Thank you's all round

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Right, basically it's been a couple of hard weeks slog and it's getting pretty expensive to use the internet out here! I'm therefore going to give you an abridged version of the travel from Cerro Castillo to El Chalten.

We left Cerro Castillo quite late, having stayed in a hostel the previous night and not feeling over-inclined towards getting out of bed.

The road between Cerro Castillo, the Chilean frontier and visa checkpoint, and the Argentinian side was all ripio, so the ripio continued for a few Km past the Argentine border until we hit a newly paved section of Ruta 40. The wind was at our backs for most of the morning - which was really nice and we made good headway because of the nice stretch of paved road. Then after these nice K's we turned onto an unpaved section of Ruta 40! This was some of the worst ripio we've experienced to date, an undulating road typified by a washboard surface and giant stones. We stopped for the night about 40km down this road and made camp by a police station - not quite sure what was being policed!

We set out the next day bright and early, accompanied by a black border collie that appeared to want to come with us - the dog followed us for about 30km before it ran out of puff and turned back home - I had the theme tune to the "Littlest Hobo" running around my head all day! We stopped for our first break at the point where the ripio became pavement again. We had a good run that day, the wind not being anywhere near as bad as expected - although we did climb to quite an appreciable height pretty much until lunchtime - when we hit the edge of the Meseta (table land) and the valley containing el Calafate fell away before us, literally. We had 10km of steep downhill to get to the base of the valley and we took our time over it - savouring the luxury of making metres without having to pedal! Even savouring the downhill we still got to overtake a couple of lorries on our way down - the lorries have to go really slow and you can smell burning break pads as you pass them.......

We had about 60km from the base of the valley to go and we decided to stop about 40km shy of El Calafate, at a place called rio Bote, this was the idea anyway. When we arrived at Rio Bote the hostel and campsite that was supposed to be there was closed, delapidated being more the apt expression - a couple of diseased looking dogs and tumbleweed appeared to be the only residents. We had a short discussion and decided that the best course of action was to try and push onto El Calafate that night..... even if it did mean arriving quite late! We pushed on as the wind got up and we struggled home, after the first couple of hours, when we were within 20km life became much more bearable, the wind died down somewhat and we were within the home stretch....

We arrived at El Calafate and found our lodgement. A nice little camp site called Los Dos Pinos - hot showers, large kitchen and sit down area and lots of cycle tourers!

We spent a couple of well earned days in El Calafate - it's a pretty touristry town and not really economical for travellers on a budget. It's pretty much a staging point for Perito Moreno Glacier - and that's it. There was a nice tenedor libre and we glutted ourselves on beef, lamb, chicken, tentacles and all manner of other delights - including the "ice cream libre".......

We left El Calafate and began our three day trek to El Chalten, Argentina's youngest town formed in 1985, the town sits in the Nacional Parque de los Glaciares and lies under the shadow of the impressive Mount Fitzroy. The road from El Calafate to El Chalten is a mixture of pavement and ripio, although fortunately the pavement seems to predominate.... we had been expecting wind on this stretch and we were not disappointed - a very strong wind was blowing off of Lago Viedma on our first day as we started heading northwards around the two lakes that separate El Calafate from El Chalten - a couple of pickups with locals in stopped to ask us if we wanted a lift and to give us warnings about the wind but we indicated that we knew about the wind and were gonna press on through it. We may have come to regret this slightly as about an hour after this the wind really started howling. Blenk and myself had to take shelter in a large drainage tube under the road and there we stayed for about four hours waiting for the wind to die down - we passed the time drinking tea and reading our books - and also singing some songs........

Eventually the wind died down and we were able to make it to a little campsite in the middle of nowhere - we shared our campsite with a calf bull who was very inquisitive and he almost managed to set himself on fire investigating our stove!

We intended to break camp early and hit the road early, accordingly we rose at five but the wind was still howling and after a quick meeting of the war council we decided to go back to bed for another hour or two.

