Cycling Chile's Carretera Austral

Cycling Chile’s Carretera Austral Glynne Lloyd Arriving in Puerto Montt I was worried. My bike box was looking very worse for wear and I worried about the state of my bike. “Would it be damaged?” I worried. “Would I be able to fix it, if it was?” I worried. “Would I be able to get parts for it? And if I could, what were the names of these parts in Spanish?” I worried. “Oh my God.

What were the names for these parts in English?” I worried.

I knew the Carretera Austral, Chile's southern penetration road into the northern Patagonian wilderness, destroyed bikes. And I worried about that. And as for Ruta 40 in Argentina, I had seen the photos and read the stories. Photos of cyclists hiding from the wind in culverts beneath the road. Stories of cyclists cycling between 1am and 6am to avoid the wind, stories of cyclists battling howling wind storms where rocks the size of golf balls flew horizontally towards them, stories of days and days on the pampa between water sources. “Was I tough enough for cycling in Patagonia?” “Was I staunch enough and how would I cope when the going got tough?” All these things worried me.

But most of all I worried, as I unpacked my bike outside the local bus station, “How was I going to dispose of the bike box?” It was too big to fit in a rubbish bin. I couldn't just leave it in the station. The locals were bound to see and what would they think? “He's no tidy Kiwi!” Maybe I could just pretend that I was Australian I thought, as I often do when I am in a foreign country and about to make Rush-hour traffic on Chile’s Carretera Austral (Glynne Lloyd)

Tramping & Mountaineering 2004 some terrible cultural faux-pas. And just then the station cleaner came past and asked me whether or not I wanted the box. No, I said, and he promptly took it away for disposal. Another South American trial successfully overcome. There had been quite a few difficult trials for me up to this point and I had been in South America less than a week. What’s more, I hadn't even started cycling yet.

After a day in Puerto Montt visiting this picturesque city I was off. First stop, the island of Chiloe. Chiloe is important to Chile for its folklore and legends and its interesting architecture of shingle houses and old distinctive Chilote style wooden churches. Chiloe has many palafitos, shingle houses built on stilts out over the water, where at high tide the fishermen can tie up their boats at their back doors. Many of these palafitos have fallen into disrepair, but fortunately the Government has recognised their cultural significance and is helping the locals to have them restored.

After a week of exploring Chiloe I arrived at the

Enjoying the beautiful Chacabuco Valley (Glynne Lloyd)

southern end of the island at the town of Quellon, also the southern end of the Pan American highway and the end of the tar seal. After booking a ferry back to the mainland I had time to kill so I cycled out to the official end of the Pan American highway to check out the monument featuring all the countries that the road traverses from Alaska at one end to the Chilean end where I was.

The ferry from Quellon took me back to the mainland and the town of El Chaiten, 205 km south of Puerto Montt. I was now in the Patagonian wilderness and on the Carretera Austral proper. The end of the Carretera was a further 1000 km to the south at the town of Villa O'Higgins.

Construction of the Carretera Austral was instigated by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1970’s to encourage settlement of the Patagonian wilderness. Geopolitical beliefs, common in South America, were behind the road’s construction. These beliefs suggest that if a country is to prosper then it should expand to fill it’s borders. Also at the time there was vigorous debate with Argentina as to where the border was, so Pinochet probably figured that it was better for Chile to settle the area just in case Argentina ever decided that it wanted to. Due to the difficult terrain, previously only the domain of major exploratory expeditions of weeks duration, the road took over 20 years to complete. The final section to what is now the town of Villa O’Higgins was completed in 1999. In total the road cost 15 lives and more than $US 300 million. My Lonely Tramping & Mountaineering 2004

Planet guide informed me that for this reason the road is sometimes referred to as Pinochet’s Folly.

The population along the road is sparse, about 80,000 with about half in the only major town along the route, Coyhaique. Settlements to the north of Coyhaique are spaced between half to one days ride apart. South of Coyhaique the settlements are 2 to 3 days apart. Apart from a 180 km section around Coyhaique the road is still gravel. Because of this it still receives relatively few visitors, making it a great place to go for a mountain bike ride. And I couldn’t wait to get going.

The first few days were no problem. I even decided to take a detour up the Futalefu valley to the town of Futalefu. I had heard that this valley was very picturesque as well as being famous for white water sports. So it sounded like it would make a good side trip. Given that the road followed the valley upstream into the Andes and that the town was very close to the border I thought I should inquire from the locals as to what the road was like. That told me it was “plano, mas o menos” which in English means “flat, more or less”. This was my first experience of this classic South Americanism “mas o menos”, which I was to learn over time is often used when the speaker is unsure of the facts. So while the road probably is flat when you are sitting in a car, on a bike in 30° C heat with the sun beating down it’s anything but. However, the return leg was a blast.

While sitting in a restaurant in Futalefu having a beer, an English guy walked in who I had met on the Lake Waikaremoana track five years before. We swapped stories about our travels and I got some information about some of the terrain that lay ahead of me. Events like this can not help make you realise what a small world it is.

A few days later back on the Carretera Austral I looked down and noticed that my back wheel was a little buckled. I thought some of my spokes must be loose and that I would tighten them when I stopped for lunch. Big mistake. A little while later I heard this loud grating sound. Stopping I found that I had one broken spoke and that the wheel was very driver and asked “Tiene un …” At this point not knowing the Spanish worked for spanner I had to play Charades and mime out using a spanner. The man just looked at me and replied in a heavy North American accent “Tiene un what buddy?”.

