Broken Dreams

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Just out of Cucao this morning four young guys squeezed inside a small, white, hatchback pulled up next to us. The driver wound down his window and asked:

"Do you speak English?"

"Yea"

"Was that the National Park back there?"

"Yea"

"What, just the beach and stuff?"

"Yep, you can walk for 20kms North and South and it won´t change".
I actually got this last on the authority of a British couple we´d had dinner with last night. I hadn´t walked it myself.

"That´s a disappointment then" he said, wound up his window and drove off back to the highway.

I sat there for a moment longer, digesting his last comment, and thought to myself yea, that´s a pretty good summary of Cucao and climbed back on the bike for the two and a half hour ride back to Chonchi.

To prove me a liar, it was a beautiful day, with nothing but blue skies. The hills were a lot less steep in this direction and the lake was absolutely gorgeous. In short it was a really enjoyable ride and it seemed that in no time at all we were sitting on a jetty back at the Eastern end of the lake sipping soft drink and eating chocolate donuts.

Unfortunately, our forward planning is not going as well. I came up with an idea of catching the three day ferry down South and just cycling from Puerta Natales to Ushuai ... except the ferry tickets were all sold out. Then the hostel owner suggested we send Chrisite´s bike back to Puerta Natales and carry on down the Carretera Austral by mini bus and bike ... which sounded great until we looked at the logistics of carrying gear, meeting up and decided it would be no better than at the moment.

It looks like the only realistic options are back tracking to Santiago, which is sort of the equivalent of backtracking from Melbourne to Sydney, dumping our bikes, getting our backpacks and then heading South again or splitting up and I'd just cycle on alone. Neither option is particularly attractive.

To clear my mind, I went out and spent a couple of hours stripping the bike down from back to front, adjusting gears, brakes, oiling hard to get spots ... about an hour or so into this I hit a showstopper. My front pannier rack has broken at a weld point (this weld point having alreday been repaired once from a cycling trip in Tassie), and on closer examination the same Weld on the other rack was close to giving way too.

They weren't going to be taking any further part in this trip, and the last set of front pannier racks I'd seen were back in Santiago. I guess I could strip the panniers off Christie's bike, but my enthusiasm for these constant repairs is about at an end.

At least it is a beautiful day, think I'll just enjoy the sunset.

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Where: Cucao back to Chonchi, Chiloe
Days Distance: 36.km
Total Distance: 883km
Weather: Sunshine and Blue Skies!
Mood: Seeing some light ahead
Route: Reverse of yesterday, but seemingly a lot easier as all the climbs were more gradual this way around. Much more enjoyable.

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Photos

Cows with guns
I loved that song. Showdown at Cucao Corral ...

Christie
Not wanting to go down, because she'll just have to ride up the next hill?

Cool bird
It was in the same place when we went past yesterday ... suspicious I say.

Lunch time
made it to the Eastern end of the lake again. Nice spot for a break.

The end
Could this truly be the end. The bikes being held to bits by bits of yellow tape.

Broken Weld
I can patch it up, but this weld has already been fixed once ... I figure it's a goner.