Day 57 - Silly hilly Chile

 Puerto Octay to Puerto Varus (60km)

Friday 28th October

I'm pleased to report that our breakfast was every bit as good as we'd hoped it would be. I mean its still no pancakes and bacon, or full English, but it was fluffy warm bread, farm cheese and ham, home made jam and AMAZING cake! Though I'm longing for Chile to find a life beyond instant coffee - Nescafe granules just wont do!

By 10am our taste for cake was such that we simply had to stop at the local bakers for three slices of their finest before setting off. And 4k out of town we were very glad we did. We climbed 200m in that 4km in sharp bursts of 20%, up and down and up and down and what's more, we were back at the altitude we'd started at. Shattered! If this battering continues we'll be lucky to make it to Puerto varas next week let alone this evening! This time we'd need more than a carrot or two to get us through, so we were exceptionally pleased we'd approached the day armed with cake - and definitely not afraid to eat it!

A little aside which you might appreciate if you're familiar with the you tube classic "the duck song". When tackling hills in Chile, if one is fresh enough, one should always sing a little song to keep ones head high. Ant was by no means able to sing (he was much more likely to ask the road if it would like to take its hill outside and settle this once and for all!) so it fell to me to hum a little tune... Good job I'm good at humming silly tunes! It went something like this:

"the ducks walked up to the road man and they said to the man building the road, hey, got any flat? And the man said, no you see there duck this is Chile so you're rather (insert naughty word that rhymes with ducked), how about a hill? The ducks said 'i feel ill'. Then they pedalled away 'hilly chile', then they pedalled away 'silly hilly chile' then they pedalled away 'hilly chile' every single day, bum bum bum bum bum bum bum."

Anyway! (coughs in slight embarrassment!).


Our biggest and understandably most traumatic decision of the day came when we had to chose whether to stop after only 7km and still high on two slices of cake, for a reportedly (according to guide book and other resources) amazing lunch of spit roast wild bore and regional ales (oh how we love that we're in the German region) at a wooden restaurant with a beautiful lake - volcano view and roaring fire, or cycle the remaining 53km more soba and less heavy, but far less happy, with no wild bore experience. I'm afraid to say we pedalled passed and gritted our teeth, wowing at the fact we were skipping such an opportunity, but knowing that if we stopped we'd probably not move again - besides we had yesterday's empanada and a packet of crisps... What more could we want! Eeek! How we went passed I'll never know! But it was the right choice, we had a long day ahead if  the hills were anything to go by and had a hostal reservation in Puerto Varas for 5pm this evening so better keep going.

Luckily the hills got easier and the next 20km to Frutillar was fairly pleasant, with many silly songs sang by both Ant and I... "I've got hills, they're multiplyin, and you're losing control, cause no power, your legs are suppylin, I'm electrifying... You better shape up...!!!"... I'll not treat you to any others but you get the gist!
Now frutillar is an interesting town. On first glance, it seems like a strange, slightly grubby looking, sprawl, but then (after getting a bit lost and going around in squares - gotta love the block system!) you head down to the lakeside and it morphs into a beautiful modern resort - theatre, cafes, parks. Where better place to sit and eat our left over lunch... and cake! 

Ant was happier now, he'd seen many sailing boats (the first on this trip!) to perve over and was reportedly relieved that at least someone was making good use of such beautiful lakes.
On to decision number 2 of the day. Do we take the side, gravel road, that goes straight over the top of the land that juts into the lake, or take the main road that goes around the edge that's three times longer but with beautiful views? We took one look at the gravel road, saw its crazy gradient and decided to stay on tarmac - I mean this has to be less steep and smooth so it's a no brainer right?
About 10km later we were almost regretting our decision. At least with the gravel track our pain would have been over quicker. This road managed to break records for the steepest sections we've cycled on this trip (and incidentally the steepest I've every cycled on a loaded bike without falling off!). We were even cheered up it by farm workers who are otherwise mostly indifferent to us!

