THE CARRETERA AUSTRAL

Chile's Carretera Austral, a 740-mile stretch of road from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins, is one of the World's most famous bicycle touring routes. We rode 600 of those miles, cutting off the most northern segment and riding through a spectacular National Park-laden section of Argentina instead, but I think we still qualify as officially riding the Carretera. We experienced it alright, and are quite happy to be done with it. Any time I complete something that was a major challenge for me, it typically takes a few days for the miserable memories to fade before I'm left with only the fond memories and the desire to take on the challenge once again. It's been more than a few days since we finished the Carretera, but I think once was enough for this one. If there's ever a “next time” I will surely be riding a horse instead of a bike.

We don't regret making the decision to ride that route and the scenery was utterly breathtaking for most of the miles. However, the roads could not have been any more horrible and frustrating than they were. To put it nicely, they were shit and took a lot of fun out of the riding. Pedaling 600 miles of continuous gravel washboards and river rock protruding out of cemented mud makes for a painfully bumpy ride. Out of the average 40 miles we rode each day, we could actually sit on our bike seats for, collectively, maybe 5 of those miles, our hands were constantly going numb due to the vibrations and our eyeballs bounced up and down in their sockets like a cartoon character that just got bonked on the noggin for hours after we stopped riding each day.

Every once in a while we would run into other cyclists heading north instead of south and we'd inquire about the road conditions along the next stretch. Almost always their replies were, “it's bumpy like this for a little bit more but then it gets much better and is good road until such-and-such a town.” Our hopes would skyrocket that we'd actually get a good road for a few miles and we'd take off anxiously awaiting the corner we'd turn and find different conditions. But it never, ever happened. If anything the road would worsen and we'd find ourselves at camp each night growing more and more frustrated with the roads as well as the the false information we were constantly receiving. Now maybe we're just a couple of road snobs who don't know the meaning of good, but I don't think so. I feel like we have a fairly standard definition and there must be some taboo that we don't know about in telling fellow cyclists that the road flat out sucks! Well, I'm not afraid to tell any bike tourers who might read this before riding the Carretera that the roads are not fun so be prepared for a long and painful ride. And don't let anyone you meet try to convince you that there's good road up ahead...because there's not.

UPDATES AND HAPPENINGS AS OF 1/11/11

STOVE – Our alcohol-burning stove we made a few weeks ago has proved to be an awesome contraption. It took a few trial and error burner models to get one that worked perfectly, but I think we've got it figured out now. The heat distribution is much better than our previous purchased stoves, it doesn't use much fuel and it has been holding up nicely in the wind. A winner all around.

WATER FILTER – We had been boiling all of our water up until about a week ago when we bought a water filter. Although it was painfully expensive, it was much lighter than carrying extra fuel, much faster (10 minutes to fill all of our bottles vs. 90 minutes to boil it all) and much more enjoyable to drink fresh, cold water instead of, often times, hot, plastic-tasting, floater-filled water. It proved immediately to be a worthwhile investment.

WARMSHOWERS – We stayed with our second warmshowers.org hosts in Coyhaique, Chile. Once again we found ourselves surrounded by a welcoming family who showed us their town, their lives, shared a common passion for travel and bike touring and spoke English yet encouraged us to practice our Spanish (which is a good thing). We have come a long way with our language skills since we arrived in South America but we rarely get the chance to have conversations with people who are patiently willing to let us stumble through what we're trying to say, speak slowly to us and explain in English when we don't understand. It would be nice to meet more people like this on this trip. We also got to do a much-needed load of laundry, our first since Santiago, and I was happy to once again have a pink cycling jersey instead of a brown one. Thank you all for your wonderful hospitality!

Diego, Shayen, Rafael, Cari and Mike 

Diego, Mike, Cecilia, Ayelen, Chago and Shayen

DRIVERS – They are still annoying, as 95% of them refuse to slow down when they pass us on these gravel roads, leaving us choking on their plumes of dust, unable to see and dodging the pebbles that they kick up into our faces. Fortunately, we're quite a ways out in the middle of nowhere, so there's not a ton of traffic but the occasional truck that passes still thinks it's a fine idea to honk right next to us. I'd like to stand them on a gravel road, go roaring by and simultaneously take a blow horn and blast it right in their ears and see how they like it.

TABANOS – The monstrous horse flies that we were introduced to in Argentina are still bombarding us in full force. They are literally driving Mike to insanity as I watch him slap himself on the head about a million times a day trying to kill them. We probably succeed close to 50 times a day...and only have about 19 zillion to go.

FISHING POLE – Mike's $14 fishing pole turned out to be just that...a cheap piece of equipment that craps out after a few uses. He's snagged quite a few nice trout with it and it has entertained him for hours at camp, but the reel turned out to be garbage. He spent an afternoon modifying it with a piece of wood and a bunch of duct tape and to his amazement it worked. He's a happy camper.

Mike's newly modified fishing pole.

GRAVEL ROADS – We got a wonderful 2-day break from the gravel roads and it felt so nice to ride on pavement again. I loved every second of it. After that, the roads returned to potholes, washboards and loose gravel and it seemed like every time I started getting the hang of it they got a little worse. After a solid week of practice, my fits of rage and outbursts of tears went from daily to almost non-existent and we reached a big milestone the other day when I made it up and over a really shitty section of road without falling over or walking. It would be a complete lie if I said I now actually enjoy these roads, but it helps that we have seen other cyclists pushing their bikes (I'm not the only pathetic one out here) and I have finally accepted that some parts of this road are just too crummy or steep to ride. I think I might actually make it to Ushuaia without any broken bones!

Oh sweet pavement...we never knew how much we loved you! 

 Just another crummy road.

Cari pushing her bike up one of many insanely steep sections of road.