Day 52 - a challenge worth taking

Puerto del Fay to San Martin de los Andes (Saturday 22nd October)

The challenge - 65km... in under 5hours... on rippio... mostly uphill... with sketchy downs thrown in

The prize - a home before dark

The penalty - cycling rippio in the dark... or camping with limited food... no thanks!

Today was amazing! Brutal, like doing five tough gym work outs in one long back to back session, but amazing!

Why set such a daft challenge? Well our boat to get to the other side of the lake left daily at 1pm, arriving 10km short of the Argentinian border at 2.30pm. Possible places to stay were either 10km into Argentina, giving us a very short day today, followed by a short day tomorrow, or San Martin, 55km into Argentina, giving us a long tough day today, but a potentially beautiful home for tonight- a small touristy mountain town, with many hotels, campsites and restaurants. Plus, we just LOVE a challenge!!

The boat time at least gave us an excuse to enjoy a very long a leisurely breakfast in our little cabaña, before we packed up and set about sourcing supplies for the day. Two shops a large bottle of coke and two bread rolls later we were slightly nervous, but will be forever grateful to the boatside cafe that made us 4 delicious sandwiches (2warm cheese, 2chicken and avocado), to take with us.

We met the two French cyclists again, and now, at the beginning rather than end of the day, we were much more capable of sustaining a long conversation. Marie and Christoph had started in Cusco, were in South America for 3months, before heading to New Zealand then Asia. Marie always wanted to travel the world and meet people. Interestingly she finds cycling frustrating on this count as you arrive at a town exhausted, eat, sleep, then leave the next day - this along with her weaker cycling strength than Christoph's, means she's cycled bits and back packed others - a very interesting perspective and one we'd not really appreciated. But as soon as we finished our conversation, Marie was busy chatting in fluent Spanish, energetically and enthusiastically to every interesting looking person on the boat. What a skill! We could easily see how cycle touring would be frustrating for her, but equally appreciated that trying to hold any sort of valuable conversation in Spanish would be frustrating for us! We made the right transportation choice then! Whilst Marie and I discussed the pros and cons of cycle touring, the trials and tribulations of tough terrain and long days; Christoph and Ant more helpfully compared and checked maps, shared tips and discussed possible routes through southern patagonia where the terrain looks like someone threw lumps of land in the sea and forgot to join them up! "Here there is a boat, but only one a week so you have to time it right to get there, here the boat takes 6-8hours, here it's the fastest moving glacier in the world, you can actually see it carve..." The conversation continued. As if she hadn't already made up her mind (she clearly had!) Marie declared she would take a flight from Pueto Mont - the other side of the lake district - back to Santiago, then head to Colombia for a few weeks if backpacking and meeting people, whilst Christoph navigated the Carreterra Austral. I simply smiled and grew more and more apprehensive, yet excited inside! I should also point out Marie and Christoph were probably at least 10 maybe 20years older than us!

The boat trip was beautiful. Indeed I believe people come to do this trip just for the sight-seeing, then head back. Huge rocky tree covered lumps, with crystal clear lake underneath them.

Ant checked the bikes - released some tyre pressure and checked all the bolts were tight - ready for the rocky road ahead. I caught up on the blog. We both ate sandwiches nom nom!
Then we were off! We decided to try to cycle with Marie and Christoph, but unfortunately Marie was finding the terrain sketchy and tough and very slow going. Indeed it was! Horrible bumpy rocky rippio. Our advantage was we've done a fair amount of it now, and like skiing, the more relaxed and fast you tackle things, the more control you have and easier it becomes. I love these sports, you know, the ones where you have to be ok being out of control to actually be IN control - messes with my control freak inside! Anyway, we were on a tight time line and Marie preferred to scream and swear at the road alone with Christoph (I feel her pain, I remember those first rippio, bike throwing down days in Peru!) so we pressed on and realised just how fast we've become on this horrible stuff, even if we still hate it!
Perhaps it was the challenge, perhaps the feeling of accomplishment, but we were travelling well, much faster than we'd thought we might, and strangely enjoying it! Did I just say that?!! I even cycled the whole way up a 15-20% short sharp bit, full of cobbles, without pushing or falling! At last!!

