Well hello there, it's nice to see you again!

I'm acutely aware that it's been 3 and a half years and we're currently still stuck in the middle of Chilean Patagonia... Day 60 seemed to have lasted forever!

What can I tell you... it's the day before the 'day of doom' where we cycled through rivers and under waterfalls and slept in some kids bed for the night after crying at a lady who had rented a room from a hostel because the owners were out of town and she couldn't help us, because lets face it she was just on holiday... I mean that day and the weeks that followed are still to be written! I did however make extensive notes... that are saved on my phone... my old phone... that suffered greatly in the rain... that is currently convalescing somewhere in a drawer... actually I think it's at best on a life support machine... I'm hoping a full battery replacement will let me get at its word documents and photos... but it's been 3-4 years now so I'm not overly hopeful... actually that's a lie... I'm hugely hopeful and ridiculously optimistic... I should learn to face facts on this one I think and just dig some days out of my jaded memory! Oh wait... perhaps they're backed up in the cloud...

Oh will you look at that... I have some word document notes... I'll have to say goodbye to the photos I fear but at least I can continue the adventure for you...

You never know perhaps I'll actually finish writing this thing... sometime in 2036 I predict... it's gripping isn't it... hold tight and I'll be back soon!

Em xxx

(No no longer pedaling south... did that give too much away? opps... sorry! I am however facing the Southerly direction, does that count?)

Day 60 - going on a cabana hunt

Santa Lucia to La Junta (70km)

November 2nd

Despite our best intentions of getting up super early and rocking out a 100+km day, we slept and slept and slept! No surprise I suppose, we had very little sleep on the boat and had put our bodies through a tough work out yesterday so who can blame them for snuggling under the feather duvet near the wood fire until way gone 9am!

Eventually we prised ourselves out the lovely room, grateful that the wood stove was there to dry our washing (this matters A LOT when you're alternating two sets of clothes, hand washing each night and are no longer in the high temperature, dry environment of Peru!), and ventured passed the baby cow, to the breakfast room.

Ant left me to finish my 3rd cup of tea, pay the lovely Hostal lady and practice my Spanish in the process. Good news! She thinks the road south is very well kept with minimal rippio! Yeah! This motivated us to get a wiggle on and actually get out the door!

It was now abundantly clear that we weren't getting further than La Junta today, so we had a target of 70km. Patagonia was delivering her weather pick and mix style as ever, leaving our jackets and trousers totally confused as to whether they were needed or not, on off on off...! Again she was a tease, clouds hiding the views and occasionally revealing a hint of snow and what lied above. This messed with my mind and seemed a little unfair - we were working really hard to venture across her terrain, she could at least help us out a bit?
Ant meanwhile was loving it. I think he felt the lake district was too 'easy' (!) and that this is much more of an adventure. Plus to his credit, he now doesn't have to do any route planning, just point the bikes on the one road and calculate the distance to the next town - a relief when he's been working so hard to keep us on track the rest of the trip.

So the road - today it started off with beautiful tarmac that tilted up and down quite a lot to test how our legs were coping with intervals these days. The wind - on our backs wahoo! Well initially at least. At some point we descended into a valley and it switched to our fronts - just because you can't possibly enjoy a fast easy descent in South America!

A huge wide river, and appropriately sized orange bridge signalled the start of the rippio, which today was treating us kindly. We were zipping along.

If I'm honest, this pretty much describes the whole day. Trees, mountains, a glimpse of snow, sun, rain, wind (in varying directions), and a very enjoyable ride on almost traffic free roads. Oooh and it wouldn't be a blog post from me if I didn't comment on our food! We'd smuggled some of the delicious bread from breakfast and smothered it in butter and jam. If you closed your eyes and thought hard it could have almost been scones! Teamed with some crisps this set us up nicely for the afternoon.

