park, we knew it would be around the ARG$200 for taking a couple of pictures and spending around 1 hour looking at a big piece of ice and get out of the park. With those ARG$200 we could certainly have an awesome meal at some fancy restaurant or buy food for at least a whole week on the road, so definitely we wanted to avoid that payment at the entrance of the park. For this we would try to get as close as possible to entrance and stealth camp in order to start the pedaling before the rangers wake up and start working.

We started the day quite late as we knew we wouldn't pedal that much, Connor got ahead as I got delayed by taking pictures of a bird. After around 25 k I saw Connor on his way back with some more info from a guy he met ahead who worked at the national park. We had just passed the last bridge with water till the glacier, and as the guy told Connor, with possibilities for camping as it is forbidden to camp inside the park. We were still 33 k away from the glacier and wondering where the gates to enter the park would be.

We sat for a while and had some tea and cookies because it was 4 pm. After getting tons of water we departed again with the idea that the gates would be around 10 k away from the glacier. Little did we know but after pedaling a small uphill and around 10 minutes we faced a huge wooden sign in which it was possible to read; “Welcome to Los Glaciares National Park”. Holy cow! The entrance to the park lays 30 k away from the glacier. So that was the reason the guy told Connor that the bridge was THE spot for camping and THE spot for fetching water. It was 5 pm, and it was meaningless to try to sneak at this time, it gets dark around 7 pm in the pampa and in 2 hours with that wind we wouldn't make it to the glacier with daylight. Still, I wanted to go to the gates and check if what other cyclist were saying was true, the ARG$200 fee to visit the park.

I approached to the entrance really slowly as Connor waited for me back there in order to no be seen by, probably, the same guy who had seen him before. As I approached someone came out from the rangers office where there was a huge stop sign and another sign stating “here you pay”. I talked to the guy and noticed the difference in the prices for locals, argentinians, memebers of the MERCOSUR and others. Locals would pay ARG$30, argentinians ARG$40, members of the mercosur ARG$150 and others, which included Irish and Chilean citizens would pay ARG$215. The ranger also told me that they opened the park at 8 sharp so I could show up at that time and pay my fee to get into the park. Of course man!. I asked him where I could camp. He basically gave me the same info Connor had been given. I said till tomorrow and went back my way.

We went back to the same bridge once again and decided we would wake up at 5 am and sneak our way in latest at 6 am in order to reach the glacier even before they opened the park. Night rides are getting kind of the norm these days. I decided I would just bivybag for that night as setting up the tent would make me loose time in the morning. Some sand would be used as a mat to not feel the hard surface under the bridge. Nothing else but to chill for the rest of the evening and go to sleep early in order to wake up for the night early ride.

Sneaking in, sneaking out.

We woke up at 5 am sharp, we got our things ready quite fast and after a fast and light breakfast which consisted in cookies and Dulce de Leche we got ready to sneak in into the park. 5.50 am and we were on the bikes ready for the night ride. Not a single shit we would see but the barely noticeable white line on the sides of the road that pointed out we were getting close to the edge. Nontheless the riding started smoothly and in no time we were at the entrance.

We slowed the pace, checked the surroundings for any lights or sound but nothing could be heard. Nothing at all but the sound of the tires hitting the pavement as we advanced over the road. Like spies on a secret mission we sneaked in through the entrance of the park exactly at 6 am in a pitch dark night and nobody wouldn't even imagine we were there and then.

After a couple of hundred meter AC/DC started to sound in my mini personal speaker, at the pace of the Black Ice album we kept for the next 30 k of the night ride towards the glacier.

Dawn arrived at 8, and by that time, we were already at the start of the stairs and ramps that guide you to see the glacier, pictures will tell you if it is amazing or not. As we had planned we made some sandwiches and enojoyed the view for a while, just for a while, because then, around 1 hour later after our arrival, tourists started to pack the place with lots of noises and picture taking that destroyed the real essence and vibe of the place. If you ask me, the glacier is great, worth seeing in its magnifiscence, but the place is so touristic, so invasive with nature, and so packed with people, that is not a place where I would like the spend a couple of hours just contemplating nature. I think the place looks more like a theme park where you can walk over the ramps and look at nature and take pictures to then just leave for mall town again or if you fancy, have a fancy dinner at the super expensive restaurant they have next to the ramps, or buy some souvenirs from the glacier's shop. Nature made business. Still, we spent around 1 hour peacefully till the place got packed, so we started phase two of the mission, leave the park.

Our way to leave the park would be hitch hiking, or at least, that is what we had planned. We moved to the parking lot in the hope of finding some pick ups that would bring us back to El Calafate and out of the park. Sadly, as it was still early in the morning, not that many people with private means of transportation where in the place but mostly huge busses full of tourists. We decided to move to another point in the hope of catching more rides and we sat there waiting for the hoped ride out of the park. After 3 hours, nothing really happened. I decided it would be better to walk a bit and not wait right outside the parking lots, but that didn't work either. At 3.30 pm and without lunch we decided just to pedal our way out of the park.

