Hi Folks!

So after a nice Christmas we leave Tortel with definitively a best weather than when we arrived.

Carretera we are back!

 Now we can finally continue cycling in summer configuration: shorts, T-shirt, sunglasses, suncream (very important) and hut.

Are we on the same rouad as the one before Christmas???

After the rain forest in the extreme south of the carretera, now the vegetation is mostly made of bushes and the landscape is made of high mountains. Now we cycle no more close to the rivers at the bottom of the valleys but more up and down with some pretty tough passes.  

Come on Ilaria you will manage to join Jannie Longo!!!

The first streches of this new section of Carretera offer few accomodations, but the forest is less dense and the valleys less steep and rocky and therefore we can camp almost everywhere. Moreover we can really enjoy these wild campsites:lovely scenery,  no wind and warm weather!

Dinner is ready! 

After 3 days of cycling we join the first little town of Carretera: Cochrane. It's a nice and relaxing city and the unique campsite is a meeting point for all the cyclists traveling along the Carretera. So we spend a nice evening and a nice morning chatting with this etherogeneous cyclist community.

With Alain, the french guy coming from Alaska with his strange bike and Javier, the young chilean dreamer.

Actually all along the Carretera we cross many cyclists coming from north. As there is only one road, all those people enrich us with interesting stories and very useful information more bike-oriented than those which we can find in a guide book! Where to sleep in the wild, where to have a nice coffee, what to visit AND, very important to plan the next streches, the ripio condition...

After midday we decide that is time to leave our cocoon, but before to go we have to make a very important thing to still have energy to pedal...

 ...take the petrol for our cooking stove! 

Full tank please!

And the road continues up and down and every km is different. Little wind accompany us, just enought to let the chilean flag dance in the air. For the story: our Chilean flag is a present from a guy met on the road and is very useful: not only it decorates the fishing stick on Arthur's bike but also helps the glumsy Ilaria to not get blind by putting the before named fishing stick in her eyes...

While waiting for Ilaria arrival at the summit of the slope, the bike is already a nice model for my picture... 

Since we left Tortel we are cycling along the incredible Rio Baker. This river has an incredible light blue milky color, is rich in fishes and is river of Chile with the largest discharge...

The beautiful Rio Baker

...and therefore a very attractive source of hydropower...

In fact, Patagonia is the most rainy and less populated part of Chile. So, the government, the other regions and a lot of powerful companies consider it and its rivers (a propos of the world "its" did you know that Chile overnment sold ALL Chilean rivers to other nations?!?) as the perfect land where to built dams, hydroelectric stations and all the related infrastructures to produce and transport electric energy till to the north of the country, in particular at the mines region (!!!!). The problem is that all the electric energy need to be transported for thousand and thousand of km meaning the construction of pillars and installation of cables all passing through the native and unique rain forest. 

This and other environmental and social questions make patagonia peple being strongly against this project ( link ).

Will patagonian people manage to win their battle?

For the moment rio Baker is still free of dams and its flood very strong therefore we decide to take an alternative road that implicate to cross the rio with a strange, but efficient "cable barge" that goes all the day from one side to the other of the river only using the stream force!

Ops! We missed the river bus!

Now we got it and enjoy the traverse of the Rio Baker still LIBRE.

We take this alternative road because an "alternative" guy in Cochrane suggested it to us as it is supposed to be shorter and easier than the classic road. Well...one should deserve the pleasant section of it...in fact at the beginning we have to climb the 4 bad ripio road km, the hardest since then! After this proof the road is just fantastic. At the end of it we join the classical road by crossing again the rio Baker on a small bridge in the middle of nowhere which remind us another one a bit bigger...

On the Patagonian Golden Gate

After this phisically intense day, we arrive in the "cabanas" of the same guy whish suggest us the road. He is not there but he invited us to sleep in one of them for free: he loves people who travel by bike :-) While Ilaria is taking a shower, Arthur try to catch some truits in the rio Baker, but with no results. No fish for dinner today. Fishes are just sleeping...or having fun of our inepert fisherman!

