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Published: October 9th 2006
Dave rehydrating
You can get a litre of beer for less than 2 dollars!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 built for the scenery, and apart from having the Andes on our left shoulder for the day, it was unspectacular riding.
We left the highway at Parral (still in Región Maule) and headed west, for Cauquenes, surprised how flat the Valle Central can be. Cauquenes is on the eastern, more gentle, edge of the coastal ranges, and from here we climbed and dropped as we rode through the hills to the coast. Once we arrived at the black sand beaches on the Pacific, just north of Pelluhue, we turned south. Pelluhue is one of a number of small towns
up and down the coast that are popular summertime resorts among Chileans. At this time of year, though, it´s still too cold and there is so little activity the towns feel closed down. Many of the towns and villages in this area support fishing fleets and farming as well, so places such as Curanipe, a few kilometres south of Pelluhue, remain lively year-round.
The smooth, wide bitumen of the coastal road gave out 14km south of Curanipe, and we began two days of travelling dirt roads straight up and down the steep hills of the range, which in this area often sweep straight down to the sea, leaving no coastal plain. We cajoled our muscles, and dragged our bikes through rock, sand and mud---not easy at the best of times, and more difficult in cycling shoes. At one point, at the end of the first day, it took us an hour to climb 2km. We camped just under the top of the range, in an overgrown paddock with views of the coast stretching away to the north and south. (Dave won the first round of our Yahtzee competition.) At some time late on the second day we got excited
Andes from the Panamericana
Volcàn Nevado Longavì was over our left shoulders all day about reaching a high of 14km/hr on a corrugated bit of gravel road, even though we could maintain it for only a minute or so.
There was some lovely scenery to distract us from the hard cycling. We occasionally came across comfortable looking estancias on pretty, quiet valley floors, as well as several campos. These are small collections of the humble houses that the campesinos (country folk) live in. Many of them have small plots of land nearby, and farm them using bullock-drawn ploughs. They sometimes use the bullocks for transport, too, although more commonly bicycles that they fling recklessly over the stony roads. It´s hard to know for sure since our Spanish is so poor, but it seems that some of them get work from the wealthier farmers from time to time, and some of the land clearing appears to be the result of campesinos planting crops for a few years before letting the country return to bush, which is mostly regrowth. Most of the campos are very neatly swept, which is noticable given how much plastic rubbish we see strewn around generally.
Once we reached the dusty coastal town of Cobquecura we were on tarmac again.
Roadside shrine in Maule Región
These common shrines are a combination of the beliefs of the original people and Catholicism, and are to bring peace to the soul of whoever died here We enjoyed the pleasure of riding at some speed on well-made roads through Quirihue and Coelemu to Tomé, an industrial city north of Concepción, Chile´s third largest city. Being back on bitumen called for celebration, and we did so by supporting local agriculture by consuming a bottle of Chilean wine, which is cheap and good quality.
We had planned to bypass Concepción, but this proved difficult, partly because our map is sometimes inadequate and doesn´t show more minor roads, and partly because it´s just one big, densely populated, industrial conurbation. We headed south from Tomé on the autopista (motorway), expecting it to be like the Panamericana. How wrong we were! The lanes were quite narrow, the shoulder gave out 5km out of town at the end of the first climb, the traffic was very heavy, and the drivers very focused on getting to their destination fast. We arrived in Penco, frazzled, and set about trying to hire a staion wagon taxi to drive us through this jungle to Lota, 37km south of Concepción. Once the resourceful cab driver realised there was no way he could fit our bikes in his 4 cylinder car, he rang a mate, the driver
of a local schoolbus. He duly arrived with his empty schoolbus, a bright yellow minivan with 'escolares' emblazoned across it. He and the cabbie unbolted the back seat, and packed us and our gear in. The last we saw of the back seat, it was disappearing around a corner, stuck out the boot of the cabbie´s taxi. It became obvious almost immediatey that hiring the van was the right move, such was the traffic, the state of the road, and the inadequte signage.
We left Lota the following morning, heading south still, to Curanilahue. This part of Chile is known as la costa del carbón because it is the country´s main coal-producing area. Although the road was good, there was no shoulder and the lanes were barely wide enough for the logging trucks that ply this road. Once we climbed out of the hills onto a plateau and the road straightened it became easier. Coal is not the only industry here: there is some dairying, and seemingly endless plantations of pine and eucalypt, too. We have shared the roads with logging trucks for the last 300km it and will be glad to move out of forestry areas into the
Lake District in the next week or so. First, though, we have to climb back over the coastal range (again!) towards Temuco, where we will be in international tourist country for the first time.
If you would like to follow our route, you can access online at the government tourism agency's website the
same map we are using. We are on the map
De Parral a Temuco in the list 'Mapas ruteros de Chile'.
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Mark and Becky
non-member comment
Meat is Murder
The 'Meat is Murder' graffitti may not be from a vegetarian, but maybe from an aging fan of The Smiths. Chile looks amazing - such clear roads, I wish ours were like that. And the mountain with the snow - get on the slopes and ski! However the mud roads and the rocks must be a bit harder to negotiate. I can't decided whehter it's warm or cold there. On some shots Dave is in a T-shirt and in others the coats are on. How are the bikes holding up on the journey? Mark and Becky.