The 10km to the border was bone jerking, teeth chattering, rolling terrain, but the border came surprisingly quickly. A very sleepy border crossing and one of the most fun, with people more interested in our trip than the passports (and to the mild annoyance of my feminist inside, we've also learnt that if I go in first with a sweet sounding "hola, Buenos Dias" and a big smile, we have a much more friendly experience, wherever we go. Everyone here seems to like talking to me and not to Ant. He even gets a slightly cold, aloof, response from the same people who are chatty and friendly to me.  A shame really as they'd have much more comprehensible conversation with Ant - my verbal Spanish is still limited to "hello, nice day... Uh... monkey... apple" and even when they realise this, they talk to Ant through me!).
So border down, and us on our way, we soon realised the road was glorious! Ok not tarmacked, but as gravel roads go this was one of the best. Yes it was bumpy, but it was also firm and consolidated. Pot holes a plenty that would wreck a car, but easily navigable by bike and very fun to ride! Ant was in his element, cycling like elves through a tree lined forest alongside a beautiful lake and I was lapping up the scenery and really, really enjoying going fast and throwing Alan around underneath me to avoid the bumps. Wahooo!

We stopped for our remaining sandwiches at half way and Ant dipped his toes in a beautiful cold stream, sat like a river pixie on a rock, munching away. But not for long, it was time to get moving again. One thing that made this such a challenge was the lack of time. You see you can generally tackle anything if you have enough time - just plod on and get the job done at a steady rate - but the time pressure makes you go at it hard, and that's what really burns!

Next we had to tackle the big climb out of the lake and up towards San Martin, and man was it big!! Up and up and up, steep sections punctuated with hairpins from hell that swept up at ridiculous gradients and had kindly been scattered with horrible big stones to help the cars grip... But they only helped us curse and squeal as we had to fund power in our legs to ride on through them to not get the bike swiped out from underneath us.

At this point we realised that gravel roads are much better for us if they are small and unkempt. The minute some helpful bloke comes along with his work force and 'maintains' them by chucking a load of gravel down to fill in the cracks, is the minute we curse, slide and squeak.

Nevertheless we pushed on, still feeling strong and enjoying this powerplate gym session. After what seemed like forever we checked the map - 3km to the top before we start descending - wow and we thought we were nearly there! 3km on this stuff feels like forever! Still chug on up...

...and then ...relief! We could begin the hairy down - which was of course ups and downs and was littered with more and more rocky gravel as the road got busier. Thank fully all the cars seemed to be full of adventurous types who slowed right down to prevent a dust shower, the. Yelped and whooped and horn peeped, to show their support.

And the scenery seemed to do the same. It just got more and more spectacular as if to cheer us on too. Mountains with snow and looking just how mountains should look, peeked up on the horizon, overlooking this vast green plane that we were descending.

Next came the squiggledy roads leading down to the town, about 10km beneath us. Man if we thought the hairpins were tough on the way up, they were trickier on the way down and with tired legs, arms and minds.

Ooops... Skid, swerve, bump... Well I almost stayed up... But fell. Thank fully I've taken to riding rippio unclipped in trainers rather than cycling shoes to give added reassurance that I can stop myself if I fall... This time though I landed on my hand, but had been able to slow Alan down enough to prevent any real injury... Just a bruise. What a pair we are!

The wind got colder, the descent more tentative and hence mire scary for me (confidence fully disintergrated now!), but eventually we dropped into the lovely town that is San Martin.

Expensive, but lovely. We found a hosterier who's owners were away but which was being looked after by a cool guy, eager to give us route advice and chat journies and cycling.
A lovely and surprisingly well cooked steak and bottle of wine to celebrate the glorious day and successful challenge completion and we were ready to snooze and let our aching bodies recover!

Wow! What a day!!