So we arrived in La Junta at about 4.30pm, nice and early - partly thanks to the initial head wind, but mainly because our legs are pretty strong these days. We were craving our own cooking and it soon became clear this would be a distinct possibility. Cabañas had been sprinkled all over the town like confetti, so it was just a case of finding one that looked suitably snug, reasonably priced and available - and of course the ability to find and communicate with the owner was a must!
After a loop of the town, we picked up our shopping from the bakers and well stocked supermarket - I might have had an awkward moment or two whilst I tried to buy cake from a man who was just a customer in the bakers. He was so enthusiastic about our trip and wanted to explain every type of product that was on offer so I wouldn't be hungry... I just kept saying "ill take three cakes and 10 bread please, thank you"... I don't think he found out as much about our trip as he'd wanted, but he was a jolly fellow who didn't seem to mind too much and wished us well. Though his relief was evident when the baker finally appeared to serve me! Dinner would be toast, ham, mushroom and cheese omelette and potatoes fried in butter, with an avocado on the side, cakes for dessert and cheese on toast as a starter - and man we were excited! And don't worry - we'd tucked four beers into our panniers!

After another loop of the town we decided to check out the cabañas we saw on the way in... The looked lovely but were above our price threshold for the day... So back into town we went... Sweeping the streets like a groundsman sweeps out the lines on a cricket pitch. Out the other side we saw another set of good candidates, but no owner, hmm, perhaps this would be harder than we had expected. But there were still a huge amount to check out so no panic yet. Well it had started to rain and we were starting to shiver, so a home soon would be nice. Ant spotted an excellent candidate and after a few phone calls we were snuggled into our lovely new wooden home, the lady running around getting firewood and making a fire in the stove. It was fantastic.

Ant set about doing strengthening exercises, showering and preparing supper, whilst I went about... Well doing absolutely nothing I'm afraid to say! I'd found myself a comfy arm chair right by the fire and was focussing on snuggling in.

Our supper was amazing, our home was snug, our clothes were drying, and all the while a good Patagonian storm was raging outside. No matter how hard it tried, the rain and wind couldn't get us in here - even if it was shaking and rattling our home a little!

Let's hope it dies down tomorrow - or at least is on our tails...

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!

Day 58 - Between the seats

Puerto Varus to Puerto Mont to Chaitan (20km and a ferry)

Monday 31st October

Grateful to wake up without a hang over and ready to face the day, we ate breakfast and packed our bags fo a big day of... Well nothing really! We had a ferry to catch at 11pm this evening and had a 20km cycle to get to the port, but given the rain had started again and really showed no signs of stopping we decided to hang out in the chill out communal area of our Hostal and get some admin done. We still had to work out the finer details of our route south and how far down we'd go.

After a relaxed morning we pottered along to la gringa for a lovely lunch, then wrapped up in our water proofs and hit the road.

Knowing we'd not be able to shower properly this evening - a sink wash at best - we decided to take it super slowly. We even played the 'you're not allowed in your big ring' game, which left us both spinning out down hills. At some point on the descent into Puerto Mont it got cold, and wet, and cold. By the time we were searching around this rather industrial area (locals call it Muerto Mont - muerto meaning dead!) for a port we weren't certain we'd find, my hands were strangers to my brain, my feet were numb and I was very much all chilled up!

We found what looked like a port for a container ship and a man sat in a hut sort of guarding it. He informed us this was indeed the port, that the boat boards at 9.30pm and that no there isn't really anything here. When he saw us struggling to change into warmer clothes he kindly offered us one of his cabins. About three hours later (I exaggerate) I'd managed to gain enough feeling in my fingers to attempt undressing and dressing again and we were ready to go in search of some shelter and dinner (though at this point we weren't hopeful).

Surprisingly we managed to find a very lovely restaurant with a good view of both the sea and our bikes and set about eating fish soup, chips and battered hake. A beer and bottle of wine later (well we did have three hours to kill!) and it was just about boarding time.

The boys strapped neatly in place we set about finding our seats and setting up camp for the night. The good news was I'd picked the only two seats together (the others were in threes), the bad was that they were near the bar! We blew up our air beds and snuggled down on the floor between the seats ready for a good night sleep.

That's a lie, when did anyone ever have a good night sleep on a tiny boat (smaller than the isle of Wight ferry!), sailing into a storm, mid pacific. Whirl, splash, bump, roll. We got used to the motion and eventually grabbed an hour or two at least!

