After plenty of type 1 fun and the delay of waiting for our new water filter, we were content to be back on the road. No longer making loops across the monkey puzzle region, we re-calibrated ourselves to resume our southbound journey. Friends who had spent Christmas further north in Mendoza, Argentina were now catching up and over taking us. Not that it’s a race, but it does illustrate the ‘progress’ that you ‘loose’ by bimbling around a single region for three weeks.
After bidding farewell to Felipe and his family early afternoon, we rode up and away from Laguna Villarica and Pucon. Following a short section on tarmac we turned off up a long, dusty dirt track to Villarica National Park. Despite many campsites lining the way we were keen to break back into the habit of wild camping and found an excellent stealth spot behind a small gap in the trees. On foot we followed a little trail down to the river below and washed our dusty selves in the bracing water. Despite being equipped with our new water filter we didn’t bother treating our drinking water for the first three days back on the road thanks to an abundance of high mountain streams! Cocooned in our tent among the bushes we felt content and at home, back in our familiar wild camping routine. No dogs, no hungry cats, artificial lights or late night asados, just the sound of the river below us and the tree canopy rustling above.
The ride through Villarica national park was stunning, and we weren’t the only ones up early to enjoy the scenery. First off we bumped into a local Chilean gravel cyclist and YouTuber. Later on we met a troupe of Germans clad in traditional dress..! Aside from the interesting wildlife we were surrounded by ancient woodland. On the rollercoaster descent we passed by our second Araucania Milenaria and paused to take some portraits in the beautiful dappled light. I’m glad we did because after this we didn’t see any more monkey puzzles. Like bidding goodbye to old friends.
We descended into Coñaripe, which felt differently touristy. Less pseudo-European and more South American with shops that spilled out onto the street and generally feeling more chaotic and less sanitised. We hoped this might translate to cheaper ice cream prices but alas, Chilean tourist prices are ubiquitous. Fuelled by fat and sugar we climbed on to Laguna Neltume where we found the most picturesque wild camp spot on the lakeshore.
From Neltume it was a short but very social ride to Puerto Fuy. We’d got used to not seeing any other riders for days, or even weeks in the high Andes, but in this one morning saw 3 Argentinian cycle tourists and numerous leisure cyclists. We’re going to have to get used to this, I think the Carretera Austral is going to feel a bit like the old railway cycle path between Bristol and Bath (although with better views and more headwind).
From Puerto Fuy, we hoped to catch the ferry along Lago Pirihueico to the Chile/Argentina border crossing at Hua Hum. However, one does not simply catch the ferry in high tourist season (imagine this like a LOTR meme with Aragon’s face looking earnest). It’s not possible to pre-book pedestrian tickets online and they have to be bought on the day. There was a lady in a puffa jacket with an over inflated (badum tish) sense of her own importance stood outside the ticket office telling everyone that they’d sold out for the day. Come back tomorrow at 5.30am. Feeling despondent we thought about going and setting up at the nearest campsite but I was convinced we should try and return 30 minutes before the last boat left to try and chance a space, which is what we and some of our new Argentinian friends all managed to do. Up yours puffy jacket lady! Also in the ferry queue were two Swiss cycle tourists who were in the 4×4 that stopped to help me (El) when I was sick and ground to a halt on one of the salars in Southern Bolivia. That was nearly 3 months ago! It took us a while to make the connection, but yet another example of how small the world can be!
The crossing was beautiful as the lake sides are steep and forested. The initally grey day had brightened and the blue of the sky and the blue of the lake were separated by a band of green. Disembarking from the boat we found ourselves in an imaginary race with the other cycle tourists – who could get to the nearest iOverlander wild camping spot first. Given it wasn’t that sheltered from the road, we decided to keep riding, perhaps the French family needed an easy camp more than we did! We sped along the smooth tarmac and just before the Chilean border post I spied a little trail leaving the road and disappearing into the undergrowth.
I left my bike behind and scurried down the trail. It contoured along the bank for a long time before finally dropping down to the river’s edge. I think Liam must have been wondering what had happened to me, but I returned confidently proclaiming that, while the river was probably too fast to swim in, we’d be able to get water for washing and cooking. What I’d missed and was later found by Liam was a small thermal pool! Wild camping jackpot! So long as we weren’t arrested for camping so close to the border…
Luckily for us, we awoke free people, clean and refreshed from our hot and cold water dips before bed! We also managed to hit the border posts before the wave of cars from the first ferry crossing of the day. On the Argentinian side the smooth tarmac turned to dusty gravel and so we sought respite on the shores of Lago Lácar. Ranking in the top 5 swim spots so far, the water was clear and deep and there were plenty of rocks to jump off. Sadly, skinny dipping was off the cards as we weren’t far from the large tourist town of San Martin De Los Andes and so the place was starting to fill up with day trippers. Had it not been for the noisy teenagers and young adults, we might not have been able to tear ourselves away. After an early lunch and last dip we hit the dusty road again aiming for the basecamp of Cerro Colorado for an afternoon walk.
It was a steep, dusty trail and I was down to my last few biscuits. Once we got out of the tree line I declared it would be diminishing returns to strive on further, so we returned to the idyllic shade of camp for another bracing wash in the stream. Liam declared that he no longer saw the need for hot showers when washing in cold streams was so infigurating. Cold water dipping being a health and wellness sensation back home, for us and millions of others living without water heaters, it’s just a way of life (although ours is a choice born of privilege).
The following day we rode through the aforementioned tourist hotspot of San Martin De Los Andes and it being the first town we’d hit since crossing back into Argentina we had some new country admin to do. If you’ve read our previous blog posts or paid any attention to the economic situation in Argentina, you’ll know that one doesn’t simply pick up Argentinian pesos (Aragon’s face again). Or rather, in this instance we did! Walking out of the first Western Union we tried we were flush with cash. Quite literally – despite the hyper inflation, the largest denomination remains the 2,000 peso note but even these are in short supply and only roughly equivalent to 70 British pence at the time of writing. We withdrew £100’s worth of Argentinian pesos all in 1,000 peso notes, spending more time trying to squirrel it away in various hiding places than actually getting it out in the first place.
We carried our new cash burden up the climb out of town, stopping for our lunchtime picnic at a viewpoint overlooking the town and the shores of Lago Lácar. We were now setting off on the Patagonia Beer Trail, another bikepacking route masterminded by Taneli Roininen, the creator of the Seis Miles routes across the Puna. Rather than stop in San Martin, we’d booked two bunks at the aptly named El Descanso Bike Hostel in Vila Lago Meliquina a few kms further south along another very dusty gravel road. Upon arrival we promptly plopped ourselves in the river at the bottom of the garden to wash away the dust of the afternoon. Later, Liam emerged from his first hot shower since Christmas declaring that hot showers were quite nice actually.
We spent a day and a bit relaxing and admin-ing at the hostel, our first time staying somewhere with WiFi since Temuco before Christmas, before embarking on the beer trail proper, but that’s for the next blog post.
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