Day 51 - Brutal, just brutal

Conaripe to Pueto Fay (55km) and another 1000m+ ascent day! Friday 21st October

I want him to have a voice (even if forced!) so I will give you Ant's summary before I continue:


"Today was short (in distance not time!) but incredibly steep. We climbed 1000m over 55km, with many good steep sketchy downs thrown in too! A nice road in the middle was solid, but sandwiched between two horribly steep gravelly sections that felt like cycling on a pebbled beach (try it if you dare!). And the day was punctuated with a personal favorite of mine, cars and trucks speeding past and throwing up dust all over us. We were really testing our strength, will power, breaks, balance, hand grips, Emma's arm strength as she pushed Alan uphill, and general ability to persevere and get the distance done".

So...

We started the day on a beautiful tarmacked road running alongside a river out of Conaripe. Wow! Perhaps the map was wrong and the road would be much better than the compacted gravel it promised. A few km later as we turned up the first steep hill of the day we realised that the map was indeed wrong - there was nothing compacted about this gravel at all.

The road bumped and swerved, throwing rippio, stones and sand up at us with each pedal stroke, and then tilted up to a lovely skiddy 20% that at times was impossible to ride up - even for Ant. And pushing two loaded bikes uphill is just the way we love to spend our Friday lunchtime!

Oh well only another 50km to go... Aghddhdjfkcndj!!!!

Our journey became a sequence of sweating and cursing our way up the road, then scraping and fearfully praying our way back down the other side - then repeat to infinitum.

Our conversation today was mostly about stones and pebbles - what caused them to be on some stretches of road and not others, what level of traffic did a road have to have to promote or relegate the number of stones, which sections were passable "come left it's good here... Oh wait... Bump bump pot hole... Clunk... Aghhh... Don't go left its pretty crazy... Aghhhh truck... Bugger".

And then we came to our turning, off the international road and round to follow a river valley downstream to a lake, just before our final destination. "Downstream towards a lake"... That sounds good right? Wrong! As usual to go down, this road went up, and up and up and up. Though this was at least the 'nice middle section' - the stones were firmly set into the mud and trees, and the ground was hard enough to be able to look up at the quite glorious scenery from time to time and spot the occasional waterfall. In fact its a shame we had to spend the morning looking at and contemplating the life of stones, as we had really been cycling through a beautiful part of the world. This path (sorry road... But let's face it... It was a path!!) vaguely resembled the start of the walk up from Chamonix to Flagere in summer and finally we were able to ride side by side, with very little traffic passing us. It even had a bus stop - a great place for lunch (at 4pm!).

Right 15km left and an easier road, we could do this right?

We gathered our strength, hopped on our bikes and headed towards our final turning onto the international road that would take us towards pueto fay and Argentina. This had all the promise of being a tarmacked road - 'international' - sounds big and important, and in fact it looks like it soon will be, but for now the workmen are satisfying themselves with pouring heaps of gravel onto the very wide track and not yet rolling it in. Brilliant! A 'nearly new' road in a purgatory worse than simply being old.

And man it was steep, really steep, and full of trucks and pick ups heading to and from the towns on a Friday evening - giving little consideration for the crazy cyclists trying to push, pedal, grind their way up it.

Eventually we came to the first town, 5km short of our destination and full of very tempting huts, cabanas, camping and, our favourite: 'domos' (a dome shaped cabin that looks and sounds cool - especially when you say it like a 4 year old!). But no. We should plug on as there is only one ferry a day from Puerto fay and we need to catch it if we're to get to Argentina.

A few km later and we found a couple of French cyclists - "why didn't you take this road" shows us road... "its tarmacked almost all the way"... Hmmm! Ours was prettier we told ourselves and a true adventure! They were trying to find the owners of a campsite, but of course it was closed... Again nothing opens till summer!  So they too only had one choice - to push on with us.

Another 200m climb and we reached the town with its shabby cabañas, hospedajes and ridiculously expensive boutique hotel (what's that doing here?!!). We found a beautiful looking cabaña, wooden, kitchen, sofas, bedrooms shower and lept at it. Then found out it was rather more like its owners who were getting increasingly stoned, hot box fashion in the restaurant next door! The door handle fell off, the shower worked intermittently, the water was sometimes warm!... But we managed to get supplies from the shop next door and engineer a supper of fried potatoes and omelette... Yum! Followed by my own new invention - three bananas fried in butter and sugar until they become mush... Yummy!