When we woke up we realised we were really in the depth of Patagonia now. 8am, rainy, cloudy, jungle steep slopes dropping into a grey rainy sea.

Item 1 on the agenda - find some food by the port in Chaitan. Not an unfair assumption to imagine that the local businesses would have worked out that every other day at 8am a ferry load of hungry people disembarked, and that if even one of them opened their restaurant / shop / supermarket two hours earlier than usual on these days they might get a fair amount of business.

But no. We spent rather a long time, hopefully cycling around the small sleepy village, bouncing from closed shack to closed shack and eventually (after ending up back where we started and about to give up and boil sea water to make porridge) we tried the first door we had tried earlier and this time it opened.
We ordered eight fried eggs (thought we were ordering four!), bread, apple pastries and empanadas and set about thawing out and getting ready for our first day cycling in Central Patagonia. A daunting but exciting prospect!

Puerto Varus

Saturday 29th - Monday 31st October

Saturday - Feeling our age

Despite all good intentions of burning the candle at both ends and desiring the coolness of meeting folk over beer and adventuring with them the next day, I woke up at 7 (obviously Ant was still snoozing), saw the room still spinning, was not yet able to acknowledge my head ache - still a little numb, and soon saw the vast ambition of meeting Andy and Moises by 9am, hitch hiking to a volcano, climbing volcano, then hitching back was slowly floating out of reach. Yes it would be super cool, but this is also a rest day and the total sum of: a Pisco sour, a glass and a half of red wine, and three pints of beer; was now it seems, enough to have me realing back to university Saturday mornings, longing for bacon, eggs and a good hard rowing session to clear the head. Being neither in possession of bacon, eggs, or an enpacker, it was my lot to lie and suffer, hoping gallons of water would solve the problem. Needless to say I messaged Moises and cancelled our part in their adventure. Obviously I consulted Ant on this matter and took the snore of a slightly different frequency as acknowledgement that my new plan of staying in bed all morning was most agreeable.

Several hours of watching the ceiling spin later, and we were munching our coco pops and contemplating braving the outside world. We gathered our washing to go on a lavanderia hunt, and naively hoped that the Breakfast Club had opened a cafe in Puerto Varus.
Two things scuppered our plan. Bank holiday weekend (to celebrate Halloween - the UK needs this!), meant that even the one or two open lavanderias were not even thinking of looking at our bag of sweetly smelling clothes until at least Wednesday next week; leaving us to take said sweetly smelling (and fairly heavy) bag with us on our adventure around the city. And it had started to rain. Not just rain, but  RAIN. Real rain, not the fake rain we see in the UK. So there we were, clutching our large sweetly smelling bag, in our one set of clean summery clothes (the 'posh' set reserved for good - my summer dress and Ants shirt and shorts), huddled under a shop shelter in the dubious back streets of a town, with stinking hangovers, waiting for the downpour to pass.
It didn't! We ran from shelter to shelter, watching our clothes get muddier and rainier hoping that the Breakfast club would reveal itself soon.

It didn't! Instead we found a bakers, that was in fact a newsagents that sold empanadas - they would stem the hanger for now - and huddled inside hoping they sold coffee.

They didn't! But the rain had now at least paused so we ran into the centre of town and found the cutest looking, bacon promising, cappuccino clutching, cafe we could find. Finally a good post lunch breakfast.

It wasn't! A plate of nachos and a lasagne were the only dishes remotely suitable and whilst the former was plentiful and almost tasty, the latter was tasty yet lacking in proportions. At least they had proper coffee.

It wasn't! The latte was more like a watered down version of a naff caff's attempt at warm brown liquid.

Feeling slightly more alive now at least, we ventured into town to hunt the shops for some trecking trousers for Ant and explore the city, went back to our home to put sweetly smelling bag to bed, ventured to a supermarket to grab washing powder to help our bag be more accepted in wider society (somehow via the rafting place to book a trip on a ducky for tomorrow... What?! How did that happen?!) and whilst in the fruit and veg aisle, stumbled across Andy and Moises!

Turns out Moises had the same thoughts as us, but Andy, to his credit, had an exciting day trekking and managed to skip all the rain! "wanna come back to ours - I'm making homemade pizza?'. Do we heck!

