Daily life of a happy cyclist

The pavement ended but the riding continues to be a joy. We ride between 30-45 miles a day, 3,000-4,000 feet of climbing. Whenever the weather turns cold and rainy, we’re either in the tent or in a town staying in a campground with heated common room. We’ve ridden by amazing rainbows, morning sunbeams breaking through clouds onto a lake, and the Rio Baker with the bluest water I’ve ever seen. We wonder if our photos all look alike—ho hum, more beautiful glaciers with a road and a bike.

We officially reached Villa O’Higgins early Sunday morning, Feb. 2. Our luck had run out and we were wet and cold. But wait! La Mosca hostel had a room for us at 10:30 in the morning and we spent the day celebrating our completion of the Carretera Austral with burgers, showers, and drying our things. The bad news—we found out our ferry was scheduled to leave at 5:30am the next morning and we had to ride 5 miles in the dark to get to the ferry dock.

Monday, Feb. 3, was the infamous crossing from Chile into Argentina. It took two hours for the 5:30am ferry crossing, leading to the Chile border exit. Make sure you get the exit stamp in your passport or you’ll have to return (and you most definitely don’t want to do that). Exit is followed by 9 miles of gnarly uphill gravel road (I walked my bike more than rode my bike) and 3.2 miles of hike-a-bike through a muddy trail in the woods. This is the section discussed among cyclists—we fear the difficulty of the section and how long it will take. Turns out it was challenging but we all finished in high spirits. The ferry ride afterwards was a happy and proud bunch of cyclists.

The next day, Tuesday, we rode into Chaltén, a busy tourist town at the base of Mont Fitz Roy. We bought some groceries, ate lunch, and flew out of town on a paved road with the wind at our backs. Threatened by 35 mph headwinds forecasted for Thursday, we rode 145 miles in two days. Due to the strong winds, we couldn’t set up our tent so we slept in an abandoned building the first night and under a bridge the second night.

The big winds (gusts up to 55mph) hit after we arrived in El Calafate on Thursday. The wind was so strong we couldn’t ride our bikes but had to push them to our AirBNB. We lost power twice due to wind but are happy to be indoors with beef stew, a soft bed, and the chance to get clean and organized. This is our actual celebration for finishing the Carretera Austral and a chance to plan the next leg of our journey.