Then we zonked down for a good night sleep, only to be woken every hour by a dog that was barking at his own existence. Hmmm!

Day 50 - hide and seek with a volcano

Pucon to Conaripe (75km) Thursday 20th October (another 1000m climbing day, but we didn't know it until the end!)

Funny thing about traveling is just as you get attached to a place it's time to leave. With every longing to stay, you remember the next cool place you might find on the way. If we hadn't left Cusco we'd not have found  Copacanaba; If we hadn't left Copacanaba we'd not have found  San Pedro de Atacama; the list goes on... Jujuy, Salta, Mendoza, Santiago, Pichilemu, Buchapereru, Concepcion, Pucon... Where's next to add to the list?

That's the question you have to ask yourself as you leave a beautiful place, "where's next?". That way you get excited about what's to come rather than asking the question "why can't we stay", which would only promote feelings of a desire to be in one place, have a base and a home, which inevitably leads to missing home...

...so where next...???

Tonight we'd be sleeping the other side of the volcano - at Conaripe, the little town that could... If it wanted to!

It has everything that Pucon has, and yet lacks everything that Pucon has. It has the volcano, the rivers for rafting, the beautiful setting, many more thermal spas, waterfalls... But not the alpine-esque tourist infrastructure to make it top-notch adventure town. Clearly it's a tourist location, camp sites a plenty, cabañas, restaurants, but a sleepy one (at least in shoulder season), with many of the above closed and shabby looking - a town clearly waiting for Summer and (unlike Pucon) is refusing to come out and play any sooner.

So that was where next... But how?

We cycled West from Pucon sandwiched between a beautiful lake and traffic. The road to Villirica was good, but full of people wanting to get between to two towns, including many dreaded busses (drawback of nice tourist reputation). The wind was on our back though so we made good progress on the rolling terrain.

20km later we were heading South East, circumnavigating the Volcano, which would hide between towns and trees, then eventually reward our big climb out of Villiarica by peeking out from behind gaps in trees to say hello.

Playing spot the volcano and watching the scenery was really all that kept us going today.  A beautiful part of the world that tricks you into thinking it's easy cycling, because your eyes and mind are so well occupied. But whilst stopping for lunch in our favourite lunch stopping location, a bus stop (seats and shelter - what more do you need?!), we both confessed over our empanadas that we were finding it tough physically.

This was a day that was most definitely good for the mind, but hard on the legs!

So digging deep and channeling Jens Voight, we told our legs to shut up and continued to climb. We had no idea how climby our road would get or when it would decide to be un-climby again, we just got on with it.

One thing we realised is that when we're feeling beat, our conversation (which usually fluctuates from philosophical bubble babble, family & friends, home life, Christmas plans, Chamonix, would you rather (usually limited to types of terrain we could be cycling, discussing traditions and cultures we've seen in compare and contrast, future route options ... ), resorts to that of a six year old:

Emma "tree"
Ant "pretty tree"
Emma "where volcano go?"
Ant "there he is!"
Ant "cow"
Emma "moo"
Emma "sheep... Fluffy sheep"
Emma " ooooh lake"
Ant "pretty lake"
Ant " hill"
Emma strops a little
Emma "windy"
Ant says nothing but looks like he wants to punch the wind

And so it goes on.

This was one of those days when our six year old selves emerged just after half way and stayed with us.

As we descended towards Lican Ray, the town before our final stop, we were treated to beautiful lake and volcano views... And flies!! Clearly they had come out with the Sun that was beaming all day.

Emma "yukky yuk... Spit... Close mouth... Cough"
Ant "flies"
Ant "ouch" (even small flies hurt when they hit you at a relative velocity of more than 40km/h)
Ant "buggers"
Emma "mmm mmm mmmmmm" (trying to speak with mouth closed)


Flies aside, it really was a beautiful decent and meant we were now just 15km from Conaripe with plenty of time in hand. Enough, in fact, to stop for our final pastry to fuel us the rest of the way... Damn it, people actually using this bus stop! Will have to resort to choice number two... Barrier low enough for us to perch on, high enough for boys to lean on.