We continued onwards on a road which seemed to consist of sand and large rocks in equal measure - it did not make for good riding. We carried on for about half the day when I began to feel a slight pain in my knee..... this was nothing new as i'd had aches and pains on and off for a while. However after lunch I noticed that the pain came back much more quickly than usual and it was hurting much more than usual. It was at this point I realised that I'd "done myself a mischief". Me and Blenk got off the bikes and had another council of war, we were only about 80km outside of El Chalten and I was umming and arrrring about whether or not I could make the ride in. In the end I decided to hitch a lift into El Chalten........ I arrived pretty downhearted about the whole affair...... hooked up with Rich in a free campsite at the edge of town and went to bed. As to what happened to Blenk I'll leave him to take up the story.......

We'd heard people raving about the Torres del Paine national park - touted by Lonely Planet as the finest national park in the whole of South America - so we decided to take a 100km detour to see what all the fuss was about.

Our route would take us via Cerro Castillo, the place we would eventually have to return to cross into Argentina on our way to el Calafate.

Dicky and the Ecuadorians left for the Park a day before me and Blinky. The Norse Woodsman and myself passed a quiet day preparing for the journey to the park. Buying lots of bread, jam, biscuits and of course pasta.

The ride from Natales was lovely - there was little to no wind, for the first time in a long while we experienced some really nice views - mountains, valleys and an extinct volcano that looked like it had blown it's top for the last time a few thousand years ago. We had been told that the road was gravel all the way but that some stretches might be paved. This turned out to be true, for us at least. The stretch of road between Puerto Natales and Cerro Castillo had been paved in great strectches every few km's but none of it was open and there were workmen on every stretch. Miles of empty virgin pavement and we had to ride on gravel! Just as we were cursing our ill luck a couple of workmen spotted us and waved us over - they asked us why we weren't riding on the pavement - it's not open we replied - don't worry it's okay for bikes they replied. Suffice to say the Chileans are much more relaxed about people bombing about on their construction sites! So we had vast stretches of road all to ourselves - pretty much all the way to Cerro Castillo. This made us happy.

We had planned to stop at Cerro Castillo for the day and set up camp but with the wind being fair and the best cycle path in the world beneath us we made very very good time. We decided to push onto the park entrance - which was another 50km away. It was worth it. After some pretty tough riding over some really rutted ripio roads we made it to the Park Gates for about 9. I say it was worth it because we got to pitch our tents facing one of the most spectacular vistas we have ever seen. For those who don't know the Torres del Paine are three large rock pillars thrusting 2500m into the sky, surrounded by snow covered mountain peaks and fast flowing rivers, cascades and incredibly blue lakes. Our campsite gave us a perfect view of the Torres at sunset, framed by the surrounding mountains and wispy clouds floating amongst them it truly was a sight to behold. We have photos but not the technology at the moment to post them - they will be up soon though and they will be worth the wait!

A word of warning - the National Park is beautiful but expensive. Take your own food and be prepared to pay the equivalent of 15 pounds or 30USD for entry.

We yomped over to where Dicky was camped the next day and once again we had some amazing views, and some terrific climbing (we gained 400m vertical height for about 5km riding at one point)

We were welcomed by Dicky and the Ecuadorians with open arms and more tantalisingly freshly caught Salmon from the Rio Sorrento which ran along the back of our campsite. Natty, one of our Ecuadorian pals made me and Blenk some Agua Panella which is basically water, powdered milk and raw unprocessed sugar. It was very sweet, but hot and revitalising. So it was that we settled down into a routine of fishing, eating Salmon, drinking Agua Panella and learning some excellent Spanish swear words (we of course reciprocated with some excellent english colloquialisms! - Paco, another Ecuadorian, was an excellent student of english in this regard, even giving Blenk a new nickname, which I'm afraid can't be repeated here. )

The daily fishing trips were organised in an almost military fashion by Gerardo, "el dueño", we would be roused out of bed in the morning for breakfast with shouts of "trabajo! - levantate!" (literally - work! get yourselves out of bed We would stumble out of sleeping bags and tents bleary eyed to go to work fishing. It was a little bit boring if I'm honest - i've never been a very patient man and fishing is pretty boring when the fish aren't biting - and they weren't biting...... I think after 2 days even Gerardo got a bit fed up with it.