The tail wind in the afternoon made its trick and in no time we had advanced the 30 k and out of the park. When we crossed the entrance, nobody looked at us or yelled at us or anything at all, or at least I didn't hear anything. I didn't even look to the office where the ranger was supposed to be, I just kept on pushing as if I had paid my fee to get in. As the time passed the wind got stronger and stronger so I decided I would push the extra 50k towards the city and pay for camping and have a descent meal. We had had only sandwiches in the morning and nothing else during the rest of they day. We never thought it would be so hard to find someone to pick us up. With such a wind, my estimation to reach the city was 2 hours. Quite optimistic but the tail wind gave me faith on it. Connor told me he was thinking in camping under a bridge 15k away for the city, but my mood plus the hunger didn't want me to do that and I wanted to reach the city at any cost to eat properly. I get anxious when I'm hungry. Connor said he would try to reach the city too in the hope of a massive meal. After 15 minutes, Connor was a small point in the distance, after 1 hour I wouldn't see him anymore. He was somewhere back in the distance.

The pedaling got so easy with such a tail wind that I kept a 30 kms/h pace for most of the way back to the city. At 7 pm sharp I had made the 50k and I was entering the city on my way towards the camping spot. I was starving so I bough some cookies. By this time I thought that Connor hadn't made it to the city and had decided just to camp under the bridge, suddenly he showed up over the bike looking like a zombie, not knowing what to do or where to go but trying to find a spot where to rest for the eternity. Temptation was next to us though, a huge lamb was being barbecued in the restaurant at the camping. Asado patagonico. We were starving so I told Connor we deserved a huge ass meal and we went for in an asado rampage that night.

Mission completed with success! We made it to the glacier and back without paying the fee and getting our bellies full at the end of the day. Such a long day, from 5 am to midnight with just a couple of sandwhiches in the belly. It was definetely worth it though, more than being at the glacier, the day as a whole was pretty darn cool.

Full bellies, tired as hell, time for rest and till then.

Cheers.

Time at El Chalten.

After crossing the border, and having that unexpected adventure through snow and the trekking trail I woke up my first day in Argentina with a nice snowy morning. Still I was 37 k away from El Chalten where I knew there was a casa de ciclistas everyone I met on the road spoke of.

I took it easy that day because all my body ached thanks to the efforts I made the day before, still the 37 k were quite long for my like because anxiousness of some resting place was hitting me.

I made it to El Chalten in the evening and in no time I found Florencia's house a.k.a. El Charito, the first picture I got from the place was 6 tents in the backyard of the house, 5 of them belonged to bicycle tourers and one to a hitch hiker, good times were going to be had for sure.

Snowy morning that day.

Florencia's patio!

Casa de Ciclistas.

The idea of a house for cyclcists is really cool. A free place where to stay, where you can take a warm shower, cook in the kitchen, get to know people who are also travelling and spend some good time with them is simply amazing. Arriving to this places is like arriving to a small already organized community where everybody cooperates for doing things like cooking, cleaning, doing mechanical work, etc. So far I've been in only one at Jorge's house in Mañihuales, before Coyhaique. I know there is also one in Coyhaique, but as I met my friend Pato on the road there was no need to go to the casa the ciclistas in Coyhaique which is run by Boris (everybody speaks about this house too). The third one on the road south is Florencia's house, which for my like is the best ever.

Florencia has the idea of also doing a bicycle trip, hopefully, the next season. She started with the casa de ciclistas because a neighbor of hers used to offer a space for travelers so they could put their tents in the backyard, at no cost. As he then started a bicycle trip, the place was left alone and no more people could get into the space to mount the tent. He then asked Flor if she could continue with the idea and she agreed to do so.

Time at Flor's, yet another casa de ciclistas, but not your regular casa de ciclistas.

I felt like at my own house the week I spent there. Nice dinners were organized everyday and almost everybody would ship in the dinners so the costs were split and we would save lots of money and have awesome dinners almost everyday. Everybody would cook something, hopefully from their own country and so we even ended up having Chilean Completos one night.

Completo night! UUUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Bicycle Fishing

 During the day everybody would get busy with their own things or would organize different activities to spend the time; I ended up doing bicycle fishing one day, pretty much like bicycle touring but instead of touring we would move from place to place to find nice spot where we would try to fish something for dinner; sadly no fishes were fished that day but lots of fun were had.

I spent one whole day fixing my bike as the pass from Chile left me with no brakes at all and the mud the bike took in that day made it almost unrideable. I was forced to spend one whole day doing the cleaning and maintenance to my bike in order to keep on at some point.

I also got introduced to bouldering. We had a fantastic cool evening of bouldering and hiking through the local hills of El Chalten in the search of new spots and boulders to climb like small rock monkeys. We spent several hours doing this which passed really fast. Having never done bouldering before I had tons of fun and found it quite easy to do too, definitely something I'd like to keep doing. When sunset was near we went for a cherry trees forest were we ended up afterwards harvesting cherries from up the trees like, this time, real monkeys!!. With all the amount of cherries we managed to get from the trees we made an awesome fondue, jam and even managed to eat tons of cherries in different cakes. Who would think that the bouldering was just for warming up for the real climbs.