We came into Conaripe and soon both agreed that camping looked very appealing (says something about our opinion of the hotels on offer - strangely al lining the main road and none lining the lake?!), plus we'd not camped for a while and would be good to save some money.

We surveyed the campsites (which lined the lake) and picked our home because it was the only one open!! A lovely helpful and very interested man owned the site and had Bobby, the one-eyed, old shaggy dog to guard it. Bobby had all the bark but really no bite, no bite at all - mostly because he seemed to find distances very hard to judge. But he did like keeping us company whilst we set up camp and thankfully guarded our things well whilst we ventured into town for feeding time.
Some home made chips from real potatoes to accompany salmon and chicken and we were happy. We snuggled into our tent and got ready for tomorrow - it would likely be a big day on mostly gravel... So we needed good sleep and knew we'd sleep well with Bobby there to guard us.

3am. Emma stirs to find Ant's in Meer cat pose peeking out the gap in the tent...
Emma "you ok"
Ant "shhh animal... Food bag"
Emma "what is it"
Ant "don't know, racoon? mini bear?"
Animal "claw, paw, claw" (trying to get into our butter)
Ant "shooooo shooo "
Animal "meeeow"

Seems Bobby's not quite the  guard we'd hoped dog after all!

Pucon - the Chamonix of the Southern Hemisphere!

(Tuesday 18th to Thursday 20th October).

At some point on the 4hour bus trip to Temuco, and several hours after we'd got over the trauma of convincing the conductors to put the bikes on the bus (there was plenty of space in the luggage compartment... Seriously!), I'd managed to make headway with the blog and Ant suggested an amendment to our route.

We'd planned to cycle from Temuco towards the first lake Villirica (whoes name reminds me too much of the town Billericay in Essex!), then south from there. But after much consideration of the map and guide book, Ant came up with what we would later realise was an excellent plan.

Get a second bus from Temuco to Pucon so we could actually see the culinary and adventure capital of Sur Chile. Otherwise we would have missed it or had to do some serious back tracking. We left it to the cycle touring gods to decide - if we could find a bus that was happy to take bikes we would go, otherwise we'd get on our bikes...

...the bus was more than happy to take bikes and us, and left in half an our - perfect! Just enough time for Ant to source some lunch. Off he trotted leaving me to mind the boys at the bus station. He came back with a donut looking fried bread and... An egg... Literally an egg... In its shell! Hilarious. Turns out he'd asked for 'bread with egg' and that's quite literally what he got! Not quite the omelette he was hoping for, but at least the egg was boiled and warm inside!

So we headed south under the cover of a bus, and watched the weather get rainier and colder from the safety of the bus window.
Arriving in Pucon at around 5pm severely underdressed in our shorts and t shirts (we needed at least another 2layers and waterproofs here!), we quickly changed our plan of cycling to a cool, guide book recommended Hostal the other side of town and settled for the rather nice looking one near the bus station "Hostal alto Panguin". It was lovely inside, all new clean and shiny with an amazing shower and very reasonably priced. Moreover, the owners were delighted to house us for the night - they buzzed around almost singing with delight as they showed us the choice of rooms!

So we settled in, then ventured onto the main street to find the guidebook recommended restaurant "Trawen" - less because of the food recommendation (though it did sound good!), but more because of the sentence "houses the best craft ale selection in town".
As we wondered the streets we immediately fell in love with this southern ski resort. It could have been plucked out of the alps and dropped here. It really would be hard to not stay at least another day!

We made ourselves the promise - either we leave tomorrow, or we do something adventurous tomorrow and stay another night (it's not like we were short of options, climb the active volcano, raft, hike, trek, kayak, even ski... The list and tour operators was endless!).
The morning came and there was no way we were leaving, so we booked in for another night and set about finding someone to take us rafting.

