Day 59 - Welcome to the Caraterra Austral!

Chaitan to Santa Lucia (85km)

Tuesday 1st November

Fuelled (thankfully!), sleepy, but feeling full of adventure we hoped on our bikes and got ready to see what Patagonia had to offer us.
The steep, green hills on either side of the road were luscious yet intimidating. The grey cloudy sky, that we've now grown unfamiliar with, added to the eerie feeling we both had - where did the Sun go? Returning back to the UK will be interesting! And then the occasional snowy peak would roar up through the clouds and reveal itself, looming high above us, showing a glimpse of just how much of this new world lurked up above the clouds.

Our road, for now at least, was lovely. It snaked in between the steep hills carving valleys that swept around wide corners with very gentle climbs. Despite the new challenge of the weather, this was quite possibly the easiest cycling we've done so far.

We had 30km from Chaitan to the next town, which we were excited to discover were all paved! Where is this hideous bumpy careterra that people speak of? Oh well, we're not complaining and are still feeling proud to now be among the few cyclists who can boast adventuring along the Caraterra Austral - despite its current state of easiness!

We swept into the next town and were pleased to see some restaurants, hotels and campsites - again something that rumours said were rare. It was looking like tourism  visited our road just enough to make it friendly, but not yet enough to remove the feeling of isolation and adventure - we could have timed this perfectly!
It feels appropriate at this point, to mention that the Careterra Austral is currently part of a 20 year plan to make itself paved and tourist friendly. One of the main reasons we really wanted to include it in our trip - to experience it before it becomes something different.

We found a suitable bus stop on the outskirts of the town to have a bite to eat and watch the rain start to fall (timed that well!), get waterproofed up and psych ourselves up for the gravel track that looked ahead.
As we left the town, on tarmac, we had the un-nerving feeling that the gravel was approaching, but knew not where or how far it would let us get before we had to get our best legs out. I said that if we got to 44km of our 85km day then I'd be a very happy girl. We stopped for a few pastries and empanadas at the 40km mark and were still on smooth roads. Looking promising! The 44km marker came and went and we were still on tarmac. Each additional metre was now a bonus!

Almost as soon as I'd said "so where are all the other cycle tourists braving the Austral?", a cycle tourist appeared in Ant's mirror. He was French, had been cycling for a couple of weeks on the road from Puerto Mont where he said the careterra was terrible. Loose stones and bumpy roads. Pleased we got to boat then! He was also cycling with a 'colleague', but we never actually saw this person. Obviously cycling 'with' a colleague meant cycling ahead of them then stopping to wait for them every few km. We didn't quite understand this but each to their own. He was planning on getting to a campsite 50km into our day, just around the other side of the lake that we had found ourselves on. His colleague had also reliably informed him that the road became bad at this point all the way to Santa Lucia (our goal for the day). This didn't dishearten us as much as you might think. We'd come here to battle with the Careterra Austral, it would be a slight shame if it was a simple walk in the park! Also how hard can it be? We've now fought fairly bad rippio for days in the past and come out winning - we can certainly do it again.
At about 46km we saw the sign 'fin de pavimento'. The inevitable had finally reached us. We ventured onto our new piste and it was actually ok. Perhaps we've become more accustomed to this stuff than we realised. A few km later and we saw another sign 'fin de rippio'. What?! Wow what a treat. The next few km was a patch work of rippio, then not rippio, taking it in turns to test our legs and giving us a nice introductory day to central Patagonia.

Or so we thought! This IS South America after all. You don't get away with a straightforward day just like that! We waved goodbye to Rahul at his campsite (off to find a fishing rod and catch fish in the lake for supper - something that we meant to try on this section - most cycle tourists do - but we sort of forgot - my Dad would NOT be proud - sorry Dad, opportunity missed, though I'm not sure my fish gutting skills are quite what they used to be!) and set off on what we would soon find out was the last piece of tarmac of our day.