Ca mord!!! Ou pas...

Also if we didn't eat fish this evening, we had enought energy to reach Lago General Carrera, the second biggest lake of America (after lake Titicaca).

Cycling along the Lago General Carrera

The blue color of the water is so incredible and the weather is so warm that we really want to swim and enjoy the lake side that's why few km more we will arrive in a little village called Puerto Rio Tranquillo where we plan to remain for few day.

30º in the shadow, let's have a swim!

Finally, when we arrive in Puerto Tranquillo there is quite a bit of wind and the blue water is only 8ºC...

So instead of swimming we visit by boat the marble cliffs along the coast. Colors and forms are very special and we didn't epect at all such rock formations here.

Unfortunately it is not allowed to climb here...

...but we can walk and observe this spectacle of nature.

From puerto Rio Tranquillo we decide to explore a wild valley wich, in the future, should be the main access for the Laguna San Rafael, one of the most interesting natural park in Chile. In 30 km we reach a zone characterized by impressive "ventisqueros" glaciar suspended on the mountains.

Cycling in Valle Exploradores

The weather is not so good and we are really happy to join the refuge Lacaluf where a couple of german welcome us to celebrate new year.

With of one of our german new year mates in front of their hut

The 1st of january we are on the way back and the weather is much better therefore we can also enjoy the summits surroundig us...

Happy new year!

...and the lakes...

Wonderful New Year!

  Incredible New Year!

This valley is a concentration of great natural formations: water falls, huge granitic cliffs, forest, glaciar...

Arthur can't resist climbing and open a nice rock itinerary on a cliff just along the road...

Cycling or climbing?

2012 begin really well and it's time to continue north with all our good proposals for the new year.

 We are now directed to Coyhaique the biggest city in the middle of the Carrettera, but to reach it we have to cycle again through a really wild area were the native rain forest grow wild and the feet of the not always pacific Volcano Hudson... 

Forest and....

volcans are part of the carrtera landscape.

Here the ripio is really good and strangely red and smooth...in fact in 1991 a vulcan eruotion covers all the region with really fine ash and create this lovely surface for the road. Moreover, after having cross a quite steep pass the day before, now we are mostly cycling down and we can easiliy reach the area of Cerro Castillo. This is a little village surrounded by impressive Cerros who looks like real castles.

Photo pause in front of the cerros

Cerro Castillo is also the beginning of the only asphalt section of the Carretera which is about 300km long. 

Good by ripio... asphalt we are coming!!!!

As you know, we can't look at a mountain without climbing it... but we are lazy and our legs are tired... so we offer us a horse riding session to join the laguna Cerro Castillo.

Ilaria in Gaucho mode.

 After 2 hours on the horse we have still to walk for another hour, but when we arrive we are rewarded by great views on all directions even thogh the two sides we could face are pretty different...

Side A...

...and side B.

We are now 100km from Coyaique the capital of the Carretera. The asphalt road lets us completely enjoying the landscape without concentrating of the ride. The road is inside the national park and like always landscape is fantastic and different then before.

In the cerro castillo national park. 

40 km before arriving at Cohyaique we reach a section from which we can see very close to us Argenina and its pampa...and who say "pampa" say "wind": few km later our "old friend" becomes so strong that we must stop. It doesn't matter, we find a nice restaurant where closeby we can put the tent and take a beer with our Austrian friends.

.

Cheers..

In this area the wind is usually front face and very strong so, the next morning, we wake up early in order to maximise the chance of enjoy a no wind last riding before our arrival point. And in fact we reach easily Coyaique in 2h30'! the road is mostly downhill and the 6 AM air is fresh: just cycling pleasure!

Riding 6a.m. Ilaria still a bit sleepy...but happy! 

Good by and see you soon for new news!