At 11am we were on our way to the white waters with Florencia (a tour company who I can't recommend enough! They were brilliant).
By 12 we were on the water and I was yet again learning to break my fear of all things wet and wavey! Our guide was brilliant, he added enough theatre to the experience to make us anticipate what was coming, but navigated us through the rapids expertly - no mean task given we were perhaps the 6 least coordinated folk he'd ever seen in a boat!! We also had a guy in a safety raft ready to catch us if we flipped, and another dude in a kayak taking the most brilliant pictures! At one point he gave us the opportunity to 'swim' a section of rapids instead of rafting them. Ant was the only crew member crazy enough to take him up on this offer, and looked slightly worse for wear for it! He hopped over board into the freezing cold water, gasping for breath, and floated downstream whilst being swept by 2m high waves! Thankfully our guide never let him get more than a few feet away from the boat and quickly hauled him back in as if he was as light as a feather. Exhilarating by all accounts!
So pleased we stayed the extra day, what an awesome way to see the valley, volcano and beautiful countryside.

After left over lunch of our spag bol, we mooched into town, watched the sunset over the volcano and lake (glorious) and after wondering around this lovely place, found latitude 39, an American bar, to drink beer and eat tacos and hamburgers.
Brilliant day!

Concepcion

Sunday 16th to Tuesday 18th October

Firstly let's clear a few things up:
1- yes this IS the name of a city on south middle Chile's coast line
2- no I've not forgotten how to spell (on this occasion at least!) it IS actually spelled like that (though ironically im not entirely sure if that's the correct way of saying spelled / spelt (or is that a flour?)... Anyway
3- no it's not a Beckham esque nickname we gave to a town... Really!!

So having booked a whole two nights in Concepcion, to do admin and source some bike supplies and a decent camping stove, we realised, after face timing Fran and having a very lovely and lazy, that it was indeed a Sunday. That means nothing is open here, and no call centres are open at home for us to complete our admin. Only one thing for it. Stay another night!

This was actually contrary to what we wanted to do. As much as we loved the flat, we were ready to be on the move again, especially after our seaside break earlier in the week. But hey - cycle touring lottery. There are far worst places to spend a day in the world!

So we continued to be lazy on the Sunday, and just about managed to complete task 1 out of a million... Do some washing... But not without its challenges. How much detergent to put in the machine? Ant insisted the packet implied we needed it all, my intuition said that was too much. So a comedy sketch ensued with us emptying a whole packet of washing powder into the machine, playing with coins until it finally worked, then crossed our fingers! Somewhere between the flat, the washing room and our wardrobe, one of my cycling gloves was hiding. We spent at least an hour retracing our steps, but he was hiding good! A mystery!

Soon it was Monday, and this time we'd decided to get up early. For us that meant out by 10am. By lunch time we'd arranged flights home for December, sorted house admin, bought a camping stove and bowl, found a new pair of cycling gloves (Emma weeps a little), and had lunch!

Feeling very pleased with ourselves we treated ourselves to a stroll around the city and the central plaza. We also watched one of the many political party demonstrations (municipal elections in Chile on October 28th so every town and house is full of posters for many candidates... All with thumbs up and family members smiling in support!).

By dinner time we'd bought me some new socks (naughty toes peeping through all of mine now!), found presents to send home to some lucky recipients, sorted through our clothes to also send home some to lighten the load for the last month, negotiated the postal system and actually managed to send stuff home, bought stuff for dinner - enough to make sufficient spag bol for the entire neighbourhood, drank the better part of a bottle of wine (selected purely for its name and picture... Bicicletta!), watched a program about the American election, planned our route further south, cooked dinner and were ready to sit down to eat some good home cooked grub, satisfied with everything we'd accomplished today.

So our route south would start with a bus to Temuco tomorrow to get to the cool areas (lake district and Patagonia) with (hopefully!) time to play at the end, and then we would be back on our bikes.

Perhaps it was the sunny day (finally!), or our own satisfaction, but Concepcion wasn't the concrete jungle we'd been dreading - actually a rather pleasant city with a leafy square.