Finally around the jut and on the decent into Langehue we were already debating our next decision of the day. How to get from this lake side town to the next lakeside town that was our goal for today. The main road took the pan American routa 5 - unpleasant and likely sketchy; a side road was gravelled but had trucks whizzing down it spitting up dust and stones at a speed that made the pan Am look appealing; or spend a while exploring the lake shores in the hope of locating the mysterious cycle path that the guide book says goes ALMOST  all the way around the lake and failing that cycle on the disused train tracks.
Whilst looking at the Pan Am - gravel road junction and debating whether to go exploring lakeside a kind girl overheard our conversation and told us there was no road or path by the lake. Well that solves that. Now just to decide which road to take.

We chose the Pan Am and thankfully, unlike the other choices we'd made all day, this one turned out to be ok. I put my high vis jacket on, we rode in the hard shoulder which was wide and well kept, the traffic wasn't appallingly fast and the gradient was shallow enough for us to keep our relative velocities at a safe enough pace. Plus there were a couple of other road cyclists out and about so at least we knew we weren't the only foolish ones! Anyway it was only 6km and they went very quickly indeed.

Soon we were cycling into Puerto Varus and tackling its steep side roads hunting for out Hostal (casa Azul... The blue house). Safe to say it was fairly easy to find!! We were slightly apprehensive after seeing the Trip Advisor reviews. The review themselves were mostly glowing, 4-5 stars, brilliant! Hence why we booked. But then out of curiosity we looked at the replies from the owners, who rather abruptly told anyone who gave less than 5stars that they were wrong and to 'have a nice life'... Hmmm! Its hard to say whether it was these preconceptions, or the actual tone of the place, but we quickly felt like we were nuisances to the owner - can we put our bikes in the garden? No. Can we have breakfast in the morning? No. Can we wash our clothes in the sink, take a bath, sing a song? No!! Ok so eventually they let us tie the boys up safely in the garden, but under no circumstances were we to go and visit them without supervision. Such a shame ad the Hostal itself was a delightful place. Wooden, clean, peaceful, charming even. Oh well, we're pretty good at laughing things off and now have mire things to worry about - like finding food and beer - or strangely tonight, wine, we really fancied wine!
So back to trip advisor and we found number two was a bbq steak house around the corner - done! A cocktail and beer (whilst they lit the massive coal fire!) and caraf of wine whilst we ate our feast, and we were fairly tipsy and incredibly full! I felt a huge sense of pride when the waiter tapped my shoulder to congratulate me on my eating skills, with an amazed big smile - I have officially succeeded in life! We decided to walk it off with an explore around the town, which would be our home until Monday, perhaps in search of cake!
No more than 100m travelled and I was jumping for joy - a marquee, buzzing with all the atmosphere of a party. Fairly merry, the thought of dancing the night away couldn't have made me happier! We practically tan towards the tent and were greeted by the most wonderful sign "festival de cerveza", a festival of beer! Bingo! Even Ant's eyes lit up, this was enough to tempt him away from the lure of bedtime.

I soon learnt that picking beer based on branding is not always a sensible plan. Turns out that "fucks" beer was rather sweet and sickly and did not live up to its amusing name or the cute fox that was on the label. Ant had however, after several tastings, selected a much better option. So there we stood, me with a pint of 'fucks' and Ant with a half (uhum!!) of tasty beer, wiggling to German umpa music, surrounded by Latin Americans.
As soon as the nearest table became available we kept at it. As did Andy and Moises - a German who was 'couch surfing' and Chilean who provided the couch. We got chatting all things science, ecology and travelling (yep we somehow stumbled across the other two beer loving geeks in this city!) and were soon planning a day of volcano climbing and trekking tomorrow.

And then Moises got excited - the band were about to play. It's fair to say, Andy was also happy - he was loving the German-ness. Now I don't know how to explain the band. Think 40 year old military men, who look more like the awkward Dad dancing at a wedding than either military, or band. But incredibly talented huge military style orchestra playing Latino classics (according to Moises and the huge crowd who were now whooping and wiggling their hearts out). The lead singer who was the epitome of the Dad dancing look, was singing beautifully and wiggling his bootie like no one that big in military uniform EVER did before!
We were there until closing time (an early 11pm!!!) and then stumbled back to the blue house excited about our new friends and our planned hike!