Dust. Headwinds. Gusts from the side strong enough to blow cyclists off the road. The occasional tailwind! Rain. Climbs, descents and more climbs. Gravel roads. Endless corrugations. Potholes. Teeth rattled loose in the jaw. Stock cubes turned to a residue that is reminiscent of used engine oil. A blessed stretch of tarmac. Tábanos (horseflies) in at least three, equally voracious and persistent species. Orange-framed bridges over turquoise rivers. Turquoise lakes. Deep green rivers. Hundreds of waterfalls freefalling out of clouds. Roads hugging the edges of cliffs high above turbulent rivers [View Full Entry]

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I am having a nightmare. An unrelenting headwind is blowing dust and grit into my face as I ride directly into it. The wind is progressively sapping my energy, blowing me across the road or off it, and frustrating all my efforts to move forward. I retreat inwardly, ignoring the brown landscape, experiencing nothing but the roaring in my ears and the constant attention my bike needs to keep upright. But it's not a dream; it's our first day cycling in Patagonia. We had planned and catered for 3 days, plus 1 day's contingency, to complete the leg across the semi-arid [View Full Entry]

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With the realisation that we could easily spend a month cycling to reach the southern end of our next major destination, the Carretera Austral, and that that would eat into time we want to spend in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, we decided to take the bus from Ushuaia to El Calafate. Once through the mountains north of Ushuaia we were into flat plains that continue through the rest of Tierra del Fuego and all of Patagonia. What an awesome expanse, even from the capsule of an air-conditioned bus. It had Claire reminiscing about friends and travels in similar landscapes in the [View Full Entry]

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We turned south out of the calm waters of the Beagle Channel — and we are in the Drake Passage, on our way to the Antarctic Peninsula. How can one describe the Antarctic? Words are inadequate, and photos don't come close to capturing the grandeur of the environment. So, this must suffice as rough sketches from our trip, four days on the Drake Passage and five days cruising the protected waters of the Antarctic Peninsula. On board with us on the MV Akademic Shokalskiy with us were the 24 Russian crew, an expedition staff of people who have worked or adventured [View Full Entry]

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Having booked a last-minute cabin on an expedition ship to Antarctica over the internet, we had to get ourselves to Ushuaia in Argentinean Tierra del Fuego pronto. A quick visit to the airline office in Castro (capital of Chiloe) secured us two tickets from Puerto Montt to Ushuaia, arriving in time to explore the southern end of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego before embarking on our ship. The name Tierra del Fuego (literally Land of Fire) comes from Ferdinand Magellan, who was the first European to pass it in 1520. He named this island after the many fires of the [View Full Entry]

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It had been quite a day getting to Chiloé. We'd ridden 60km in a headwind through coastal scrub along the Ruta 5, which south of Puerto Montt shrinks to two lanes while carrying as much traffic as the four-lane highway. We had enjoyed a respite on the vehicle ferry to Chiloé, turned the cranks for a few more kilometres on Ruta 5 island-side and headed north towards the coast. We had only about 10 kilometres to go on small, steep hills paved with loose gravel that we had to coax the bikes over. We crested the last hill, skidded down to [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Pucon was hard. Not only was the weather really foul outside the cosy hostel where we were staying, it also meant saying goodbye to all the friends we had made during our visit. Our hosts Peter and Lorena were particularly sad to see us go as we had been their longest-staying guests since they opened three months ago! We eventually managed to get away at 1pm — our latest start yet. Our plan that day was to get to a lakeside village called Lican Ray 60km away on Lago Calafquen. However, 12km up the road and after a thorough soaking [View Full Entry]

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The Pucón area is blessed with stunning physical beauty, and we couldn't resist giving our bikes a rest to stay for awhile to explore. Besides, we'd booked ourselves a week of Spanish lessons. Pucón is a very touristy tourist town, and we're glad to be visiting outside the tourist season. There is lots of money traded here during the short summer, and now it is quiet. Villarica, although larger, is quieter, being 25km further away from most of the natural attractions. We did take the bikes out for a jaunt out of town one afternoon after a Spanish lesson, to follow [View Full Entry]

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From Curanilahue, we rode on through major forestry plantations, small farming communities and rolling countryside to Lake Lanalhue where we came across a very nice small hotel with a great room over looking the pretty lake. It was a bit more upmarket than we normally go for but we were in the off-season and managed to bargain the price down. Besides, it was getting late, we were cold and it looked like rain was coming. The man who owns it used to work in a bank in Santiago, and we could tell from his always-beaming face that he knew he'd made [View Full Entry]

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We´d heard lots about the Panamericana (or Ruta 5), the major highway that runs roughly parallel with the Andes for much of the length of South America. So, after a couple of days of eating dirt, at Linares we decided to test ride some smooth tarmac. And smooth it was! Although the speed limit is 120 kilometres an hour here, the lanes are wide, and there is a clean, smooth shoulder, and hardly any traffic for a major highway. We even managed to overtake a couple of locals on bikes and a horse-drawn cart. Like most highways, the Ruta 5 wasn´t [View Full Entry]

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