Day 49 - the day Alan was brave

Colemu to Concepcion. Saturday 15th October (80km)

As we woke up, slightly high from furniture polish, we decided to aim to be on the road by 10.30. We nommed down a few bowls of cereal, packed up quickly, showered and hit the road. But not before we were accosted again by Steve (the motor cyclist we'd met the previous night who had been on the road for a year from Canada and who fuelled our conversation for the day allowing us to spend time debating the merits and drawbacks of both methods of transport whilst we pedalled on). Steve liked to talk - a lot - more of an orator than a conversationalist, but a pleasant 60year old chap nonetheless who couldn't understand why we didn't take tinned food with us - just in case... Have you ever carried a bunch of tin cans uphill Steve?

So we were eventually on the road by 11am after a bakery stop to grab many pastries. A quick glance at the GPS and Ant realised we had climbed over 1000m yesterday - no wonder our legs were finding it difficult today! That's like a Peru day disguised in lots of rolling lumps! We'd later also realise we were to do similar today too, but for now we just plugged up the climb out of town.
Now today was a very eventful day!


As we were climbing out the town on a fairly busy road and going much slower than the traffic (always makes it a bit more sketchy), a small shaggy dog saw us, got excited, alerted his bigger Alsatian type of buddy, then they both sprinted out their garden, towards the road to cross it and eat us...

...except at the same time a truck came the other way. Big Alsatian had the sense to stay in the shoulder and sacrifice eating us to save his life. Small unintelligent shaggy mutt had no such sense and was only saved by the fact he was much smaller than the bumper. A thump, skid and whine later and he was running (thankfully!) out the other side of the truck to continue his chase on our side of the road. But as soon as he reached the shoulder he realised he was quite shocked and had in fact just been hit by a truck. He stopped and whined a little, before trotting back to his garden, whilst bigger dog seemed to tut and shake his head.
An adrenaline buzzing moment for us, dog chase, truck, ouch, poor guy... But hopefully one that will teach shaggy dog never to chase bikes again.

A few km later we were joined by a collie. He came out his garden, stopped to look both ways before eventually crossing the road very safely, then ran alongside us as if to say 'ok guys, where are we going?'. Every time he heard a car, he stopped, looked to see where it was coming from, and got off the road onto the verge accordingly, then when safe, he continued his venture. He was a happy sole, who reignited our faith in pups - but not quite our trust - you just never know what they will do!

After about Half an hour on the road, and still on the climb, we felt a few spots of rain. Should we waterproof up? No. It's refreshing, not very heavy and cooling (after all we were sweating and overheating up this hill). About another half an hour later and we resembled shivering drenched rats, cycling under far clouds through a sheeting downpour in soaking wet kit. Oops.

There was only one thing for it - stop under a tree to eat pastries!

Bellies fuelled and waterproofs on we chugged along in weather that now resembled a cold February day. Ant was quite literally in his element. Much better to be cold and rainy than over heating. I was also surprisingly upbeat - adventure!!

Then came our first decision. Busy road direct to Concepcion, or quiet road, slightly indirect, back to coast then down. We chose option 2 and headed back across the coastal hills away from the trucks and busses towards the sea.
This was a much more pleasant road and one we could actually enjoy. But after about 20km my body ran out of sugar and my head dropped as I started to shiver (need much more fuel to keep warm in cold weather and my kit was still soaking under my waterproof - Ant's had dried - I'm sure there's some kit analysis to be done here Tom!

At my request we stopped at the top of a hill to eat more pastries and sugar up. This turned out to be an error. We stopped just long enough to get really cold at the top of a hill which would become the start of a long descent into the coastal town on route to Conception.

Man that descent was windy, cold and soaking wet and left us dreaming of all the tea shops we would probably never find in the town (got to remember this is actually chile and not north Devon - no cream teas for us!).

We shakily found the town and its plaza and hoped for some sort of warm restaurant ... And then we saw it... A coffee shop called Ambar, with a wonderful waitress who said we could put the bikes inside (wow!) so we could get dry and warm whilst we drank really yummy coffee and ate sandwiches and hamburgers!!! Dreams can come true! Ok so no cream scones but almost!

My shoes were so wet they made a puddle on the floor, so I realised a kit change would probably be sensible! Having stripped all my wet kit off and replaced it with lovely warm dry clothes, I was much happier and living my coffee! (squirty cream on top - yeah baby!).