We were soon searching for pizza toppings, hurrying home to hand wash clothes quickly, munching a bowl of cereal to tide us over (9.30pm now - tummy gremlins approaching!), then venturing back into the dubious parts of town, walking along a deserted train track, hopping fences and jumping hedges whilst avoiding the scary yet polite youth of the night, to make it to Moises' lovely little wooden house alive.

And then a brilliant night of drinking, laughter, science chat, pizza making, Chilean swear word learning, cultural story swapping, travel tale sharing and eventually (at midnight!) pizza eating, ensued. We learned how to say things are awesome in Chilean: "vagina"; things are good: "bum crack"; and things are really bad: "dick"!!! We learned about the time Moises was the Chilean, who went to London to watch his favourite Bavarian rock band play, missed their set and the next day ended up being the Chilean, in Chelmsford chasing a Bavarian rock band around Essex, eventually seeing them play, but missing his flight the next day due to underestimating London traffic. Learning how Moises' friend (I forget her name) worked in a lab, which was set up in someone's house mass producing a protein sold to many companies (her and I spent many an hour discussing just how much we love protein molecules!). We imparted our wisdom on the grammatical difference between 'hangover' and 'hungover' - this took longer than you might expect - and were flattered when they thought we might be a similar age to them - not even close! And eventually we were driven home, tired but incredibly happy and frightful of the hair of the dog hangover that could ensue tomorrow morning.




Sunday - The day of the ducky

Relieved that we'd managed to build up enough resistance to alcohol over the last 48 hours to be alive and kicking by 11am, we ventured to a brunch cafe 'la gringa' (trip advisor recommended - we'd learnt our lesson!), for eggs benedict and a latte that almost resembled a good coffee. All this was in preparation for the more advanced battle with white waters we had scheduled for 2.30pm.
A 'Ducky' is an inflatable kayak for two people - a cross between a raft and a kayak I suppose. Ant and I would be harnessing our Mansfield rowing prowess to navigate through the white waters guided by a dude in a Kayak who looked like he actually knew what he was doing. Safe to say I was bricking it! We wet suited up, hopped in, practiced paddling upstream, then we were off.  We were sweeping through the waves, loving the adrenaline rush. Even I was loving the thrilling ride, yelping with glee.  The instructors were constantly telling us the next rapid would throw us in, we were overridden with pride as we clung on and stayed afloat. Apparently everyone gets thrown in at some point or other - you guys vastly underestimated the team work and competitive spirit that the EmAnt team have harnessed for years! We did it. It was awesome! And they even gave us a cold beer at the end to celebrate our success!

We were soon home again rearranging bag of sweetly smelling washing around room, hoping it would dry (it didn't!), and ready to venture into town for food. We found a food market which supplied us with three tasty sandwiches (pork, chicken and loaded hamburger), ate cake then collapsed in bed, soba and ready to catch up on sleep to continue our adventure tomorrow.

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!

Day 56 - 4 volcanos and some Swiss people

 Aguas Caliente to Puerto Octay (90km)


Thursday 27th October

As much as we were sad to say goodbye to our lovely domo, we were, as always, excited to be back on the road. We'd set off fairly early, prepared for a long day with a possible 40km rippio section to get to Puerto octay, a reportedly cute German town. We were also slightly apprehensive about those sharp Chile ups and downs, inevitable when following lakes.

The road was beautiful, spring green fields with a white volcano peak popping up every now and then, and the odd lake saying hello too. We started down that awesome (this way round at least!) 4km descent, which we'd battled up a few days ago, then started tackling the hills. A few km later we saw what looked like a couple of battered cycle tourists sprawled out in a style that we know only too well.  We stopped to check they were ok - they weren't really. Two tired Swiss people, Tim and Magdelena, the morning after a night of wild camping, relatively new to south America (just 5days cycling so far), with the inevitable stomach bug that this continent imparts to outsiders on arrival. We felt their pain, discussed routes, then spurred them on and set off all four.

