Day 43 - if you don't fall over you're not trying hard enough!

Pichilemu to Llico (65km) with over 800m ascent - Friday 7th October

What a tough but glorious day! We knew cycling along the coast wouldn't be easy - coast roads have a nasty habit of following cliffs up and down fairly steeply and this one was no exception. I never thought I'd find a hill that would be so tough it makes 8% seem like a walk in the park - but today managed it - repeatedly! And the howling sea wind, cold and starkly gusting into our faces most of the day did little to help us, except cool us down (in Ant's case a bit too much), but the beautiful Pacific ocean to our right for the first half of the ride made it all hugely worth while.

I was loving every minute of the first 40km. The fresh sea air, invigorating and uplifting; the stunningly beautiful scenery which didn't look too dissimilar to the southern coastline on the Isle of Wight, with the added bonus of some eucalyptus and pine forests; and a challenging but not at all traffic heavy road. A sea girl at heart, I was in my element. Ant was suffering a little more though and I've learnt that this usually only means one thing - as much as I'd like to think I've got strong enough to compete with Lizzie Armistead (or Lizzie Dignan now as Ant keeps telling me with a sad - oh she's off the market sort of face!), its actually most likely that Ant's got weaker, probably more cold coming on.

As the road turned away from the coast and headed towards the first of the slightly inland lakes, the wind really started to show its might. It must have been some sort of valley - lake geography that made it unsure of its strength or direction, but had us clinging onto our handlebars as we got thrown left, right, pushed forwards then stopped to a halt. Now would be a jolly good time to stop in a shelter and have lunch we thought, so we did. A few pastries and crisps later and we were debating our two road options: Turn right, stay closer to the sea, climb a bloody big hill, stay atop the bloody big hill for a bit, then drop into town; or turn left, do at least 10km more on what looked like a dirt road, but hopefully tackle less hills. Google recommended option 1 so we headed in that direction for 500m until we saw the road turn to sandy gravel and tilt up about 25%. It didn't take us too long to conclude that option 2 was probably better.

So we headed off along the lake on a relatively easy gravel path pleased with our decision, especially as there were several trucks (why?!!) coming in the opposite direction - can't be that bad a road if they can get here.  Ant's head was now lifted - this felt like an adventure, and I was still high as a kite - today was really fun.

As we said goodbye to the lake and hello to the hills, the road inevitably started to degrade. More rocks and sand, but still manageable - for the moment at least. As we go higher deeper into the forrest, it felt more and more rural. There were lots of unsigned paths (can't really justify calling them roads now!) that weren't even on the map so Ant had to concentrate hard to work out our route. We passed two old ladies out for a stroll who were super keen to tell us that yes this was the right way (and lots of other advice we didn't understand), though one of them had a "you don't want to be doing that love" kind of face, which didn't fill us with confidence.

They were right, we didn't want to be doing this! 25% hills, sandy, gravelly, rocky, bumpy. Lots we couldn't cycle up, some we could just about brave. At least we were moving, if only slowly. In a slightly flatter (read 10%!) section of one of the climbs I was relieved I could actually cycle and stop pushing... But not for long... Oooh sand...  Oooh sliding... Eeek... Stopped... Eeek sank... Aghhh pedals... Unclip unclip... Too late... Plop... Ouches!

At least the first fall of the trip was into sand - could have been a lot worse! Just a few bruises and a LOT of sand in mine and Alan's pants!
Oh and did I mention we'd now entered the territory of the big fat mosquito? Prick - ouch, slap you bugger, ouch, oi stop it, yuk, grrr, bugger off, ow, what even through my jersey?, hey that's my cycling glove you shouldn't be able to bite through that?!!

Ant, although annoyed at the mosquitos, somehow managed to keep his head high - I was angry, angry and frustrated. I couldn't cycle and was getting bitten left right and centre... Grrr.

Eventually we reached the turning that would lead us down into town. A bumpy gravel road, but downhill so at least we could cling on and bump our way down, getting thrown left and right and gritting our teeth! Mountain biking, although fun, is somewhat difficult on a loaded bike that has a mind of its own!

Soon enough we'd entered the strange little town of Llico. A sleepy place lined with lakes and forests. Composed of only one long road lined with a few small shops. On the outskirts we saw a camping sign and decided to check it out. Ant borrowed Alan and whisked off into the campsite while I checked out the wildlife signs... What a spider that can kill you... Man I hope my Spanish is wrong!!

Ant's summary was a beautiful campsite in the forrest with showers, but no hot water. Covered head to toe in sweat, sand, dust and gravel, all mixed into a sun creamy paste, we thought a hot shower might be preferable, plus we hadn't yet seen the town or sea at the end of the road... FOMO. So we pushed on for another 3km just to see if there was anything else before settling on a night of cold showers, spiders and death.

Thankfully we didn't do our usual thing of settling for the first place we saw, mainly because the first place was so run down and shabby that cold showers spiders and death seemed preferable! Eventually we came to the end of the road and the sea, which gifted a nice looking hostilleria. They had a room and several grumpy, mafia like, old men owning it. Oh well nice enough room, with glorious terrace overlooking the beach and the promise of hot water - we'll take it!

When we'd cleaned off our sandy sun creamy paste and gone for our pre dinner stroll (with the sole mission of finding dinner!) we realised that no more than 50m more down the road was a glorious looking hotel and spa... Tum tee tum, we could only console ourselves with the fact that we may have saved money - but when the restaurant was very reasonably priced and tasty and the staff super friendly we couldn't bring ourselves to check their room price list - we'll just keep pretending it was prohibitively high and that we made the right decision! "ah" said the manager. "you should have stayed here, we have a pool and jacuzi, you could have relaxed in"... You seriously need to stop talking now dude... Seriously... Shut up... Nope... Stop...!!! 

So a tough day that beat us up but left us feeling alive and glowing with adventure. I shall leave you with Ant's summary:
"Beautiful riding, weary Ant, volatile Emma. Strangely today, more than other days on this trip, really felt like an adventure. We changed our plans and route several times based on how we were going and how we were feeling, didn't really know where we'd end up, ended up somewhere awesome by the sea... And that all felt really cool."