Leaving BA, Cycling part 1 (Chile)

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From H:

It was really strange leaving S behind in Buenos Aires, although it didn't sink in at first as I was up at 3:00 for a 5:50 flight to Santiago. We flew low over the Andes and I was rewarded with beautiful views of the snow covered mountains. Once over the Andes all I could see was cloud on the Chilean side - the Andes are like the Pennines on a much larger scale, it's much wetter in Chile (Manchester) to the west than it is in Argentina (Leeds) to the east.

I thought I'd have lots of time at Santiago before my flight to Puerto Montt, however as this involved going from international to domestic I had to collect my bags and check them in again which took AGES. First my bag was one of about 11 that didn't come out with the rest of the bags for the flight and appeared 15 mins later, then after being checked by a sniffer dog and x ray machine to make sure I wasn't bringing in any fruit, vegetables, plants or seeds into Chile it took over 30 mins to drop my bag off again.

I met some of the group on the transfer to Puerto Varas and caught up with everyone else plus the organiser/Land Rover driver Marchelo and the guides Germán and Diego at the initial briefing . We then checked out our bikes (changing pedals, adjusting saddles etc.) and then went into town for dinner.

The following day we headed out under grey skies for our first ride (from Puerto Varas to Puerto Octay). After about 2km on road we had our first off road section, which was a bit of a challenge to those of us who were not accustomed to riding mountain bikes. We had to ride along a narrow path beside a railway line with chunky stones of ballast for the sleepers on one side and a deep ditch on the other. I'm sure we'd have managed this fine if it had come at the end of the trip, but as it was there was much stopping and starting (and the occasional swearing).

The first day set the pattern for the days that followed:
Bags packed by 8 then breakfast before starting to ride at 9, snack stops every 15km and a good lunch in the middle of the day.

Our hotel in Puerto Octay did not look good on first impression (a hotel that time forgot), but actually had its own charm. It was built in 1894 and didn't appear to have been updated much since the 60s. They did serve an excellent dinner, which is just as well as I don't think there were any other options in town.

On day 2 we were treated to beautiful views of Volcán Osorno on our way to Ensenada where there was still plenty of ash on the ground from the last eruption of Calbuco in April 2015 (and we'd been switched to some very nice cabins as the roof of the hotel they normally use was damaged during this eruption).

The following day we cycled to Petrohué to catch the boat that would take us across Lago Todo Santos to Peulla. We were lucky enough to have fantastic weather for our trip across the lake which was a real bonus as it can often be quite grey and/or wet. We stopped the night in a lovely hotel in Peulla before hitting the Chilean border control first thing in the morning. Technically we still had 22km to cycle in Chile before hitting the border with Argentina, but I'll leave that to my next blog...

The first 3 days of cycling was relatively easy, we covered 93 miles with 5,450 feet of climbing.

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Photos

Chile1
Our route in Chile

Hotel Haase
Trapped in time

Lago Todo Santos
Me with Osorno in the background