Bouldering team! Mate can not be missed!

View of El Chalten from one of the boulders.

Bouldering!

El Chalten is also really well known for the Fitz Roy mountain and the Cerro Torre, two awesome spots and must do trekkings that I also did. The Cerro Torre trekking was pretty cool and quite short, doable in around 5 hours total. I spent one day doing this hike as I took it easy and spent a good time in nature by myself. The lonely cyclist also needs time for himself.

Laguna and Cerro Torre.

Towards Laguna de los Tres.

I also did the long hike towards Laguna de los Tres. It was Connor's birthday (a cyclist in the house) and for celebrating his birthday, together with Kannan (another cyclist) we decided to go and hike up the Laguna de los Tres. We should have departed around 10 am in order to come back around 6, right before sunset, but it is so damn difficult to leave Flor's house during the mornings that we ended up leaving for the trek around 1 pm.

The trekking was quite nice and we even managed to take a bath in the Capri lake as someone had told me I had to do it the day before, it was worth it, a shot of coldness to get more energies to keep on with the walking.. A beautiful spot on the way towards the Laguna de los Tres. At this point I really noticed that winter is coming. The red warning as we started to call it.

Random free kittens for everyone!!

Laguna Capri and the Fitz Roy in the background. OMG A NAKED MAN!

The red warning is when all the leaves on the trees start to turn red and the hills are not green anymore but completely red. The picture of autumn in the hills is stunning. I have been used to see either green forest or white forest (winter). But seeing the red warning covering all the hills is simply amazing.

We kept the walking after the bath at Laguna capri and some obvious Mate time. It was 4 pm and we were more than late for doing the trek up to the Laguna but who really cares about time when you have free and enough time to do whatever you want. We were not under a schedule, we just were in nature enjoying the place and having a nice day and so we kept with the walking at a calmed pace.

After a huge climb we arrived to the most fantastic place El Chalten has to offer for one day trekkers. Laguna de los Tres. Pictures speak for themselves I think.

 

Damn fucking amanzing place with no people at all!!

We had a fun time there, sadly no bathing though as the water is close to be ice. Still usable for the couple of boxes of wine that needed to be cold in order to be drinkable. That's not true anyways, but we still fancied some cold wine, after all, it was Connor's birthday.

Crazy lads up the mountain.

Ah shit!! Too much wine!

After some sandwiches and the boxes of wine, it was time to roll down the mountain, wine did what it was supposed to do. Right before sunset we managed to do the hardest part of the trail and then, the night arrived. A couple of guys we had met on the house and that were camping up there suggested us to spend the night at the camping place with them. Having camping gear and with the idea of a night trek we declined the offer and kept on. Fear of the dark? Nah, why would we fear it if it offers us another cool experience?. We walked through the trail only with the light of a growing moon and some stars. Still, these trails are so well made that it's almost impossible to get lost so we weren't really worried about getting lost, or maybe the wine made us not worry at all ;).

After 4 hours of walking through pitch dark woods and trails where we didn't see a shit and walked just by faith we managed to reach the city. Once again, lots of fun were had during the night trek. It's so fantastic to be able to do this kind of things. I really enjoyed the whole day and the places we got to visit in one single day. The whole damn experience was sooo good.

Back to the city it was time for a deserved beer and some snacks. Sadly, El Chalten in low season is almost a ghost town. THE place we found for having beers had already closed the kitchen (it was midnight) and there was no other place open for having a snack, some fries, pizza, or whatever warm to eat. Someone told us about this place that runs till 2 am where they sell bread, biscuits and that sort of stuff, so after a couple of beers we headed to that place and had some bread with cheese and ham. Not a warm meal but at least some food, sad part is that we had to eat it outside where we were freezing our asses with the cold night and dew. It gets cold at night over this area.

It was over 2 am and we headed our way towards Flor's house where she was still up waiting for us kind of worried for where we were and wondering if we were lost or had just decided to spend the night up the mountain. She never thought we would walk our way back to the city at night as we did. Still she had a warm meal waiting for us which was a marvelous and warm gesture before our deserved night of sleep.

Time for a bit of Pampa.

Sadly there is always to leave to keep on with the road. Still a marvelous week was had at Florencia's with lots of experiences that fill the spirit and fuel you to keep on doing what we do. Travel the earth, get to know people, get to know places and experience them.

The itch of the road and the south started to appear again though and I decided I had to leave on Sunday. Saturday was a chill day to get ready for what was to come. We decided to team up with Connor in order to visit Perito Moreno Glacier and to reach Puerto Natales, the intrance to the last bit of Chile and maybe, just maybe, the end of the road for me, at least for this winter season.

Still I have to say that I had a fantastic week in El Chalten, it was amazing having the chance to do all those things we did in town. So many good times were had and good memories that are not easy to forget. I had a blast of a time there and I am really happy I got the chance to be there and then. More adventures and stories to tell in the future for sure and more friends that I make on the road.

For now the pampa awaits and more adventures have to come.

Till then.

Cheers.