He didn’t have a spanner but did offer me a lift to the nearest town. I declined, deciding to go and investigate the machinery I could hear in the distance. This turned out to be a small two man saw mill with a full set of tools. I soon had the spoke replaced. I then had my first go at truing a wheel. I got it done but it took a while. It didn’t help that there was no shade and it was another scorcher of a day. Later on in my journey I would be able to replace a spoke including removing and reinstalling the panniers, tools, rear cluster, wheel, tube, tyre, old and new spoke, truing the wheel, and be riding again all in about 35 minutes. Not bad.

The day was not yet over however. A little further on I got a puncture. Removing the tube I could see a hole so I thought I may as well fix it instead of getting out a spare tube. Unfortunately whatever

Alex cycling the Carretera near Lago General Carrera (Glynne Lloyd)

Tramping & Mountaineering 2004 badly buckled. I could barely turn it by hand.

Lucky for me I had brought all the tools for replacing a spoke including the specialised tools required to remove the rear cassette. That is all the tools but one, a spanner. I figured that (a) I wasn’t really likely to break a spoke and (b) if I did I could always borrow a spanner from a local farmer. Well I was wrong on both counts. I did break spokes, 13 in all by the time my journey was done, and farm houses turned out to be few and far between.

Anyway I heard the sound of some machinery in the distance and was about to go and investigate when a car came down the road. I stopped the made the hole had gone right through making a second hole which I did not discover until I went to inflate the tyre. For my second attempt I decided that I would use one of the two spare tubes I had brought with me. Unfortunately this one also had a hole in it from a previous puncture back home that I had not got around to fixing. I did not discover this until after I got cycling again, about 5 minutes down the road. Third time lucky and I was on my way again. I arrived that evening at my destination, the town of La Junta, over 11 hours after setting out for a mere 74 km gained. That night I repaired the two tubes that I would not get to use. That was my only puncture in my 2 ½ months and more than 3000 km of cycling on rugged gravel roads.

Cycling south to Coyhaique was quite uneventful. The scenery was superb and the weather great. During this time I also met up with a Swiss couple, Alex and Franziska Steiner and we cycled together for most of the next month.

The first day south of Coyhaique we camped at a CONAF (Chile’s equivalent to DOC) campsite in a national reserve. This campsite was unique in that it had a shower with a wood burner attached for heating the water. We soon had the fire going followed by nice hot showers. This was a pleasant surprise for a back country camp site.

Heading south we headed through the valley of the Ibanez river which was quite spectacular with large stands of dead trees resulting from the Hudson volcano eruption of 1991.

Further south came the second largest lake in South America, Lago General Carrera (the part of the lake which lies in Argentina is called Lago Buenos Aires). We spent a day visiting some beautiful marble caves on the lake. Because the marble is not 100% pure it will not be mined, which is nice from an environmental perspective.

Continuing south we cycled alongside Chile’s longest river the Rio Baker and then through the beautiful Chacabuco Valley before coming to the township of Cochrane.

Cochrane appears to be trying to compete with Mosgiel, or perhaps Hollywood, as it had a big wooden sign spelling out the town’s name on a hill overlooking the town.

At this point I decided that I needed to stock up on white gas for my stove. I should have stocked up in Tramping & Mountaineering 2004

Coyhaique as white gas hadn’t reached this far south yet. For the next week until I arrived at the Argentinean trekking town of El Chalten I would have to be very careful with how long I boiled my rice and pasta. Brews would have been out of the question, shock horror, but Alex and Fransiska always invited me over after dinner to have one with them. They had an MSR Expedition that could run on petrol so had no worries on this score.

One hundred kilometres south of Cochrane was a new road which detoured for about 25km off the Carretera to the sea side community of Carleta Tortel. The town had been there for years, but had only just got a road put into to it. As a consequence, inside the town there are no roads. It is all boardwalk, kilometres and kilometres of it. Because of this it is quite a fascinating town and we rested there for a few days, with the bikes chained up in the car park at the edge of town.

The next day back on the Carretera I noticed the back wheel wobbling, the classic sign that I had broken a spoke. I stopped and found that I had actually broken three. The road to Carleta Tortel being quite new has not packed down yet and is quite thick gravel which I suspect put a lot of strain on the wheel. It had certainly been difficult to ride at times. Another hour later and I noticed that the back wheel was behaving erratically once more, and sure enough another spoke was broken. Using my last spare spoke I soon had it fixed but due to rounding the spoke terminals I could not true the wheel properly. Never mind I thought it’s only just rubbing the brakes and there is only 120 kms more to the Villa O’Higgins and the end of the Carretera Austral.

The next day I rolled into Villa O’Higgins. I had made it. When I started the trip I had wanted to ride the Carretera Austral, but as for the rest of the journey south through the Patagonian steppe or pampa I had not been so sure. I had decided to see how it went. I had also decided that I could catch buses for some sections, especially as I knew that further south there would be long barren stretches with strong winds and long distances between water and towns. But now that I was in Villa O’Higgins I knew I wanted to cycle all the way south, all the way to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, at the bottom of South America. I also knew I was going to make it. No worries!

Las Torres del Paine, Chile (Glynne Lloyd)

Tramping & Mountaineering 2004