On the last day Gerardo suggested that maybe we could all get into his 4x4 and that we could get dropped off at Cerro Castillo. On the face of it this was a crazy idea, and as it turned out in practice this was a crazy idea - but it worked! Also because I was largest Gerardo suggested that I drive, I say suggested what I mean to say is he pointed at me and in his broken English said "You drive!", I thought about it for a moment and then accepted. As an afterthought Gerardo checked that I had a driving licence! So let me set the scene - on the day of the drive there were 6 people, one baby, one small dog, five mountain bikes, five tents, all our luggage crammed into, onto and around this 4x4. With some horrendously filthy "Rigaton" music playing (like hip-hop but with a different beat) we set off and made it safely to Cerro Castillo.

next stop el Calafate where we would be reunited with Dicky and the Ecuadorians again.

Unfortunately I have to go change up some Chilean Pesos so you will have to wait to hear about the journey to el Calafate.

Until then.

Ciao!

Despite the title of this post I already find myself wavering so if you will excuse me one short outburst.... I HATE THE WIND!..... Phew. Now that´s out of my system I feel I can carry on in a more partisan tone.

We left Punta Arenas relatively early in the morning and finally started, what felt like to us at least, our proper trek northwards. The day started relatively easy........ the road out of P. Arenas is well paved and realtively flat - there wasn´t that much wind either. We had an excellent morning knocking out a nice 30km before our first break for some water and trail mix - I say our first break.... what I actually mean is an opportunity to use some different muscles! We´d stopped for our break by a little roadside picnic area - grass, trees the usual kind of stuff and we noticed a couple of Spanish guys pushing a car trying to give it a push start - being polite chaps we offered to help and so there we were on our break, pushing this flat batteried car up and down the picnic area...... In the end we had to give up..... and we left the guys at the side of the road trying to flag down a car so they could use some jumper cables.

We carried on for another couple of hours and on our second break, after about 55km, we met a policeman who stopped his patrol car by us just to make sure we were okay and maybe to check we weren´t crazy. He was working out of Villa Tehuelches, a very small 'pueblito' about 45km further on up the road and said if we got there later in the day there were places we could camp for free. We got through those 45km in a few more hours and rolled into the sleepy little hamlet of Tehuelches about 5pm. The policeman we'd met earlier was standing by the roadside with his radar gun in his hand and he gave us a warm greeting. After a bit of chat about our trip and all the usual stuff, he showed us where we could camp on a piece of land at the top of the village. It was perfect: soft grass, flat, and out of the wind. The sun was beating down, the wind had eased off and we were generally feeling pretty chuffed with our first 100km day! If we'd known about the 'Policeman's hat' challenge earlier, this guy in Tehuelches would have been the perfect candidate for a hat photo... but there will be other opportunities im sure!

After a good night's sleep, we carried on down Ruta 9 in the morning. The wind had really picked up since the first day and the going was far tougher. Up in the hills, the wind was against us all day and persistent rain all afternoon really didnt help matters. We struggled through an uninspiring 80km and finally pitched up in another little Villa, this time in a man's front Garden! (we asked first of course

On the third day we only had to cover 65km to Puerto Natales, but it turned out to be the hardest of the three days. The winds were ferocious as we neared the coast and even going down quite steep hills was really hard work! The view coming into the town kept us going though - P. Natales sits on a natural harbour and across the water sits the start of the main "cordillera" of mountains that runs up the continent - splitting Chile from Argentina. Quite an impressive site - photo´s do not do it justice!

We arrived in town tired, but elated at the same time. We hooked back up with Dicky in the camp site we´d picked before leaving P. Arenas, pitched our tent and got down to eating a massive dinner of pasta (again) followed by some hardcore sleeping.