Of course the weather had been off an on all day. It hadn't decided what it wanted to do today, be Sunny, Rainy or Windy, so it alternated between them every 20minutes or so - water proofs on, waterproofs off, waterproofs on waterproofs off... We were soon discussing what we would prefer. Wind or rain. We decided two things that we would definitely reflect on in a few days' time: 1- that we would trade wind for rain any day, 2- that we wished the day would make up its mind and decide whether it wanted to be rainy or sunny so we could stop having to change our kit. (hold these thoughts for now - like I said I shall reflect on them in a few post's time!).

So we were now left to tackle the last 30km of the day, on rippio, in rainy sunny, cold, warm, shivering, sweating, sun cream, not sun cream, leg warmers, not leg warmers, conditions. Heads high and still excited by this new part of the adventure we went full steam ahead o to the rippio. And up the rippio. And up. And up.
It was wet, muddy, steep up and down, churned up by dreaded 'road improvements', covered in huge stones, slidy in the rain, and a new challenge - getting stuck in muddy puddles. Definitely a case of hold on tight, find power in the legs and prey!

To give you an idea of how hellish this last section was a workman pulled along side us in his pick up (presumably about to head to the next section of road to make it 'better'!) and said in Spanish: "hey guys, you OK? You know this road continues like this to the next town right?! It's like 17km!".

Feeling strong enough and with just about enough breath spare to speak we both nodded enthusiastically and said 'yes', whilst also munching several energy bars for added comfort! He wasn't offering us a lift or anything, just heeding a warning and giving us quite a lot of kudos!

We powered on up the incredibly steep remaining 20km (he was wrong and man those extra 3km mattered!), thinking this leg burn would never end and then had to tackle a slidy, muddy bobbly descent into the town. Come on Alan, you're made for this kind of thing! Suspension on, courage high let's do this! Jamling... Um... Good luck mate... We'll be routing for you and your inflexible, heavy load! Just be pleased you have an expert driving you otherwise you'd be screwed!!

I don't think I've ever received such friendly and unintimidating attention from a team of men clad in road workers' uniforms. These smiley, fluorescent orange beasts, were full of cheer and admiration for both of us, stopping their digging to wave, cheer and simply watch us go passed - probably wondering how the hell we were managing to remain upright!
I'm thankful to them as towards the end of the climb and descent that was probably the only thing keeping me going onwards to finish this marathon and get to the town. By the pride written across Ant's face, I'm pretty sure he felt the same.

So eventually we descended into Santa Lucia, treated finally to a last few km of smooth tarmac. We had no idea whether this sleepy line of houses would have any place to stay and were hugely relieved, and fair to say slightly surprised, to find a wonderful homely room, with ensuite and wood burning stove to rest our weary legs in. It was glorious! Ant was ecstatic to find a hosepipe to clean the boys after their muddy day, I was struggling to function as a human being... well one above the age of three at least. I'd managed to find a small calve and identify it as such by pointing and smiling whilst saying 'tiny baby pet cow'.
Once the boys were clean, the cow had been identified, and we were showered and ready to tackle the world again, we ventured the whole 100m to the other end of town and the hospidage, where we were told to go for food. This was not an obvious restaurant, much more like knocking on someone's front door looking tired and hungry (but still able to identify basic living things), and saying: 'hello... Eat?... For dinner?'.

Turned out they indeed had food - chicken, rice and salad to be precise - an man oh man we loved it!

We stopped by the local supermarket (read 'small shack which was open') to pick up milk and cereal to supplement our breakfast ( and a beer to supplement our evening! ) and then I watched in amusement as Ant got increasingly more and more annoyed with a small ratty, yappy dog, who kept nipping at our heels and then (and this the bit that really made him mad) scared the small tiny cow. Then ensued a battle of wills between Ant and said dog. Ant would chase the dog out the garden, dog would run scared, then as Ant's back was turned would sneak in through a different location and appear as if by magic, yaping at the calves' ankles whilst poor tiny baby cow quaked in fear... Ant would chase dog... Dog would sneak back... so on and so on.

In the end he decided it was not his responsibility to protect the cow, but in fact it was the job of the big farm dog, currently hiding from the rain inside, so amused Emma and aggravated Ant retired to our room and crashed out into the longest and deepest sleep ever. Night night!