The next 30km was, for us, a fairly gentle potter along, wait for it... A fairly flat road!!! That went along a lake. It must be the only thing of its kind in south America!  We chatted about routes, jobs, hills, suffering and the joys of cycling with tummy bugs, where they'd come from (they camped in a water bottle distillation plant's grounds by mistake and got chased off this morning!), where they're going (ushuia hopefully), what they did (trainee doctors), how long they have (until January).
Eventually we came to Entre Lagos, our 30km point and a third of our day done. Ant and I decided to stop just outside town to pick up supplies for the journey ahead... The Swiss followed suit. A supermarket shopping experience that yielded both an empanada saga and an ice cream saga - I took the last empanadas for ant and I then felt incredibly guilty that there were none left (my guilt has not yet gone - poor Magdalena had to walk down the road to find another shop - of course I offered her ours, but she was having none of it, oh dear); revenge was had when my ice cream stick broke and I ended up with chocolate smeared all over my face - much to everyone's amusement of course!

We were hoping to wait for the others and help them along some more, but were also aware of the 60km ahead,  of which 40km had rippio potential. They didn't think they had 60km more in them so we said our goodbyes then off we pottered, slightly spurred on by a friendly workman (who might have also joined in laughing at my ice cream failure!) who said our road ahead was paved and beautiful - fingers crossed!

We soon realised we really should put more faith in workmen - the road was beautiful - stunning! Gorgeous spring green fields and trees with 4 snow peaked volcanoes peeking up all around. We frequently stopped for photos, breathed in the scenery and enjoyed a much easier 40km than we'd expected.

Then we turned a corner and had a huge long straight road, lined with amazingly tall trees and rising ever so slightly up hill with an ever so slight head wind. Still lapping up the beauty we weren't too worried we were having to work a little harder and still very thankful for the absence of gravel tracks.

Then round another corner and the road started tilting up and down just a bit more, and the wind started blowing just a bit harder... Only one thing for it... We stopped to eat a carrot! Ok so I know it sounds strange but we've been craving veg for a long time and have been carrying a bag of carrots around - why not indulge in some carroty goodness whilst psyching up for the last 20km?!

Carrot fuelled, we churned the pedals the last few km before the road turned right (this was exciting as it would mean the slight head wind turns into a slight tail wind and we needed this to lift our heads a little). We whizzed down the kilometers and soon had 8 to go, but now the map revealed an almost 180 degree turn to get into the town... Aghhh! Both shattered, the full on head wind that this resulted in, was the last thing we needed. I introduced Ant to the 1km on 1km off game spurred on by the fact the road was marked every 200m so we could clearly see who's turn it was on the front and how long they had there. This game got more exciting when the road started throwing in hills that lasted for about 750m - who would get lucky and have the downhill section on their turn?!

So mind games over, we descended into this sleepy, but very old German town, with houses build from wood that looked that they'd arrived fresh from a wild west film set, but with huge signs advertising "kuchen" - oh yes this town does cake like no other town! We cycled around surveying our new surroundings in search of a new home and saw a sign out the corner of our eye "bed and breakfast, cake, cyclists welcome" - seriously?!! We'll take it! A lovely owner greeted us (though she was mortified we caught her both without shoes and eating an ice lolly! What a crime! She hurriedly found shoes and gobbled down the lolly whole now feeling she was much more presentable and giggling in a lovely friendly way) showed us to a beautiful attic room and later we caught her making cake and jams for breakfast - heaven!

So all we had to do was find dinner, and it was late enough that we needed to find it quickly otherwise my hanger would read volcanic proportions. Naturally this meant we'd spend at least half an hour walking around the town in search of restaurants that either didn't exist or were closed (with signs clearly stating they are open - this happens so frequently we once had to check that we'd got our translation of open and closed round the right way!) and ended up back at the only (as far as we could work out) hotel/restaurant in town that was open (except a chip van which would do for seconds!) that was actually within shooting distance from our B and B.

It was a beautiful old hotel, but a very strange and slightly haunted set up. Tall grand ceilings, bare electrics that looked like they'd been installed just after electricity was mainstream, a grand staircase and a room full of old dolls and toys! They did do good food, though terrible service - but we didn't care, we gobbled down our roast pork chop, chips and tortilla and hurried back to bed - after all it was almost 9pm!!