That´s about it for now - we leave for Torres Del Paine National Park tomorrow - our next blog will feature tales from our two days at the camp site and what we got up to when we met a crazy, yet brilliant, family of Ecuadorians! Hopefully that will wet your appetite for a bit more blog......

Next time you hear from us we´ll be in El Calafate and a stones throw from one of the most impressive Glaciers in the world, the Perito Moreno.

Speak to You Soon.

BigJay and Blenk.

After Rich had made the difficult decision to turn back to Rio Grande, J and I bade him an emotional farewell and began our long day to San Sebastian. We felt terrible for him as obviously we all want to pedal every inch of the way, but we all knew he had to get some good rest in and this was the best way. Initially we were planning on this leg taking two days, but we felt we could get there in one if we got our skates on. We did our best to push the pace on, but it was really tough, as we were battered all day by strong crosswinds. The strong gusts, as well as the air disturbance from passing lorries, meant that we were constantly being pushed off the tarmac and onto the gravel of the hard shoulder. The concentration of trying to keep the bike straight and on the road was, if anything, more exhausting than the pedalling!! The landscape had also become far less interesting since Tolhuin - flat and almost featureless all around - and the roads were long, straight and boring. Morale was very low all afternoon, but we were happy to roll into San Sebastian (Argentine) about 6pm at the end of a very tough 65km day.

San Sebastian was not what we’d been expecting at all. We were told there were places to stay, shops, internet and all the usual amenities of a town. But it wasn’t a town at all. There was a shop, a place to stay and nothing else. Just the border point. But we really didn’t care one bit. We got our exit stamp from Argentina, bought some food to last the next three days on the road and then passed out, exhausted, in the waiting room at the border.

A poor night´s sleep was broken at 3am when we got up and hit the road again- It would be poor gravel roads for the next two days now. It was just getting light as we finished the 16km ride to the Chilean Border, where we had to wake the guards up for all the usual border checks and passport-stamping. We weren’t allowed to bring any fruit into the country, so there was a brief pause while J munched down his 2 oranges and an apple, and then we were officially in Chile!!

By mid-afternoon we’d covered a good 60km into very stiff winds, but we were feeling good still so made the decision to try and cover the remaining 100km in two days, in order to catch the Sunday night ferry to the mainland from Porvenir. We tried to push on that afternoon but the winds picked up as we neared the Magellan Straits and when they got so strong we couldn’t even stand we decided to call it a day! We pitched up in a ditch by the roadside and slept like babies. Covering 90km the following day looked extremely unlikely.

We were upset to find that getting up at 2am the following morning didn´t help us miss the wind at all, but we pushed on in the dark for a couple of hours anyway. By mid-morning the wind was ferocious, but by midday it was unbelievable. ´Sitting it out’ wasn’t an option as it was not going to improve (and there was no shelter so we were forced off the bikes and had to push the bikes for a few kilometres. Meeting a couple of German cyclists who were hurtling down the road in the opposite direction did little to lift our mood!

But we rounded the headland and in the relatively sheltered hills the wind died down a little. Although by now we only had 40km to cover in 4hours, the 5pm ferry seemed impossible. We decided to push on to Porvenir that night anyway, as we wanted to be out of the wind and to get a proper night’s sleep. In the end though, we only ended up missing the boat by an hour and felt incredibly proud of our 89km day.

We’d have to wait in Porvenir for the next ferry on Tuesday, which was a shame, as we wanted to catch up with Rich as soon as we could. But we made the best of our rest day: We did a lot of sleeping and a good bit of eating and generally rested our achey bodies. Without a doubt, the road from San Sebastian to Porvenir was the hardest two days of our lives... but we're expecting worse to come!

We’ve been in Punta Arenas since Tuesday, giving Rich’s knee some rest, sorting out the bikes and poring over maps and guidebooks, looking for the best routes north to the Carretera Austral. All’s well and we’ll post again when we have some plans!