We eventually dragged ourselves back into the downpour, ready to tackle the remaining 30km to Concepcion. As we hit the coast road we realised two things 1- there was a hideously strong wind... On our backs!! Wahoo!! 2- there was of course a steep climb out of the town just like there had been a descent into it.

We started plugging on up and into the rain and then something strange happened. A pick up with a very friendly family offered us a lift to the top of the hill. Wow! Yes please! We threw the boys into the truck and hopped in. A few minutes later and there was a gasp from the driver... Bicicletta!

Alan!!! He'd jumped off the back, obviously annoyed that we weren't cycling. We hopped out the car and ran down the road to rescue him and survey the damage before any other cars came and ran him over.

Luckily he's a tough chap and had only suffered a handle bar scrape and a saddle bump that left the saddle rather wonkey and a little torn. But wow! We seriously thought our trip was over when we saw him lying there as a casualty... Amazing. Ant somehow managed to gather his strength and bend the saddle post back to almost normal. I rescued our pastries from the wet grubby roadside and we hopped back in the truck - this time securing both boys in tightly with a rope!

Once we reached the top we, all four, hopped out and continued our venture into Concepcion. Shaken but not broken, we tackled the busy roads into the city and after a near death encounter between Ant and a stupid stupid truck, we arrived at the apartment we had booked for a few days (we needed to get some washing done and had a ton of admin to catch up with).

After a lovely Peruvian meal in a local restaurant, we found a supermarket, stocked up the apartment with all things tea and bacon, and settled in to let our little hearts (and Alan!) recover from the crazy day!

Day 48 - bye bye ocean

Buchupureo to Coelemu - Friday 14th October 80km

So we finally managed to say goodbye to our lovely cabin and set off up the cliff towards the next and final coastal town before we head inland.  After a good steep climb and 10km later we swept down into the town, picked up supplies and said goodbye to the sea one final time, then turned the corner to head inland.
Of course this meant a steep climb over the cliffs and after the stormy weather it was incredibly warm, sticky and humid. Sweat pouring, but very pleased to be back on our bikes, we settled into the climb and enjoyed churning the pedals.

After a few km climbing Ant said jokingly, "looks like we've got a 10km climb ahead of us!!!", both of us chuckling - we knew it was likely to be a long climb but thought 10km was a vast over estimate.

Almost exactly 10km later, after much sweat, thankfully no blood, and no tears, we finally started the lovely rolling descent. A steep climb up, then gently down to lose just a bit of altitude - then repeat.

45km into our day and we swooped down into Querihue (a rough approximation of the actual town name). We sat in the plaza, made avocado bread rolls (our new favourite lunch), grabbed some cash, then set off down the road, along the river valley towards Coelemu - our next stop on route to Concepcion.
Although busier, this road was less hilly and more gentle rolling lumps (joys of being slightly more inland), so we made good progress and eventually found a town just short of our final goal. It had three small hostals and was a tempting place to stop. Not really a town, just a cluster of houses along the main road - but it definitely had places to sleep. We'd been unsure if we would find a home in either town so this was appealing.
But getting the extra 10km under our belt today and reaching Coelemu would help us tomorrow so we took the chance.

As we reached Coelemu, we were greeted by the brown sign of hope - showing what services it has in pictures - this one showed the two pictures that make us happy - knives and forks; and a bed.

After several laps around the plaza and knitted streets surrounding it, we eventually found the hotel. Ok it was about 6pm in a Friday night so perhaps the owners had been enjoying their evening, but Ant reported a very Faulty Towers experience of trying to get a room, whilst I waited watching the boys.

One lady wasn't sure is they wanted to give us a room (couldn't be bothered), the next said yes sure, they then spent a while trying to open a room and failing, then settled on the room outside with sliding patio doors and a distinct smell of furniture polish. It was clean and cosy enough, with its own bathroom so we were more than happy - even if we did have to use our bike padlock to add some sort of security to the unlockable patio doors!
We found a bar that sold yummy warm sandwiches and chips, and bumped into an amazing bakery on route.

So happy and cozy we settled down for Poldark.