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Published: November 24th 2009
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So having made a slight detour to the park ranger´s office after entereing Chile to acquire some info, we ascended into the remoteness of a Chilean national park. This road was utterly rubbish. In fact, it is not even a road but merely a sandy track with yet more washboard features. This meant getting frustratingly stuck in large deposits of sand and being forced to push/ drag the heavily laden bikes through to the next section of washboard where our patience and perseverance were shaken to breaking point. This was coupled with the fact that the track was steeply climbing to our next pass. Bar the great scenery, this experience was miserable, until we reached the pass. Amazingly any feelings of anger and frustration drain away almost instantaneously once reaching the top of a pass and dismounting. We hap a pretty good lunch at the top and agreed that it was the highest point we had eaten a meal, at just over 4700m. We could see the road meandering through the national park below us and into the distance so were not too disheartened by the state of the road, though it meant we could not open the throttle as much
as we wanted. Before long we came across yet another hot spring location. Having done 59 gruelling kms we decided to camp here. This was awesome for so many reasons. We were incredibly remote and apart from the occasional passing ranger´s vehicle, we did not see anyone else on our route, so we knew we would be undisturbed. We wasted no time in plugging the man made bath and allowed it to not only fill up with amazingly hot water, but also simultaneoulsy heated the hut which made for a great nights sleep without the pain and hassle of erecting tents only to take them down again the following morning. This was an extreme luxury. The best bits are always short lived though and we were soon on the bumpy road once more. More ploughing through the Chilean national park was in order the following day and although it was thoroughly rewarding, at times it was incredibly painful. We managed 83 kms in 6 hours. The scenery was awesome again but it soon became dishevelled by the thunderous roars of a pursuing storm. Urgency was needed if we were to bed down unscathed by the ferocity of the unpredictable weather.
The last 4 km of this day seemed to be one of the biggest challenges we had faced. A furious head wind meant that we snailed to our resting place, a refuge Raphael had read about in another cyclists blog. Being out of season, it was completely deserted but to our delight, a window at the back of the building had been left unlocked. We scrambled into the refuge and discovered a room with neatly made beds, almost as if they knew we would be there. Unfortunately there was no running water but this could not dampen our spirits as we were having yet another night with a roof, for free!
We were all too aware however that if we were to make it back to Bolivia the following day, we would have to cycle 100kms, most of which would be on more rubbish roads with a cheeky final mountain pass to deal with. So we left our refuge, loaded up the bikes, applied some sun cream to our flaking noses and continued along the dusty track. Before we started climbing for our final pass, we knew we would come across some more hot springs, and so we were
More Hot Springs!!
This is where Ross fainted (from a head rush) not too dismayed about the mammoth task we had ahead of us. Hot springs always seem to lighten the load. These were no exception. Set just on the edge of some small Chilean salt flats, surrounded by mountains (obviously) seeing the steam billowing out was a sight for our sore eyes. We decided to have an extended ´biccy´break here (Raphael had introduced us to some great South American biscuits which greatly aid our progress). Whilst myself and Raphael were content on having no more than a paddle, Ross decided to brave the hot water and have a bath. On climbing out of the spring, Ross fainted...But don´t worry, it was not diabetes related, merely, we decided, a culmination of heat from the sun, heat from the springs, general exhaustion from cycling and perhaps a slight lack of water. Only a couple of superficial scrapes marked this bizarre episode. To put your minds at rest, he has been fine ever since.
So, we started our ascent, knowing that this time, it definately would be our last major pass. It too was as miserable as we anticipated. Almost every 5 metres we would become bogged down in the sand and be
forced off the bike. It was a seemingly everlasting and frustrating ascent but we soon came to the top, where just to the left of the road was a loosly cordened off mine field. Our attempts to explode mines by hurling rocks over the fence were unfortunately futile. Water was now becoming a slight issue, but we knew there was a river of ´drinkable´water coming up. After cycling through a light splash of rain, we came across the river and decided to fill up and have some lunch. The only other people we saw were a couple of Swiss-German people in a camper van who caught up with us at our lunch spot. They treated us to some ice cold drinks, something we would not have dreamt of in our location and it was very very welcome. Although the road continued to not disappoint our expectations with its abundance of sand and washboard surface, the route became more interesting, winding through in small peaks and troughs through some pretty special landscapes with buena vistas. With 20kms to the border, we were running out of sunlight, but with the dwindling light also comes a stronger wind here, and fortunately it was
heading in our direction. We did however have a slight problem with a puncture. Not wanting to miss out on the tail gale, we hurridly repaired the puncture and started flying. Raphael´s computer clocked up a record speed of 60km/hr and we arrived at the border town of Pisiga shortly after sunset, having had a hard day of just under 100kms. We spent the evening reflecting on a very successful cycle thorugh Chile and decided it was a much better route than through Bolivia, though probably the hardest part of our journey so far. Raphael is largely to thank for suggesting this route.
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belinda dade
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Keep going boys!
Well done! Your blog makes very good reading - thanks very much! With special good wishes to Ross from Kate's Auntie B xxxxxxxxx